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“Just what I say, Ken. A brave man doesn’t know when he’s beaten, much less beforehand.”

He looked at her fixedly.

“I’m not brave, my dear,” he replied, more gently than they had expected. “The people here don’t understand me, nor I them. I’m laughed at and reviled, a subject for contemptuous jeers, and—and it hurts me. I don’t like to be beaten. I’d fight to the last gasp, if I had any show to win. But these conditions, which I foolishly but honestly brought about myself, have defeated me so far in advance that I have absolutely no hope to redeem myself. That’s all. Don’t speak of it again, girls. Play me that nocturne that I like, Beth.”

“We’ve got to speak of this, Kenneth, and speak of it often. For we girls have come down here to electioneer, and for no other reason on earth,” declared Patsy.

“What! You electioneer?”—a slight smile curled his lips.

“Exactly. We’re here to brace up and get to work.”

“And to win,” added Beth, quietly.

“And to put you in the Legislature where you belong,” declared Louise.