"How is Bertha?" Tredennis asked.

The professor sat down in his chair and took up the poker quite carefully.

"She is at a party to-night," he said, poking the fire, "though it is late in the season for parties. She generally is at a party—oftener than not she is at two or three parties."

"Then she must be well," suggested Tredennis.

"Oh, she is well," the professor answered. "And she gets a good deal out of life. She will always get a good deal out of it—in one way or another."

"That is a good thing," remarked Tredennis.

"Very," responded the professor, "if it's all in the one way and not in the other."

He changed the subject almost immediately, and began to discuss Tredennis' own affairs. His kindly interest in his career touched the younger man's heart. It seemed that he had taken an interest in him from the first, and, silent as he had been, had never lost sight of him.

"It used to strike me that you would be likely to make something of your life," he said, in his quiet, half-abstracted way. "You looked like it. I used to say to myself that if you were my son I should look forward to being proud of you. I—I wish you had been my son, my boy."

"If I had been," answered Tredennis, earnestly, "I should have felt it a reason for aiming high."

The professor smiled faintly.

"Well," he said, "you aimed high without that incentive. And the best of it is that you have not failed. You are a strong fellow. I like—a—strong—fellow," he added, slowly.

He spoke of Bertha occasionally again in the course of their after conversation, but not as it had been his habit to speak of her in her girlhood. His references to her were mostly statements of facts connected with her children, her mode of life, or her household. She lived near him, her home was an attractive one, and her children were handsome, healthy, and bright.

"Amory is a bright fellow, and a handsome fellow," he said. "He is not very robust, but he is an attractive creature—sensitive, poetic temperament, fanciful. He is fanciful about Bertha, and given to admiring her."

When he went away, at the end of the evening, Tredennis carried with him the old vague sense of discomfort. The professor had been interesting and conversational, and had given him the warmest of welcomes, but he had missed something from their talk which he had expected to find. He was not aware of how he had counted upon it until he missed it, and the sense of loss which he experienced was a trouble to him.

He had certainly not been conscious of holding Bertha foremost in his mind when he had turned his steps toward her father's house. He had thought of how his old friend would look, of what he would say, and had wondered if he should find him changed. He had not asked himself if he should see Bertha or hear of her, and yet what he had missed in her father's friendly talk had been the old kindly, interested discussion of her, and once out in the night air and the deserted streets he knew that he was sadder for his visit than he had fancied he should be. The bright, happy, girlish figure seemed to have passed out of the professor's life also—out of the home it had adorned—even out of the world itself. His night's sleep was not a very peaceful one, but the next morning when he rose, the light of day and the stir of life around him seemed to have dispelled the reality of his last night's fancies. His mind had resolved itself into a condition with which he was familiar, and he was aroused to interest and pleasure in his surroundings. His memory was once more the ghost of a memory which he had long accustomed himself to living without. During the morning his time was fully occupied by his preparations for his new duties, but in the afternoon he was at liberty, and remembering a message he was commissioned to deliver to the sister of a brother officer, he found his way to the lady's house.

It was a house in a fashionable street, and its mistress was a fashionable little person, who appeared delighted to see him, and to treat him with great cordiality.

"I am so glad you were so good as to call to-day," she said. "Mr. Gardner heard that you had arrived, but did not know where you were, or he would have seen you this morning. What a pity that you were not in time for the inauguration! The ball was more than usually successful. I do hope you will let us see you to-night."

"To-night?" repeated Tredennis.

"Yes. We want you so much," she continued. "We give a little party,—only a little one,—and we shall be so glad. There will be several people here who will be delighted to meet you,—the gentleman who is spoken of as likely to be the new Secretary of the Interior, for instance. He will be charmed. Mr. Gardner has told me what interesting things you have been doing, and what adventures you have had. I shall feel quite sure that my party will be a success, if you will consent to be my lion."

"I am afraid my consenting wouldn't establish the fact," said Tredennis. "You would want a mane, and a roar, and claws. But you are very kind to ask me to your party."

The end of the matter was that, after some exchange of civilities, he gave a half-promise to appear, mentally reserving the privilege of sending "regrets" if he did not feel equal to the effort when night arrived. He was not fond of parties. And so, having delivered the message with which he had been commissioned, he made his adieus and retired.

When night came he was rather surprised to find lurking in his mind some slight inclination to abide by his promise. Accordingly, after having taken a deliberate, late dinner, read the papers, and written a letter or so, he dressed himself and issued forth.

On arriving at his destination he found the "little party" a large one. The street was crowded with carriages, the house was brilliantly lighted, an awning extended from the door to the edge of the pavement, and each carriage, depositing its brilliant burden within the protection of the striped tunnel, drove rapidly away to give place to another.

Obeying the injunctions of the servant at the door Tredennis mounted to the second story and divested himself of his overcoat, with the assistance of a smart mulatto, who took it in charge. The room in which he found himself was rather inconveniently crowded with men,—young, middle-aged, elderly, some of them wearing a depressed air of wishing themselves at home, some bearing themselves stolidly, and others either quietly resigned or appearing to enjoy themselves greatly. It was not always the younger ones who formed this last class Tredennis observed. In one corner a brisk gentleman, with well-brushed, gray beard, laughed delightedly over a story just related to him with much sprightliness by a companion a decade older than himself, while near them an unsmiling youth of twenty regarded their ecstasies without the movement of a muscle.

Tredennis' attention was attracted for a moment toward two men who stood near him, evidently awaiting the appearance of some one at the door of the ladies cloak-room, which they could see from where they stood.

One of them leaned in a nicely managed labor-saving attitude against the door-post. He was a rather tall, blonde young man, with a face eminently calculated to express either a great deal or absolutely nothing at all, as he chose to permit it, and his unobtrusive evening dress had an air of very agreeable fitness and neatness, and quite distinguished itself by seeming to belong to him. It was his laugh which called Tredennis' attention to him. He laughed in response to some remark of his companion's,—a non-committal but naturally sounding baritone laugh, which was not without its attractiveness.

"Yes, I was there," he said.

"And sang?"

"No, thank you."

"And she was there, of course?"

"She?" repeated his friend, his countenance at this moment expressing nothing whatever, and doing it very well.

"Oh, Mrs. Amory," responded the other, who was young enough and in sufficiently high spirits to be led into forgetting to combine good taste with his hilarity.

"You might say Mrs. Amory,—if you don't object," replied his companion, quietly. "It would be more civil."

Then Tredennis passed out and heard no more.

He made his way down the stairs, which were crowded with guests going down and coming up, and presented himself at the door of the first of the double parlors, where he saw his hostess standing with her husband. Here he was received with the greatest warmth, Mrs. Gardner brightening visibly when she caught sight of him.

"Now," she said, "this is really good of you. I was almost afraid to let you go away this afternoon. Mr. Gardner, Colonel Tredennis is really here," she added, with frank cordiality.

After that Tredennis found himself swallowed, as in a maelstrom. He was introduced right and left, hearing a name here and seeing a face there, and always conscious of attaching the wrong names to the faces as he struggled to retain some impression of both in his memory. Mrs. Gardner bore him onward, filled with the most amiable and hospitable delight in the sensation he awakened as she led him toward the prominent official in prospective before referred to, who leaned against a mantel-piece and beguiled his time by making himself quite agreeable to a very pretty young dÉbutante who was recounting her experience at the inaugural ball. Here Tredennis was allowed to free himself from the maelstrom and let it whirl past him, as he stood a little aside and conversed with his new acquaintance, who showed deep interest in and much appreciation of all he had to say, and evidently would have been glad to prolong the interview beyond the moment, when some polite exigency called him away in the midst of an animated discussion of the rights of Indian agents and settlers.

When he had gone Tredennis still remained standing where he had left him, enjoying his temporary seclusion and the opportunity of looking on with the cool speculation of an outsider.

He had been looking on thus for some moments,—at the passing to and fro, at the well-bred elbowing through the crush, at the groups gathering themselves here and there to exchange greetings and then breaking apart and drifting away,—when he suddenly became aware of a faint fragrance in the atmosphere about him which impressed itself upon him with a curious insistence. On his first vague recognition of its presence he could not have told what it was, or why it roused in him something nearer pain than pleasure. It awakened in him a queer sense of impatience with the glare of light, the confusion of movement and voices, and the gay measure of the music in the next room. And almost the instant he felt this impatience a flash of recognition broke upon him, and he knew what the perfume was, and that it seemed out of place in the glare and confusion simply because his one distinct memory of it associated itself only with the night when he had sat in the fire-light with Bertha, and she had held the heliotrope in her hand. With this memory in his mind, and with a half smile at his own momentary resentment of the conditions surrounding him, he turned toward the spot near from which he fancied the odor of the flowers came, thinking that it had floated from some floral decoration of the deep window. And so, turning, he saw—surrounded by what seemed to be the gayest group in the room—Bertha herself!

She was exquisitely dressed, and stood in the prettiest possible pose, supporting herself lightly against the side of the window; she had a bouquet in her hand and a brilliant smile on her lips, and Tredennis knew in an instant that she had seen and recognized him.

She did not move; she simply retained her pretty pose, smiling and waiting for him to come to her, and, though she said nothing to her companions, something in her smile evidently revealed the situation to them, for, almost immediately, the circle divided itself, and room was made for him to advance within it.

Often afterward Tredennis tried to remember how he moved toward her, and what he said when he found himself quite near her, holding the gloved hand she gave him so lightly; but his recollections were always of the vaguest. There scarcely seemed to have been any first words—he was at her side, she gave him her hand, and then, in the most natural manner, the group about her seemed to melt away, and they were left together, and he, glancing half unconsciously down at her bouquet, saw that it was made of heliotrope and MarÉchal Niel roses.

She was so greatly and yet so little changed that he felt, as he looked at her, like a man in a dream. He tried to analyze the change and could not, and the effort to do so was a pain to him. The color in her cheeks was less bright than he remembered it, but her eyes were brighter; he thought also that they looked larger, and soon recognized that this was not only because her face was less girlishly full, but arose from a certain alertness of expression which had established itself in them. And yet, despite their clear brightness, when she lifted them to his own, his sense of loss was for the instant terrible. Her slight, rounded figure was even prettier than ever,—more erect, better borne, and with a delicate consciousness and utilizing of its own graces,—but it was less easy to connect it mentally with the little gray gown and lace kerchief than he could ever have believed possible.

Her very smile and voice had changed. The smile was sometimes a very brilliant one and sometimes soft and slow, as if a hidden meaning lay behind it; the voice was low-pitched, charmingly modulated, and expressed far more than the words it gave to a listener, but Tredennis knew that he must learn to know them both, and that to do so would take time and effort.

He never felt this so strongly as when she sat down on the cushioned window-seat, and made a little gesture toward the place at her side.

"Sit down," she said, with the soft smile this time,—a smile at once sweet and careless. "Sit down, and tell me if you are glad to be stationed in Washington; and let me tell you that papa is delighted at the prospect of your being near him again."

"Thank you," answered Tredennis; "and as to the being here, I think I like the idea of the change well enough."

"You will find it a great change, I dare say," she went on; "though, of course, you have not devoted yourself to the Indians entirely during your absence. But Washington is unlike any other American city. I think it is unlike any other city in the universe. It is an absorbingly interesting place when you get used to it."

"You are fortunate in finding it so," said Tredennis.

"I?" she said, lightly. "Oh! I do not think I could resign myself to living anywhere else; though, when you reflect, of course you know that is a national quality. All good Americans adore the city they confer distinction on by living in, and asperse the characters of all other places. Englishmen believe in London, and Frenchmen in Paris; but in America, a New Yorker vaunts himself upon New York, a Bostonian glories in Boston, and a Washingtonian delights in the capital of his country; and so on, until you reach New Orleans."

"That is true enough," said Tredennis, "though I had not thought of it before."

"Oh, it is true," she answered, with an airy laugh. Then she added, with a change of tone, "You have been away for a long time."

"Eight years," he replied.

He thought she gave a slight start, but immediately she turned upon him with one of the brilliant smiles.

"We have had time to grow since then," she said,—"not older, of course, but infinitely wiser—and better."

He did not find it easy to comprehend very clearly either her smile or her manner. He felt that there might be something hidden behind both, though certainly nothing could have been brighter or more inconsequent than her tone. He did not smile, but regarded her for a moment with a look of steady interest, of which he was scarcely conscious. She bore it for an instant, and then turned her eyes carelessly aside, with a laugh.

"I do not think you are changed at all," she said.

"Why?" he asked, still watching her, and trying to adjust himself to her words.

"You looked at me then," she said, "just as you used to when you were with us before, and I said something frivolous. I am afraid I was often frivolous in those days. I confess I suspected myself of it, and one day I even made a resolution"—

She did start then—as if some memory had suddenly returned to her. She lifted her bouquet to her face and let it slowly drop upon her knee again as she turned and looked at him.

"I remember now," she said, "that I made that resolution the day you brought me the heliotrope." And now it seemed for the instant to be her turn to regard him with interest.

"I don't know what the resolution was," he said, rather grimly, "but I hope it was a good one. Did you keep it?"

"No," she answered, undisturbedly; "but I kept the heliotrope. You know I said I would. It is laid away in one of my bureau drawers."

"And the first party?" he asked. "Was it a success?"

"Oh, yes," she replied, "it was a great success. I am happy to say that all my parties are successes, inasmuch as I enjoy them."

"Is this a success?" he inquired. She raised her bouquet to her face again and glanced over it at the crowded room.

"It is an immense success," she said. "Such things always are—in Washington. Do you see that little woman on the sofa? Notice what bright eyes she has, and how quickly they move from one person to another—like a bird's. She is 'our Washington correspondent' for half-a-dozen Western papers, and 'does the social column' in one of our principal dailies, and to-morrow you will read in it that 'one of the most brilliant receptions of the season was held last night at the charming home of Mrs. Winter Gardner, on K street.' You will also learn that 'Mrs. Richard Amory was lovely in white brocade and pearls,' and that 'noticeable among even the stateliest masculine forms was the imposing figure of Colonel Tredennis, the hero of Indian adventure and'"—

She had been speaking in the quietest possible manner, looking at the scene before her and not at him; but here she stopped and bent toward him a little.

"Have you," she said, softly, "such a thing as a scalp about you?"

He was by no means prepared for the inquiry, but he sustained himself under it in his usual immovable manner. He put his hand up to his breast and then dropped it.

"I am afraid not," he said. "Not in this suit. I forgot, in dressing, that I might need them. But I might go back to the hotel," he added, suggestively.

"Oh, no, thanks," she said, returning to her former position. "I was only thinking how pleased she would be if you could show her a little one, and tell her the history of it. It would be so useful to her."

"I am very sorry," said Tredennis.

"You would be more sorry," she went on, "if you knew what an industrious little person she is, and with what difficulty she earns her ten dollars a column. She goes to receptions, and literary and art clubs, and to the White House, and the Capitol, and knows everybody and just what adjectives they like, and how many; and is never ill-natured at all, though it really seems to me that such an existence offers a premium to spitefulness. I am convinced that it would make me spiteful. But she never loses control over her temper—or her adjectives. If I weighed two hundred pounds, for instance, she would refer to my avoirdupois as 'matronly embonpoint;' and if I were a skeleton, she would say I had a 'slight and reed-like figure,' which is rather clever, you know, as well as being Christian charity."

"And she will inform the world to-morrow that your dress," glancing down at it, "was white"—

"And that my hair was brown, as usual," she ended for him. "And that I carried a bouquet of heliotrope and roses."

"I hope you like it," he said.

"Oh, very much indeed, thank you," was her response. "And if I did not, somebody else would, or it is plain that she would not get her ten dollars a column. It has struck me that she doesn't do it for amusement, or with the deliberate intention of annoying people. For my part, I admire and envy her. There is no collection so valuable as a collection of adjectives. Everything depends on adjectives. You can begin a friendship or end it with one—or an enmity, either."

"Will you tell me," said Tredennis, "what adjective you would apply to the blonde young man on the other side of the room, who has just picked up a lady's handkerchief?"

She looked across the room at the person indicated, and did not reply at once. There was a faintly reflective smile in her eyes, though it could scarcely be said to touch her lips. The man was the one who had attracted Tredennis' attention at the door of the cloak-room, and since coming down-stairs he had regarded him with some interest upon each occasion when he had caught sight of him as he moved from room to room, evidently at once paying unobtrusive but unswerving attention to the social exigencies of his position, and finding a decent amount of quiet entertainment in the results of his efforts.

"I wish you would tell me," said Bertha, after her little pause, "what adjective you would apply to him."

"I am afraid," said Tredennis, "that our acquaintance is too limited at present to allow of my grasping the subject. As I don't chance to know him at all"—

Bertha interposed, still watching the object of discussion with the faintly reflective smile.

"I have known him for six years," she said, "and I have not found his adjective yet. He is a cousin of Mr. Amory's. Suppose," she said, turning with perfect seriousness and making a slight movement as if she would rise,—"suppose we go and ask Miss Jessup?"

Tredennis offered her his arm.

"Let us hope that Miss Jessup can tell us," he said.

His imperturbable readiness seemed to please her. Her little laugh had a genuine sound in it. She sat down again.

"I am afraid she could not," she said. "See! he is coming to speak to me, and we might ask him."

But she did not ask him when he presented himself before her, as he did almost immediately. He had come to remind her that dancing was going on in one of the rooms, and that she had promised him the waltz the musicians had just struck into with a flourish.

"Perhaps you will remember that you said the third waltz," he said, "and this is the third waltz."

Bertha rose.

"I remember," she said, "and I think I am ready for it; but before you take me away you must know Colonel Tredennis. Of course you do know Colonel Tredennis, but you must know him better. Colonel Tredennis, this is Mr. Arbuthnot."

The pair bowed, as civility demanded. Of the two, it must be confessed that Tredennis' recognition of the ceremony was the less cordial. Just for the moment he was conscious of feeling secretly repelled by the young man's well-carried, conventional figure and calm, blond countenance,—the figure seemed so correct a copy of a score of others, the blond countenance expressed so little beyond a carefully trained tendency to good manners, entirely unbiassed by any human emotion.

"By the time our waltz is finished," said Bertha, as she took his arm, "I hope that Mr. Amory will be here. He promised me that he would come in toward the end of the evening. He will be very glad to find you here."

And then, with a little bow to Tredennis, she went away.

She did not speak to her companion until they reached the room where the dancers were congregated. Then, as they took their place among the waltzers, she broke the silence.

"If I don't dance well," she said, "take into consideration the fact that I have just been conversing with a man I knew eight years ago."

"You will be sure to dance well," said Arbuthnot, as they began. "But I don't mind acknowledging an objection to persons I knew eight years ago. I never could find any sufficient reason for their turning up. And, as to your friend, it strikes me it shows a great lack of taste in the Indians to have consented to part with him. It appeared to me that he possessed a manner calculated to endear him to aboriginal society beyond measure."

Bertha laughed,—a laugh whose faintness might have arisen from her rapid motion.

"He's rather rigorous-looking," she said; "but he always was. Still, I remember I was beginning to like him quite well when he went West. Papa is very fond of him. He turns out to be a persistent, heroic kind of being—with a purpose in life, and the rest of it."

"His size is heroic enough," said Arbuthnot. "He would look better on a pedestal in a public square than in a parlor."

Bertha made no reply, but, after having made the round of the room twice, she stopped.

"I am not dancing well," she said. "I do not think I am in a dancing mood. I will sit down."

Arbuthnot glanced at her, and then looked away.

"Do you want to be quiet?" he asked.

"I want to be quieter than this," she answered; "for a few minutes. I believe I am tired."

"You have been going out too much," he said, as he led her into a small side-room which had been given up to a large, ornate punch-bowl, to do reverence to which occasional devotees wandered in and out.

"I have been going out a great deal," she answered.

She leaned back in the luxurious little chair he had given her, and looked across the hall into the room where the waltz was at its height, and, having looked, she laughed.

"Do you see that girl in the white dress, which doesn't fit," she said,—"the plump girl who bags at the waist and is oblivious to it—and everything else but her waltz and her partner?"

"Yes," he responded; "but I hope you are not laughing at her,—there is no need of it. She's having a fascinating time."

"Yes," she returned. "She is having a lively time; but I am not laughing at her, but at what she reminds me of. Do you know, I was just that age when Colonel Tredennis saw me last. I was not that size or that shape, and my dresses used to fit—but I was just that age, and just as oblivious, and danced with just that spirit of enjoyment."

"You dance with just as much enjoyment now," said Arbuthnot, "and you are quite as oblivious at times, though it may suit your fancy just at the present moment to regard yourself as a shattered wreck confronted with the ruins of your lost youth and innocence. I revel in that kind of thing myself at intervals, but it does not last."

"No," she said, opening her fan with a smile, and looking down at the Cupids and butterflies adorning it, "of course it won't last, and I must confess that I am not ordinarily given to it—but that man! Do you know, it was a curious sort of sensation that came over me when I first saw him. I was standing near a window, talking to half-a-dozen people, and really enjoying myself very much,—you know I nearly always enjoy myself,—and suddenly something seemed to make me look up—and there he stood!"

"It would not be a bad idea for him to conceal his pedestal about him and mount it when it became necessary for him to remain stationary," said Arbuthnot, flippantly, and yet with a momentary gravity in his eyes somewhat at variance with his speech.

She went on as if he had not spoken.

"It was certainly a curious feeling," she continued. "Everything came to me in a flash. I suppose I am rather a light and frivolous person, not sufficiently given to reflecting on the passage of time, and suddenly there he stood, and I remembered that eight years had gone by, and that everything was changed."

"A great many things can happen in eight years," commented Arbuthnot.

"A great many things have happened to me," she said. "Everything has happened to me!"

"No," said Arbuthnot, in a low, rather reflective tone, and looking as he spoke not at her, but at the girl whose white dress did not fit, and who at that moment whirled rather breathlessly by the door. "No—not everything."

"I have grown from a child to a woman," she said. "I have married, I have arrived at maternal dignity. I don't see that there is anything else that could happen—at least, anything comfortable."

"No," he admitted. "I don't think there is anything comfortable."

"Well, it is very certain I don't want to try anything uncomfortable," she said. "'Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.' Montesquieu says that, and it always struck me as meaning something."

"I hope it does not mean that you consider your annals tiresome," said Arbuthnot. "How that girl does dance! This is the fifth time she has passed the door."

"I hope her partner likes it as much as she does," remarked Bertha. "And as to the annals, I have not found them tiresome at all, thank you. As we happen to have come to retrospect, I think I may say that I have rather enjoyed myself, on the whole. I have had no tremendous emotions."

"On which you may congratulate yourself," Arbuthnot put in.

"I do," she responded. "I know I should not have liked them. I have left such things to—you, for instance."

She said this with a little air of civil mocking which was by no means unbecoming, and to which her companion was well used.

"Thank you," he replied, amiably. "You showed consideration, of course—but that's your way."

"I may not have lived exactly the kind of life I used to think I should live—when I was a school-girl," she went on, smiling; "but who does?—and who would want to when she attained years of discretion? And I may not be exactly the kind of person I—meant to be; but I think I may congratulate you on that—and Richard. You would never have been the radiant creatures you are if I had ripened to that state of perfection. You could not have borne up under it."

She rose from her seat and took his arm.

"No," she said, "I am not the kind of person I meant to be, and Colonel Tredennis has reminded me of the fact and elevated my spirits. Let us go and find him, and invite him to dinner to-morrow. He deserves it."

As they passed the door of the dancing-room she paused a moment to look in, and as she did so caught sight of the girl in the white dress once more.

"She is not tired yet," she said, "but her partner is—and so am I. If Richard has come, I think I shall go home."