As he was saying it Bertha had gone back to her sofa, and sat there with the faint, troubled smile still on her face.

"He was angry," she said, "and so was I. It made him look very large; but I was not at all afraid of him,—no, positively, I was not afraid of him, and I am glad of that. It is bad enough to remember that I was emotional, and said things I did not mean to say. It is not like me to say things I don't mean to say. I must be more tired out than I knew. Ah, there is no denying that he was in the right! I will go away and stay some time. It will be better in every way."

For some minutes she sat motionless, her hands clasped lightly upon her knee, her eyes fixed on a patch of sunlight on the carpet. She did not move, indeed, until she heard the sound of her husband's foot upon the steps and his latch-key in the door. He entered the room immediately afterward, looking rather warm and a trifle exhilarated, and all the handsomer in consequence.

"Ah, Bertha, you are here!" he said. "I am glad you are not out! How warm it is! Fancy having such weather early in May! And three days ago we had fires. What a climate! There is something appropriate in it. It is purely Washingtonian, and as uncertain as—as senators. There's a scientific problem for the Signal Service Bureau to settle,—Does the unreliability of the climate affect the senatorial mind, or does the unreliability of the senatorial mind affect the climate?"

"It sounds like a conundrum," said Bertha, "and the Signal Service Bureau would give it up. You have been walking too fast, you foolish boy, and have overheated yourself. Come and lie down on the sofa and rest."

She picked up the cushion, which had fallen, and put it in place for him. There was always a pretty touch of maternal care for him in her manner. He accepted her invitation with delighted readiness, and, when he had thrown himself at luxurious full length upon the sofa, she took a seat upon its edge near him, having first brought from the mantel a large Japanese fan, with which she stirred the air gently.

"Why were you glad that I had not gone out?" she said. "Did you want me?"

"Oh!" he answered, "I always want you. You are the kind of little person one naturally wants,—and it is a sort of relief to find you on the spot. How nice this Grand Pasha business is,—lying on cushions and being fanned,—and how pretty and cool you look in your white frills! White is very becoming to you, Bertha."

Bertha glanced down at the frills.

"Is it?" she said. "Yes, I think it is, and this is a pretty gown. Richard!"

"Well?"

"You said it was a sort of relief to find me on the spot. Did you say it because I am not always here when you want me? Do you think I go out too much? Does it ever seem to you that I neglect you a little, and am not quite as domesticated as I should be? Should you be—happier—if I lived a quieter life and cared less for society?"

There was a touch of unusual earnestness in her voice, and her eyes were almost childishly eager as she turned them upon him.

"Happier!" he exclaimed, gayly. "My dear child! I could not easily be happier than I am. How could I accuse you of neglecting me? You satisfy me exactly in everything. Whose home is more charming, and whose children are better cared for than mine? It is not necessary for you to cook my dinner, but you are the most delightful sauce to it in the world when you sit at the head of the table. What more could a man want?"

"I—I don't know," she said, slowly, "but I could not bear to think that I was not what I should be in my own home. It has always seemed to me that there could be no bad taste and bad breeding so inexcusable as the bad taste and bad breeding of a woman who is disagreeable and negligent in her own house. One has no need to put it on moral grounds even—the bad taste of it is enough. I don't think I could ever be disagreeable, or that you could think me so; but it struck me"—

"Don't let it strike you again," he interrupted, amiably. "It has struck me that there were never two people so well suited to each other as our married life has proved us to be. I don't mind admitting now that once or twice during the first year I thought that you were a little restless or unhappy, but it was when you were not well, and it was quite natural, and it all passed away, and I don't think it would occur to any one in these days to ask whether you are happy or not."

Bertha was playing with his watch-chain, and she separated one charm upon it from another carefully as she answered him in a soft, natural voice:

"There is a legend, you know," she said, "that the first year of one's marriage is always uncomfortable."

"Oh, mine was not uncomfortable," he returned,—"it was delightful, as all the other years have been; but—just occasionally, you know—there was a—well, a vague something—which never troubles me now."

"I must have behaved badly in some way," said Bertha, smiling, "or it would not have troubled you then."

And she stooped and kissed him on the forehead.

"I have a horrible conviction," she said after it, "that I was a vixen. Was I a vixen? Perhaps I was a vixen, and never suspected it, and no one suspected it but you. Poor boy! Why didn't you return me to papa with thanks? Well, as you have kept me so long, you must make the best of me. And it is very nice and polite in you to pretend that I am satisfactory, and don't make you wretched and your hearth a wilderness by being a hollow worldling."

"You are exactly what I want," he responded. "I am a hollow worldling myself. If I were a bricklayer, my idea of domestic bliss might be to spend my evenings at home and watch you mending stockings or knitting, or doing something of that sort; but even then I am afraid I should tire of it, and secretly long for something more frivolous."

"For something as frivolous as I am?" she said, with a nervous little laugh. "Quite as frivolous, Richard—really? But I know you will say so. You are always good to me and spoil me."

"No, I am not," he answered. "It is simply true that you always please me. It is true I am a rather easy-natured fellow, but I know plenty of good-natured fellows whose wives are terribly unsatisfactory. You are clever and pretty, and don't make mistakes, and you are never exacting, nor really out of humor, and it is impossible for me to tire of you"—

"Really?" she said, quickly, "is that last true?"

"Entirely true."

"Well," she commented, the color rising in her cheek, "that is a good deal for one's husband to say! That is a triumph. It amounts to a certificate of character."

"Well," he admitted, after a second's reflection, "upon the whole it is! I know more husbands than one; but no matter. I was going to add that long ago—before I met you, you know—my vague visions of matrimonial venture were always clouded by a secret conviction that when I had really passed the Rubicon, and had time for reflection, things might begin to assume a rather serious aspect."

"And I," said Bertha, a little thoughtfully, "have never assumed a serious aspect."

"Never," he replied, exultingly. "You have been a perfect success. There is but one Bertha"—

"And her husband is her prophet!" she added. "You are very good to me, Richard, and it is entirety useless for you to deny it, because I shall insist upon it with—with wild horses, if necessary; which figure of speech I hope strikes you as being strong enough."

She was herself again—neither eager nor in earnest, ready to amuse him and to be amused, waving her fan for his benefit, touching up his cushions to make him more comfortable, and seeming to enjoy her seat on the edge of his sofa very much indeed.

"Do you know," she said, at length, "what I have thought of doing? I have thought quite seriously of going in a day or so to Fortress Monroe with the children."

She felt that he started slightly, and wondered why.

"Are you surprised?" she asked. "Would you rather I would not go?"

"No," he answered, "if you think it would be better for you. You are tired, and the weather is very warm. But—have you set any particular day?"

"No," she said, "I should not do that without speaking to you first."

"Well," he returned, "then suppose you do not go this week. I have half-invited Senator Planefield, and Macpherson and Ashley to dinner for Thursday."

"Is it because you want them to talk about the bill?" she said. "How interested you are in it, Richard! Why is it? Railroads never struck me as being particularly fascinating material. It seems to me that amateur enthusiasm would be more readily awakened by something more romantic and a little intangible,—a tremendous claim, for instance, which would make some poor, struggling creatures fabulously rich. I am always interested in claims; the wilder they are, the better and it invariably delights me when the people get them 'through' to the utter consternation of the Government. It has faintly dawned upon me, on two or three such occasions, that I have no political morality, and I am afraid it is a feminine failing. It is not a masculine one, of course; so it must be feminine. I wish you had chosen a claim, Richard, instead of a railroad. I am sure it would have been far more absorbing."

"The railroad is quite absorbing enough," he answered, "and there is money enough involved in it. Just think of those Westoria lands, and what they will be worth if the road is carried through them,—and as to romance, what could be more romantic than the story attached to them?"

"But I don't know the story," said Bertha. "What is it?"

"It is a very effective story," he replied, "and it was the story which first called my attention to the subject. There was a poor, visionary fellow whose name was Westor, to whom a large tract of this land came suddenly as an inheritance from a distant relative. He was not practical enough to make much use of it, and he lived in the house upon it in a desolate, shiftless way for several years, when he had the ill-fortune to discover coal on the place. I say it was ill-fortune, because the discovery drove him wild. He worked, and starved, and planned, and scraped together all the money he could to buy more land, keeping his secret closely for some time. When he could do no more he came to Washington, and began to work for a railroad which would make his wealth available. His energy was a kind of frenzy, they say. He neither ate, slept, nor rested, and really managed to get the matter into active movement. He managed to awaken a kind of enthusiasm, and, for a short time, was a good deal talked of and noticed. He was a big, raw-boned young Westerner, and created a sensation by his very uncouthness in its connection with the wildly fabulous stories told about his wealth. He had among his acquaintances a man of immense influence, and at this man's house he met the inevitable young woman. She amused herself, and he fell madly in love, and became more frenzied than ever. It was said that she intended to marry him if he was successful, and that she made his poor, helpless life such an anguish to him that he lost his balance entirely. There came a time when he was entirely penniless, and his prospects were so unpromising, and his despair so great, that he went to his boarding-house one day with the intention of killing himself, and just as he finished loading his pistol a letter was handed in to him, and when he opened it he found it contained the information that another distant relative, affected by the rumors concerning him, had left him twenty thousand dollars. He laid his pistol in a drawer, and left the house to begin again. He had an interview with his lady-love, and one with his man of influence, and at the end of a few weeks had bought more land, and parted in some mysterious way with the rest of his money, and was on the very eve of success. Poor fellow!"

"Poor fellow!" said Bertha. "Oh! don't say that any thing went wrong!"

"It would not be half so dramatic a story if everything had gone right," said Richard, with fine artistic appreciation. "You could never guess what happened. Everything he did seemed to work to a miracle; every train was laid and every match applied. On the day that was to decide his fate he did not go near the Capitol, but wandered out and took his place on one of the seats in the park which faced the house at which the young woman was visiting, and sat there, a lank, unshorn, haggard figure, either staring at her window or leaning forward with his head upon his hands. People actually heard of his being there and went to look at him, and came away without having dared to address him. The young woman looked out from behind her blind and was furious, and even sent word to him to go away. But he would not go, and only glared at this man who was sent to him with the message. He sat there until night, and then staggered across and rang at the bell, and inquired for the man of influence, and was told—what do you suppose he was told?"

"Oh!" cried Bertha, desperately. "I don't know."

"He was told that he was occupied."

"Occupied!" echoed Bertha.

Richard clasped his hands comfortably and gracefully behind his head.

"That's the climax of the story," he said. "He was occupied—in being married to the young woman, of whom he had been greatly enamored for some time, and who had discreetly decided to marry him because he had proved to her that the other man's bill could not possibly pass. It could not pass because he had the energy and influence to prevent its doing so, and he prevented its passing because he knew he would lose the young woman otherwise. At least that is the story, and I like the version."

"I don't like it!" said Bertha. "It makes me feel desperate."

"What it made the poor fellow feel," Richard went on, "nobody ever found out, as he said nothing at all about it. On hearing the truth he sat down on the steps for a few minutes, and then got up and went away. He went to his boarding-house and had an interview with his landlady, who was a kind-hearted creature, and when she saw him began to cry because his bill had not passed. But when she spoke of it she found he knew nothing of it; he had never asked about it, and he said to her, 'Oh! that doesn't matter,—it isn't of any consequence particularly; I'm only troubled about your bill. I haven't money enough to pay it. I've only enough to take me home, and you'll have to let me give you the things I have in my room for pay. I only want one thing out of there,—if you'll let me go and get it I won't take anything else.' So she let him go, and stood outside his door and cried, while he went in and took something out of a drawer."

"Richard!" cried Bertha.

"Yes," said Richard. "He actually found a use for it, after all—but not in Washington. He went as far as he could by rail, and then he tramped the rest of the way to Westoria; they say it must have taken him several days, and that his shoes were worn to shreds, and his feet cut and bruised by the walk. When he reached the house, it had been shut up so long that the honeysuckle which climbed about it had grown across the door, and he could not have got in without breaking or pushing it aside. People fancied that at first he thought of going in, but that when he saw the vine it stopped him,—slight barrier as it was. They thought he had intended to go in because he had evidently gone to the door, and before he turned away had broken off a spray of the flowers which was just beginning to bloom; he held it crushed in his hand when they found him, two or three days later. He had carried it back to the edge of the porch, and had sat down—and finished everything—with the only thing he had brought back from Washington—the pistol. How does that strike you as the romance of a railroad?"

Bertha clenched her hand, and struck her knee a fierce little blow.

"Richard," she said, "if that had happened in my day I should have turned lobbyist, and every thought, and power, and gift I had would have been brought to bear to secure the passage of that bill."

Richard laughed,—a pleased but slightly nervous laugh.

"Suppose you bring them to bear now," he suggested.

"There would not be any reason for my doing it now," she answered; "but I shall certainly be interested."

Richard laughed again.

"By Jove!" he said, "the poor devils who own it would think there was reason enough!"

"Who owns it?"

"Several people, who speculated in it because the railroad was talked of again, and on a more substantial footing. It fell to Westor's only living relation, who was an ignorant old woman, and sold it without having any idea of its real value. Her impression was that, if she kept it, it would bring her ill-luck. There is no denying that it looks just now like a magnificent speculation."

"And that poor fellow," said Bertha,—"that poor fellow"—

"That poor fellow?" Richard interposed. "Yes—but his little drama is over, you know, and perhaps there are others going on quite as interesting, if we only knew them. It is very like you, Bertha—and it is very adorable," touching her shoulder caressingly with his hand, "to lose sight entirely of the speculation, and care only for the poor fellow. You insist upon having your little drama under all circumstances."

"Yes," she admitted. "I confess that I like my little drama, and I have not a doubt that—as I said before—I could not have lived in the midst of that without turning lobbyist—which is certainly not my vocation."

"Not your vocation?" said Richard. "You would make the most successful little lobbyist in the world!"

Bertha turned upon him an incredulous and rather bewildered smile.

"I!" she exclaimed. "I?"

"Yes, you!"

"Well," she replied, after a second's pause given to inspection of him, "this is open derision!"

"It is perfectly true," was his response; "and it is true for good reasons. Your strength would lie in the very fact that you would be entirely unlike your co-laborers in the field. You have a finished little air of ingenuousness which would be your fortune."

She shook her head with a pretty gesture.

"No," she said. "I am very clever, and of course you cannot help observing it, but I am not clever enough for that."

He gave her a glance at once curious and admiring.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "it is my belief you are clever enough for anything."

"Richard," she said, "shall I tell you a secret?"

"Yes."

"And you will bury it in the innermost recesses of your soul, and never divulge it?"

"Certainly."

"And brace yourself for a shock when I reveal it to you?"

"Yes."

"Well, here it is! My cleverness is like what you—and two or three other most charming people—are good enough to call my prettiness. It is a delusion and a snare!"

"Come!" he said. "You are attempting to deceive me."

"No," she answered. "I am attempting to undeceive you. I am not really pretty or clever at all, and it has been the object of my life to prevent its being detected."

She opened her eyes in the most charmingly ingenuous manner and nodded her head.

"I discovered it myself," she said, "long ago,—comparatively early in life,—and resolved to conceal it. And nothing but the confidence I repose in you would have induced me to mention it."

"Well," he replied, "you have concealed it pretty well under the circumstances."

"Ah!" she said, "but you don't know what a burden it is to carry about, and what subterfuges I have to resort to when I seem on the very verge of being found out. There is Larry, for instance,—I am almost sure that Larry suspects me, especially when I am tired, or chance to wear an unbecoming gown. You know how particular I am about my gowns? Well, that is my secret. I haven't an attraction, really, but my gowns and my spirits and my speciousness. The solitary thing I do feel I have reason to pride myself on is that I am bold enough to adapt my gowns in such a way as to persuade you that I am physically responsible for the color and shape of them. You fancy you are pleased with me when you are simply pleased with some color of which I exist on the reflection or glow. In nine cases out of ten it is merely a matter of pale blue or pink, and silk or crÈpe or cashmere; and in the tenth it is nothing but spirits and speciousness."

"Oh," he said, "there is no denying that you would make a wonderful lobbyist."

"Well," she answered, rising and going to the table to lay her fan down, "when you invest largely in Westoria lands and require my services in that capacity, I will try to distinguish myself. I think I should like to begin with the Westoria lands if I begin at all. But in the meantime I must go upstairs and talk to the seamstress about Janey's new white dresses. You are cool enough now to enjoy your lunch when the bell rings and you shall have some iced tea if you would like it."

"I would like it very well, and, by the by, did Tredennis bring the 'Clarion,' as he said he would?"

"Yes, it is here," and she handed it to him from the table. "You can read it while I am upstairs."

"Have you read it?" he said, opening it and turning to the editorial.

"Not yet. I shall read it this afternoon."

"Yes, do. The facts are put very forcibly. And—you will decide not to go to Fortress Monroe just yet?"

She hesitated a moment, but he did not observe it.

"I must be here when your friends dine with you, of course," she said. "And a week or even a little more does not make so much difference, after all. It may be quite cool again to-morrow."

And she went out of the room and left him to his paper.