"On dit that the charming Mrs. Sylvestre, so well known and so greatly admired in society circles as Miss Agnes Wentworth, has, after several years of absence, much deplored by her numberless friends, returned to make her home in Washington, having taken a house on Lafayette Square. The three years of Mrs. Sylvestre's widowhood have been spent abroad, chiefly in Italy,—the land of love and beauty,—where Tasso sang and Raphael dreamed of the Immortals."

Thus, the society column of a daily paper, and a week later Mrs. Merriam arrived, and the house on Lafayette Square was taken possession of.

It was one of the older houses,—a large and substantial one, whose rather rigorous exterior still held forth promises of possibilities in the way of interior development. Arbuthnot heard Bertha mention one day that one of Mrs. Sylvestre's chief reasons for selecting it was that it "looked quiet," and he reflected upon this afterward as being rather unusual as the reason of a young and beautiful woman.

"Though, after all, she 'looks quiet' herself," was his mental comment. "If I felt called upon to remark upon her at all, I should certainly say that she was a perfectly composed person. Perhaps that is the groove she chooses to live in, or it may be simply her nature. I shouldn't mind knowing which."

He was rather desirous of seeing what she would make of the place inside, but the desire was by no means strong enough to lead him to make his first call upon her an hour earlier than he might have been expected according to the strictest canons of good taste.

On her part Mrs. Sylvestre found great pleasure in the days spent in establishing herself. For years her life had been an unsettled one, and the prospect of arranging a home according to her own tastes—and especially a home in Washington—was very agreeable to her. Her fortune was large, her time was her own, and as in the course of her rambling she had collected innumerable charming and interesting odds and ends, there was no reason why her house should not be a delightful one.

For several days she was quite busy and greatly interested. She found her pictures, plaques, and hangings even more absorbing than she had imagined they would be. She spent her mornings in arranging and rearranging cabinets, walls, and mantels, and moved about her rooms wearing a faint smile of pleasure on her lips, and a faint tinge of color on her cheeks.

"Really," she said to Bertha, who dropped in to see her one morning, and found her standing in the middle of the room reflecting upon a pretty old blue cup and saucer, "I am quite happy in a quiet way. I seem to be shut in from the world and life, and all busy things, and to find interest enough in the color of a bit of china, or the folds of a portiÈre. It seems almost exciting to put a thing on a shelf, and then take it down and put it somewhere else."

When Arbuthnot passed the house he saw that rich Eastern-looking stuffs curtained the windows, and great Indian jars stood on the steps and balconies, as if ready for plants. In exhausting the resources of the universe Mr. Sylvestre had given some attention to India, and, being a man of caprices, had not returned from his explorings empty-handed. A carriage stood before the house, and the door being open, revealed glimpses of pictures and hangings in the hall, which were pleasantly suggestive.

"She will make it attractive," Arbuthnot said to himself. "That goes without saying. And she will be rather perilously so herself."

His first call upon her was always a very distinct memory to him. It was made on a rather chill and unpleasant evening, and, being admitted by a servant into the hall he had before caught a glimpse of, its picturesque comfort and warmth impressed themselves upon him in the strongest possible contrast to the raw dampness and darkness of the night. Through half-drawn portiÈres he had a flitting glance at two or three rooms and a passing impression of some bright or deep point of color on drapery, bric-À-brac, or pictures, and then he was ushered into the room in which Mrs. Sylvestre sat herself. She had been sitting before the fire with a book upon her lap, and she rose to meet him, still holding the volume in her hand. She was dressed in violet and wore a large cluster of violets loosely at her waist. She looked very slender, and tall, and fair, and the rich, darkly glowing colors of the furniture and hangings formed themselves into a background for her, as if the accomplishment of that end had been the sole design of their existence. Arbuthnot even wondered if it was possible that she would ever again look so well as she did just at the instant she rose and moved forward, though he recognized the folly of the thought before ten minutes had passed.

She looked quite as well when she reseated herself, and even better when she became interested in the conversation which followed. It was a conversation which dealt principally with the changes which had taken place in Washington during her absence from it. She found a great many.

"It strikes me as a little singular that you do not resent them more," said Arbuthnot.

"Most of them are changes for the better," she answered.

"Ah!" he returned; "but that would not make any difference to the ordinary mind—unless it awakened additional resentment. There is a sense of personal injury in recognizing that improvements have been made entirely without our assistance."

"I do not feel it," was her reply, "or it is lost in my pleasure in being at home again."

"She has always thought of it as 'home' then," was Arbuthnot's mental comment. "That is an inadvertent speech which tells a story."

His impressions of the late Mr. Sylvestre were not agreeable ones. He had heard him discussed frequently by men who had known him, and the stories told of him were not pleasant. After fifteen minutes in the crucible of impartial public opinion, his manifold brilliant gifts and undeniable graces and attainments had a habit of disappearing in vapor, and leaving behind them a residuum of cold-blooded selfishness and fine disregard of all human feelings in others, not easily disposed of. Arbuthnot had also noticed that there was but one opinion expressed on the subject of his marriage.

"He married a lovely girl twelve or fifteen years younger than himself," he had heard a man say once. "I should like to see what he has made of her."

"You would!" ejaculated an older man. "I shouldn't! Heaven forbid!"

It added greatly to Arbuthnot's interest in her that she bore no outward signs of any conflict she might have passed through. Whatever it had been, she had borne it with courage, and kept her secret her own. The quiet of her manner was not suggestive either of sadness or self-repression, and she made no apparent effort to evade mention of her married life, though, as she spoke of herself but seldom, it seemed entirely natural that she should refer rarely to the years she had passed away from Washington.

When, a little later, Mrs. Merriam came in, she proved to be as satisfactory as all other appurtenances to the household. She was a picturesque, elderly woman, with a small, elegant figure, an acute little countenance, and large, dark eyes, which sparkled in the most amazing manner at times. She was an old Washingtonian herself, had lived through several administrations, and had made the most of her experience. She seemed to have personally known the notabilities of half a century, and her reminiscences gave Arbuthnot a feeling of being surpassingly youthful and modern. She had been living abroad for the last seven years, and, finding herself at home once more, seemed to settle down with a sense of relief.

"It is a bad habit to get into—this of living abroad," she said. "It is a habit, and it grows on one. I went away intending to remain a year, and I should probably have ended my existence in Europe if Mrs. Sylvestre had not brought me home. I was always a little homesick, too, and continually felt the need of a new administration; but I lacked the resolution it required to leave behind me the things I had become accustomed to."

When he went away Arbuthnot discovered that it was with her he had talked more than with Mrs. Sylvestre, and yet, while he had been in the room, it had not occurred to him that Mrs. Sylvestre was silent. Her silence was not unresponsiveness. When he looked back upon it he found that there was even something delicately inspiring in it. "It is that expression of gentle attentiveness in her eyes," he said. "It makes your most trivial remark of consequence, and convinces you that, if she spoke, she would be sure to say what it would please you most to hear. It is a great charm."

For a few moments before returning to his rooms he dropped in upon the Amory household.

There was no one in the parlor when he entered but Colonel Tredennis, who stood with his back to the fire, apparently plunged deep in thought, his glance fixed upon the rug at his feet. He was in evening dress, and held a pair of white gloves in his hand, but he did not wear a festive countenance. Arbuthnot thought that he looked jaded and worn. Certainly there were deep lines left on his forehead, even when he glanced up and straightened it.

"I am waiting for Mrs. Amory," he said. "Amory is out of town, and, as we were both going to the reception at the Secretary of State's, I am to accompany her. I think she will be down directly. Yes, there she is."

They saw her through the portiÈres descending the staircase as he spoke. She was gleaming in creamy satin and lace, and carried a wrap over her arm. She came into the room with a soft rustle of trailing draperies, and Tredennis stirred slightly, and then stood still.

"Did I keep you waiting very long?" she said. "I hope not," and then turned to Arbuthnot, as she buttoned her long glove deliberately.

"Richard has gone to Baltimore with a theatre party," she explained. "Miss Varien went and half-a-dozen others. I did not care to go; and Richard persuaded Colonel Tredennis to assume his responsibilities for the evening and take me to the Secretary of State's. The President is to be there, and as I have not yet told him that I approve of his Cabinet and don't object to his message, I feel I ought not to keep him in suspense any longer."

"Your approval will naturally remove a load of anxiety from his mind," said Arbuthnot. "Can I be of any assistance to you in buttoning that glove?"

She hesitated a second and then extended her wrist. To Arbuthnot, who had occasionally performed the service for her before, there was something novel both in the hesitation and the delicate suggestion of coquettish surrender in her gesture. It had been the chief of her charms for him that her coquetries were of the finer and more reserved sort, and that they had never expended themselves upon him. This was something so new that his momentary bewilderment did not add to his dexterity, and the glove-buttoning was of longer duration than it would otherwise have been.

While it was being accomplished Colonel Tredennis looked on in silence. He had never buttoned a woman's glove in his life. It seemed to him that it was scarcely the thing for a man who was neither husband, brother, nor lover to do. If there was any deep feeling in his heart, how could this careless, conventional fellow stand there and hold her little wrist and meet her lifted eyes without betraying himself? His reasoning was not very logical in its nature: it was the reasoning of pain and hot anger, and other uneasy and masterful emotions, which so got the better of him that he turned suddenly away that he might not see, scarcely knowing what he did. It was an abrupt movement and attracted Arbuthnot's attention, as also did something else,—a movement of Bertha's,—an unsteadiness of the gloved hand which, however, was speedily controlled or ended. He glanced at her, but only to find her smiling, though her breath came a little quickly, and her eyes looked exceedingly bright.

"I am afraid you find it rather troublesome," she said.

"Extremely," he replied; "but I look upon it in the light of moral training, and, sustained by a sense of duty, will endeavor to persevere."

He felt the absurdity and triviality of the words all the more, perhaps, because as he uttered them he caught a glimpse of Tredennis' half-averted face. There was that in its jaded look which formed too sharp a contrast to inconsequent jesting.

"It is not getting easier for him," was his thought. "It won't until it has driven him harder even than it does now."

Perhaps there was something in his own humor which made him a trifle more susceptible to outward influences than usual. As has been already intimated, he had his moods, and he had felt one of them creeping upon him like a shadow during his brief walk through the dark streets.

"I hear the carriage at the door," he said, when he had buttoned the glove. "Don't let me detain you, I am on my way home."

"You have been?"—questioned Bertha, suddenly awakening to a new interest on her own part.

"I called upon Mrs. Sylvestre," he answered.

And then he assisted her to put on her wrap and they all went out to the carriage together. When she was seated and the door closed, Bertha leaned forward and spoke through the open window.

"Don't you think the house very pretty?" she inquired.

"Very," was his brief reply, and though she seemed to expect him to add more, he did not do so, and the carriage drove away and left him standing upon the sidewalk.

"Ah!" said Bertha, leaning back, with a faint smile, "he will go again and again, and yet again."

"Will he?" said the colonel. "Let us hope he will enjoy it." But the truth was that the subject did not awaken in him any absorbing interest.

"Oh! he will enjoy it," she responded.

"And Mrs. Sylvestre?" suggested Tredennis.

"He will never be sure what she thinks of him, or what she wishes him to think of her, though she will have no caprices, and will always treat him beautifully, and the uncertainty will make him enjoy himself more than ever."

"Such a state of bliss," said the colonel, "is indeed greatly to be envied."

He was always conscious of a rather dreary sense of bewilderment when he heard himself giving voice in his deep tones to such small change as the above remark. Under such circumstances there was suggested to him the idea that for the moment he had changed places with some more luckily facile creature and represented him but awkwardly. And yet, of late, he had found himself gradually bereft of all other conversational resource. Since the New Year's day, when Bertha had called his attention to the weather, he had seen in her no vestige of what had so moved him in the brief summer holiday in which she had seemed to forget to arm herself against him.

It appeared that his place was fixed for him, and that nothing remained but to occupy it with as good a grace as possible. But he knew he had not borne it well at the outset. It was but nature that he should have borne it ill, and have made some effort at least to understand the meaning of the change in her.

"All this goes for nothing," he had said to her; but it had not gone for nothing, after all. A man who loves a woman with the whole force of his being, whether it is happily or unhappily, is not a well-regulated creature wholly under his own control. His imagination will play him bitter tricks and taunt him many an hour, both in the bright day and in the dead watches of the night, when he wakens to face his misery alone. He will see things as they are not, and be haunted by phantoms whose vague outlines torture him, while he knows their unreality.

"It is not true," he will say. "It cannot be—and yet if it should be—though it is not."

A word, a smile, the simplest glance or tone, will distort themselves until their very slightness seems the most damning proof. But that he saw his own folly and danger, there were times on those first days when Tredennis might have been betrayed by his fierce sense of injury into mistakes which it would have been impossible for him to retrieve by any after effort. But even in the moments of his greatest weakness he refused to trifle with himself. On the night of the New Year's day when Bertha and Agnes had sat together, he had kept a vigil too. The occupant of the room below his had heard him walking to and fro, and had laid his restlessness to a great number of New Year's calls instead of to a guilty conscience. But the colonel had been less lenient with himself, and had fought a desperate battle in the silent hours.

"What rights have I," he had said, in anguish and humiliation,—"what rights have I at the best? If her heart was as tender toward me as it seems hard, that would be worse than all. It would seem then that I must tear myself from her for her sake as well as for my own. As it is I can at least be near her, and torture myself and let her torture me, and perhaps some day do her some poor kindness of which she knows nothing. Only I must face the truth that I have no claim upon her—none. If she chooses to change her mood, why should I expect or demand an explanation? The wife of one man, the—the beloved of another—O Bertha! Bertha!" And he buried his face in his hands and sat so in the darkness, and in the midst of his misery he seemed to hear again the snatch of song she had sung as she sat on the hill-side, with her face half upturned to the blue sky.

The memory of that day, and of some of those which had gone before it, cost him more than all else. It came back to him suddenly when he had reduced himself to a dead level of feeling; once or twice, when he was with Bertha herself, it returned to him with such freshness and vivid truth, that it seemed for a moment that a single word would sweep every barrier away, and they would stand face to face, speaking the simple truth, whatever it might be.

"Why not?" he thought. "Why not, after all, if she is unhappy and needs a friend, why should it not be the man who would bear either death or life for her?" But he said nothing of this when he spoke to her. After their first two or three interviews he said less than ever. Each of those interviews was like the first. She talked to him as she talked to Arbuthnot, to Planefield, to the attachÉs of the legations, to the clever newspaper man from New York or Boston, who was brought in by a friend on one of her evenings, because he wished to see if the paragraphists had overrated her attractions. She paid him graceful conventional attentions; she met him with a smile when he entered; if he was grave, she hoped he was not unwell or out of spirits; she made fine, feathery, jesting little speeches, as if she expected them to amuse him; she gave him his share of her presence, of her conversation, of her laugh, and went her way to some one else to whom she gave the same things.

"And why should I complain?" he said.

But he did complain, or some feverish, bitter ache in his soul complained for him, and wrought him all sorts of evil, and wore him out, and deepened the lines on his face, and made him feel old and hopeless. He was very kind to Janey in those days and spent a great deal of time with her. It was Janey who was his favorite, though he was immensely liberal to Jack, and bestowed upon Meg, who was too young for him, elaborate and expensive toys, which she reduced to fragments and dissected and analyzed with her brother's assistance. He used to go to see Janey in the nursery and take her out to walk and drive, and at such times felt rather glad that she was not like her mother. She bore no likeness to Bertha, and was indeed thought to resemble the professor, who was given to wondering at her as he had long ago wondered at her mother. The colonel fancied that it rested him to ramble about in company with this small creature. They went to the parks, hand in hand, so often that the nurse-maids who took their charges there began to know them quite well, the popular theory among them being that the colonel was an interesting widower, and the little one his motherless child. The winter was a specially mild one, even for Washington, and it was generally pleasant out of doors, and frequently Janey's escort sat on one of the green benches and read his paper while she disported herself on the grass near him, or found entertainment in propelling her family of dolls up and down the walk in their carriage. They had long and interesting conversations together, and once or twice even went to the Capitol itself, and visited the House and the Senate, deriving much pleasure and benefit from looking down upon the rulers of their country "rising to points of order" in their customary awe-inspiring way. On one of these occasions, possibly overpowered by the majesty of the scene, Janey fell asleep, and an hour later, as Bertha stepped from her carriage, with cards and calling-list in hand, she encountered a large, well-known figure, bearing in its arms, with the most astonishing accustomed gentleness and care, a supine little form, whose head confidingly reposed on the broadest of shoulders.

"She went to sleep," said the colonel, with quite a paternal demeanor.

He thought at first that Bertha was going to kiss the child. She made a step forward, an eager tenderness kindling in her eyes, then checked herself and laughed, half shrugging her shoulders.

"May I ask if you carried her the entire length of the avenue in the face of the multitude?" she said. "You were very good, and displayed most delightful moral courage if you did; but it must not occur again. She must not go out without a nurse, if she is so much trouble."

"She is no trouble," he answered, "and it was not necessary to carry her the length of the avenue."

Bertha went into the house before him.

"I will ring for a nurse," she said at the parlor door. "She will be attended to—and you are extremely amiable. I have been calling all the afternoon and have just dropped in for Richard, who is going with me to the Drummonds' musicale."

But Tredennis did not wait for the nurse. He knew the way to the nursery well enough, and bore off his little burden to her own domains sans cÉrÉmonie, while Bertha stood and watched him from below.

If she had been gay the winter before, she was gayer still now. She had her afternoon for reception and her evening at home, and gave, also, a series of more elaborate and formal entertainments. At these festivities the political element was represented quite brilliantly. She professed to have begun at last to regard politics seriously, and, though this statement was not received with the most entire confidence, the most liberal encouragement was bestowed upon her. Richard, especially, seemed to find entertainment in her whim. He even admitted that he himself took an interest in the affairs of the nation this winter. He had been awakened to it by his intimacy with Planefield, which increased as the business connected with the Westoria lands grew upon him. There was a great deal of this business to be transacted, it appeared, though his references to the particular form of his share of it were never very definite, being marked chiefly by a brilliant vagueness which, Bertha was wont to observe, added interest to the subject.

"I should not understand if you explained it, of course," she said. "And, as I don't understand, I can give play to a naturally vivid imagination. All sorts of events may depend upon you. Perhaps it is even necessary of you to 'lobby,' and you are engaged in all sorts of machinations. How do people 'lobby,' Richard, and is there an opening in the profession for a young person of undeniable gifts and charms?"

In these days Planefield presented himself more frequently than ever. People began to expect to see his large, florid figure at the "evenings" and dinner-parties, and gradually he and his friends formed an element in them. It was a new element, and not altogether the most delightful one. Some of the friends were not remarkable for polish of manner and familiarity with the convenances, and one or two of them, after they began to feel at ease, talked a good deal in rather pronounced tones, and occasionally enjoyed themselves with a freedom from the shackles of ceremony which seemed rather to belong to some atmosphere other than that of the pretty, bright parlors. But it would not have been easy to determine what Bertha thought of the matter. She accepted Richard's first rather apologetic mention of it gracefully enough, and, after a few evenings, he no longer apologized.

"They may be a trifle uncouth," he had said; "but some of them are tremendous fellows when you understand them,—shrewd, far-seeing politicians, who may astonish the world any day by some sudden, brilliant move. Such men nearly always work their way from the ranks, and have had no time to study the graces; but they are very interesting, and will appreciate the attention you show them. There is that man Bowman, for instance,—began life as a boy in a blacksmith's shop, and has been in Congress for years. They would send him to the Senate if they could spare him. He is a positive mine of political information, and knows the Westoria business from beginning to end."

"They all seem to know more or less of it," said Bertha. "That is our atmosphere now. I am gradually assimilating information myself."

But Tredennis did not reconcile himself to the invasion. He looked on in restless resentment. What right had such men to be near her, was his bitter thought. Being a man himself, he knew more of some of them than he could remember without anger or distaste. He could not regard them impartially as mere forces, forgetting all else. When he saw Planefield at her side, bold, fulsome, bent on absorbing her attention and frequently succeeding through sheer thick-skinned pertinacity, he was filled with wrathful repulsion. This man at least he knew had no right to claim consideration from her, and yet somehow he seemed to have established himself in an intimacy which appeared gradually to become a part of her every-day life. This evening, on entering the house, he had met him leaving it, and when he went into the parlor he had seen upon Bertha's little work-table the customary sumptuous offering of Jacqueminot roses. She carried the flowers in her hand now—their heavy perfume filled the carriage.

"There is no use in asking why she does it," he was thinking. "I have given up expecting to understand her. I suppose she has a reason. I won't believe it is as poor a one as common vanity or coquetry. Such things are beneath her."

He understood himself as little as he understood her. There were times when he wondered how long his unhappiness would last, and if it would not die a natural death. No man's affection and tenderness could feed upon nothing and survive, he told himself again and again. And what was there to sustain his? This was not the woman he had dreamed of,—from her it should be easy enough for him to shake himself free. What to him were her cleverness, her bright eyes, her power over herself and others, the subtle charms and graces which were shared by all who came near her? They were only the gift of a finer order of coquette, who was a greater success than the rest because nature had been lavish with her. It was not these things which could have changed and colored all life for him. If all his thoughts of her had been mere fancies it would be only natural that he should outlive his experience, and in time look back upon it as simply an episode which might have formed a part of the existence of any man. There had been nights when he had left the house, thinking it would be far better for him never to return if he could remain away without awakening comment; but, once in the quiet of his room, there always came back to him memories and fancies he could not rid himself of, and which made the scenes he had left behind unreal. He used to think it must be this which kept his tenderness from dying a lingering death. When he was alone it seemed as if he found himself face to face again with the old, innocent ideal that followed him with tender, appealing eyes and would not leave him. He began to have an odd fancy about the feeling. It was as if, when he left the silent room, he left in it the truth and reality of his dream and found them there when he returned.

"Why do you look at me so?" Bertha said to him one night, turning suddenly aside from the group she had been the central figure of. "You look at me as if—as if I were a ghost, and you were ready to see me vanish into thin air."

He made a slight movement as if rousing himself.

"That is it," he answered. "I am waiting to see you vanish."

"But you will not see it," she said. "You will be disappointed. I am real—real! A ghost could not laugh as I do—and enjoy itself. Its laugh would have a hollow sound. I assure you I am very real indeed."

But he did not answer her, and, after looking at him with a faint smile for a second or so, she turned to her group again. To-night, as they drove to their destination, once or twice, in passing a street-lamp, the light, flashing into the carriage, showed him that Bertha leaned back in her corner with closed eyes, her flowers lying untouched on her lap. He thought she seemed languid and pale, though she had not appeared so before they left the house. And this touched him, as such things always did. There was no moment, however deep and fierce his bewildered sense of injury might have been before it, when a shade of pallor on her cheek, or of sadness in her eyes, a look or tone of weariness, would not undo everything, and stir all his great heart with sympathy and the tender longing to be kind to her. The signs of sadness or pain in any human creature would have moved him, but such signs in her overwhelmed him and swept away every other feeling but this yearning desire to shield and care for her. He looked at her now with anxious eyes and bent forward to draw up her wrap which had slipped from her shoulders.

"Are you warm enough, Bertha?" he said, with awkward gentleness. "It is a raw night. You should have had more—more shawls—or whatever they are."

She opened her eyes with a smile.

"More shawls!" she said. "We don't wear shawls now when we go to receptions. They are not becoming enough, even when they are very grand indeed. This is not a shawl,—it is a sortie du bal, and a very pretty one; but I think I am warm enough, thank you, and it was very good in you to ask." And though he had not known that his own voice was gentle, he recognized that hers was.

"Somebody ought to ask," he answered. And just then they turned the corner into a street already crowded with carriages, and their own drew up before the lighted front of a large house. Tredennis got out and gave Bertha his hand. As she emerged from the shadow of the carriage, the light fell upon her again, and he was impressed even more forcibly than before with her pallor.

"You would have been a great deal better at home," he said, impetuously. "Why did you come here?"

She paused a second, and it seemed to him as if she suddenly gave up some tense hold she had previously kept upon her external self. There was only the pathetic little ghost of a smile in her lifted eyes.

"Yes, I should be better at home," she said, almost in a whisper. "I would rather be asleep with—with the children."

"Then why in Heaven's name do you go?" he protested. "Bertha, let me take you home and leave you to rest. It must be so—I"—

But the conventionalities did not permit that he should give way to the fine masculine impulse which might have prompted him in the heat of his emotions to return her to the carriage by the sheer strength of his unaided arm, and he recognized his own tone of command, and checked himself with a rueful sense of helplessness.

"There is the carriage of the French minister," said Bertha, "and madame wonders who detains her. But—if I were a regiment of soldiers, I am sure I should obey you when you spoke to me in such a tone as that."

And as if by magic she was herself again, and, taking her roses from him, went up the carpeted steps lightly, and with a gay rustle of trailing silk and lace.

The large rooms inside were crowded with a distinguished company, made up of the material which forms the foundation of every select Washingtonian assemblage. There were the politicians, military and naval men, attachÉs of legations, foreign ministers and members of the Cabinet, with their wives and daughters, or other female relatives. A distinguished scientist loomed up in one corner, looking disproportionately modest; a well-known newspaper man chatted in another. The Chinese minister, accompanied by his interpreter, received with a slightly wearied air of quiet patience the conversational attentions proffered him. The wife of the Secretary of State stood near the door with her daughter, receiving her guests as they entered. She was a kindly and graceful woman, whose good breeding and self-poise had tided her safely over the occasionally somewhat ruffled social waters of two administrations. She had received a hundred or so of callers each Wednesday,—the majority of them strangers, and in the moments of her greatest fatigue and lassitude had endeavored to remember that each one of them was a human being, endowed with human vanity and sensitiveness; she had not flinched before the innocent presumption of guileless ignorance; she had done her best by timorousness and simplicity; she had endeavored to remember hundreds of totally uninteresting people, and if she had forgotten one of them who modestly expected a place in her memory had made an effort to repair the injury with aptness and grace. She had given up pleasures she enjoyed and repose she needed, and had managed to glean entertainment and interesting experience by the way, and in course of time, having occupied for years one of the highest social positions in the land, and done some of the most difficult and laborious work, would retire simply and gracefully, more regretted than regretting, and would look back upon her experience more as an episode in her husband's career than her own.

She was one of the few women who produced in Professor Herrick neither mild perturbation nor mental bewilderment. He had been a friend of her husband's in his youth, and during their residence in Washington it had been his habit to desert his books and entomological specimens once or twice in the season for the purpose of appearing in their parlors. There was a legend that he had once presented himself with a large and valuable beetle pinned to the lapel of his coat, he having absentmindedly placed it in that conspicuous position in mistake for the flower Bertha had suggested he should decorate himself with.

He was among the guests to-night, her hostess told Bertha, as she shook hands with her.

"We were very much pleased to see him, though we do not think he looks very well," she said. "I think you will find him talking to Professor Borrowdale, who has just returned from Central America."

She gave Bertha a kind glance of scrutiny.

"Are you looking very well?" she said. "I am afraid you are not. That is not a good way to begin a season."

"I am afraid," said Bertha, laughing, "that I have not chosen my dress well. Colonel Tredennis told me, a few moments ago, that I ought to be at home."

They passed on shortly afterward, and, on the way to the other room, Bertha was unusually silent. Tredennis wondered what she was thinking of, until she suddenly looked up at him and spoke.

"Am I so very haggard?" she said.

"I should not call it haggard," he answered. "You don't look very well."

She gave her cheek a little rub with her gloved hand.

"No; you should not call it haggard," she said, "that is true. It is bad enough not to look well. One should always have a little rouge in one's pocket. But you will see that the excitement will do me good."

"Will it, Bertha?" said the colonel.

But, whether the effect it produced upon her was a good or bad one, it was certainly strong enough. The room was full of people she knew or wished to know. She was stopped at every step by those who spoke to her, exchanging gay speeches with her, paying her compliments, giving her greeting. Dazzling young dandies forgot their indifference to the adulation of the multitude, in their eagerness to make their bows and their bon mots before her; their elders and superiors were as little backward as themselves, and in a short time she had gathered quite a little court about her, in which there was laughter and badinage, and an exhilarating exchange of gayeties. The celebrated scientist joined the circle, the newspaper man made his way into it, and a stately, gray-haired member of the Supreme Bench relaxed his grave face in it, and made more clever and gallant speeches than all his younger rivals put together; it was even remarked that the Oriental visage of the Chinese ambassador himself exhibited an expression of more than slight curiosity and interest. He addressed a few words to his interpreter as he passed. But somehow Colonel Tredennis found himself on the outer edge of the enchanted ground. It was his own fault, perhaps. Yes, it was his own fault, without a doubt. Such changes were too rapid for him, as he himself had said before. He did not understand them; they bewildered and wounded him, and gave him a sense of insecurity, seeming to leave him nothing to rely on. Was it possible that sadness or fatigue which could be so soon set aside and lost sight of could be very real? And if these things which had so touched his heart were unreal and caprices of the moment, what was there left which might not be unreal too? Could she look pale, and make her voice and her little hand tremulous at will when she chose to produce an effect, and why should it please her to produce effects upon him? She had never cared for him, or shown kindness or friendly feeling for him, but in those few brief days in Virginia. Was she so flippant, such a coquette and trifler that, when there was no one else to play her pretty tricks upon, she must try them on him and work upon his sympathies in default of being able to teach him the flatteries and follies of men who loved her less? He had heard of women who were so insatiable in their desire for sensation that they would stoop to such things, but he did not believe he had ever met one. Perhaps he had met several, and had been too ingenuous and generous to understand their wiles and arts. At any rate, they had always been myths to him, and it seemed to him that he himself, as well as all existence, must have changed when he could even wonder if such a thing might be true of Bertha. But nothing could be more certain than that there were no longer any traces of her weariness about her. A brilliant color glowed in her cheeks, her eyes were as bright as diamonds, there was something,—some vividness about her before which every other woman in the room paled a little, though there were two or three great beauties present, and she had never taken the attitude of a beauty at all. The colonel began to see, at last, that there was a shade of something else, too, in her manner, from which it had always before been free. In the midst of all her frivolities she had never been reckless, and there had never been any possibility that the looker-on could bear away with him any memory which had not the charm of fineness about it. But to-night, as one man hung over her chair, and others stood around and about it, one holding her fan, another wearing in his coat a rose which had fallen from her bouquet, all sharing her smiles and vying in their efforts to win them, Tredennis turned away more than once with a heavy heart.

"I would go home if I could leave her," he said. "I don't want to see this. I don't know what it means. This is no place for me."

But he could not leave her, and so lingered about and looked on, and when he was spoken to answered briefly and abstractedly, scarcely knowing what he said. There was no need that he should have felt himself desolate, since there were numbers of pretty and charming women in the rooms who would have been pleased to talk to him, and who, indeed, showed something of this kindly inclination when they found themselves near him; his big, soldierly figure, his fine sun-browned face, his grave manner, and the stories they heard of him, made him an object of deep interest to women, though he had never recognized the fact. They talked of him and wondered about him, and made up suitable little romances which accounted for his silence and rather stern air of sadness. The favorite theory was that he had been badly treated in his early youth by some soulless young person totally unworthy of the feeling he had lavished upon her, and there were two or three young persons—perhaps even a larger number—who, secretly conscious of their own worthiness of any depth of affection, would not have been loath to bind up his wounds and pour oil upon them and frankincense and myrrh, if such applications would have proved effectual. There were among these some very beautiful and attractive young creatures indeed, and as their parents usually shared their interest in the colonel, he was invited to kettledrums and musicales, and theatre parties and dinners, and always welcomed warmly when he was encountered anywhere. But though he received these attentions with the simple courtesy and modest appreciation of all kindness which were second nature with him, and though he paid his party calls with the most unflinching, conventional promptness, and endeavored to return the hospitalities in masculine fashion by impartially sending bouquets to mammas and daughters alike, it frequently happened that various reasons prevented his appearing at the parties; or if he appeared he disappeared quite early; and, indeed, if he had been any other man he would have found it difficult to make his peace with the young lady who discovered that the previous engagement which had kept him away from her kettledrum had been a promise made to little Janey Amory that he would take her to see Tom Thumb.

"It is very kind in you to give us any of your time at all," Bertha had said to him once, "when you are in such demand. Richard tells me your table is strewn with invitations, and there is not a belle of his acquaintance who is so besieged with attentions. Mr. Arbuthnot is filled with envy. He has half-a-dozen new songs which he plays without music, and he has learned all the new dances, and yet is not invited half so much."

"It is my conversational powers they want," was the colonel's sardonic reply.

"That goes without saying," responded Bertha. "And if you would only condescend to waltz, poor Laurence's days of usefulness would be over. Won't you be persuaded to let me give you a lesson?"

And she came toward him with mocking in her eyes and her hands extended.

But the colonel blushed up to the roots of his hair and did not take them.

"I should tread on your slippers, and knock off the buckles, and grind them into powder," he said. "I should tear your gown and lacerate your feelings, and you could not go to the German to-night. I am afraid I am not the size for waltzing."

"You are the size for anything and everything," said Bertha, with an exaggerated little obeisance. "It is we who are so small that we appear insignificant by contrast."

This, indeed, was the general opinion, that his stalwart proportions were greatly to his advantage, and only to be admired. Among those who admired them most were graceful young waltzers, who would have given up that delightful and exhilarating exercise on any occasion, if Colonel Tredennis would have sat out with them in some quiet corner, where the eyes of a censorious world might be escaped. Several such were present to-night, and cast slightly wistful glances at him as they passed to and fro, or deftly managed to arrange little opportunities for conversations which, however, did not flourish and grow strong even when the opportunities were made. It was not entertainment of this sort—innocent and agreeable as it might be—that Colonel Tredennis wanted. It would be difficult to say exactly what he wanted, indeed, or what satisfaction he obtained from standing gnawing his great mustache among Mrs. Amory's more versatile and socially gifted adorers.

He did not want to be a witness of her coquetries—they were coquetries, though to the sophisticated they might appear only delightful ones, and a very proper exercise of feminine fascination upon their natural prey; but to this masculine prude, who unhappily loved her and had no honest rights in her, and whose very affection was an emotion against which his honor must struggle, it was a humiliation that others should look on and see that she could so amuse herself.

So he stood on the outer edge of the little circle, and was so standing when he first caught sight of the professor at the opposite end of the room. He left his place then and went over to him. The sight of the refined, gentle, old face brought to him something bordering on a sense of relief. It removed a little of his totally unreasonable feeling of friendlessness and isolation.

"I have been watching you across the room," the professor said, kindly. "I wondered what you were thinking about? You looked fierce, my boy, and melancholy. I think there were two or three young ladies who thought you very picturesque as you stared at the floor and pulled your mustache, but it seemed to me that your air was hardly gay enough for a brilliant occasion."

"I was thinking I was out of place and wishing I was at home," replied the colonel, with a short laugh, unconsciously pulling his mustache again. "And I dare say I was wishing I had Mrs. Amory's versatility of gifts and humor. I thought she was tired and unwell when I helped her out of the carriage; but it seems that I was mistaken, or that the atmosphere of the great world has a most inspiring effect."

The professor turned his spectacles upon the corner Tredennis had just left.

"Ah!" he remarked quietly; "it is Bertha, is it? I fancied it might be, though it was not easy to see her face, on account of the breadth of Commander Barnacles' back. And it was you who came with her?"

"Yes," said Tredennis.

"I rather expected to see Mr. Arbuthnot," said the professor. "I think Richard gave me the impression that I should."

"We saw Mr. Arbuthnot just before we left the house," returned the colonel. "He had been calling upon Mrs. Sylvestre."

"Upon Mrs. Sylvestre!" echoed the professor, and then he added, rather softly, "Ah, she is another."

"Another!" Tredennis repeated.

"I only mean," said the professor, "that I am at my old tricks again. I am wondering what will happen now to that beautiful, graceful young woman."

He turned his glance a little suddenly upon Tredennis' face.

"Have you been to see her?" he inquired.

"Not yet."

"Why not yet?"

"Perhaps because she is too beautiful and graceful," Tredennis answered. "I don't know of any other reason. I have not sufficient courage."

"Mr. Arbuthnot has sufficient courage," said the professor. "And some of those gentlemen across the room would not shrink from the ordeal. They will all go to see her,—Commander Barnacles included,—and she will be kind to them every one. She would be kind to me if I went to see her—and some day I think I shall."

He glanced across at Bertha. She was talking to Commander Barnacles, who was exhibiting as much chivalric vivacity as his breadth would allow. The rest of her circle were listening and laughing, people outside it were looking at her with interest and curiosity.

"She is very gay to-night," the professor added. "And I dare say Mrs. Sylvestre could give us a better reason for her gayety than we can see on the surface."

"Is there always a reason?" said the colonel. For the moment he was pleasing himself with the fancy that he was hardening his heart.

But just at this moment a slight stir at one of the entrances attracted universal attention. The President had come in, and was being welcomed by his host and hostess. He presented to the inspection of those to whom he was not already a familiar object, the unimposing figure of a man past middle life, his hair grizzled, his face lined, his expression a somewhat fatigued one.

"Yes, he looks tired," said Bertha to the newspaper man who stood near her, "though it is rather unreasonable in him. He has nothing to do but satisfy the demands of two political parties who hate each other, and to retrieve the blunders made during a few score years by his predecessors, and he has four years to do it in—and every one will give him advice. I wonder how he likes it, and if he realizes what has happened to him. If he were a king and had a crown to look at and try on in his moments of uncertainty, or if he were obliged to attire himself in velvet and ermine occasionally, he might persuade himself that he was real; but how can he do so when he never wears anything but an ordinary coat, and cannot cut people's heads off, or bowstring them, and hasn't a dungeon about him? Perhaps he feels as if he is imposing on us and is secretly a little ashamed of himself. I wonder if he is not haunted by a disagreeable ghost who persists in reminding him of the day when he will only be an abject ex-President and we shall pity where we don't condemn him; and he will be dragged to the Capitol in the triumphal car of the new one and know that he has awakened from his dream; or, perhaps, he will call it a nightmare and be glad it is over."

"That is Planefield who came in with him," said her companion. "He would not object to suffer from a nightmare of the same description."

"Would he be willing to dine off the indigestibles most likely to produce it?" said Bertha. "You have indigestibles on your political menu, I suppose. I have heard so, and that they are not always easy to swallow because the cooks at the Capitol differ so about the flavoring."

"Planefield would not differ," was the answer. "And he would dine off them, and breakfast and sup off them, and get up in the night to enjoy them, if he could only bring about the nightmare."

"Is there any possibility that he will accomplish it?" Bertha inquired. "If there is, I must be very kind to him when he comes to speak to me. I feel a sort of eagerness to catch his eye and nod and beck and bestow wreathed smiles upon him already; but don't let my modest thrift waste itself upon a mere phantasy if the prospect is that the indigestibles will simply disagree with him and will not produce the nightmare." And the colonel, who was just approaching with the professor, heard her and was not more greatly elated than before.

It was not very long, of course, before there was an addition to the group. Senator Planefield found his way to it—to the very centre of it, indeed,—and so long as it remained a group formed a permanent feature in its attractions. When he presented himself Bertha gave him her hand with a most bewitching little smile, whose suggestion of archness was somehow made to include the gentleman with whom she had previously been talking. Her manner was so gracious and inspiring that Planefield was intoxicated by it and wondered what it meant. He was obliged to confess to himself that there were many occasions when she was not so gracious, and if he had been easily rebuffed, the wounds his flourishing and robust vanity received might have led him to retire from the field. Frequently, when he was most filled with admiration of her cleverness and spirit, he was conscious of an uneasy sense of distrust, not only of her, but of himself. There was one special, innocent, and direct gaze of which her limpid eyes were capable, which sometimes made him turn hot and cold with uncertainty, and there was also a peculiarly soft and quiet tone in her voice which invariably filled him with perturbation.

"She's such a confounded cool little devil," he had said, gracefully, to a friend on one occasion when he was in a bad humor. "She's afraid of nothing, and she's got such a hold on herself that she can say anything she likes, with a voice as soft as silk, and look you straight in the eyes like a baby while she does so; and when you say the words over to yourself you can't find a thing to complain of, while you know they drove home like knives when she said them herself. She looks like a school-girl half the time; but she's made up of steel and iron, and—the devil knows what."

She did not look like a school-girl this evening,—she was far too brilliant and self-possessed and entertaining; but he had nothing to complain of and plenty to congratulate himself upon. She allowed him to take the chair near her which its occupant reluctantly vacated for him; she placed no obstacles in the way of his conversational desires, and she received all his jokes with the most exhilarating laughter. Perhaps it was because of all this that he thought he had never seen her so pretty, so well dressed, and so inspiring. When he told her so, in a clumsy whisper, a sudden red flushed her cheek, her eyes fell, and she did not reply, as he had feared she would, with a keen little two-edged jest far more discouraging than any displeasure at his boldness would have been. He could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses, and found it necessary to remain silent a few seconds to give himself time to recover his equilibrium. It was he who was with her when Tredennis saw her presentation to the President, who, it was said, had observed her previously and was pleased, after the interview was over, to comment admiringly upon her and ask various questions concerning her. It doubtless befell His Excellency to be called upon to be gracious and ready of speech when confronted with objects less inspiring than this young person, and it might have been something of this sort which caused him to wear a more relaxed countenance and smile more frequently than before when conversing with her, and also to appear to be in no degree eager to allow her to make her bow and withdraw.

It was just after she had been permitted to make this obeisance and retire that Colonel Tredennis, standing near a group of three persons, heard her name mentioned and had his ears quickened by the sound.

The speakers were a man and two women.

"Her name," he heard a feminine voice say, "is Amory. She is a little married woman who flirts."

"Oh!" exclaimed the man, "that is Mrs. Amory, is it—the little Mrs. Amory? And—yes—that is Planefield with her now. He generally is with her, isn't he?"

"At present," was the answer. "Yes."

The colonel felt his blood warming. He began to think he recognized the voice of the first speaker, and when he turned found he was not mistaken. It belonged to the "great lady" who had figured prominently in the cheery little encounter whose story had been related with such vivacity the first evening he had dined with the Amorys. She had, perhaps, not enjoyed this encounter as impartially as had her opponent, and had probably not forgotten it so soon. She wore the countenance of a woman with an excellent memory, and not totally devoid of feminine prejudice. Perhaps she had been carrying her polished little stone in her pocket, and turning it occasionally ever since the memorable occasion when justice had been meted out to her not so largely tempered with mercy as the faultless in character might have desired.

"The matter gives rise to all the more comment," she remarked, "because it is something no one would have expected. Her family is entirely respectable. She was a Miss Herrick, and though she has always been a gay little person, she has been quite cleverly prudent. Her acquaintances are only just beginning to realize the state of affairs, and there is a great division of opinion, of course. The Westoria lands have dazzled the husband, it is supposed, as he is a person given to projects, and he has dazzled her—and the admirer is to be made use of."

The man—a quiet, elderly man, with an astutely humorous countenance—glanced after Bertha as she disappeared into the supper-room. She held her roses to her face, and her eyes smiled over them as Planefield bent to speak to her.

"It is a tremendous affair,—that Westoria business," he said. "And it is evident she has dazzled the admirers. There is a good deal of life and color, and—audacity about her, isn't there?"

"There is plenty of audacity," responded his companion with calmness. "I think that would be universally admitted, though it is occasionally referred to as wit and self-possession."

"But she has been very much liked," timorously suggested the third member of the group, who was younger and much less imposing. "And—and I feel sure I have heard women admire her as often as men."

"A great deal may be accomplished by cleverness and prudence of that particular kind," was the answer. "And, as I said, she has been both prudent and clever."

"It isn't pleasant to think about," remarked the man. "She will lose her friends and—and all the rest of it, and may gain nothing in the end. But I suppose there is a good deal of that sort of thing going on here. We outsiders hear it said so, and are given to believing the statement."

"It does not usually occur in the class to which this case belongs," was the response. "The female lobbyist is generally not so—not so"—

"Not so picturesque as she is painted," ended her companion with a laugh. "Well, I consider myself all the more fortunate in having seen this one who is picturesque, and has quite a charming natural color of her own."