In the cool of the morning, and often at night when the gulf breeze was blowing, I leaned back from my labor to muse upon the Senator's peculiar attitude toward me. A certain sort of innocence or honor had unquestionably blunted his eyesight and wrapped his reason in a silken gauze, but he had seen and felt the interference of his daughter's husband. And now why should he have pressed me to come again to his house, even though the wife were away? The old woman had said that he was trying to find a way that might lead to an easy apology. Apology for what? A husband's clumsy resentment. And did he not know that my entering the house again could easily be construed as a connivance on his part? The politician is so absorbed a student of man and his masculine ways that sometimes he may be forgetful of the delicate film that surrounds a woman's name. But in the South a woman's name is so secure that what in colder regions might be a film is here a sheet of steel; and overconfidence might seem a want of due consideration.

One evening I heard a slow and heavy step on the stair; and I waited, annoyed and nervous with the deliberate and solemn approach of the unwelcome visitor. I counted the steps, wondering when they would cease. I threw down my pen and got out of my chair. There was a shuffling of awkward feet at the open door.

"Come in, Washington," I cried, and when he had entered I turned angrily upon him.

"Oh, you have come to reproach me, to prove to my face that I am a liar."

He had dropped his hat upon entering the door, and now he stood with his head bowed meekly.

"Mr. Belford, if your heart smites you, don't blame me."

"But you have come to bid it smite me."

"No, but to ease it if it has been smiting you."

"Ah, sit down, Washington."

"I prefer to stand."

"But pick up your hat. Your humility embarrasses me."

"Let it lie there, Mr. Belford."

"Well, can't you do something? Damn it—"

"Mr. Belford, I don't ask you to respect me, but I command you to respect my holy calling."

"Rot! Well, go on; I do respect it. I beg your pardon. But why do you come here to hit me with the moral sandbag of a priest? Don't you know that any calling can be made offensive?"

"The gospel is always offensive to the sinner."

"Look here, you black impostor, I'll not put up with your insolence. Get out."

He stepped backward to the door, took up his hat, put it under his arm, and bowed to me.

"Wait a moment, Washington. Confound it, you always make me strut and talk like an actor. Let's get down off our high horses and turn them loose to graze. What did you come to say?"

"I came to beg you not to be worried because you were not able to keep your word with me."

"That's kind, but how do you know I was not able to keep it?"

"Old Miss Patsey told me that the Senator brought you home with him."

"And you know that she was not at home."

"Yes, I knew that she was over at the State capital, with her husband."

"They didn't tell me where she was."

"No, it was not necessary. They do not blame you," he added, after a moment's pause.

"Then you are the only one who does blame me, except, perhaps, the Treasurer."

"Yes, the Treasurer who locked up the money of the State but forgot that a diamond was within reach of—"

"A thief," I suggested, and he bowed his head.

"Washington," said I, "you tell me that the Senator is blind and that the young woman herself does not suspect—" He shut me off with his uplifted hand.

"What I said then and what might exist now are two different things."

"Ah, then she does know now; she has gathered some of the wisdom that you have strewn about. You had seized the opportunity to be wise, and I had hoped that you would be harmless. But your wisdom is offensive. It seems that you would rejoice to have a hold on me."

"For what purpose, Mr. Belford?"

"Well, it isn't very clearly defined."

"No, Sir, and it never can be. Perhaps, after all, my discovery, if you please to call it such, wasn't due to wisdom but to an animal instinct. And even then it was a venture. You could have denied it better."

He came walking slowly forward, with his eyes fixed upon my writing-table.

"That is one thing I can't learn to do well," he said, gazing at my work. "My hand was too hard and stiff from labor before I went to school."

"Then you don't write your sermons?"

"No, Sir, and Peter didn't write his."

"But you went to a college and Peter didn't."

"Ah, but Paul was learned of men, and Paul was the Master's greatest follower."

"Washington, you are surely a remarkable man. How old were you at the time you entered the university?"

"I don't know, Mr. Belford; I don't know how old I am now."

"Well, I have fought against you, but I can't help believing that you are sincere. Here are five dollars for your church."

"Thankee, Sah; bleeged ter yer, Sah. I—I—I am profoundly grateful, Sir," he hastened to add, bowing in humiliation. "You must pardon the rude echo of my father's tongue. Good-night."