Inwardly skeptical. Observing this famous man shaking hands as he was, vigorously, delightedly, with that breathless air of having rushed hundreds of miles expressly for this purpose: shaking hands with you, and you, and you: standing a little apart, thinking, He's one of them, forever campaigning. In the subsequent hours, Kelly was to radically revise her opinion of The Senator. It could not be said that in those six hours Kelly Kelleher had fallen in love with The Senator, nor could it be said that The Senator had fallen in love with her, for such matters are private and unknowable; and what the future may have brought (in contrast to what the events of that night did in fact bring) will forever remain unknowable. Except: Kelly certainly revised her opinion. Thinking how instructive, how purifying for the soul (smiling into a mirror in the bathroom of the guest room that was hers at Buffy's, would have been hers again for the night of the Fourth had she not decided so precipitously to accompany The Senator back to the mainland) to learn that you are fallible, to be proven wrong.
