Before him there flashed a face, however, which at once sobered his exaltation.

It was the face of Junia.
"I wonder what she will think," he said to himself, with a little perplexity.
He knew in his heart of hearts she would not think it incongruous that he, an artist, should become a politician.

Good laws served to make life beautiful, good pictures ministered to beauty; good laws helped to tell the story of human development; good sculpture strengthened the soul; good laws made life's conveniences greater, enlarged activity, lessened the friction of things not yet adjusted; good laws taught their framers how to balance things, how to make new principles apply without disturbing old rights; good pictures increased the well-balanced harmony of the mind of the people.

Junia would understand these things.

As he sat at his breakfast, with the newspaper spread against the teapot and the milk-pitcher, he felt satisfied he had done the bold and right, if incomprehensible, thing.
But in another hotel, at another breakfast, another man read of Carnac's candidature with sickening surprise.