THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE 
 SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 BEING A TALE OF WASHINGTON LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 MELVILLE PHILIPS 
 
 F. TENNYSON NEELY 
 
 PUBLISHER 
 
 LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 Copyrighted, 189, 
 
 in the 
 United States 
 
 and 
 Great Britain, 
 
 by 
 F. TENNYSON NKBLT. 
 
 (All Rights Reserved.)
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Yes, salt tears for the bitter truth ; 
 
 'Tis hard, dear heart, so very hard. 
 I sought thee in my early youth, 
 
 And now I find thee lock'd and barr'd. 
 
 SONG OP THE LAGGABD. 
 
 PAXSON knew she would be there. He 
 had come, indeed, at a considerable profes 
 sional cost, solely to see her; he had thrilled 
 for a week in anticipation. 
 
 Now, as their hands met, she seemed to 
 crush with her warm fingers the reviving 
 flame of their romance. So steady and cool 
 and curious, indeed, was the gaze he gave 
 
 (3) 
 
 1732702
 
 4 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 her, that she colored under it in pretty con 
 fusion. 
 
 " After so many years," she murmured. 
 
 " Five," said he, computing fleetly. " It 
 seems five ages to me. For you " . 
 
 " For me ? Yes " she coaxed. 
 
 He smiled. " What nice little thing can 
 I say to you? I've been out of practice so 
 long. ... In five years, I may say, you 
 seem only to have passed through the fire 
 as a piece of painted porcelain does. I note 
 but a softening of tints. . . . You burn 
 well. It's a trick of yours." 
 
 His tone was new to her, and she relished 
 it not. " Don't, please," she said ; " that is 
 not like you, at all. If you think I have had 
 no sorrow, you are mistaken; if my face tells 
 you that, it lies. No, don't sneer I know 
 what you would say. If I am not in mourn- 
 ing " 
 
 " I had no thought of sneering," said Pax- 
 son, gently. "I've been bred to mourn, you 
 may remember; don't mention that. One
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 5 
 
 may go to the graveyard four times and each 
 time drop a quarter of one's heart on the 
 black coffin, and yet one shall not be heart 
 less. You may feel as black as crepe to-day, 
 but to-morrow ! Don't you see it's the birds, 
 and the flowers, and the air, and, and the 
 blood. It's natural that grief should grow 
 grey." 
 
 " You talk so wisely," she said, smiling at 
 him, and with lowered eyelids slowly search 
 ing his face the old compelling manner, so 
 potent to him once, so full of enchanting 
 memories now. " But you always did talk 
 wisely." 
 
 " I wish I could say I have always acted 
 BO." 
 
 " In a certain sense you have, and acted 
 well." 
 
 "There," he laughed, "we are launched 
 upon an argument which is bound to take us 
 to sea ; but " 
 
 He stopped because the shadow of a face 
 fell between them, and as he glanced aside,
 
 6 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 she hurriedly said to this shadow : " So you 
 came, my dear ? " Then : " Mr. Paxson, 
 you remember Mr. Rogers? You must call 
 upon us." 
 
 The shadow said " Yes," almost inaudibly ; 
 and then as Paxson looked upon the man 
 before him, the first frost of his own manner 
 melted in the winking of an eyelid. A thin, 
 tired and yellowish face, plain-shaven ; a 
 bent back ; brilliant grey eyes set far in and 
 blazing out with an expression that was half 
 challenge arid half petition ; a mere wreck of 
 a once mobile mouth, now aquiver, and 
 askew ; long arms and lank hair. So this was 
 Rogers. Looking from the man to his radi 
 ant mate, Paxson drew a sharp breath. 
 Verily here was but the shadow of a hus 
 band- indeed. And she 
 
 Both men embraced her with their eyes, 
 but her own met Paxson's and his came sud 
 denly back to the face of the husband, and 
 oh! the pity and pathos of the expression 
 ( be saw there,
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 7 
 
 " The senator," Rogers said, and then she 
 looked at him with a gleam of interest and 
 held out her hand to Paxson. 
 
 "Yes, he's here; we'll find him at once. 
 I'll see you later," she added to Paxson. "If 
 not, come to us soon ; come to-morrow." 
 Then she moved away, the most luscious 
 beauty he had ever seen. Her white satin 
 gown, fashioned with severe simplicity, 
 sheathed her tall form like the white leaves 
 of a rose in bud. Her slender arms were 
 bare to the shoulder, and from her breast 
 floated mists of old Mechlin, and about her 
 waist wound a girdle of old silver studded 
 with turquoise, the long ends of which 
 swayed with a soft sound as she moved. 
 
 Mrs. Rogers attracted the attention of al 
 most every one in her immediate environ 
 ment, and almost everybody of consequence 
 in Washington was present or expected at 
 the White House that evening. Congress 
 was on, of course, and its motley membership 
 was sprinkled everywhere, showing bravely,
 
 8 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 here in a fine rustic figure of a man, gro 
 tesquely ill-at-ease in evening clothes, and 
 there in a dapper insignificant who loomed 
 suddenly portentous once one knew him to be 
 the divine voice of so many thousand votes; 
 or then again in the orotund personage, 
 plainly present under protest, whose depre 
 catory smile of enjoyment served to elevate 
 an ancient jest into a brilliant bon-mot, re 
 newing its value, indeed, and setting it in 
 circulation, as if by act of government. It 
 is needless to say that the military, particu 
 larly the military whose age permitted en 
 viable license of talk ; that the representa 
 tives of foreign potentates, mostly tired 
 about the eyes or supercilious about the 
 mouth, yet quite active in saying two-faced 
 things to married women who used their 
 fans as weapons or screens; or that the 
 subordinate horrors, the attaches, who get 
 on so famously by reason of their forms or 
 uniforms, needless to say that these were 
 there.
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 9 
 
 Outside the White House, the grounds 
 were alive with people on foot and people in 
 carriages, creeping along in a line that trailed 
 away a mile. Not all of these could possibly 
 have received the president's card ; but they 
 came just the same, and were there on terms 
 of equality with the best of those who had 
 been formally bidden. The portico was 
 packed densely with men and women in 
 evening dress, many of them curious visitors 
 from distant cities ; officers of the army and 
 navy giving here and there a touch of color 
 to the monotonous black and white. No 
 precedence was yielded in the procession; 
 there was little forward motion to it ; and, 
 at times, when the inner halls and rooms be 
 came blocked, the doors would be closed and 
 the long swaying line of bare necked women 
 and grumbling men would come to a halt. 
 Outside, one shivered, for a fine snow was 
 falling ; within, one steamed. 
 
 It was after an experience of pushing and 
 punching which had destroyed his dignity
 
 10 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 quite and torn his temper to shreds, that 
 Paxson had reached the coat room to find it 
 rammed full of clamoring men. To check 
 his things was an impossibility, so he jetti 
 soned them in a corner, and forced his way 
 to the hall. And there he had met and 
 talked with Mrs. Rogers. Now, as she 
 moved forward, he looked dismally about 
 him. Women were massed in the small en 
 closure, and banked up on the stairway, 
 waiting, most of them, for their lost escorts. 
 At irregular intervals the guards in front 
 would fall back, and the pent-up women, 
 thrust on by the few men who had got in 
 line, would plunge toward the opening, as 
 do gallery gods struggling for the box office. 
 In, this way Paxson had gained the room in 
 the farther doorway of which the presiden 
 tial party was receiving, when a well-built 
 'man to his right, very tall and straight in 
 the uniform of a naval lieutenant of the line, 
 turned to him with a twinkling expression 
 about his black eyes and bearded lips,
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 11 
 
 " How d'ye do, Paxson," he said. " This 
 isn't disgraceful, is it?" 
 
 " Quite a case of sardines," said Paxson. 
 "The penalty of political greatness and 
 social equality. I like it." 
 
 "I don't," said the lieutenant emphatic 
 ally, glancing at his rumpled shirt. " Seen 
 anything of Mrs. Alcott?" 
 
 Paxson was about to say he had not, when 
 the lieutenant answered the touch of a fan 
 upon his shoulder and faced his wife. She 
 was a singularly sweet-faced woman, of a 
 rare blonde type; flawless of skin, blue-eyed, 
 and dowered with hair that kept its golden 
 lustre even under the search of the electric 
 lights. Looking at her, Paxson thought 
 how utterly out of place she was ; and his 
 mind, leaping thence to meadows and brooks 
 and the fair pure things of the life from 
 which he knew she had sprung, came sud 
 denly back to the crowded room and the 
 contemplation of the suave, smooth man be 
 fore him. In his heart there wag a feeling
 
 12 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 he would have been at a loss to define, and 
 the lieutenant equally at a loss to compre 
 hend. 
 
 " Isn't is terrible ? " she said, including 
 them both in a tranquil glance. Her gentle 
 voice and reposeful carriage curiously belied 
 the accusative question. 
 
 " I'd go no further," the lieutenant said, 
 "if Fabian tactics were possible; but it's 
 quite as easy to advance as retreat. Then 
 there's the plain duty ahead of us of assist 
 ing in the assassination of the president. 
 As self-respecting citizens, Paxson, we can't 
 afford to shirk it." 
 
 They were preparing, with a sense of per 
 sonal disgrace, to fall into the ranks of their 
 fellow-conspirators, when Paxson, marching 
 behind, saw Lieutenant Alcott lean forward 
 and speak to a noticeably ddcollete' woman, 
 walking alone immediately in front of him. 
 She turned sideways, nodding to Mrs. Al 
 cott, and the next instant the lieutenant had 
 stepped to her side, and Paxson had taken
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 13 
 
 his place beside the deserted wife. Mrs. 
 Alcott looked up in his face and smiled. 
 
 "Isn't Janet Burgess dazzling to-night?" 
 she said, and her serenity of expression baf 
 fled him. Then they passed on and were 
 announced. The lieutenant and Mrs. Bur 
 gess coolly surveyed the faces of the women 
 seated in rows behind the president, and 
 nodded a recognition here and there. They 
 waited for the other two in the room beyond, 
 and then pretty Mrs. Burgess, taking Pax- 
 son's arm, asked softly with her famous ob 
 lique look, " Have you seen her yet ? " 
 
 "Whom?" 
 
 " Is there more than one ? " 
 
 She was all he feared in woman, but he 
 could not stand out against the laughing 
 mockery of her eyes. 
 
 " You mean your friend Mrs. Rogers, I 
 suppose," said he. " Yes, I have seen her ; 
 she is looking regal." 
 
 " My friend ? Ah, Mr. Paxson ! " 
 
 If not manly, let us avow that it is at least
 
 14 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 distinctly human for one to experience some 
 degree of satisfaction in such a reminder of 
 vanished conquest as carries with it the sug 
 gestion of present power. Paxson looked 
 with some relenting upon the woman on his 
 arm. 
 
 "Why," said he, abruptly, "don't you 
 write a story ? Call it ' Telling the Truth.' 
 It would be a beautiful fiction." 
 
 " You interest me. Men always do when 
 they are good enough to take me as a topic. 
 Do you really think I could write a readable 
 story ? " 
 
 " I can't go so far as to say that. It's 
 likely you lack the patience. But I believe 
 you have a story to tell." 
 
 She gave him a radiant smile ; without 
 knowing it, he had flattered her immensely. 
 
 " You mean to say I'm a woman with a 
 past instead of a future ? No," she laughed, 
 "don't explain it away. You're quite right; 
 and a past, my dear Mr. Paxson, you'd never 
 dream of. Come, let us be fair. If I have
 
 15 
 
 a story to tell, perhaps you are the man to 
 tell it. Wouldn't it be odd if, by giving you 
 my past, I'd help you to a future?" 
 
 They had drifted to a corner beyond reach 
 of the eddying currents of the throng, and 
 he took her words in the spirit of their ut 
 terance, and, though she vexed him greatly, 
 he tried a superior smile upon her. But she 
 looked up at him most earnestly, saying 
 "Will you?" 
 
 Then he laughed outright, as men outwit 
 ted do, and, looking away from her, saw and 
 hailed the Alcotts. 
 
 " After all," said the lieutenant, dolefully, 
 " there is no place like home." 
 
 The quick, wistful expression that came 
 over the face of Mrs. Alcott escaped him, 
 but Paxson noted it and turned to her. 
 
 " What do you think of that ? " he asked. 
 
 "I? Oh, yes, indeed. I'm not fond of 
 
 going out. The children, and Do you 
 
 go in for this sort of thing, Mr. Paxson ? " 
 
 " Once in a very long while, to be reminded
 
 16 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 of the folly of it. I came on to Washington 
 for this, because ... ." Here he stared 
 doubtfully at the floor, and put his hands in 
 his pockets. "Still, as a spectacle, it isn't 
 bad, is it? Rather profuse display of bun 
 ting, and a little too much brass band, per 
 haps . . . ." 
 
 He dribbled along in that vein, but she did 
 not hear him, albeit she was smiling up at 
 him with an unclouded and apparently at 
 tentive face. Suddenly she turned to Mrs. 
 Burgess with challenge in her eyes and voice. 
 " You go too far, quite too far ; all women 
 are not that ; I know it." 
 
 The lieutenant tried to laugh, but only 
 succeeded in showing his teeth. Mrs. Bur 
 gess, beaming upon Mrs. Alcott, said sooth 
 ingly, " I forgot you, my dear." Then, with 
 the oblique glance on Paxson, she added : 
 "Isn't the judgment of a journalist final? 
 What type of our sex do you particularly 
 admire, Mr. Paxson?" 
 
 " The American type."
 
 SENATORS WIFE 17 
 
 " To be sure. I didn't raeau that, and I 
 don't mean types of beauty either. You 
 know Kindly explain, lieutenant." 
 
 "I fancy," said Alcott, slowly, " that Mrs. 
 Burgess has in mind " 
 
 " Bad women and good women," quietly 
 interposed his wife. 
 
 "Oh, no, my dear," laughed Mrs. Burgess, 
 " nothing of the kind. Are there really bad 
 women ? I don't know that. I just said to 
 the lieutenant that all women are alike 
 what do you call those clever Frenchmen : 
 Opportunists ? " 
 
 " I don't take you exactly," said Paxson. 
 " Perhaps you mean that all women are 
 bound to a certain allegiance, and that some 
 declare their independence, while others 
 don't arid don't wish to. If you mean that, 
 I suppose you are right. I always pity the 
 rebels myself and esteem the loyalists. Op 
 portunism ? I only know of certain ma- 
 nceuvers in French politics; they haven't 
 amounted to much, have they?"
 
 18 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 Mrs. Burgess, not in the least disconcerted, 
 tapped him with her fan. "1 knew you'd 
 give us an opinion, and I shrewdly suspected 
 an adverse one. Mrs. Alcott is sustained. 
 Ah, here comes Senator Bunce, with Mrs. 
 Rogers ; had I asked him 
 
 Paxson knew the portly figure and saluted 
 it, and moving around bent over Mrs. 
 Rogers' extended hand. Regal she was, in 
 deed, and his real greeting of her was by the 
 eye. 
 
 " Senator," Mrs. Burgess was saying, "tell 
 me, are women Opportunists? " 
 
 " Decidedly, madam, decidedly ; the clever 
 est in the world." 
 
 A big man he was and an oily. Benevo 
 lence shone, or rather shot, from the water 
 battery intrenched in a forehead which 
 beetled and bristled. Otherwise than over 
 the eyes the senator was hairless, (unless we 
 quibble and call the wig his own) ; for the 
 fat cheeks fell in smooth folds to the neck, 
 the lips were naked, as they should be, to the
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 19 
 
 open smile which always sat upon them, a 
 smile before which the chin retreated mildly, 
 bare as a bone. One thing the senator had 
 superbly a voice. If there was naught 
 angelic in his form or face, he certainly 
 spoke as an archangel might, and in tones to 
 discomfit Gabriel. His constituents and the 
 tariff between them, had damaged him badly 
 as a parlor companion. He was always on 
 the stump. 
 
 And so you see him in the White House 
 now, swelling sonorous before Mrs. Burgess, 
 as lately within the day he had swollen in 
 the Senate. As well cork one's ears against 
 the cry of the lightning as try to stand 
 heedless within range of the senator's elo 
 quence. 
 
 " You will come to me to-morrow ? " Mrs. 
 Rogers asked, with a highly agreeable in 
 tonation as of pleading. 
 
 " I will," said Paxson, briskly. He would 
 have pushed the talk, and he was moved to 
 friendly speech with the melancholy Rogers,
 
 20 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 who had stepped toward them, but Senator 
 Bunce had lifted up his voice and all meaner 
 men within sound of it must be stricken 
 dumb. 
 
 " In a sense," he was saying, " you are all 
 Opportunists. The opportunity of a woman, 
 madam, is the slavery of some man. A 
 woman is a sphinx, a Gordian knot, you 
 must cut her heart-strings to find her secret. 
 We don't know you ; we never shall ; eh, 
 Rogers ? But the pursuit of you is like the 
 pursuit of knowledge ; does the hopelessness 
 of complete attainment check the ardor of 
 the true lover or student ? Paxson, you 
 know your Balzac ; where is it in the ' Peau 
 de Chagrin ' that the master tells us : ' Let 
 a man meet with a woman who does not love 
 him, or a woman who loves him too well, and 
 his" life is forever spoiled ' ? Are you Oppor 
 tunists ? If that were only all you are ! In 
 affairs of the heart aren't you cormorants ? 
 When men take their own lives because of 
 you, are you more shocked than gratified ?
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 2t 
 
 Is the spectacle of a wrecked sweet-heart 
 more " 
 
 And through all of this the senator was 
 smiling sweetly ; but here Mrs. Burgess 
 flaunted her fan in his face. 
 
 " Blasphemer," she said, " you're as trans 
 parent as a window pane. We're supposed 
 to adore the men who denounce us, aren't 
 we ? But we don't. Ask Mrs. Rogers. And 
 there are men who find us faultless, or better 
 than that with all our faults. Tell him so." 
 She turned to Paxson. 
 
 " Oh," said he, " let us say indispensable, 
 not faultless, and be comfortably accurate. 
 It isn't for me to pass on women yet ; I'm 
 still pegging away at the alphabet of my 
 own sex, and have only got to I." 
 
 " Modest Mr. Paxson," courtesied Mrs. 
 Burgess. " And you, lieutenant ; are you 
 further advanced ? " 
 
 Before he could reply this sentiment 
 trickled slowly from the region of Mr. Rog 
 ers : " Good women can be cruel to men.
 
 22 TOE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 they love ; they are merciless to men they 
 don't love. One woman of the world in a 
 hundred appreciates a true man, and she is 
 likely to suspect him. The rest regard him 
 as a bore, until they find themselves growing 
 old, and then they try to torture him." 
 
 Everybody looked at Rogers, and Rogers, 
 by token of the confusion which came sud 
 denly over him, was looking in upon himself 
 with an eye of distrust and dismay. 
 
 " Women of the world, my dear ? " said 
 Mrs. Rogers. " Who are they ? " 
 
 " They are of the earth," said the senator ; 
 " and are the salt thereof." Whereupon he 
 mounted the stump, and there we may leave 
 him, adroitly piecing the remnants of after- 
 dinner addresses and certain remembered 
 shreds from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 
 into a very pretty patchwork. The which 
 Paxson shunned, and slyly making his escape 
 found refuge in a corner. There, quite com 
 fortably, he remained as spectator of a show 
 which one is sure to find, for the first time,
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 23 
 
 rarely amusing. He noted the women par 
 ticularly, and as a body they were note 
 worthy indeed. He closed his eyes at times 
 and enjoyed the sport of catching the frag, 
 ments of talk which floated his way ; it was 
 fun to pick up an isolated phrase and run 
 out its clue. 
 
 He had so amused himself for upward of 
 half an hour, when the steadily moving 
 stream before him slowly paused, and then 
 set as a refluent tide straight in his direction. 
 The attractive cause was immediately at 
 hand : with a sudden hush of voices and 
 quickened crash of musical metal came the 
 exit of the presidential party. The proces 
 sion was slow but not imposing ; the figures 
 in it plain but not stately ; and Paxson, 
 craning his neck to see, first smiled and then 
 smoothing out his face felt ashamed of him 
 self. Yet it strained the imagination to see 
 in the president and his entourage some sign 
 or symbol of the majest}'- of sixty million 
 souls, free as air. He was trying to realize
 
 24 
 
 this, when from over his shoulder came the 
 tones of a voice which had been sweeping 
 his heart strings all the evening. 
 
 " That is, I may tell him it is prob 
 able " 
 
 "Say, possible." 
 
 " But think, senator. . . . It is noth 
 ing to you ... a word or two . 
 to him ! " 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Rogers, everything of the 
 kind means more to me than you can fancy. 
 You don't seem to understand ; he does, I'm 
 sure. There must be no appearance Ah, 
 Paxson, well met again ; we missed you. 
 You are of a privileged profession, sir, else 
 I would stab you with a scriptural warning : 
 'Miss not the discourse of the elders.'" 
 
 "That's rather rough on Mrs. Rogers, isn't 
 it?" said Paxson, looking curiously at her 
 the while. Her face, as smilingly inscru 
 table as the senator's, was turned toward 
 Rogers, who, with the others, came slowly- 
 forward,
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 25 
 
 " I spoke for myself, sir," said the senator, 
 "and in a legislative sense. Bat you are 
 more than a privileged person ; you are one 
 of us. Do you know, Paxson, there's an 
 idea to which I propose some day to give 
 public utterance. Fact. Look out for it." 
 
 "May I ask what it is?" interposed the 
 lieutenant. 
 
 The senator swept his face with a sur 
 prised stare, and coming round to Paxson 
 again went on : " I would like the newspaper 
 men of the United States to know what I 
 think of them." 
 
 "Oh," said Mrs. Burgess, "but wouldn't it 
 be nicer to know what the newspaper men of 
 the United States think of you?" 
 
 Senator Bunce smiled down upon her as he 
 might upon an irresponsible and irrepressible 
 child. " Because," said he, " it's my opinion 
 that they can't think too highly of them 
 selves or be too highly thought of by the 
 public at large. They are the tiers etat. 
 Paxson, bear that in mind ; " and the senator
 
 26 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 in extending his hand and in gripping Pax- 
 son's very hard seemed to say with his eyes : 
 And remember, too, that I have said it. 
 
 The four men went on together to the 
 coat room, and there, in the struggle for 
 raiment, two things by no means remarkable 
 in themselves were yet remarked with inter 
 est by Paxson. The first was, that Rogers, 
 having nailed his coat and hat, drew the 
 senator aside and spoke to him rapidly, and, 
 whatever the reply he got, it smote him 
 hard, for he bowed his head to it and went 
 away in the crush without saying good-bye. 
 The other was, that, meanwhile, the lieu 
 tenant, taking up the senator's tile buzzed in 
 it like a bee, peered into it with mock 
 amazement, shook hands cordially with Pax- 
 son, and went mincingly away, muttering 
 between his teeth : " To be, or not to be."
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 27 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 At twelve, with blazing eye, he stirred with prophecy, 
 And tossed his head. " I'll be," he said, 
 " A Captain Kidd, with bigger crew a Roderick Dhu, 
 The Lady of the Lake my sweetheart make." 
 
 Though very young he spake the knightly tongue. 
 
 THE RAKE'S PROGRESS. 
 
 PERHAPS our young friend, Noel Paxson, 
 was weakest in the feeble sense he had of 
 his own strength. Most powerful men are. 
 The best thing he had done at Harvard (out 
 side of the Hasty Pudding), was to row 
 stroke in a winning 'Varsity crew ; but it is 
 surely something to be graduated the biggest 
 and best-liked man in a numerous and no 
 table class. 
 
 Noel had been one of the kind of boys, 
 bulky and promising in their knickerbockers, 
 whom women of middle age admire ; the 
 kind at eighteen, brown arid brawny, whom
 
 28 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 the estimable elect devoted to plain living 
 and high thinking or is it sly living and in 
 ane thinking ? overtly ignore and covertly 
 envy. Born admirably and brought up as 
 well, perhaps the best part of Noel's breeding 
 (his mother having perished in giving him 
 birth), was idly directed by a profane brother 
 in the Rocky Mountains. That is to say, Mr. 
 Archibald Paxson largely trusted the future 
 of his youngest son to the efficiency of re 
 fined blood, the transmission of his own 
 polite tendencies and the grace of God. He 
 was as fond of the boy as a bereaved wid 
 ower of unforgiving disposition could very 
 well be ; but so much of his heart and his 
 time and his money had been alread} r en 
 grossed by the five sons who preceded Noel, 
 that there can be really small wonder at the 
 father's languid interest in the child whose 
 coming had cost him so much. For at fifty, 
 Mr. Archibald Paxson had come tardily to a 
 sense of the superlative sweetness of the 
 woman he had married ; and when she lay as
 
 29 
 
 clay before him, arid he looked upon the 
 mouth that had always smiled to see him, 
 and remembered how, for thirty years, he 
 had kissed it with that magnanimous air as 
 of a favor reluctantly bestowed he felt as 
 a weakling and contrite recusant might, 
 brought face to face with his king ; and he 
 did a thing which must be at once the most 
 piteous and the most gratifying sight in the 
 eyes of God. What that is all married men 
 should know. 
 
 But the funeral over, here he was, a man 
 of sorrowful past, presently afflicted with 
 gout and an infant. A pretty tale we might 
 make of it, the succeeding years of Noel's 
 infancy, the father's perfunctory atten 
 tions, and the ostentatious neglect of the 
 grown or growing brothers, counteracting 
 the loud praises of nurse, and governess, and 
 tutor. All that, however, is to be imagined 
 save one incident from which dated a change 
 in the attitude of the father. It was at Bar 
 Harbor, before society had spoiled one of
 
 30 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 the loveliest sites by the sea, when Mr. 
 Archibald Paxsou was dozing in a steamer 
 chair on his lawn. Suddenly a bronze mite 
 of a soul in kilts popped out from the hedge 
 and stared at him fixedly. Mr. Paxson was 
 revolving it is a customary solecism to 
 speak of a sluggish mind as a revolver the 
 timely question of the expediency of buying 
 Northern Central Preferred. (We have 
 neglected to mention the business of Mr. 
 Paxson because it was, perhaps, the least im 
 portant thing about him.) The child's gaze 
 was compelling. Mr. Paxson rolled about 
 in his chair and looked out to sea. 
 
 " Papa." It was not said timidly ; but so 
 boldly, indeed, that attention was demanded 
 and given. Mr. Paxson frowned, but was 
 pleased to note that the personal appearance 
 of his youngest was filthy ; for he held chil 
 dren to be uninteresting when either godly 
 or clean. 
 
 " Go away, Noel," he said. " Papa's think 
 ing."
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 31 
 
 It could hardly have been that the child 
 by the quick intensity of his gaze meant to 
 convey to his parent the idea that the proc 
 ess of thinking in that quarter was an un 
 usual and deeply interesting phenomenon. 
 But Mr. Paxson was a sensitive man, and he 
 resented the inquisitive expression his re 
 mark had called into Noel's face. 
 
 " Do you hear? " he insisted, sternly. " Go 
 away ; I'm thinking." 
 
 Noel backed off a few yards, with his eyes 
 still fixed on his parent's face. 
 
 " Noel ! " shouted Mr. Archibald Paxson ; 
 " I'll not tell you again. Go away, I'm 
 thinking." 
 
 "What you thinkin' 'bout, papa?" 
 
 " Oh, my God ! " said Paxson, suddenly 
 conscious under the calm stare of his offspring 
 that he was thinking about nothing at all. 
 Then little Noel, all intent upon the obser 
 vation of any symptoms which might indi 
 cate to him the nature of thought as prac 
 ticed by his father, was greatly surprised at
 
 32 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 being caught up in the air and hugged against 
 a white and perfumed beard. After that he 
 was made to feel like one of the family. 
 
 Noel's collegiate career, as we have men 
 tioned, was, in a sense, successful ; and if he 
 had entertained doubts of the wisdom of em 
 ploying his head and his hands as he did at 
 Harvard, they certainly disappeared on that 
 famous day in June when he helped to make 
 the banks at New London ring with the tri 
 umphant cry and flame with the exulting 
 colors of the crimson. Thereafter he rested 
 on his oars. He was not exceptionally lazy, 
 but like most young men of superior build, 
 he felt placidly assured of immortality. With 
 abundance of time, therefore, and enough of 
 money, he took no note of the expenditure 
 of either. He was, of course, sensible of his 
 rare corporeal gifts, but was, in a vague way, 
 rather grateful for, than proud of them. As 
 to the capableness of his head, he felt no 
 alarm ; he was conspicuously ready of speech, 
 and wrote with tolerable ease and grace. So
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 33 
 
 when his father spoke to him in a casual way, 
 the summer following his graduation, con 
 cerning his intentions, Noel scarcely grasped 
 the problem. 
 
 " What do I think of taking up with? " he 
 repeated. " Why, I haven't thought much 
 about it. What are your views, sir? " 
 
 Mr. Paxson really had none. The other 
 sons had found their callings without much 
 aid or concern of his. The dead mother's 
 estate had placed all of them, save Noel, be 
 yond the possibilities of want ; and so far as 
 Noel was concerned, a man like that could 
 make his way in any direction he chose. The 
 son's future troubled the father as little as it 
 did himself. 
 
 But time, it has been observed by more 
 than one contrite fool, has an odious trick of 
 waiting for no man. Noel cared nothing at 
 all about it ; he had yet to reach that mem 
 orable period in life when one tastes anew 
 the pleasures of hope in reading how certain 
 celebrities have achieved distinction late in
 
 34 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 life. The time was, as yet, happily far off 
 for him when he should know the morbid 
 satisfaction of reading the death notices in 
 the daily papers. He was soon to realize, 
 however, in a professional way, the univer 
 sality of this mature taste among men and 
 women, and the commercial use to which the 
 canny advertiser puts it. But time, we say, 
 took as little notice of young Mr. Paxson as 
 young Mr. Paxson took of it. Autumn and 
 winter went swiftly ; there was a rather ex 
 pensive flight abroad the succeeding spring 
 and summer, and when, after that Mr. Arch 
 ibald Paxson was smoothly asked by his 
 hopeful son for an advance of a thousand 
 dollars as portion of an athletic fund forming 
 by Harvard graduates for some excellent but, 
 to the eye of gouty age, rather unremunera- 
 tive purposes, he clapped his hand to his 
 pocket, stared hard at the heroic figure of his 
 boy, and took a long pull at the Madeira. 
 
 " Noel," said he, by no means unkindly, 
 "I've been an ass. I'm not going to com-
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 35 
 
 plain ; it's all my fault. But I want you to 
 brace up. It won't do. You've had your 
 fling now. You'll not deny that. And I'm 
 not going to deny that you've flung yourself 
 very well." Then, noting the unaffected ex 
 pression of astonishment on his son's face, he 
 hastily added : " Fill your glass. Here's to 
 your success in the law. I want you to be 
 gin in your brother's office at once. You're 
 a born lawyer, Noel, as sure as I'm your 
 father. I'll give you the thousand but 
 you've got to earn it." 
 
 So Noel was duly entered as a student at 
 law, and for full three months he attended 
 lectures and read text-books; and then he 
 decided quite firmly that he would have no 
 more of it ; and after that he passed the days 
 in a manner more to his liking. There was 
 no pressing necessity of telling his father. 
 He asked the opinion of his college chum, 
 Yorke, in the matter, and they both agreed 
 that it would be a thoroughly brutal thing to 
 do. Yorke, placed under almost similar cir-
 
 36 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 cumstances, thought to.o much of his parent 
 to annoy him with confidences concerning 
 his own petty affairs ; and Noel proved 
 equally considerate. Hence it was quite con 
 venient for them to meet in the mornings at 
 the Rittenhouse Club, and over luncheon to 
 devise ways and means of passing the even 
 ings together with pleasure if not with 
 profit. 
 
 Now it would be folly to suppose that in 
 all this time Noel had been impeccable. He 
 had known the restlessness of desire to sin, 
 and the eating remorse that follows sinning. 
 More than that he had loved. If he had 
 not, there were no tale for us to tell, since all 
 of this which follows came about from his 
 chance meeting, an August day by the sea, 
 with Ruth Dixon. Of the extraordinary 
 good looks of the girl there is much to say 
 anon ; but the simple fact of their falling in 
 love must be set down here. That is really 
 all there is to say of it. They fell desper 
 ately in love ; he, as experienced young men
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 37 
 
 are like to do ; she, for the first time and 
 with all the bitter-sweet yearning of a virgin 
 heart. In the very nature of things their 
 passion could not have remained permanent, 
 perhaps, even though the fates had smiled ; 
 for Miss Dixon and Noel did not move and 
 have their being on the same social plane. 
 Mr. Dixon was one of the greatest oil pro 
 ducers of Pennsylvania, a man who had 
 carved his own career as scout and driller ; 
 it is needless to say more. There were 
 obvious reasons why he should view with 
 favor the advances of young Paxson, and he 
 was, indeed, as charmed with the outlook as 
 his daughter. 
 
 It was at this juncture that disinterested 
 friends of the Paxson family congratulated 
 Mr. Archibald Paxson on the prospect of his 
 acquiring a daughter-in-law of unblemished 
 reputation and surpassing beauty. "But 
 you'll not forget us when you come into all 
 that petroleum ? " they plead. One bespake 
 a barrel of benzine another, more modestly,
 
 38 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 asked for information concerning the manu 
 facture of chewing-gum. That afternoon an 
 elderly gentleman with a very red face and a 
 very white waistcoat, went down to Atlantic 
 City. 
 
 It was a wretched business. Noel, feeling 
 like a convict, went forth from the bland 
 presence of his father, and sought the ball 
 room of the ugly big hotel. A concert was 
 on, and in the last row of chairs, near one of 
 the doors, a young girl sat between two 
 men; the elder, a stoutish person of vague 
 aspect, grey-bearded and red-skinned ; the 
 other, a thin, pallid man of middle nge. The 
 girl sat well forward in her chair, her fine 
 blonde head in profile. She seemed to divine 
 the presence of her lover, but, without look 
 ing around, reached back her hand to him 
 and kept her eyes fastened on the improvised 
 stage until the last gasp of the singer. Then 
 she turned about and her eyes shot out a 
 lover's signal. 
 
 "Isn't he splendid!" she cried, Noel,
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 39 
 
 who adored her duplicity, smiled down on 
 the lovely face his disbelief in the honesty 
 of its rapt expression. 
 
 "How d'ye do, Rogers?" he said to the 
 pallid man ; and " Mr. Dixon," pathetically, 
 to the man of oil. Then, ignoring her ques 
 tion quite he crushed the little hand he had 
 adroitly retained and concealed between the 
 chairs, and told her that she was looking un 
 speakably ravishing, or words to that effect 
 words that burned her skin. 
 
 "Ruth, Ruth," he said, in a way that 
 thrilled her ; " come away with me at once, 
 won't you ? I must see you." 
 
 She turned obediently, spoke to her father, 
 and stood up in her silken bravery, and the 
 sense of ownership was so strong upon Noel 
 as he led her along the corridor past groups 
 of staring men, that he told her he hungered 
 for her, and when she laughed at this, he did 
 not mind but reached recklessly out for her, 
 to be met with a chilling " Noel ! " that pal 
 sied his eager arms. During the brief wait
 
 40 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 for the elevator he robbed her lips just 
 once. In the drawing-room he sat a hand 
 some penitent with outstretched arms. 
 
 " Only one more," he begged. 
 
 "Not now; a dozen after awhile, if you 
 will when you're going. Let's talk first." 
 She avoided the net he spread and tripped 
 to the mirror wherein she made eyes at him 
 provokingly. Then, in a twinkling, she came 
 to him again, and Noel crushed her perfumed 
 loveliness to his chest. When he drew back 
 for an instant to look with half blind eyes 
 upon her scarlet face, she suddenly seized his 
 hands in a feverish, imperious way, and led 
 him to the divan from which he had arisen. 
 " One moment," she said, and glided from the 
 room. 
 
 It will be seen from our accurate report 
 that these lovers were not fledgelings. Pax- 
 son, in his salad days, had learned to use and 
 value aright his fine grey eyes and sonorous 
 voice. He was not, as we know, a distin 
 guished student of books, though be had
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 41 
 
 produced printable and even printed poems. 
 He was a witty, good-looking, blooded young 
 fellow of uncommon good sense, and by no 
 means blind to the social advantages he pos 
 sessed. There must be no erroneous impres 
 sion of Ruth Dixon, however. She loved Noel 
 beyond a doubt ; and, being a young woman 
 of exceptional beauty and intellect, her love 
 was as good as his, and sufficiently precious 
 in itself. Nevertheless she was an only 
 child, and her father was easily worth a 
 million, and it is no denying that for both of 
 these dispensations of providence Noel was 
 duly grateful. That is to say, he had been. 
 
 Now as he sat waiting for her, the flame 
 her physical presence had kindled was slowly 
 quenched. With bitter humiliation he re 
 membered his mission, and the well-bred 
 restraint with which his father had delivered 
 the parental mandate. Presently Ruth came 
 back, but turned the palms of both hands 
 toward him until in obedience to her mute 
 behest be kept his distance,
 
 42 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 "Now what," she said, "do you want with 
 me? No, not that; don't be trivial." 
 
 " Ruth," said Noel, solemnly, " the gov 
 ernor is against us. He'll come around, I 
 hope, but he's terrible now ; he's here." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Ruth ; and then her lips 
 closed quickly over her teeth, and she went 
 red instead of white. Whereat Noel lunged 
 toward her, but she evaded him and gained 
 the far side of the centre table. 
 
 " You see," he went on, desperately, " it's 
 rather sudden for him. We must give him 
 time. Besides " seductively, " he hasn't seen 
 you yet, you know." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Why, hang it, Ruth, that's all; and it's 
 enough. I came here to talk to you about 
 it ; to get your " 
 
 Then she clasped her hands behind her 
 and spoke to him clearly and to the point. 
 "I'm very sorry, Noel, it has happened, but 
 I'm glad it happened sooner than too late. 
 J can't do what the girl of humble origin
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 43 
 
 does in the novel. I don't want to placate 
 your father, Noel. I'm fool enough to feel 
 that it is his duty now to placate me." All 
 of which was said in a subdued and dispas 
 sionate monotone. But swiftly raising her 
 voice and advancing to him, Ruth looked 
 her bewildered lover proudly in the eye and 
 added: "Tell him, Noel, that if he doesn't 
 beg my father's pardon I wouldn't marry 
 you to save your life." Then she fled from 
 the room, and Noel for a full memorable 
 minute despised his father. 
 
 Why he went whistling down the stairs, 
 and why for the next half hour he should 
 have been thinking of Ruth not at all but of 
 a certain exquisite afternoon when he and 
 Yorke sunned themselves on the rocks at 
 Bar Harbor, we cannot pretend to tell. But 
 turning a corner of the piazza he of a sud 
 den came upon his father walking arm-in 
 arm with Dixon. Rogers followed meekly 
 behind. 
 
 "Ah, Noel," said Mr. Paxson in omi-
 
 44 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 nously fair weather voice ; and they passed 
 on. Perhaps so long as five minutes after 
 ward his father returned and patted him on 
 the shoulder. " The salt air acts like mack 
 erel after a breakfast," he said. " I'm atro 
 ciously dry, my boy. Come." 
 
 Going to the room and, later, while sit 
 ting in it and sipping wine Noel held his 
 peace. He was in no degree cowed ; neither 
 was he angry, alarmed, or at bay. Above 
 all he was curious; and he was not kept 
 waiting long. 
 
 " Noel," said Mr. Paxson, the third glass 
 out of sight ; " some twenty years from now 
 you'll know what a lucky dog you are. I'm 
 not going to tell you about it now only 
 you're free." 
 
 "Ah!" said Noel. 
 
 His father nodded upon him benignly. 
 " Dear boy, you could scarcely marry her if 
 you wished." 
 
 "If I wished!" 
 
 ** Just so, Of oourse, you might do as the
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 45 
 
 romantic mechanic does ; but I've trust in 
 your mother's son, Noel. You'll not dis 
 grace us, I'm sure." Then slowly, with his 
 replenished glass to his lips: "I dare say, my 
 boy, that she's very lovely. I don't say that 
 she's like her father ; but he seems to think 
 that if your marriage means what it must, 
 why it's impossible." Then, as Noel showed 
 disposition to talk ; " Let's drop it. He 
 thinks we were marrying for money; I think 
 they were marrying for place. We both 
 think there can be no marriage at all. Now 
 if you and I are to get on we must talk 
 about something else far more important ; 
 about yourself, my boy." 
 
 Rebelliously hot as he was, the words of 
 Ruth sang warningly in Noel's ears: "Tell 
 him if he doesn't beg my father's pardon, I 
 wouldn't marry you to save your life." And 
 the credulous young fool took her at her 
 word. 
 
 It is alone from high regard for him that 
 we let the next half hour's interview go
 
 46 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 blankly unchronicled. Granted that in it 
 there was nothing to redound to his credit, 
 mayhap there be ample atonement in the 
 narrative which follows. 
 
 " I can't be rude to you, sir," cried Noel, 
 testily ; " but I hope you'll not forget I am 
 twenty-five years old." 
 
 " I ? Isn't it you, my boy, who seem to 
 forget that?" 
 
 Upon swift reflection Noel appeared to 
 think it was. Then he stood up like a man 
 of his years. " I'll tell you, sir, exactly what 
 I'll do. If Miss Dixon will take me in spite 
 of 3'our opposition, I'll marry her. I must, 
 as a man of honor. And " very lamely 
 "I want to." 
 
 Noel noted the smile his father tried care 
 lessly to cough down, and, with a resentful 
 look, went out of the room. He sat far into 
 the night writing a letter, a very honest, 
 manly, and even pathetic appeal, which he 
 carried with his own hands to the door of 
 Ruth's chamber and slipped beneath. He
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 47 
 
 breakfasted late and in silence with his 
 father, his eyes furtively on the watch. But 
 only Rogers made his appearance, and as he 
 passed he handed Noel a small packet, say 
 ing gravely, "From Miss Dixon." There 
 was no taste to the food he ate after that, 
 and he went quite shaky in the hands until 
 the voice of his father steadied him. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 Noel opened the packet, and looking up, 
 said quietly : " It's settled, I suppose. She'll 
 not have me." There was nothing of bitter 
 ness in his tone, and Mr. Paxson was wise 
 
 
 
 enough to conceal his satisfaction in his cof 
 fee cup. But afterward, on the beach, he 
 attempted to express it handsomely, and 
 then a surprise was let loose. 
 
 " No," said Noel, firmly, " that will not do. 
 It's very good of }^ou, I'm sure, but it will 
 not work. I've been thinking it all over. 
 
 . . . I've made up my mind. The fact 
 is I dropped the law long ago ; I'm no good 
 at it. Until I until I
 
 48 
 
 came here, Yorke and I had thought of run 
 ning a coach this summer out to the Country 
 Club, and, afterward, of doing the Carib 
 bean in his yacht. He would take the pic 
 tures, you see, and I'd write it up, but " 
 
 '"Write it up'?" murmured Mr. Paxson. 
 " What the devil do you know about writ 
 ing ? " Then, wonderingly : " Write it up ? 
 But what for ? " 
 
 " That's just it," said Noel. " What for? 
 The thing's been overdone. Mortimer told 
 us that. There's nothing in it. So I've de- 
 . cided to stay at home and write ; I'm going 
 the whole hog. I don't suppose you'll be 
 prostrated with joy, but my mind is made up 
 now. It's the only thing I feel I can do, and 
 you'll understand me when I say that I've 
 got to do something. So I'll run up to town 
 and see Mortimer to-day, and jump in at 
 once." 
 
 " Jump into what, pray ? " 
 
 " Into newspaper work," said Noel, half- 
 halting and looking to sea. He expected an
 
 TBE SENATOR'S WIFE 49 
 
 outbreak, but after an instant's silence his 
 father said : "Very well, try it. I don't ex 
 pect you'll find it much to your liking, but 
 then it's really something I know nothing 
 about. Go in again, my boy, and win ; and 
 this time make no mistakes.' 
 
 Of Noel's career in journalism this is not 
 the place to speak. But he had done wisely 
 and well. Coached by his old schoolmate 
 Mortimer, who was become no less a per 
 sonage than the managing editor of The 
 Pen (there is but one Pen?) he had run 
 nimbly up the ladder of his chosen craft. 
 For a year it had gone hard with him in the 
 local room, distressingly so on the day 
 when it had pleased the city editor to assign 
 him to the high noon wedding of Miss Dixon 
 and Mr. Rogers. He did not attend, as a 
 matter of fact, but wrote out his report from 
 the accounts in the afternoon papers, and 
 checked off the list of names from the 
 " copy " of a friendly reporter on another
 
 50 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 daily. He knew all about it, however, and 
 a capital yarn he might have spun for 
 readers of The Pen. Ruth had married her 
 father's partner to save her father's fortune, 
 though she had said she would not marry 
 him to save his life. That would look very 
 well, indeed, in print, though the mere 
 thought of it, even after a year, put Noel's 
 eyes in a fog. It was less than a year after 
 this that it fell to his lot to write an editorial 
 paragraph on the civic and commercial vir 
 tues of the dead " petroleum magnate," 
 Ruth's father. He did it handsomely, and 
 this time with no other feeling than a vague 
 sense of atonement. 
 
 And now, as we have him at Washington, 
 he has long ago come bravely through the 
 fire. He is what is known admiringly to the 
 world of journalism as " an all-round news 
 paper man," handy alike at making or edit 
 ing copy; at managing men or making-up a 
 page. He has done it all, and done it well ; 
 and he is now in Washington for a day or
 
 THE SENATOR' 8 WIFE 51 
 
 two in the interests of the greatest Ameri 
 can journal, which accounts him, technically, 
 one of its " livest "' men. 
 
 And it was only last night, as we have 
 seen, that he and Ruth had met since she 
 had told him that she would not marry him 
 to save his life.
 
 52 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 O Love ! "Too late it is, " you say ? Too late ! 
 
 My sweet, my sweet ! O give your finger-tips! 
 Too late for me? And you, dear heart? I hate 
 
 My weakness and my strength. O love your lips ! 
 FEOM CYRIL'S SURRENDER. 
 
 IT was two o'clock when Paxson sent 
 up his card. There was a brief wait, and 
 then the call-boy led him to the shaft, and 
 the elevator dropped, and out of it stepped 
 a perfumed creature, and said : " She's wait 
 ing for you," in such a knowing manner as 
 embarrassed him somewhat. 
 
 It was pretty Mrs. Burgess, with her 
 oblique glance and smile, and they brought 
 to Paxson a sense of guilt. But they did it, 
 initially, to most recipients. 
 
 Soon afterward Mrs. Rogers came toward 
 him from the window swiftly, nervously,
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 53 
 
 and as he took her hand, she said : " Don't 
 you see I'm the same old foolish thing? 
 living on ray nerves ? Feel how cold my 
 hand is." She placed the other warmly 
 on top of his, and looked up at him as cer 
 tain women know how. 
 
 Paxton withdrew his hand, and, in placing 
 his hat and stick on a chair, said something 
 lightly about the relative danger of heat and 
 cold. Then, approaching her again ; " Mrs. 
 Burgess was here ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said, flashing into a quickly 
 arrested excitement. " You saw her, did 
 you ? What a woman ! What a woman ! 
 
 Oh, if I were a man " She compressed 
 
 her red lips, and shook her head in a way 
 that worried him with the memories it 
 evoked. 
 
 " Well," he said, " if you were a man, 
 what would you do ? " 
 
 Mrs. Rogers, revolving on the toe of a 
 fetching slipper, and thereby flinging her 
 skirts about the feet of Paxson, tripped to a
 
 54 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 divan, cast herself half way along it, and 
 resting her head upon her hand, looked un 
 utterable things at the floor, and said 
 nothing. 
 
 "I wonder whether I know what } T OU 
 would do if you were a man," said Paxson. 
 "Don't you think, in the first place, you 
 might be moved to own the earth, or a large 
 part of it ; or could you content yourself with 
 the enchantment of women, and the leader 
 ship of men ? " 
 
 "Let me see," said she; "one never knows 
 exactly what one might do. But" with 
 sudden vehemence " I know this : I'd be a 
 power, if not over many men or many 
 women, then over one woman at least. 
 Bah! you men are dough; women knead 
 you in a double sense, and you can't see it." 
 
 "But suppose we do, and like it? " 
 
 She showed him her teeth and shrugged 
 her shoulders, and sitting forward clasped 
 her hands about her knees and stared at 
 him.
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 55 
 
 " I wish you would tell me something, will 
 
 you?" 
 
 " If I can." 
 
 " Is Senator Bunce a wealthy man? " 
 
 " He is believed to be one of the richest 
 men in the Senate." 
 
 " He is no fool ! Not the sort to be gulled 
 trapped into a scheme what do you call 
 it ?_< wild-cat'!" 
 
 Paxson was amused. " Well," said he, " I 
 should say not. Decidedly not." 
 
 "Then, what is Rogers after?" She 
 blurted this out so naturally and earnestly, 
 that he took the question to have been put 
 in soliloquy, and looked at her in amaze 
 ment. Then she walked to the window and 
 dabbed at her eyes with a mite of a handker 
 chief, and he was ashamed to find himself 
 wondering whether the act was not counter 
 feit. 
 
 "I wish," she said, in halting tones, her 
 back still turned to him, " he had a friend to 
 advise him. I wish I had one, too." Then
 
 56 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 she did a thing which almost swept Paxson 
 from his feet. Coming swiftly toward him 
 she halted a few feet away, and leaning her 
 elbows on the back of a chair, clasped her 
 hands, and, "Noel, Noel," she murmured, 
 " what a life mine has been ! Why did you 
 let me marry him ? " 
 
 He started at the sound of his first name, 
 and, looking at the lips which had uttered it, 
 was doubtless on the brink of a folly, when 
 she rescued him with ready speech. 
 
 " I haven't a fault to find with him, mind 
 you. He's been always good to me ; too 
 good much too good for his own sake. 
 But, but, but " with a rising flutter of 
 the hand which Paxson used to find so 'elo 
 quent, and which now he found so adroit. 
 " Then there's no use trying to hide it, 
 you'd see it anyway things were different 
 when the money went. Papa raved himself 
 to death ; Dave only laughed and said he 
 was glad after all to get out of petroleum ; 
 that it would be all the better for us in a
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 57 
 
 year. But it hasn't been, I know it hasn't. 
 We live as well ; how, I don't know. Some 
 thing ' big ' is always about to * turn up,' 
 but it never does; and the man has worn 
 himself to skin and bone waiting and worry 
 ing." 
 
 " Why don't you economize a little ? " 
 suggested Paxson, running his eyes over the 
 sumptuous apartments, and resting them 
 upon her costly gown. 
 
 "Oh," she laughed, lightly, "it hasn't 
 come to that, thank God. Besides, he 
 wouldn't hear to it, really he wouldn't. He 
 has always talked about the money value of 
 appearances, and of late he has kept telling me 
 over and over again that when ' all is up ' with 
 him I sha'n't suffer. He means, you know, 
 that he has insured his life for some ridicu 
 lous sum." 
 
 Of a sudden Paxson forgot the woman be 
 fore him, and her quick eye noted the changed 
 expression of his face and caught its mean 
 ing.
 
 58 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 " You don't know," she hastily said, " how 
 he alarms me at times. That's why I wished 
 to speak to you. He told me one day it 
 would make no difference how he died, 
 whether by his own hand I'd get a fortune 
 at his death. Ugh," she added, " you can't 
 fancy how he scares me." 
 
 Paxson eyed her closely. There was not 
 a natural line of grief in her beautiful face, 
 only an expression of excitement in the 
 blazing blue-grey eyes, and that faint uplift 
 ing of the brows which women employ as a 
 bid for sympathy. 
 
 " Yes," said he, dryly, " I believe he's right 
 about that. Competition has driven most of 
 the life insurance companies to extend the 
 privilege of suicide to their policy holders." 
 
 His tone enraged her. "You're cruel," 
 she cried, with an honest sob in her voice ; 
 "I didn't ask you about insurance ; Tasked 
 you for advice, and you insult me with a 
 sarcasm." 
 
 " If I have, forgive me Ruth," he said,
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 59 
 
 and then as she lifted her face with a gath 
 ering smile upon it, he instantly regretted 
 the slip of her name, and turning away 
 picked up his hat and stick. 
 
 *' Don't go," she urged. 
 
 " I must ; but not before we understand 
 each other. What possible advice can I give 
 you? You told me what you would do if 
 you were a man. Let me see what I would 
 be likely to do if I were you. I think, in 
 the first place, I'd look out after Roger's 
 health. He's a sick man. I should feel 
 worried about him." 
 
 " I do," she protested, eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, but I should act upon my fears. I 
 should put a stop to his worry, and his talk 
 about insurance, and all that ; and I should 
 force him South and put a gun in his hands 
 and implore him to shoot ducks, even though 
 it cost me as much as a month of ennui. 
 And I should try to be steadily good to him, 
 and sympathetic, and, and " 
 
 His tone was not in the least jocular, but
 
 60 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 she chose to regard it so, listening to his 
 fleet words with an expanding smile which 
 now rippled into careless laughter. It was 
 not contagious, however, for Paxson felt 
 suddenly very foolish, and extended his 
 hand. She laid hers limply in it, and so 
 they parted. 
 
 And while he waited in the corridor for 
 the elevator, with an increasing sense of dis 
 satisfaction at the part he had just played in 
 their dialogue, he heard the key turn in the 
 lock of her door. It is conceivable that he 
 had been more content could he have seen 
 her then, her bosom heaving, her hands 
 clenched, her face drawn to tears. 
 
 It was after midnight when Rogers, sunk 
 in a chair before the open grate, was sud 
 denly conscious of her presence in the room. 
 She had been he" scarcely knew where ; re 
 ception, theatre somewhere, at any rate, 
 where he was not at home. Now she came 
 to him arid grazed his chill forehead with her
 
 THE SENATOR R WIFE 61 
 
 warm lips, and then swept into the bedroom, 
 where he could hear her softly humming a 
 tune. Presently when all seemed quiet, but 
 while yet a bright light shone through the 
 portibres, he called her. 
 
 "Ruth." 
 
 " Yes ? " And she came and stood in the 
 doorway, clad in her night dress, which was 
 loose and ruffled about the neck and down 
 to her feet, and tied at the waist with a 
 silken cord. She was braiding her hair, and 
 half of it still fell away from her hand, a 
 brush of lustrous filaments. " Yes ? " she 
 said. 
 
 " Ruth, I want to tell you a little story ; 
 do you care to hear it ? " 
 
 She rolled a low chair to the fire, and as 
 she lay in it, extending her feet encased in 
 Turkish slippers with gleams of white flesh 
 above, he looked at her and drew a sharp 
 breath. 
 
 " It's not long, is it ? You know, my dear, 
 I've had a trying day."
 
 62 TffE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 "It's only the skeleton of a story, about 
 a man who fell in love and married." 
 
 "That's such an old story, Dave. But he 
 acted wisely, I should think," said Ruth, 
 with averted face, deftly twisting her hair. 
 
 "I don't think so. The woman married 
 for money, or freedom, or something else ; 
 the love was all on one side. But the man 
 didn't care ; he loved her so. He wasn't 
 very much of a man, perhaps, but no one 
 ever loved a woman more than he loved his 
 wife. Why, Ruth, he tells me he's gone into 
 her room when she was sound asleep and 
 he's picked up her dress and kissed it where 
 it had swept the streets. He's waited up for 
 her long after midnight many a time, and 
 while he knew that some other man was 
 holding her in his arms at a dance or 
 whispering sweet things in her ear at the 
 theatre, he's cried his eyes out over a slipper 
 or a handkerchief he found on the floor, or 
 he's buried his face in her cast-off skirts and 
 thanked God just for that."
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 63 
 
 Could he have seen her face just then, 
 would he have thanked God ? 
 
 " The only thing that worried him was 
 money. He wasn't a fool. He knew very 
 well he could hold her so long as he could 
 support her in the style she had been accus 
 tomed to. He didn't grudge her a bit of it. 
 But she never knew and she never will know 
 what it cost him what it drove him to. He 
 pawned things ; he stole things, yes, he 
 stole things for her." 
 
 Her hair was braided, and her face was in 
 her hands, and the words of Paxson were in 
 her ears : " And I should try to be steadily 
 good to him and sympathetic." She looked 
 up, and the thin, starved face, with its deep- 
 set, brilliant eyes shocked her into silence. 
 
 " Of course," he went on, placidly, " there 
 was one way out of it, but that was too 
 tragic to please him. Personally he courted 
 death, but he wanted to take her with him, 
 and that seemed cowardly." She turned 
 her face again toward him, but he was star-
 
 fi4 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 ing afthe fire and did not see the expression 
 of abject fear. 
 
 "Go on," she said, a tremor in her voice. 
 
 Then he looked at her with such longing 
 that the least she could do she did, smiling 
 up at him with " What a mood you are in, 
 Dave, you ridiculous fellow, " a stiff, im 
 patient smile, but he seemed grateful for it, 
 and patted her tenderly on the arm. 
 
 " The rest is nothing. He made up his 
 mind, that's all. He made up his mind to 
 think only of her ; to die for her, may be. 
 Can't you see his scheme, dearie? He 
 wasn't going to live to see her want for any 
 thing to see her turn away from him. He 
 fixed all that. So when the money went 
 when the money all went, why, you. see, my 
 darling, that " 
 
 His husky voice was shattered, and his 
 head bobbed up and down is his hands. 
 Ruth looked at him in a helpless way, and 
 there were tears in her eyes, tears of pity or 
 vexation, or, perhaps, of both.
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 65 
 
 " Oh, Dave," she said, leaping to her feet, 
 "how silly you are to-night. I know what 
 you mean ; the senator told me he couldn't 
 fix it for you ; but there are other men in 
 the world besides Bunce, and other schemes. 
 You're blue, you need sleep, and so do I. 
 To-morrow you'll not talk this way. Drink 
 a bottle of beer and go to bed. Be a man, 
 Dave," she said, in brushing his cheek with 
 her lips. " Good-night." 
 
 He did not answer then, but as she left 
 the room he looked after her hungrily, with 
 such a face as a small boy turns to an escap 
 ing robin. " Be a man ! " he whispered bit 
 terly. He had gone out of her life. Long 
 before that night he had come to a knowl 
 edge of this fact, but until then it had been 
 too cold to hug.
 
 66 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 O prick the pride of your hen, 
 We'll sling the point of our pen, 
 
 And cheek by jowl 
 
 Howl down your fowl, 
 So here you are ! Say when ! 
 We say of the press, and we're right we guess, 
 The egg it lays is an egg that pays 
 An egg to match, an egg to hatch 
 
 To hatch live men. 
 CHORUS FROM THE EGG AND THE EDITORIAL. 
 
 NOEL whirled round on his chair, caught 
 up one of the rubber tubes which hung on 
 the wall behind his desk, and then covered 
 his right ear with it. The next instant a 
 muffled bellow came from the floor above : 
 
 " You, Paxson ? " 
 
 " Yes. Anything in sight ? " 
 
 "One local. State's light. Washington 
 hasn't scheduled yet. I guess we'll get a
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 67 
 
 display out of the Niagara wreck. I'm 
 counting on it to lead the second with." 
 
 " All right. I'll come up with some copy 
 in a little while, 'deferred,' if you want 
 it?" 
 
 " Bang up, G'bye." 
 
 " 'Bye." 
 
 Swinging round again into electric glare, 
 Noel drew a blue lead pencil from behind 
 his ear and began to edit some type-written 
 " copy " which lay on his desk. He was as 
 sistant managing editor, and this was Morti 
 mer's night off. The " fatal facility " of the 
 " trained journalist " was apparent in the 
 rapidity with which this youthful artist 
 decorated the sheets before him with para 
 graphs, sub-heads, erasures, and interlinea 
 tions. With the same off-hand skill that one 
 admires in the professional pugilist who puts 
 a ring around the eye of his adversary, Noel 
 gracefully ringed his periods, and presently, 
 (still after the manner of the pugilist,) when 
 he had brought the copy to a close with a
 
 68 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 four-em dash, he drew himself together pre 
 paratory to putting a head on it. This, as 
 boxers and editors know full well, is a cul 
 minating trick; whether man or manuscript, 
 it is thus that either article must be polished 
 off. Noel did the business with neatness 
 and despatch; putting what is technically 
 known as a " scare-head " on this particular 
 article; writing out top-line, turn-line, 
 cross-line, and pyramid without as much as 
 pausing to count the letters, so enviable 
 was the proficiency he had attained through 
 practice. When the impressive structure 
 was at length erected, he found it faultless in 
 finish. 
 
 Then he went out into the hall and up 
 ward to a den of rattlesnakes. So sounded 
 with increasing whir the r-r-r-r-r- of the 
 telegraph instruments on the top floor. 
 They were clicking rapidly in a stuffy little 
 room boxed off from a bigger one, around 
 which the telegraph editors, with shaded 
 eyes, were ranged under a row of electrics.
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 69 
 
 Another rough partition cabined a dark- 
 faced hulking man in shirt-sleeves, whose 
 voice, incessantly lifted on high, quickened 
 the despatch of messages and quelled the 
 frolic of devils, and whose flagrant energy, 
 even when he sat still in counterfeit repose, 
 appalled the stoutest heart on the staff and 
 had been known to blanch the brazen 
 cheeks of messenger boys. This potentate 
 was Lord, the news editor. 
 
 To him came Noel, and sat upon the edge 
 of a littered and mucilaged table, the only 
 available resting place, and jabbed his hand 
 on a copy-hook. 
 
 "Here you are, Lord," said he, throwing 
 down the copy. "A good thing for next 
 Sunday." 
 
 Without looking up from the proof he was 
 penciling, Lord said with no patent rele 
 vancy: "The wreck's great stuff; 'bout 
 twelve killed. Croop got there with both 
 feet, and is sending in a corker. Double- 
 lead it, eh ? and set out the names ? . . .
 
 70 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 George ! I " A small shag-headed urchin 
 dropped into the room as from the ceiling, 
 and taking the proof held out to him 
 scampered away with it. Lord then picked 
 up the article Noel had tossed on his desk, 
 and swiftly scanned its head-lines. 
 
 " ' A Bee in Bunco's Bonnet.' Get out ! " 
 Then, after an instant's examination : " Ex 
 clusive ? " 
 
 Noel nodded, and Lord jammed the copy 
 on a spindle. Thereafter his interest in the 
 subject collapsed, and the stream of his 
 executive energy flowed on apace. He 
 tapped his bell, and bellowed his orders, 
 and shucked telegrams as fast as an expert 
 opens oysters, while Noel looked pensively 
 on. Presently, into the cabin shuffled a 
 slovenly, loose-jointed young man, with an 
 exceptionally large and unkempt head and a 
 face of striking homeliness and strength. 
 He smiled in handing Noel a sheet of 
 paper and the latter, glancing at it, smiled 
 too.
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 71 
 
 "Watson asks for only five displays to 
 night, Lord," he said, winking at the young 
 man, whose heaviest and not least agreeable 
 duty as city editor was his nightly struggle 
 for space. He and Lord, in their official ca 
 pacities, regarded each other with unspeak 
 able contempt; and standing, the one for the 
 interests of telegraphic and the other for the 
 interests of local news, they were always in 
 the office at dagger points. After the paper 
 had gone to press they went out together and 
 amicably wet their clay. 
 
 Without deigning to lift his eyes, Lord 
 now repeated in a tone of withering sarcasm, 
 " Only five ? " 
 
 " And every one a * must ' too," said Wat 
 son, belligerently. 
 
 "All of them beats, I suppose," said Lord, 
 sweetly. 
 
 " The sort of news that live papers in 
 other towns would like to get by wire and 
 print on the first page," retorted Watson. 
 
 "Isn't local stuff good enough for The
 
 72 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 Pen's first page?" asked Paxson, mali 
 ciously. The nightly wrestling of these 
 two never failed to amuse, though, in his 
 capacity of umpire, they occasionally em 
 barrassed him, 
 
 " Oh, no," said Watson, unguardedly, in a 
 fine ironical tone. 
 
 "Glad to hear you admit that much, at 
 least," grumbled Lord. Then he drowned 
 Watson's sharp reply in a series of shouts 
 to the editors on the other side of the parti 
 tion. 
 
 " Collins, let the wreck run for all it's 
 worth, and sign Croop's name. . . . But 
 ler, hold in the state, and boil those d n 
 
 weddings down. You've married Blister to 
 Miss Appel, I see. Don't forget the Index. 
 And Blister isn't a distinguished ' divine,' 
 you know." 
 
 " The dispatch says so. What is he 
 then ? " asked a shrill voice without. 
 
 "A clergyman, of course." Whereat 
 there was mirth, Butler being a Harvard
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 73 
 
 -t 
 graduate and something of an economist and 
 
 precisian in the expenditure of words. 
 
 " That's all right, Carpenter," he was pro 
 testing to one of his fellow "'condensers," 
 when Lord called again : 
 
 " Carpenter ! " 
 
 There swaggered to the doorway a splen 
 didly set, broad and tall young man, with 
 the complexion of a brick, the face of Byron, 
 and the clothes of a book-maker. Carpenter 
 was the sporting editor. 
 
 " For heaven's sake," said Lord, looking 
 up at him, " how much space do you want 
 for the Atnletic Club? Wind it up, man. 
 Here are two columns." 
 
 " Another half '11 do it, I think," said Car 
 penter, coolly. "Then there's a couple of 
 sticks of names. It was a big thing, Lord. 
 The town was there. Kohler threw Thomas 
 inside of four minutes, nearly all the cracks 
 were bested ; it was all Partridge but hold 
 up ! " 
 
 Lord had not been listening. Instead, he
 
 74 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 had flashed his eye down two galley proofs 
 he held in his hand, and then deliberately 
 killed or cut with his blue pencil the first 
 half column of Carpenter's article. " There," 
 said he, " that'll let in the rest of the stuff 
 and the names. Draw her light now." 
 Then, looking up into the sporting editor's 
 flushed face, he added lightly, "I only cut 
 the introduction." 
 
 " Oh, was that all ! " said Carpenter, re 
 sentfully. " You just scraped the custard 
 off the pie? Well, I'll know enough the 
 next time not to waste an hour on the pud 
 ding if the crust'll do." As he turned on 
 his heel, Lord chuckled and Watson showed 
 his teeth in sympathy. But Noel looked 
 thoughtfully at them both. " It's about the 
 most difficult problem in the business," he 
 said. " The news must be given, but the 
 news must be given attractively. It's the 
 difference between the painter and the pho 
 tographer ; the newspaper man and the man 
 pf letters. Now I suppose the matter you
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 75 
 
 killed, Lord, wasn't essential to the report 
 any more than the introductory narrative of 
 M. Feveque de D - is essential to the ro 
 mance of Les Miserables." 
 
 " Not a bit," said Lord, lightly. 
 
 "But we mustn't squeeze the news too 
 hard. We can serve it as a box of grapes or 
 as a pound of raisins." 
 
 " Just so," interposed Watson ; " but Lord 
 prefers dry fruit. I believe he'd have the 
 face to boil down ' Vanity Fair.' " 
 
 " I tell you what," said Lord, very seri 
 ously, " there isn't a book I ever read that 
 couldn't be condensed to advantage. I tried 
 to read ' Ivanhoe ' again the other day. It 
 is padded out of sight. I could cut fifty 
 thousand words out of it and make it a toler 
 ably good serial." 
 
 " And ' Esmond ' ? " asked Noel. 
 
 " And Pickwick * ? " asked Watson. 
 
 " And ' Huckleberry Finn ' ? " 
 
 " And ' Gray's Elegy ' ? " 
 
 " And ' Tears, Idle tears ' ? "
 
 76 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 " And the Lord's Prayer ? " 
 
 " That's all right," said Lord, serenely ; 
 " cackle on." Here he took a telegram from 
 the hand of a messenger boy, shelled it, and 
 called out : " Who's handling Washing 
 ton ? " 
 
 A small bent man, somewhere in the 
 forties and in somewhat similar degree ad 
 vanced in the stages of tuberculosis, came 
 into the cabin and coughed. And then the 
 manliness of Lord showed gently in the way 
 he leaned forward and placed the telegram 
 in the poor fellow's hand, and said, " How 
 are you, to-night, Miller ? Here's the rest of 
 Ogden's schedule." 
 
 Miller ran his eye over it. " Very good," 
 he said. " He's covered about everything 
 of importance, except the suicide of 
 Rogers." 
 
 " Rogers ? What Rogers ? " asked Lord. 
 
 " The petroleum man. He was drowned 
 in the 'Potomac. The Associated Press 
 says it was accidental ; the United Press
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 77 
 
 says the widow believes he committed sui 
 cide." 
 
 Watson laughed. " I guess it's all the 
 same to her," he said. " You needn't disturb 
 Ogden about that, Lord. It's all in one of 
 those displays. We've worked the local end 
 for a column. Rogers carried over $75,000 
 of insurance on his life . . . maybe the 
 widow isn't prostrated with grief ! " 
 
 Noel heard, and he sat there for some time 
 nursing his leg and hearing nothing else. 
 Then he made careful inspection of his cuffs, 
 whisked his clothes in an airy inadequate 
 way and sallied forth, staring only in an 
 swer to Watson's request for a match. Down 
 at his desk he passed some minutes in stab 
 bing the letter " R " into the leather frame 
 of a calendar. 
 
 So it had come to pass, and now that 
 
 Rogers was out of the way Yes, but he 
 
 wasn't. His face, and those words of his to 
 Ruth, " When * all is up ' with me you 
 sha'n't suffer " were of a sudden very much
 
 78 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 in the way of Noel's yearning. Hence he 
 stabbed the calendar for quite ten minutes, 
 and then, 
 
 Perhaps if he had been a journalist of the 
 recent halcyon days when bar-rooms were 
 news-centres, he might now have expanded 
 to the requirements of romance, have dared 
 in the direction of Washington, and sent his 
 ardent face there as a bait for beauty. But, 
 happily or not, he was living in a day when 
 the decimated ranks of bohemians were re 
 cruited from the decorous regiments of col 
 lege graduates ; when the valiant free lance 
 had gone down before the hosts of disciplined 
 youth ; when the robust personal note had 
 died quite away in the shrill juvenile chorus; 
 when sober editors, like common clerks, 
 were to be found at .their desks at regular 
 hours ; and when anaemic city editors of the 
 new shorthand school patronized the deso 
 lated survivor of the golden days with as 
 signments that sickened him to the soul, and 
 brought him the intolerable sympathy of pin-
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 70 
 
 feathered reporters who balked at a second 
 beer. Now Noel was neither of the flam 
 boyant nor of the stenographic school of 
 journalism ; he was become a well-equipped 
 newspaper man, with a keen nose for news, a 
 forceful way of writing it, and a capacity for 
 work and directing the work of others 
 which, as we have seen, had brought him 
 steadily to a position of authority on a 
 leading metropolitan journal. And he had 
 fallen in love with his new life and his hard 
 work. 
 
 Such he was, thanks to Ruth, and now. . 
 . . His desk was littered with calls to 
 duty, and a train would leave for Washing 
 ton within the hour. He was by no means, 
 as yet, incapable of folly, but of late he had 
 learned to wait as Avell as labor. 
 
 So our estimable Noel, having, in the ten 
 minutes we have given him, punctured his 
 calendar into a colander, smoked placidly 
 over a note of condolence very carefully and 
 prettily phrased indeed, and going out posted
 
 80 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 it near by. A theatre was on the way, the 
 entrance to which, as is well known, costs a 
 worthy journalist but a smile at the door. 
 Noel went in.
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 81 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A fig for your honors and honored scars 
 
 Won finely on land or sea. 
 Though you storm the sky, and scale the stars, 
 
 Seek your soul for victory. 
 FROM " WHEBE THE BATTLE is FOUGHT." 
 
 THE " Hon." Job. Burgess of Dentifrice, 
 Missouri, was the particular mutton of jocose 
 paragraphers on the Eastern dailies. He 
 had shared this distinction for some time 
 with two rural congressman, one of whom 
 was renowned for the luxuriance of his 
 whiskers, while the other had triumphed in 
 a bitter campaign waged on the expediency 
 of wearing socks. Mr. Burgess, who had 
 farmed a little, practiced law a little, and 
 kept store a little, first invited the suffrages 
 of the people from the attractive platform of 
 free silver, free sugar, and, as he aptly put
 
 82 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 it, hide-bound wool ; and his agricultural 
 friends had been quick to send him to Con 
 gress. The same platform would not do, 
 however, when he came to stand for a second 
 term. A new party with a new man had 
 arisen, and Mr. Burgess would certainly have 
 fallen before the ardor of those who shouted 
 the new cry of " Farmers to the Front," had 
 he not, in the moment of his utmost need, 
 been inspired to the purchase of five thou 
 sand pounds of plug tobacco, by the lavish 
 dispensation of which in the white heat of 
 the canvass he was enabled to " snow under" 
 his baffled competitors at the polls. The 
 paragraphers, it is true, gave the credit of 
 what they darkly called the " happy thought," 
 to Mrs. Burgess, and designated the con 
 gressman as " Plug " Burgess and " Old Quid 
 Pro Quo." But he was neither an old man 
 nor a very stupid one; only rather slow and 
 mean of mind, and penurious to a degree. 
 He thought himself the luckiest man in 
 the world to have been able to marry the
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 83 
 
 widow of Captain MacDowell of the regular 
 army. The rest of the world regarded the 
 alliance from another point of view, and 
 admired the longevity of the congressman's 
 faith, seeing the small care his wife had in 
 nursing it. 
 
 The advent of Mrs. Burgess into Wash 
 ington society was not so sensational as 
 her husband's entrance to Congress, but 
 she " created " her " stir." All her life she 
 had lived in comradeship with men ; for 
 years in various forts in the West, from Texas 
 to Wyoming, she had been accustomed to 
 that strenuous gallantry which, to a woman 
 of her temperament, is ample compensation 
 for all accompanying social sacrifices, and is 
 sure, for a season, to make tame by compari 
 son the polite refinements and milder dissipa 
 tions of urban life. Yet Mrs. Burgess had 
 had enough of the barracks ; after a dozen 
 years of intense living, of desperate flirta 
 tions and fierce fatigues, of ranches and 
 round-ups and wolf hunting, she came with
 
 84 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 whetted appetite to the subdued gayeties of 
 the national capital. But she came with 
 something else a manner which fascinated 
 timid women of better breeding, and warmed 
 the blood of impressionable men. She had 
 sense enough at the outset to be regardful of 
 her sex, for though she despised most women, 
 she seldom hated them and was broadly tol 
 erant of what she called their " cattishness." 
 But if at first the social ambition of Mrs. 
 Burgess had been great, the gratification of 
 it was rendered impracticable by the financial 
 scruples of Mr. Burgess. It was useless for 
 her to suggest the political advantages likely 
 to accrue from judicious entertaining; upon 
 such proposals alone he ventured an emphatic 
 veto. " Humbug, Janet," he said, " it's all 
 humbug." She could get nothing else out of 
 him ; so she accepted the inevitable in her 
 own bold way, a way which even in Wash 
 ington was thought sometimes too reckless. 
 That is why certain women affected to speak 
 of her in whispers, save when they fell within
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 85 
 
 reach of her oblique smile, and why certain 
 men did not hesitate to name her aloud in 
 public places. It is to be remarked that this 
 was never done by Lieutenant Alcott. 
 
 Early one afternoon Mrs. Rogers, the 
 widow of a year found the lieutenant and 
 Mrs. Burgess chatting in the softened light 
 of her little hotel drawing-room. Alcott's 
 favorite expression sat well upon his face ; it 
 was one suggestive of a secret and consum 
 ing sorrow, the mystery of which had proved 
 highly effective with women of an inquisi 
 tive turn of mind. This expression deep 
 ened as Ruth, with a careless nod, swept 
 past him into the arms of Janet. 
 
 "News, news, news," she murmured, 
 gaily. 
 
 "So?" said Janet, with uplifted eye 
 brows. 
 
 Then they looked in each other's face and 
 laughed nervously, and any other man than 
 the lieutenant would have felt de trap. But 
 in his character of an original he did what
 
 86 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 very few men would have been likely or able 
 to do ; he changed his mood. Over the 
 deepening gloom of his face, as by a burst 
 of sunlight, beamed suddenly an expression 
 of the liveliest interest. 
 
 "Must I go? " he asked. 
 
 Ruth smiled at him and said nothing. 
 
 " Oh, no, lieutenant, not at all," said 
 Janet ; and then she walked to the door and 
 touched an electric button, and all three of 
 them laughed. " You can't fancy," she pro 
 ceeded in her brisk manner, "what we've 
 been talking about. Do you know the latest? 
 It's delicious. Mrs. Purnell has become a 
 devoted student of the archives of the state 
 department. She's such a help to the sena 
 tor, and Mr. Van Horn is good enough to 
 direct her researches. That's why she finds 
 it necessary to visit his rooms every morning 
 at eleven." 
 
 " Poor thing," said Ruth, compassion 
 ately. 
 
 " Of course, one of our children must ac-
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 87 
 
 company us to give the lie to malicious 
 tongues." 
 
 " How discreet." 
 
 The lieutenant smiled approvingly. This 
 was the sort of thing he liked. u At Carl's 
 last night," he said, " General Dan Wheat 
 seemed to think the talk was nonsense ; he 
 said it was really a case of diplomatic corre 
 spondence." 
 
 " So sweet of the general," Janet cried ; 
 then, in answer to a knock at the door, 
 " Come in. . . . Ah, William, two man- 
 hattans and a martini, please. . . . You 
 see, Ruth, my dear," she continued, " how 
 loath the men of Washington are to leap to 
 hasty conclusions. Such a pity you were 
 not at the Korean legation on Wednesday 
 to see for yourself." 
 
 " Oh ! come now," Alcott remonstrated. 
 
 " Somebody asked for you who was it ? 
 At any rate, I ventured to believe you were 
 coming, and a kind voice said, 'So is Christ 
 mas.' "
 
 88 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 The joke for an instant was too involved 
 for Ruth, but then she saw it and colored. 
 The lieutenant roared. 
 
 " No, it wasn't Senator Bunce," said Janet, 
 placidly ; "he asked me where the fun came 
 in, and when I told him he was ruthless, he 
 only stared ; so I explained that Paxson 
 was the French for Christinas. It was Lieu 
 tenant Alcott." 
 
 Ruth was not angry at the punster ; she 
 cast a mock reproachful glance upon him 
 and then dismissed him from her thoughts. 
 But after that she was silent, listening with 
 a set smile on her lips to the chatter of the 
 other two, until Alcott, mistaking her mood, 
 saw resentment in it, and the cocktails hav 
 ing appeared and disappeared, resumed his 
 sombre expression, and then betimes, like 
 the tactful man he was, bowed himself from 
 the room. 
 
 " Now, my dear," gushed Janet from the 
 door, " what or which is the ' news, news, 
 news'?"
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 80 
 
 Ruth roused herself and looked suddenly 
 embarrassed. 
 
 " Bunce or Paxson ? " demanded Janet. 
 
 " I don't know." She said it sheepishly, 
 in a tone of resignation which did not es 
 cape the sharp ears of her friend. 
 
 " Ah, you lucky thing ! Mrs. Senator 
 Bunce ! Fancy, my dear ; Burgess is better 
 than Bunce, but Mrs. Senator! That will 
 never be written of me. Burgess is such a 
 fool." 
 
 Ruth laughed uneasily. " I haven't been 
 asked yet ; only he's coming this afternoon 
 here's his note." She held out an envelope 
 to Janet, who, opening it, seemed vastly 
 amused. " But this is from the other one," 
 she said, " and he's coming down to Wash 
 ington to eat a dinner, my dear." 
 
 That's what a note from Noel said, and 
 Ruth, recovering it, went on to explain that 
 the other note the senator's, which she 
 must have left behind her or lost on the way
 
 90 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 plead for a brief interview that afternoon 
 at five o'clock. 
 
 " But Paxson ? " asked Janet slyly. 
 
 Ruth made a dismal failure of a laugh. 
 " Oh, I don't know," she said. " I don't 
 think he knows either if he ever did." 
 
 " He's nice enough," mused Janet. " What 
 a pity he isn't rich. He would never suit 
 you, my love. You've seen too much ; he 
 wouldn't wear." 
 
 Ruth rocked back and forth with her eyes 
 shut, trjdng to think, but she couldn't. Af 
 ter a while she was conscious of Janet hand 
 ing her a cocktail and calling her "Mrs. 
 Senator Bunco." 
 
 " Of course you adore the dear man," 
 said Janet, persuasively. 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 They looked at each other from over their 
 glasses and smiled. 
 
 " Well," Janet said, " I suppose you want 
 my views and all that. I'll tell you, my 
 dear. It's an act of providence. Don't
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 91 
 
 trifle with it. You've got what the vulgar 
 cowboy calls 'a dead cinch.' Marry the 
 senator." 
 
 Ruth gazed admiringly at her friend, and 
 felt suddenly very grateful arid elated. "I 
 intend to," she said, simply, as though there 
 had been no question about it. Then Janet 
 went over and touched the button again. 
 
 The electric lights were sparkling vaguely 
 in the thickening dusk when Noel, coming 
 from newspaper row toward Carl's, con 
 fronted Ruth and Janet. They were look 
 ing exceedingly well, and without suspect 
 ing the cause, he told them so. In Ruth, 
 particularly, well-being seemed luminous, 
 and in her talk there was a kind and a de 
 gree of mirth he had never perceived before. 
 He explained to Janet that he was come to 
 Washington to attend the annual dinner of 
 the Grill Club, but his eyes told Ruth an 
 other tale, and she, as women will, hoped 
 Janet had intercepted the furtive message.
 
 92 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 Janet had ; and the next instant staring 
 dead ahead of her she said in a tragic 
 whisper, " He comes." Ruth, glancing over 
 the way, turned quickly to Noel, her face 
 afire, and held out her hand. " I'll see you 
 before you go back ? Come for a good long 
 chat." Then she almost raced away from 
 him, though her tone had been cordial 
 enough, even eager. 
 
 At the corner of the street he espied 
 Senator Bunce on the other end. of the 
 crossing, and of a sudden his eyes went wide 
 open, and he looked back. Ruth had parted 
 with Janet at the door of her hotel, and for 
 a moment her face was set in his direction. 
 Then, a second time, she passed out of his 
 life. 
 
 The senator bowed gravely to Mrs. 
 Rogers, strode to the fireplace, and turning 
 his back to it gazed darkly at the floor. 
 This unusual deportment, the absence of his 
 customary banter, was sufficiently signifi-
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 98 
 
 cant, and it so impressed her that she sat 
 hastily down in front of him, after the pre 
 liminary formalities of speech, and waited 
 expectantly. 
 
 " You are looking well," said the senator, 
 presently, glowering upon her. 
 
 She smiled her thanks. 
 
 " Remarkably well," he added, with an 
 emphatic upward jerk of the head. "The 
 fact is, Mrs. Rogers, I have never seen you 
 look so charming. That, however, is what 
 I've said to myself each time I've met you." 
 
 Flesh and blood could not stand this. 
 " Ah, senator," she said, " that is quite too 
 good to be true." 
 
 "True it is, however, literally. Mrs. 
 Rogers, permit me to say that in one respect 
 I am an uncommon man. I'm continually 
 shaming the devil by telling the truth. I'm 
 as open and frank as the day." 
 
 " In politics, senator ? " 
 
 "In politics, particularly, though I am 
 free to say to you that my frankness thera
 
 94 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 would be a matter of policy if it were not a 
 matter of habit. It is, however, a matter of 
 fact. Now, with regard to yourself, madam, 
 I think it would be impossible for me to tell 
 you a lie." 
 
 He said this with a bow and a wave of the 
 hand, parliamentary and portentous; but 
 Ruth was not afraid. 
 
 " If that is so, senator," she retorted, 
 "please tell me candidly why you do me 
 the honor of making such a flattering re 
 mark." 
 
 "I will, with pleasure," he said. 
 
 There swept then across the senator's face 
 a constrained smile, and into his hands and 
 feet there came a nervousness which vanished 
 the instant he found speech. 
 
 " Mrs. Rogers I have lived some fifty 
 years. Do you think they have been lived 
 to advantage ? " 
 
 " Certainly, senator." 
 
 " Thank you. They have been lived at 
 least, I may say, with great earnestness of
 
 TEE SENATOR'S WIFE 95 
 
 purpose. I am not sure that I was once a 
 boy ; I don't remember being one. All my 
 sentient life I have had but one object in 
 view, and very steadily I have made my 
 way in pursuit of it. Madam, I assure you 
 that is so." 
 
 He had warmed to his subject now, and 
 was standing erect and complacent before 
 her, his hands deep down in his trousers 
 pockets quite at his ease. 
 
 "What that object is no one but myself 
 knows and suspects no one save the Al 
 mighty "his right hand arose solemnly in 
 air "whose omniscient eye, I venture to 
 assert with all humility and reverence, views 
 my aspirations with no disfavor." 
 
 Against her judgment, despite the protest 
 of her sense of humor, aroused at first by his 
 grandiloquent tones and attitude, she was 
 moved by the senator's manner to an almost 
 breathless interest. 
 
 " I can't profess to know your views con 
 cerning my career or my prospects, Mrs.
 
 9 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 Rogers, but I owe it to you to state the 
 reasons which have moved me to confide in 
 you and invite your aid one moment please," 
 as from sheer shame she started forward. 
 " You are a woman in a million. Yes, yes, 
 it's no flattery; fact. If I've had no inti 
 mate experience with women, that is no 
 proof, I trust, that my judgment of them is 
 valueless. I know, madam, I know that you 
 are a superior woman. Rogers bah! But, 
 I beg your pardon, that memory is no doubt 
 as painful to you as it is irritating to me. I 
 admire you for your knowledge of the world, 
 for your range of sympathy and store of in 
 formation, for your tact with men and skill 
 in eluding the vigilance, I was going to 
 say, but envy is better the envy of women. 
 I don't know whether you are sincere ; that, 
 as yet, is none of my business; but you are 
 ambitious, and so am I. You have abilities, 
 rare abilities ; permit me to add, we both 
 have ; and it is my opinion that our joint 
 abilities, directed in a common channel, may
 
 SEXATOJS'S WIFE 97 
 
 be productive of rich results, of the richest 
 result to be achieved in American public 
 life." 
 
 Ruth had expected nothing like this ; she 
 was simply overwhelmed. A steadier head 
 than hers, a heart more hardened, might 
 readily have succumbed before a declaration 
 so oratorical, so cool, so completely unique. 
 Her face hid in her hands, she fell back in 
 her chair with a muffled hysterical laugh. 
 The senator was pleased. Never, once he 
 was launched in debate, had he lost his self- 
 possession, and certainly now, with his hands 
 still in his pockets, his head thrown back, 
 and his voice well-modulated to the size of 
 the room and the character of the occasion, 
 there was not the least likelihood of a break 
 in his record. 
 
 "It is needless for me to speak more 
 plainly to you, Mrs., Rogers," he went on. 
 " I am not a man of sentiment ; I am a man 
 of affairs ; I hope and believe I am a states 
 man. You are the only woman the only
 
 98 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 person I have ever met whose aid I have 
 felt to be important if not essential to the 
 attainment of my supreme ambition. That I 
 shall attain it I do not doubt for a moment ; 
 that you shall help me, and divide with me 
 the honors of the high office to which I 
 aspire, I do not wish to doubt. . . . 
 Mrs. Rogers, I have nameless pleasure in 
 asking you to aid me in elevating you to the 
 lofty position of first lady of the land, the 
 mistress of the White House." 
 
 It is impossible to do justice in written 
 words to the unction and ardor of the 
 senator's tone in his delivery of this pero 
 ration. Ruth responded to it with a thrill of 
 gratitude. For the instant she was blind to 
 its eccentricity, its unpremeditated humor. 
 She believed in him, she was proud of him, 
 and her imagination outstripping his rounded 
 phrases, realized for her the splendid promise 
 he outheld. Then as she lifted her crimson 
 face with a vivid sense of possession, the per 
 sonality of Senator Eli B. Bunce smote and
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 99 
 
 chilled her. There he stood, self-poised, 
 confident, huge. Ah, if Noel were in his 
 shoes ! 
 
 She sprang to her feet, and in a voice that 
 was barely audible, said, "You have amazed 
 me, you must give me time to think. . . . 
 It's but a year you know. . . . But no 
 matter what happens you have made me your 
 debtor for life." 
 
 The senator bowed low over her hand, and 
 kissed it breezily. "Another year, if you 
 wish; I commend your discretion, I shall ap 
 prove your decision. Meanwhile, command 
 me." 
 
 Then he left her left her standing with 
 limp arms and bowed head in the centre of 
 the room. But when the door had closed 
 behind him, she tripped to the mirror and 
 looked eagerly in at a face that was all 
 aglow, the eyes sparkling, the lips com 
 pressed, the skin rosy from throat to fore 
 head. 
 
 " Mrs. Bunce."
 
 100 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 She whispered it, and the taut red lips 
 relaxed over a white gleam of teeth. 
 
 .... Mistress of the White House ! " 
 
 Ruth leaned forward and pressed her 
 mouth against the chill glass. 
 
 "I'll do it, I'll do it," she murmured.
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 101 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 I'm not a fool and yet the tool of fortune, 
 My friends of me the nicest things do say, 
 "The best chap in the town." 
 "You cannot put him down," 
 Yet I'm neither sawing wood nor making hay. 
 If you'd put me sharply to it, 
 And demand why I don't do it, 
 You'd not alarm me, 
 Fate cannot harm me. 
 When I can dine as I have dined to-day. 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A FEASTEB. 
 
 IF the thought of delicate feasting was 
 not uppermost in Noel's mind, neither was 
 the love of it the thing least dear to his 
 heart. Mr. Archibald Paxson had trans 
 mitted to each of his sons the will to hold 
 the appetite in leash and to leave the mahog 
 any with unimpaired judgment and steady 
 legs. Noel, therefore, was safe in obeying 
 the summons of the Grill the famous din 
 ing club of the Washington correspondents
 
 102 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 for to-night the Grill held its annual din 
 ner, and the annual dinner of the Grill is one 
 of the most conspicuous events in Washing 
 ton life. An invitation to it, like an invita 
 tion from the president, is a mandamus, which 
 even the president himself does not feel at 
 liberty to evade, so distinguished is the cour 
 tesy, so rare the entertainment. Indeed, 
 when Noel entered the drawing-room of the 
 Mount Vernon Hotel he found the president 
 already there, with the cream of the cabinet, 
 the general of the army, a score of senators 
 and congressmen, and a nebula of lesser stars. 
 He was listening to the uncertain droning 
 of a red-eyed statesman from the Northwest, 
 when a long, graceful man of baffling age, 
 plain-shaven and very pale of skin, with 
 strong, sharp features, wide, sad mouth, high 
 brow, blonde, scant hair, and the faintest 
 outlines for eyebrows, lounged toward him. 
 This was Or me, the particular humorist of 
 the Grill, and chairman of the Committee 
 on Fun.
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 103 
 
 "It's a bad outlook, Paxson," he said, in a 
 voice that was naturally dolorous. " There's 
 too much brain for a promising meet. Oh, 
 your pardon, senator, I didn't observe you ; 
 that makes a certain difference." 
 
 The senator grinned feebly. "I guess 
 these annual drunks," he retorted, "do make 
 you fellows feel uncomfortable." 
 
 " That's not so bad, senator," said Orme, 
 judicially, " not so bad as usual. Yes, 
 some of us don't like the annuals; I believe 
 Paxson here will find them dull ; they're a 
 great relaxation to me. I dare say you'll 
 feel embarrassed, but keep your eye on Gen 
 eral Dan Wheat. When he applauds, don't 
 stir hand or foot or jaw. H'low, general." 
 
 Noel turned upon one of the most familiar 
 figures in the national capital, and one of the 
 most interesting relics of the late war. The 
 general had a homely, beaming face, a huge 
 and telltale nose, and a sounding husky 
 voice always laden with tart sayings. Mid 
 dle-aged wpmen were, or professed to be,
 
 104 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 fond of him and his drolleries ; the general 
 himself, while fond of all women, was fond 
 est of debutantes. The men but then such 
 popularity as the general's is bound to be 
 resented. 
 
 " You spoke to me, Orme ? " he trumpeted. 
 
 " Of you, general. Who doesn't speak of 
 you? If I had your fame! Come, sell it; 
 how much?" 
 
 " Your cheek, Mr. Grubstreet, and I'll 
 throw in my nose to boot." 
 
 " What, that priceless work of art, that 
 heirloom ! You trifle with me, general." 
 
 "Orme," said the other solemnly, "pre 
 cious as it is, you may have it ; you only. I 
 remember, senator, that once before, in a 
 moment of weakness, I consented to part 
 with this water-color of mine. It was after 
 Antietam, three days after. I rode with 
 colonel " 
 
 With an admiring look at the extraordi 
 nary color-scheme of the general's nose, Noel 
 slipped away.
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 105 
 
 " I kept cool enough till I got the speak 
 er's eye. Then ' Mr. Speaker,' says I " 
 
 " Yes, he's ordered to sea ; the Baltimore, 
 I believe." 
 
 " Bourbons ? Bourbon rats ! They're 
 mugwumps, I tell you, and they hate an 
 honest Democrat as they hate 
 
 " * There's no use tackling him,' I said ; 
 ' try it on your congressman.' 
 
 " 'Member you very well ; saw you on the 
 floor of the House yesterday. In town for 
 any length of time, sir? " 
 
 "'Colorado!' said he, 'yes, thank God, 
 from Denver, where lungs come in extra 
 sizes, and a baby can yell a mile, and a dog 
 can bark from Cripple Creek to Colorado 
 Springs.' " 
 
 " Yes, thank you very much, I'll be glad 
 to go." 
 
 Without straining to hear, Noel in pass 
 ing, caught some such fragments of talk. 
 Because he brushed elbows with the secre 
 tary of state and shook hands with the
 
 106 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 watchdog of the treasury, it did not occur to 
 him that he as well as they had mastered the 
 art of diplomacy and the science of finance. 
 He was wholly loyal to that inbred senti 
 ment of respect for office, common to all 
 good Americans, and so little understood 
 and so much derided by monarchical aliens 
 as being akin to their own worship of caste. 
 
 Presently he drew nearer to the president, 
 who was listening attentively to a large, 
 stout man, one of .the leaders of the House. 
 With them, also, was a' personage to be noted 
 in any assembly of men : a short, symmet 
 rical figure, with a leonine head, the hair 
 white, the moustache black and white, the 
 eyes deep-set and staring. Noel knew of 
 him as a man of wealth and lineage, who had 
 lived much abroad and beyond the public 
 gaze, but from whom a great history, just 
 begun, was confidently expected. The ora 
 tor, seeing Paxson, held out his hand and 
 said: 
 
 " I'm boring the president, and fouling
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 107 
 
 my nest in the eyes of Mr. Van Horn. Come 
 and chronicle me. I am by way of saying 
 flatly that the men who have written and 
 the men who are writing histories of the 
 United States have all made a fist of it when 
 they deal with Congress. They are scholarly 
 fellows who never sat in House or Seriate, 
 gallery or floor. They dig their reports out 
 of the Record ; they are like the mass of 
 people who have a high idea of congressional 
 debate because they never listened to any of 
 it. They don't know how political history 
 is made down here. You newspaper men 
 make a lot of it, and, for the rest, you know 
 or think you know how and where it is 
 made." 
 
 The president laughed softly, but Mr. Van 
 Horn gave no sign of appreciation. 
 
 "Why," ventured Noel, "don't the con 
 gressmen who have helped make the history, 
 write it for us?" 
 
 " God bless you, we can't ; we've lived too 
 long in a condensed atmosphere, and only
 
 108 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 politics or what's the other word ? states 
 manship? oozes out of us. Except autobi 
 ography, to be sure; the meekest among us 
 is strong at that." 
 
 "I noticed somewhere lately," said the 
 president, "that 37,000 British and Ameri 
 can authors have written 93,000 books since 
 1850. Now, what in the world possesses 
 men and women to write like that?" 
 
 " The devil," said the orator, firmly. 
 
 "No," interrupted Mr. Van Horn, "I 
 prefer to believe it's vanity. But hasn't all 
 this writing been productive of good ? I'm 
 inclined to believe that it has raised the level 
 of authorship if it hasn't produced great 
 authors." 
 
 
 
 " It has given us only one kind of toler 
 able reading," said the orator. "Autobi 
 ography ; gossip. Men of action can do that 
 sort of tiling better than men of letters, for 
 there's the personal note and the interest in 
 their lines. Now, Mr. President, if you 
 would only write, ' How I Won My Way
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 109 
 
 from Wingosoc to the White House' 
 
 The president and the orator turned laugh 
 ing away, and Mr. Van Horn looked after 
 them with a curling lip. 
 
 A hundred of any kind of Nineteenth Cen 
 tury men in evening dress, dining under the 
 blaze of electric lights, constitute an invig 
 orating spectacle ; but when the diners are 
 clever and convivial in the mass, and their 
 faces show amidst the floral decorations as 
 do the heads of daisies in a meadow patch, 
 then one, in admiring them, is minded of the 
 Olympian feasts of Jove and all his jovial 
 crew. Think of a board shaped somewhat 
 as a gridiron, each prong peopled to the point; 
 of a great apple tree in the centre, fragrant 
 and snow-white with blossoms; of banks of 
 palms in the back ground from which steals 
 softly the music of mandolins ; of a menu 
 most appetible in every detail in the Del 
 aware perch, the fresh mushrooms stuffed 
 with oyster crabs, the saddle of Southdown 
 mutton, the terrapin, the canvas back duck;
 
 110 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 and, above all, of the surprises the playful 
 gentlemen of the Grill sprang upon their 
 guests with each delectable course. There 
 was the little German band, for instance, 
 composed alternately of tall and short gen 
 tlemen in masquerade who marched gravely 
 around the room to the shrill toot of a horn 
 and the thunder of a bass drum ; there was 
 the unveiling of the caricatures of members 
 drawn by a famous artist present, and de 
 scribed in roaring showman style by the in 
 imitable Orme ; there were songs and speeches 
 of the. finest ; and when the president had 
 had his say (and he said it admirably well), 
 everybody stood up as he left the room and 
 sang " He's a Jolly Good Fellow " with might 
 and main. Then, in a twinkling, a dozen 
 newsboys burst upon them, crying, "Pa-a- 
 pree ! Evenin' Grill !" and, sure enough, it 
 was a modest little sheet so entitled, and full 
 of the most personal and consequently the 
 most delightful notes about every man at the 
 table. Also there were speeches, and rather
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 111 
 
 pathetically ponderous ones, it must be ad 
 mitted, from a justice of the Supreme Court, 
 a member of the Cabinet, and a senator or 
 two ; and then the irrepressible Orme took 
 the chair, and smiting the table with his 
 gavel, heaved a most insulting sigh as of re 
 lief, and said : 
 
 " Now, gentlemen, having got rid of the 
 dead wood, let us proceed to enjoy ourselves." 
 And certainly after that things were consid 
 erably livelier. Noel presently found himself 
 drifting about the room, like others, chatting 
 with this one and that, and enjoying the in 
 formality of it all immensely. He was hailed 
 at length by Lieutenant Alcott whose face 
 expressed the moral of the drinking song he 
 had just sung to great applause. Across the 
 table General Dan Wheat was holding forth 
 on the only moral way of making coffee, 
 which led his neighbor, a red-headed youth 
 in the State Department, to say that the 
 only sensible drink for a man who was aspir 
 ing to live a century was whiskey. Noel
 
 112 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 thought, or said he thought, it was water, 
 and the general neatly nipped a debate in 
 the bud. 
 
 " You are both right," he said, " it is whis 
 key and water." 
 
 The chairman now arose again and made 
 some inaudible remarks, but as he pounded 
 with his gavel there were loud cries of 
 *' Bunce ! Bunce ! " and Noel looked around 
 with gloomy interest on the man whom he 
 had come that day to despise or hate, he 
 scarcely knew which. So curious, indeed, 
 are the passions of men. We play fast and 
 loose with the affections of a woman, and 
 finally cast her off, and a year afterward are 
 enraged to hear that the unfaithful creature 
 has so far forgotten us and her self-respect 
 as to marry a vulgar millionaire. "The 
 widow has captured him," whispered Alcott; 
 and though he heard and understood but too 
 well, Noel pretended an absorbing interest 
 in the remarks of Bunce, who spoke well, in 
 deed, relaxing his senatorial dignity to the
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE . 113 
 
 utmost. He was a man from whom any au 
 dience would be bound to expect weighty 
 utterance, and from whom in consequence 
 mere levity might pass for wit. What he 
 now said was trifling enough, but his manner 
 of saying it surprised even Noel into hearty 
 applause. 
 
 " I'll bet that bee is buzzing like a saw," 
 said the lieutenant, ancl Noel didn't doubt 
 that it was. 
 
 After this a black-haired youth chanted a 
 melancholy ballad to which no one seemed 
 to pay the slightest attention until the chorus 
 was reached, when most of the feasters paused 
 for an instant in their cups and vociferously 
 aired their lungs. 
 
 41 1 don't see," said one of the group about 
 General Dan Wheat, " how either Paxson or 
 Yorke " this was he of the State Depart 
 ment, Noel's ancient chum "can aid our in 
 vestigation, being single men ; but as Paxson 
 is a man of imagination and Yorke, I believe, 
 by no means a man of his word, it might be
 
 114 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 well to admit them to the conference. What 
 do you think, Dunlap ? " 
 
 This latter was a notable figure, so juve 
 nile and fresh of face, that one woulcjl wish 
 to regard his unflagging consumption of wine 
 as an optical delusion. He nodded to the 
 speaker, whose name was Spike, and Alcott 
 explained to Paxson that a discussion was 
 on as to the comparative veracity of single 
 and married men, and that an exchange of 
 views was solicited concerning the alleged 
 disposition of club men to deviate from the 
 lines of exact truth in explaining to their 
 wives the reasons for their detention down 
 town. For his own part he was inclined to 
 take a charitable view of the practice, if, in 
 deed, that practice really existed. It was 
 beyond belief, he should say, that a man 
 of fine feeling would deliberately awaken 
 groundless alarms in the breast of the woman 
 who bore his name and his children by re 
 citing with uncalled-for accuracy the events 
 of a night out. Love of truth was one thing,
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 115 
 
 and from his point of view a capital thing, 
 but not to be confounded with that slavish 
 devotion to the husks and symbols of fact 
 which, it was notorious, stultified the intel 
 lect and demoralized the better nature of a 
 real good fellow. Love of truth was one 
 thing, but conjugal love was another and 
 better thing. However, he was not prepared 
 to accept the statement of Yorke that all be 
 lated husbands, in making their excuses, 
 were prone to paint the lily whatever he 
 meant by that or gild refined gold. 
 
 " There's one man I know," said General 
 Dan Wheat, his eyes on Spike, " who'll not 
 be so fast, since last Monday, to gild his re 
 fined gold at home. Do you know, Spike," 
 confidentially, "that man went home after 
 losing one hundred dollars and told his wife 
 he had won twenty-four. Mark his miser 
 able fate : ' I'm so glad,' said she. * Look in 
 the little drawer of your dressing-case, dear. 
 I was going to keep it back until the end of 
 the month, but it's all right now.' In the
 
 116 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 little drawer he found a little bonnet bill 
 for twenty-five dollars, and he siezed it with 
 a cry of joy." 
 
 "Yes," said Spike, sorrowfully, "the prac 
 tice, so detestable to a man of honor, is, I re 
 gret to say, quite common among the wretches 
 known as rounders. I don't wish to be per 
 sonal, and I trust that Alcott will pardon my 
 citing him as a flagrant example. When he 
 informed Mrs. Alcott last Monday morning, 
 at three o'clock, that he had had such a 
 night of it as he wouldn't repeat for a thou 
 sand dollars, and that he was half-minded to 
 insist upon the acceptance of his resignation 
 by the club, unless the board of governors 
 would agree to prevent Dunlap and me from 
 making such spectacles of ourselves ; and 
 that he'd be hanged if he'd ever take the 
 trouble to see us home again, for a man 
 never got any credit for such brotherly love, 
 only contumely and scorn, when Alcott, I 
 say, tried to disguise his disgusting condition 
 from Mrs. Alcott by a statement which ut-
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 117 
 
 terly ignored the important fact that Dunlap 
 and I had deposited him noiselessly in his 
 vestibule at midnight, he was guilty, I hold, 
 not only of rank ingratitude, but of a trifling 
 with the truth so awkward that he amply 
 deserved the confusion and shame with which 
 we subsequently covered him." 
 
 "May I inquire concerning the same?" 
 demanded Alcott, in a bold, defiant tone. 
 
 "Doubtless it never occurred to him," 
 Spike went on, ignoring the ingrate, "that 
 men of honor, unhappily benighted through 
 their concern for the safety of an inebriate 
 acquaintance, would be prompt to give at 
 home an unvarnished story of their adven 
 ture. That is what Dunlap and I did ; and 
 I had the pleasure at Mrs. Spike's tea to-day 
 to overhear Mrs. Spike and Mrs. Dunlap and 
 Mrs. Alcott comparing notes, with a result 
 most favorable to the cause of truth, for, 
 after all, truth is mighty and always pre 
 vails." 
 
 The lieutenant enjoyed his discomfiture
 
 118 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 more than any one else, and Noel, looking 
 at the careless, handsome fellow, bethought 
 him of the pure sweet face of Mrs. Alcott, 
 and felt that in laughing as he did he had 
 somehow injured her and demeaned himself. 
 Indeed he thought a great deal of that face, 
 and, naturally enough, from it, fell to the 
 thought of Mrs. Burgess and of Ruth. And 
 there his mind stuck while his gaze went 
 idly round the room, which was now (the 
 dinner being advanced to that disorderly and 
 delightful final stage, known technically as 
 the Committee of the Whole,) a maelstrom 
 of laughter, song, mandolins and impromptu 
 oratory. It may have been any fraction of 
 an hour afterward when he was slapped on 
 the shoulder. 
 
 " When-jew-g'back, Paxshun?" 
 Noel said he was down for a couple of 
 days, but might leave the next night. 
 
 " Doan-shoo-do't, doan-shoo-do't," said the 
 lieutenant, earnestly. " Missel 'Cat'l never 
 'give you, s'help me. Jussa-litl' dinner,
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 119 
 
 sixtyseven-you know, sis or sev' all ole 
 frens." 
 
 "When?" asked Noel, not at all disposed 
 to accept. 
 
 "'Morrow." Tears of entreaty (we may 
 suppose) stood in the lieutenant's eyes. 
 " On'y you and Burgesses, and Bunch and" 
 he tried to whisper in Noel's ear, but the 
 latter understood, and feeling very much 
 ashamed of himself shook his head and got 
 on his feet, and then said very well, he 
 would come.
 
 120 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Let Heaven fall upon my head ! 
 
 Once to its God I could humbly bow. 
 
 For then I loved and lived. And now 
 I'm godless for my god is dead. 
 
 THE WIFE'S DISCOVERY. 
 
 LIEUTENANT ALCOTT was giving the 
 final fluttering touches to his toilet, when 
 Mrs. Alcott came humming to the door and 
 murmured, 
 
 "Dick." 
 
 " In a second, my dear." And in a minute 
 or two he came and stood before her and 
 gazed his fill. 
 
 "Will I do?" 
 
 " You'll undo, you witch." Then as her 
 pleasure ran redly from bosom to forehead, 
 he bent over and touched her lips. " You're 
 really superb, Millicent; you've done won-
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 121 
 
 ders with that gown ; I'd never know it. 
 Hanged," he added, enthusiastically, "if I 
 think Mrs. Burgess will." 
 
 "But Dick," she said, drawing back and 
 raising her skirts to her ankles, " aren't the 
 stockings too too 
 
 " They are," he assented, pinching her 
 cheek, "just two." 
 
 She was dressed in lavender, and it was a 
 fact that a bluer tint was in her gown than 
 in her hose, but the lieutenant's jocosity was 
 move than a match for them. 
 
 This last ante-Lenten dinner of the Al- 
 cotts was neither so large nor so small an af 
 fair as the lieutenant in his " sixty-seven " or 
 " sis' or sev' " had indicated. The fact is, 
 that Mrs. Alcott had in her eagerness to 
 balance her little society book at the tag of 
 the season somewhat overcrowded her 
 pretty little dining-room in placing a dozen 
 plates at table ; and her placid temper was 
 barely proof against the unexpected appear 
 ance of Noel. Not that she dreaded the odd
 
 124 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 one chair at table which has as yet escaped 
 our notice was that between the general and 
 the eastern diplomat, and it was occupied by 
 an exceedingly pretty girl. This was Miss 
 Deverell, as one might readily know in look 
 ing from her to the hostess, her maturer im 
 age. 
 
 A dinner is but a dinner, and this one was 
 in no wise exceptional save for an incident 
 which bears upon our story. The general 
 was telling a tale, and when the general 
 spoke it was just why, his audience might 
 be at a loss to say it was, at any rate, eti 
 quette to lend ear. So something to this 
 effect was heard by all : 
 
 " Mind you're not to ask the name of the 
 rogue. It was the best thing he ever did, 
 and 'pon my word, Mrs. Alcott, if I hadn't 
 heard the thing from what the Pasha here 
 would call a semi-official source, I'd not 
 credit it. We'll name him Bronze Mr. 
 Bronze. He came by the Rabbit House on 
 Friday night, and over in the dark passed a
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 123 
 
 fully. That is, she sent the coachman 
 scurrying with a Hue to Deverell, who 
 was a captain of something, somewhere, 
 and some time, whose only claim upon 
 Washington society was the fraternal tie 
 which bound him to Mrs. Alcott, a tie 
 which his sister only seemed to esteem as 
 sacred. 
 
 Hence, after all, Noel became a welcome 
 guest in the little congested dining-room. 
 He was placed, moreover, to the left of Mrs. 
 Rogers, with the inscrutable Van Horn on 
 the other side, and his vis-a-vis was Senator 
 Bunce, who sat between the inimitable Bur 
 gess and the secretary of the Levant lega 
 tion. Congressman Burgess, who never 
 counted, sat between Van Horn and the 
 lovely and silent Mrs. Purnell, who was en 
 face of General Dan Wheat, and the general 
 was there, we may be sure, to leaven a group 
 of dullards. He particularly admired quiet 
 women and was a favorite with lively ones ; 
 and we must not forget to remark that the
 
 122 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 number who does? but thirteen into her 
 dining-room wouldn't go. Of course the 
 lieutenant had quite forgotten his invitation 
 of the night before, and of course Noel at 
 once saw he had and felt accordingly com 
 fortable. 
 
 "I just looked in upon you, Mrs. Alcott," 
 he lied, "and should have known better 
 than do so at this hour ; but but I thought 
 perhaps you had a tea or something on, and 
 I could say how d'ye do. For I'm off on the 
 night train." 
 
 " Well, you're not," cried Alcott. " You're 
 here to dine. We expect you. It was 
 mighty good of you to come, Paxson, on 
 such short notice, and and take the place 
 of Captain Deverell. Know Deverell ? 
 No?" 
 
 The lieutenant did not have to look at 
 Mrs. Alcott. She was always looking at 
 him. And she knew every mood of the 
 man, and now knew instantly what she was 
 expected to do, and she did it even grate-
 
 SENAfO&'S WIFE 12? 
 
 there Was need of ventilation, and the door 
 leading from the dining-room to drawing- 
 room had been, if not wisely, yet well left 
 open by Mrs. Alcott, so that a curious com 
 mingling of music in the one and the sound 
 of voices and of glasses in the other filled 
 the two apartments. Ruth sat at the piano 
 and played well. In the dining-room a 
 voice dominated that of the lieutenant, in 
 fancied security ; for the lieutenant, being 
 in excellent feather was a trifle loud and 
 voluble. He took the Levantine delightfully 
 to task about things which the Levantine 
 denied in a merry way that meant confession, 
 and in words and voice that called upon 
 Noel and Van Horn to cry hush. At this 
 the lieutenant seemed to be very much 
 amused. 
 
 "Van, you're a dream. And here's a 
 virtuous newspaper man ! You expect to 
 find that sort of thing in the army or navy 
 but in civil life ! Why even Dan Wheat ! 
 I'll leave it to the general if he's not a but
 
 126 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 The mouth of the Levantine went wide 
 and tight over his teeth, and he choked joy 
 ously in his napkin. " Jesso," said he, 
 " Mast'r Burge, jesso. Bronze ees in the cab. 
 Et puis, generale ? " 
 
 " Why, then, you stupid," said Mrs. Bur 
 gess, " he found it empty." 
 
 " Exactly," said General Dan Wheat. 
 
 " Jesso," roared the Levantine. 
 
 " There's blamed little point to that 
 yarn," Burgess remarked ; and then he 
 drank deliberately and in right succession 
 the various glasses of wine ranged before 
 him, having previously disposed of all his 
 food to the minutest particles; for Con 
 gressman Burgess was a very methodical 
 man. 
 
 Senator Bunce went away with the ladies, 
 and the lieutenant called out, " Give them 
 Chopin, Mrs. Rogers," and then winked at 
 the general. In this doll's house of the 
 Alcotts, the rooms, as we have seen, were 
 ridiculously small and close together, and
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 125 
 
 man and woman. Says the man to the 
 woman, ' Get into that cab and wait for me. 
 I'll be back in five minutes.' Well, you see 
 Bronze is a very considerate fellow ; about 
 as gallant a man as I know. So he waited 
 just five minutes by his watch, then says he 
 to himself: ' Here's a case of misplaced con 
 fidence ; here's a confiding female waiting on 
 hopelessly for the return of a base deserter. 
 Gad, it's an outrage.' Then Bronze got into 
 the cab." 
 
 Mrs. Alcott laughed : the merry laugh of 
 an innocent woman. And the general's 
 simple story was pleasing also to Mrs. Bur 
 gess and to Ruth and to Mrs. Purnell. 
 Miss Deverell stared at her sister, then 
 at her salad, and blushed divinely. The 
 lieutenant's cheeks were hot as coals, but 
 they were always fuel to the wine he 
 drank. 
 
 " Well," said Burgess, his mouth full of 
 buttered cracker and roquefort ; " well, go 
 on, general. He got into the cab, eh ? "
 
 128 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 never mind. I'll not go back on him even if 
 
 he " Here the general roared and the 
 
 lieutenant took brandy. " See here, Paxson, 
 why don't you write a story and call it 
 ' Won in an Instant '?....! can 
 give you the plot in five minutes. Let's call 
 her Jeannette. Dark, devilish small, and 
 
 devilish. Well Then there's 
 
 Aaron Burr. Any Princeton man can tell 
 you about him and the nun. But, Lord ! 
 any man with sand in him knows the tricks. 
 General, aren't they innate? Women like 
 'em ; they think a man without 'em is a muff 
 as Van would say. Here comes your 
 
 mountain maid " 
 
 The lieutenant stood up and struck an 
 
 attitude. " And here comes your muff. 
 
 Your muff tries a grin on her and she knows 
 him. Along comes my man. Keep your eye 
 on him. He's seen her a mile ahead, but she 
 never knows it. He's got hish eyes on the 
 ground ; he's lookin' sad, regular damdone- 
 up. Right on top of her, he jerks back, he
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 129 
 
 staresh standsh still. Begad if he knows 
 his business, he'll let his jaws drop, if it does 
 spoil 'spreshun. It's the biggest compliment 
 . he can pay her, and she'll fire up like a fur- 
 nance. But he won't speak ; he's no muff. 
 He'll walk right on ; and he's cock sure 
 what'll happen. When he gets about a 
 hundred yards he'll turn 'bout like a rab 
 bit, and maybe she won't be lookin' at 
 him ! " 
 
 " Bravo ! " said the general and the Levan 
 tine. " And then ? " 
 
 " Why then," said the lieutenant, im 
 mensely pleased with himself, " accordin' to 
 circustances. He won't make any mish- 
 takes ; he won't write any letters he never 
 does that maybe he'll go to church or get 
 dry when passin' her place. He'll do what's 
 best, bet-your-boots ! accordin' to circu 
 stances. Then," added the lieutenant, sway 
 ing a little and staring at Van Horn, " resh 
 easy."
 
 130 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 The Levantine clapped his hands and 
 nodded knowingly at Noel. V Jesso." 
 
 " Oh, go on," cried the general, in great 
 good humor. " You're not half through yet. 
 How about the billing and cooing?" 
 
 "Billin' and cooin' 's eashiest part of it," 
 said the lieutenant, scornfully. Here he 
 changed from the third to the second person, 
 and turned upon the icy Van Horn. " You 
 use your eyes; you're a man of sorrow; 
 you're what a woman call interestin'. She 
 never looks at you but she finds you lookin' 
 at her. Sometimes you forget your corrodin' 
 sadness and wade in and surprise her with 
 your converchaseonal giffs ; but all of a 
 sudden you stop and draw a breath and walk 
 away. Then, when the time's ripe always 
 accordin' to circustances you pull out your 
 watch, (thish is usually 'bout fourth day), 
 and you take her hand and say you must go; 
 you think it best, but you hope she'll not 
 forget you. As for you. . . . Here you 
 drop her hand, and stand still jes' 'bout five
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 131 
 
 seconds." The lieutenant placed his hand 
 on Van Horn's shoulder. "Don't overdo it. 
 Then you turn round and say, ' I 
 wish to God I'd never met you ' if you 
 haven't been drinkin' you'd better whisper 
 it. Of course. . . . 
 
 The Chopin ceased. " Letsh go in," said 
 the lieutenant, upsetting the brandy decanter. 
 He turned a foolish face toward the portieres. 
 Within the dollish drawing-room, to the left 
 of the piano, sat Mrs. Alcott, her head in 
 shadow, but thrust forward, no doubt still 
 enrapt with the melancholy melody of 
 Chopin, for the touch of Ruth was certainly 
 delicate and true. But bending over her 
 was Mrs. Burgess, who was saying very 
 gently for Mrs. Burgess, indeed, " Let me 
 tell you a story, dear. Once there was a 
 woman who loved a man with all her heart ; 
 and once there was a man who loved a 
 woman with half his heart. . . ." 
 
 " Hang a man with only half a heart," 
 said the lieutenant, standing in the doorway.
 
 132 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 " Give me a man with two hearts three of 
 'em begad. Eh, Millicent ? " 
 
 "Ah," said the Burgess dryly, stepping 
 back so that his flushed face looked scarlet 
 in the light that came through the red lamp 
 shade ; " up to your old tricks, lieutenant ? " 
 At least another and more deeply interested 
 woman, upon whom these tricks had been 
 tried, knew the meaning of the emphasis ; 
 and Ruth, who did not, went up to that 
 woman and whispered to her: "Such a 
 blessing he married you, my love. You 
 know how to manage him beautifully." 
 Such is the charitable way women speak of 
 amiable sinners against their own sex. 
 
 As Ruth turned away Noel went up to 
 her, his nostrils beating to the sense of a sub 
 tle and familiar perfume. He had in his ears 
 the secret sounds of sea shells. " Come to 
 the window, please," he plead. 
 
 She was at once eager yet loath to go. It 
 would be a delight and yet an agony to tell 
 him. "But what, I wonder," she asked,
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 133 
 
 " can you have to say to me. That you're 
 down for another day, I hope ; or have you 
 seats for Irving ? " 
 
 He looked steadily in her face, and found 
 its loveliness more than satisfactory. " Don't 
 be trivial," he said. " Ruth " 
 
 She dropped into the nearest chair and 
 made merry, although her face was close to 
 the tint of the plush it touched. 
 
 " H'lo," shouted Alcott from the divan, 
 " what's joke ? " 
 
 Noel did his best to appear at ease, but his 
 best was pretty bad. He stood before her 
 with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, 
 and stared with a tragic countenance. 
 
 " I see," he said, " I've made a mistake. I 
 beg your pardon, Mrs. Rogers." 
 
 Ruth shut her fan with a snap, and smiled 
 across the room at Mrs. Burgess who was 
 holding Senator Bunce in leash. " Aren't 
 we formal to-night ? " said she. " Go on 
 Noel." 
 
 He felt, with a savage hatred of himself,
 
 134 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 unequal to the contest. But the artist in 
 him prompted a change of front. " Come," 
 he said, " we mustn't quarrel. I've some 
 thing of importance to tell you. I must tell 
 it to-night now. Would you care to hear 
 it ? You must hear it ! " 
 
 Could he have read the secret of her plan 
 gent heart ! But he had tarried over-much. 
 Here was a new woman before him ; a woman 
 he did not know ; one, perhaps, who could 
 have loved and was certainly well worth lov 
 ing. Her rich color was at ebb as she stood 
 up and stabbed him with a look he never 
 forgot. 
 
 " Must hear it ? " she said. Then snap 
 ping her fingers in the air, schoolgirl fash 
 ion ; " Please, may I not hear it ? You've 
 something of ' importance ' to tell me? But 
 it's late Noel; and another time will 
 scarcely do." She lowered her eyes and 
 added : " There's a thing of small ' impor 
 tance ' I have to tell you, I'm to marry 
 again,"
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 135 
 
 He was not astounded, of course, but the 
 tone hurt. 
 
 " Bunce?" said he. 
 
 " Senator Bunce," she said, and left him.
 
 136 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 It came to Ihee, it fled from me, 
 
 The thrilling, blessed thought; 
 You treat the thing so scornfully 
 
 I gladly would have wrought. 
 
 Aye, you fought it, while I sought. 
 
 The thought. 
 Sick to the soul, scarlet with shame, 
 
 Yet from this take heart of grace : 
 Even to Christ an instant came 
 
 When the great God his face. 
 
 FROM "A TRIBUTE." 
 
 GOOD newspaper men are mostly errant ; 
 true free-lances. If fixtures, they are liable, 
 like iron hinges on closed doors to rust ; and 
 then, when quite worn out, they are replaced 
 and flung aside. Noel, discerning signs of 
 rust on his pen, though it was kept tolerably
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 137 
 
 wet and well in motion, shrewdly cut loose 
 from the greatest paper in the country be 
 fore the sword of the management fell upon 
 his head, and went where all ambitious 
 journalists eventually go whether upon pro 
 fessional or political missions to Washing 
 ton. That was after Mr. Archibald Paxson, 
 becoming an angel, had remembered Noel in 
 his will to the extent of thirty thousand dol 
 lars. The lip of the journalistic wheel-horse 
 shall curl at this, and rightly ; for what self- 
 respecting member of the craft would abide 
 its demands unless under pressure of famine? 
 However, Noel, though but an average man, 
 was not exactly one of the regiment of news 
 paper men. He went to Washington. 
 
 Now there is so much to see and to do 
 down there, that it was to be expected this 
 unromantic hero of ours would pass many 
 days in preparing for the serious work he 
 had cut out for himself. The time went on 
 with amazing fleetness, indeed, and it was 
 extraordinary bow the task of preparatiom
 
 138 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 seemed daily to increase in importance and 
 grow hourly more and more arduous. 
 Brought close in view of the machinery of 
 federal legislation, it appeared less compli 
 cated, it is true, but all the more ingenious 
 for its simplicity. Indeed he seemed to de 
 tect signs of the clap-trap in it, something 
 of the impotent mystery of the Keely Moter. 
 However, Noel was not altogether a philo 
 sophic student of national politics, and law- 
 making. If the truth is all to be told as it 
 must be he was equally if not more deeply 
 interested in the observation of congressional 
 work as it is carried on outside the halls of 
 Congress. And here, we are bound to say, 
 the student was sunk in the lover of life. It 
 was less perhaps his observation, as we have 
 loosely phrased it, of the curious phases of 
 Washington intrigue, than his participation 
 in the same, that captivated him. 
 
 He saw at first but little though he heard 
 often and much of Mrs. Bunce. The simple 
 fact was that he did not care to beard temp-
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 139 
 
 tation. He might be strong enough to re 
 sist ; he did not know ; only that he feared 
 to test his strength. Sometimes when he 
 met her she had a way of looking at him ab 
 stractedly that made him feel most foolish. 
 He was not certain then whether she was 
 trying to make a fool of him or whether he 
 was only making a fool of himself. So, as it 
 really made but little difference which was 
 the case, he quite wisely kept aloof. 
 
 Yet not for long. The burned child 
 dreads the fire for a day or two. Presently 
 when the air is chill it comes back, and, at 
 perhaps a more respectful distance, holds 
 out its hands. So had Noel done, and 
 doubtless of his own free will would have 
 sought the flame again, without help or 
 abettance. But there was the Burgess, in 
 the capacity of nurse, to coax him to the 
 fire ; and it was not long, we repeat, before 
 he sought it gladly. 
 
 The rapidity of life at the capital during 
 that exceptionally long session is really his-
 
 140 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 torical. What was society to do while Con 
 gress talked against time, and spring stole 
 slowly on ? Rather, what did society not 
 try to do ? The spectacle of Senate and 
 House confronting each other like two pug 
 ilists, almost equally matched, and sparring 
 for wind, while the president as referee bade 
 them get together, might be interesting 
 enough to the masses outside of the ring ; 
 but, within, the familiar sight appeared dis 
 mally slow and tame. So society amused 
 itself in many ways; it rode cross country 
 and dined a good deal in the suburbs; and 
 above all it laughed at Congress, which is as 
 much as to say that the best bred portion of 
 Congress laughed at itself. It is not a 
 pleasant thing to say, and Noel did not say 
 it aloud ; but statesmanship, it seems, is a 
 magnificent mirage, the texture of which, as 
 one approaches it closer and yet more 
 close, thins into vaguest outline and pres 
 ently dissolves in mist. 
 He had been dining early in the Fox Club
 
 TEE SENATORS WIFE 141 
 
 with Van Horn, the other guests being Ruth, 
 Mrs. Burgess, the Lieutenant and Mrs. Al- 
 cott a group of kindred spirits that had 
 lately been much together all save Mrs. 
 Alcott. As on the occasion of his first meet 
 ing with her, she still seemed out of place. 
 Yet was she not the same woman. The 
 placid silence that so well matched her gentle 
 face was broken now at times by curious rip 
 ples of laughter. Sometimes she attempted 
 a jest, tentatively, and with an affected sang 
 froid that seemed quite pathetic. Which 
 was almost wonderful to Noel and most ex 
 asperating. It interested him, too, to note 
 the peculiar effect of Mrs. Alcott's deport 
 ment upon the aplomb of the lieutenant. 
 They were gathered at dusk before the big 
 blazing open grate in the hall ; all except Al 
 cott, who burst suddenly in upon them from 
 the piazza with a boyish jubilant shout : 
 "It's snowing ! " which made the day all 
 perfect, and the credit of it, as of all the 
 rest of the fun they were having, went freely
 
 142 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 to Van Horn. He was modest enough, 
 however, to repel with a gesture of alarm 
 the gratitude that beamed obliquely from 
 the eyes of Mrs. Burgess. "Don't thank 
 me," he said. " I can do many things, Mrs. 
 Burgess, but I can't snow." 
 
 The day had died out reluctantly, and in 
 colors that made heaven of the heavens and 
 a gorgeous rippling canvas of the river. The 
 club-house was all their own for the after 
 noon and evening, and they had laughed in 
 it, sung in it, danced in it and eaten upstairs 
 one of the dinners which Alcott called 
 " hearty and heady." It had been a trifle 
 too uproarious, perhaps, for there came with 
 the coffee an ominous lull. Ruth and Noel 
 fell away into reminiscence ; Mrs. Burgess 
 babbled across the way to Mrs. Alcott ; Van 
 Horn drummed with his fingers on the table ; 
 while the lieutenant looking decidedly flac 
 cid, preached politics between drinks. Pres 
 ently they had rambled back to the hall 
 where the big glowing fireplace had welded
 
 THE StiNATO&S WIFE 143 
 
 them together in a picturesque and colorful 
 half-circle. Then it was that Alcott, from 
 cooling his temples in the outer air, returned 
 with the cosy news of falling snow. 
 
 "Now, lieutenant," said Mrs. Burgess, 
 " get into the game. Mr. Paxson has had an 
 inspiration. We're going to tell a story." 
 
 " Tell stories ? O, come, Paxson ! " 
 
 " Not ' stories ' ; a story ; just one, a com 
 posite. We're each to tell a chapter. As a 
 reward for your services in the matter of 
 snow, we'll let you begin it." 
 
 " So good of you," said the lieutenant, 
 and he ostentatiously tiptoed to a certain 
 little den of decanters back of the hall. 
 
 "Begin it yourself, Paxson," said Van 
 Horn ; and Noel did, in a quiet tone, staring 
 at the fire : 
 
 " He saw her first on top of a 'bus and 
 maybe it was in Philadelphia. She had cer 
 tain pleasant memories of Paris, no doubt, 
 and was an impulsive girl, and couldn't with 
 stand a 'bus. So that afternoon she boarded 
 one and rode imperial for six blocks ; and it
 
 144 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 was tremendously jolly until looking down 
 she saw him looking up. 
 
 u He couldn't help seeing her. No man 
 with an eye for form could ; and hers was of 
 the best. She was stunning that day 
 wore 
 
 " Never mind, however, though he always 
 remembered what she wore, down to the 
 dotlet in her veil. 
 
 " One of the few ill-bred things he ever 
 did was to get up on top of that 'bus. Yet 
 once in reach of her, his conduct was irre 
 proachable. He only glanced at her from 
 out the corner of his eyes, although he knew 
 very well that she was aware of his presence 
 and his admiration. It was really thrilling, 
 and by far the greatest adventure of her life. 
 Then the big wagon rolled around the cor 
 ner of This-and-That Street, and she made 
 a great effort and got down. For a moment 
 her beauty filled his eyes and then she went, 
 as he thought, with a charming indifference 
 out of his life." 
 
 " There," said Mrs. Burgess, clapping her 
 hands. " They're launched. Now, Ruth, 
 my dear, try to get them to sea. We'll 
 bring them to port again, won't we, Mr. Van 
 Horn?"
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 145 
 
 "No port there," said the lieutenant, re 
 turning from the pantry. " Tiptop Madeira." 
 
 Ruth waited in a pretty flutter until he 
 had taken his seat, and then advanced the 
 narrative : 
 
 " Of course she didn't go out of his life. 
 If she had there would be no story. They 
 got to know each other that summer very 
 well, indeed. Neither of them knew very 
 much of the world, she the less of the two, 
 but that wasn't of any consequence at all. 
 That is, it was of consequence, for it led her to 
 believe him to be the one noble man. . . . 
 (But I must be inventive, musn't I?" asked 
 Ruth, turning to Mrs. Burgess. "You must 
 be interesting, my dear," said Mrs. Burgess.) 
 
 " So everything went along nicely, until 
 one day the most ridiculous thing imaginable 
 happened. ... He went away and left 
 her! Inconsolable with grief the poor girl 
 married " 
 
 "Hold up!" cried Van Horn. "This 
 romance is moving at express speed. You 
 don't want to bring it at an end before the
 
 146 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 rest of us have had a chance at it, Mrs. 
 Bunce." 
 
 " I was trying to get at the romance of it," 
 laughed Ruth, squarely in Noel's face. 
 
 "By way of marriage, my love?" Mrs. 
 Burgess demanded. "What a tortuous 
 route ! Come, Mr. Van Horn, try to re 
 trieve the disaster. But we've got the poor 
 heroine married; there's no going back on 
 that." 
 
 " There isn't, eh ? " said the lieutenant, 
 sleepily. " Well, maybe, you're right." 
 
 Mr. Van Horn cleared his throat. 
 
 "A woman of spirit puts a high price on 
 her love I'm told. This one did and her 
 price was the whole life and undivided affec 
 tion of a man. She would have no other 
 claim outrank her own. The culture of io- 
 tellect, the worship of God, such things 
 were permissible but must not be paramount. 
 She would outweigh and dominate all ob 
 jects and aspirations in his life ; nothing less 
 would satisfy her, and she felt that the man 
 she wished would not regard the price as ex 
 orbitant. ."
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 147 
 
 "She came pretty high though," observed 
 the lieutenant, stealing toward the pantry. 
 As he disappeared Van Horn went on rapidly, 
 the eyes of all upon him, and his own fixed 
 upon the hands of Mrs. Alcott resting 
 clasped in her lap. 
 
 " She married a man who paid the price 
 for quite a time. That was enough for her, 
 since the great wonder in such a woman is 
 the way her high estimate of herself slumps 
 once the bargain is made. Our heroine used 
 to think and say that the best love of the 
 best man was no match for the pure love of 
 a good woman. She never thought or said 
 this after her marriage. She had surren 
 dered " 
 
 " That will do, Mr. Van Horn," said Mrs. 
 Burgess, sweetly. " You've talked very well, 
 but you haven't added an iota to the romance. 
 What we need is action, action, action ! And 
 you shall have it " 
 
 "The hero was not a whit worse than 
 most men of his class. That is, the first 
 hero; for we have two now, haven't we?
 
 148 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 No, we haven't, because the man she married 
 wasn't a bit heroic only a man. He may 
 not have been very deep, indeed he was very 
 shallow, but then so broad! For instance, 
 he put himself out of the wa} r , on one oc 
 casion, to ask the hero to his house for din 
 ner, and it was not for the purpose of spying 
 on his wife, the heroine, but simply to afford 
 her the experience of an agreeable flutter. He 
 knew all about it, and trusted her. 
 He was a fool, of course, but a very attrac 
 tive one. He came home early one afternoon 
 to pack his bag for an unexpected and urgent 
 call to New York, and he found the hero 
 there and was really glad to see him. That's 
 how broad he was. I don't think it should 
 count against him at all that he didn't take 
 the train for New York but the boat for 
 Fortress Monroe. . . ." 
 
 " I do," said the lieutenant, from the back 
 of Mrs. Burgess' chair, against which he 
 leaned and rocked. " Should have taken the 
 boat from Baltimore. When's my turn?" 
 
 Mrs. Alcott, without lifting her eyes from 
 the shining fireplace, tapped backward with 
 her fan and said: " O, Dick, you'll spoil it. 
 You haven't been following us."
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 149 
 
 "Deuce I haven't, m' dear. Listen: 
 
 " You see, the trouble with this bird was 
 that he didn't know enough using the 
 'spression of Van Horn to get in out of the 
 wet. So we'll say there was some one at the 
 Point who knew him and wrote home. 
 Didn't worry him a bit. Why? 'Cause he 
 was cock sure he'd done nothing wrong, 
 and . . . it'd all turn out right. There 
 was a woman at the Point. . . ." (The 
 lieutenant said this defiantly, and noting 
 a small sensation in the group before him 
 he began to pace behind the semi-circle, 
 and talk theatrically) . . . . " She was 
 in trouble ; she'd sent for him and he went to 
 her like a man. It was this way. A young 
 fellow, who ought to have known better 
 had gone to ... to ... pieces 
 for her, and she had got a letter from him 
 'dressed Niagara Falls. . . ." (Noel 
 had been looking at Mrs. Alcott but as the 
 lieutenant halted again behind the chair of 
 Mrs. Burgess he remarked a peculiar ex 
 pression on the face of that lady, and saw 
 her take one of Ruth's hands in both her 
 own and pat it gently.) ..." The 
 letter said something like this : * I've reached 
 the end of my rope. I can't have you and I 
 can't live without you. That's the long and 
 short of it. Here are all your letters.
 
 150 TEE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 You'll destroy mine. In to-morrow morn 
 ing's papers I suppose you'll see a paragraph 
 that's all my life is worth saying " that a 
 well-dressed young man went over to Goat 
 Island and asked to be guided to the Cave of 
 the Winds; that he put on the oilskins and 
 seemed to enjoy the trip very much; but 
 right in the midst of the cave the guide 
 looked back and couldn't see him. The 
 probability is that the unfortunate young 
 man missed his footing on the submerged 
 ledge, as others have, and his grip relaxing 
 on the iron railing, he was swept off into the 
 whirlpool, his cries being lost in the deafen 
 ing roar of the great cataract." You'll read 
 something like that, I think ; and I wonder 
 whether you'll care ? ' " 
 
 Alcott had made the hit of the evening. 
 Every one was looking at him save Ruth 
 and Mrs. Burgess. He plainly appraised his 
 success at its highest, value, and was not 
 going to detract from it. For he stepped 
 back in shadow a yard or two and swayed 
 in the direction of the pantry. " I don't 
 think I spoiled it, my dear, did I ? Now 
 whoop her up. With you in a minute."
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 151 
 
 " Hold on," called Noel. " You didn't fin 
 ish. Was the paragraph in the papers ? " 
 
 There was a clink of glass, a gurgle, a 
 smack of lips, and then, " Well, rather ; " 
 and the lieutenant came back to his chair. 
 
 "It seems to me," said Noel, "that the 
 thread of our story is pretty badly tangled. 
 For one, I can't follow it. Mrs. Alcott, try 
 to unravel it for us, won't you ? " 
 
 " I can't." She shook her head without 
 looking up. 
 
 " There's but one way, I believe, to get 
 rid of a bad knot," Van Horn muttered. 
 
 " But one way for the impatient ; it's an 
 awkward way sometimes," said Noel. Every 
 thing this steel-faced man did or said rasped 
 him. His very silence seemed suggestive, it 
 was so deliberate. 
 
 " Well, let us cut our story, any way," 
 said Van Horn, briskly. *' It's been a sad 
 failure, Paxson, I think you'll admit. Mrs. 
 Burgess, you are half to blame. Fancy our 
 coming out here to talk tragedy. Do you
 
 152 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 know it seems to me that the most absurd 
 thing in the whole world to one who can or 
 who cares to think about it, is the assump 
 tion it's largely of religious origin isn't it, 
 Paxson? that life is a very serious affair." 
 Here there was a pause, while Van Horn, 
 who was a scholar, if not a Christian, pulled 
 himself together, and then lifted up his voice 
 again. " So far as I have been able to dis 
 cover, all the philosophers and saints who 
 have taken life seriously never really lived. 
 They have not only presumed to tell us of 
 the mysterious deeps of a life whose sweets 
 they never tasted, but to instruct us concern 
 ing an alleged life of whose character and 
 constituents they know absolutely nothing. 
 Life isn't serious at all only to cowards. 
 What are we to call the man or woman who 
 enjoys every sweet thing in the world up to 
 the age of fatigue, and then from remorse 
 begot of decay, preaches the gospel of tears 
 to those who have not exhausted the juice 
 of the orange ? We call some of them phi-
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 153 
 
 losophers and saints ; but what should we 
 call them ? " 
 
 "Humbugs," said Mrs. Burgess. 
 
 " It's surely a matter of temperament, isn't 
 it?" said Noel. 
 
 " Is cant temperamental ? " 
 
 "Yes ; some very broad-minded men have 
 spoken and written it. There wasn't much 
 cant about Thackeray, but' you'll find him 
 saying in * Pendennis ' what a dangerous 
 journey life is, and other rot like that. I 
 suppose you'll take them as the words of a 
 man who has lived long in clubs and ruined 
 his stomach ? " 
 
 " I might ; just as I know how to take the 
 magnificent deductions of historians, or the 
 boasts of socialists who talk about toiling 
 and fretting away their little lives for the 
 good of the world. They fret because they 
 like to fret. It's their particular form of 
 
 < 
 
 debauch. They, as well as the preachers 
 of any other gospel, are fit for nothing 
 else,"
 
 154 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 " ' Beware,' " quoted Noel, mockingly, 
 " ' when the great God lets loose a thinker 
 on this planet ; then things are at risk.' " 
 
 Van Horn looked at him with an unpleas 
 ant smile. " Then you take life seriously, 
 do you, Paxson ? " 
 
 "Oh, no; only some days of it. Was 
 there ever any one who didn't? The par 
 ticular gospel you preach may suit yourself; 
 it wouldn't do for all ; it might have serious 
 consequences for some. I remember sitting 
 in the studio of a friend one day, looking 
 over a rare etching. He caught a fly, held 
 its legs in the india ink and said : ' Go, lit 
 tle beast; make your mark in the world.' 
 The fly lighted on the etching and ruined 
 it." 
 
 Mrs. Alcott turned her eyes upon Noel, 
 and Mrs. Burgess laughed, and Ruth said : 
 " I suppose this is very bright talk and that 
 I am very stupid not to see it." Then she 
 went over to the piano and crashed a bass 
 cord. Whereupon the lieutenant opened his
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 155 
 
 leaden eyelids, gazed tranquilly at Mrs. Al- 
 cott, and said : 
 
 " It'i inowing, my dear.
 
 156 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Said Mr. Linn, when found in sin, 
 " What rot ! It doesn't amount to a pin." 
 What would he have said if taken in, 
 As was the husband of Mrs. Ginn ? 
 
 FROM "TIT-FOE-TAT." 
 
 THE game of poker that night at Carl's 
 stands alone and matchless. It began with a 
 hint from Burgess, which being seconded by 
 Alcott, was eventually accepted with some 
 reluctance by Noel and the Levantine. They 
 sat down in that famous dining-room on the 
 second floor where so many eminent men 
 have done wondrous things in their cups. It 
 began after dinner and as mildly as most im 
 promptu poker does, with the original asser 
 tion by Van Horn that, after all, poker was 
 poker whether the limit was ten cents or ten 
 dollars, and that for his part the most inter 
 esting game he ever played was with his
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 157 
 
 sister on a basis of two cents, a penny ante. 
 It was inevitable, of course, that an hour 
 after this innocent statement Mr. Van Horn 
 should propose that the limit be raised from 
 five dollars to the infinite. 
 
 Yes, after ten o'clock, it was a game to 
 witness. Noel, trained in the cautious school 
 of his craft, played warily and well. If few 
 jackpots came his way, fewer still were en 
 riched by his blunders or bluffing. The 
 Levantine politely saw every raise as though 
 good-breeding bade him do it. Alcott played 
 with a superior air and varying fortune, sing 
 ing tunes the while, and jesting most when 
 there was least occasion, and Van Horn went 
 at the game as he would at chess ; silently, 
 with closest attention, and a preponderance 
 of luck or, as good poker-players will tell 
 you, success. And so until 'midnight the 
 game sped on. There were but two large 
 losers, Alcott arid the Levantine. As the 
 little clock tolled twelve, and Noel sugges 
 tively consulted his watch, Alcott pulled
 
 158 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 himself together and emptied his pockets, if 
 an empty pocket can be emptied. Then he 
 drew upon the decanter of brandy of which 
 he had been the steadfast and almost the 
 only patron. 
 
 " Let's see, Van," said he, " how much of 
 my paper have you ? " 
 
 Van Horn drew several cards from under 
 his stack of chips and tossed them to the 
 lieutenant. " See for yourself," said he. 
 
 " Ten, twenty-five, fifteen, thirty-five, and 
 fifty. Whew ! " said Alcott, breezily. " A 
 hundred and thirty-five dollars, begad. 
 That's not so bad. We must brace up." 
 And he did so from the decanter. " What 
 have you, Paxson?" 
 
 Noel showed one -I. O. U. for some twenty 
 dollars. 
 
 " And you ? " to the Levantine. 
 
 " Joos five." 
 
 " Well," said Alcott, " it's my deal. Let's 
 have a series of twelve jackpots, three apiece. 
 What do you say ? "
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 159 
 
 Noel might have demurred, but knowing 
 the state of the lieutenant's finances and 
 hearing Van Horn cry " Go ahead," he said 
 nothing and took his cards. The series of 
 twelve jackpots, constituted the most dis 
 astrous event in the life of the lieutenant. 
 Of the dozen Van Horn won eight; Noel 
 three, and the Levantine one. Alcott played 
 wildly ; at first with affected recklessness, 
 then with a too obvious eagerness, and finally 
 with drunken abandon. The luck was 
 plainly against him. From sheer pity Noel, 
 more than once, threw down his cards when 
 the lieutenant opened the pot ; but he 
 opened it always on a desperate chance and 
 lost. He lay back in his chair and broke 
 into a loud hoarse laugh, as Van Horn drew 
 in the final goodly pot. Then he rumpled 
 his hair, and 'thrust his hands in his pockets, 
 and leered at the winner. 
 
 " How much are you in ? " he demanded. 
 
 Van Horn very coolly counted his chips 
 and ran his eye over the backs of a small
 
 160 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 stack of the lieutenant's visiting cards. He 
 then, as calmly, took a leaf from his memo 
 randum book, and set down a sum of four 
 figures upon it. 
 
 " The devil," cried the lieutenant, crush 
 ing it in his hands. 
 
 " I'm sorry, I'm sure," said Van Horn. 
 
 Noel and the Levantine pushed back their 
 chairs, both of them much embarrassed and 
 Van Horn, who was banker, looked up at 
 them and said quietly : " Don't forget your 
 chips, gentlemen." They cashed them, Alcott 
 drumming the while with his fingers on the 
 table. Suddenly he looked up, and, " See 
 here, Van," said lie, "you're going to give 
 me a chance at revenge, aren't you ? " 
 
 " Certainly, my boy, whenever you choose." 
 ' " Well, now." 
 
 " Why, I thought " And Van Horn 
 
 smiled down on the packet of I. O. U's. 
 
 " That's just it, damn it I " cried the lieu 
 tenant. " You've got half my salary for a 
 year there and you may as well have the
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 161 
 
 whole of it. I am not crawling, but that's 
 
 the only way I can pay you, by G A 
 
 cold hand for a cool thousand, and I'll give 
 you an order for my salary." 
 
 Noel protested, but the Levantine patted 
 Alcott on the back and said " Brav' boy, 
 brav' boy." Van Horn laughed. 
 
 "Good God, Alcott," said he, "why did 
 you plunge that way? I wouldn't have 
 played with you if I had known this, and I'd 
 like to give you back these I. O. U's., if you'll 
 take them." 
 
 " Oh, don't talk rot," said Alcott, roughly. 
 "You don't think the salary supports the 
 family, do you ? It'll do me good to lose it 
 for a year. Come, will you give me re 
 venge?" 
 
 Van Horn nodding to him, he strode to an 
 escritoire and wrote some words on a sheet 
 of paper. He was in a feverish haste, and 
 Noel saw the folly of attempting to inter 
 fere. 
 
 " There, will that do ? " said Alcott, hold-
 
 162 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 ing the paper out to Van Horn. Glancing 
 carelessly at it the latter replied by taking 
 up the cards, and asking : " A cold hand, 
 eh?" 
 
 " A cold hand," said Alcott. 
 
 It was over in a minute. The wretched 
 gambler held his cards for an instant con 
 cealed in his trembling hands, as if to post 
 pone a horrible revelation, and then he gave 
 a swift glance and cast them with a laugh on 
 the table. He had held a pair of fives. Van 
 Horn's hand was already exposed, a pair of 
 knaves and a pair of tens. 
 
 Alcott sprang up arid started for the door. 
 "Wait five minutes for me," he called out. 
 
 As Van Horn, with a curious smile on his 
 white lips, sat quietly at the table examining 
 the scrap of paper which had just cost the 
 lieutenant a year's salary, Noel sat down in 
 front of him and toyed with the fateful 
 cards. 
 
 " It's too bad, isn't it ? " said he. 
 
 " What is ? " demanded Van Horn.
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 163 
 
 " This drunken folly of Alcott's." 
 
 " Is he drunk ? I didn't notice. Tipsy 
 perhaps ; he's always that." 
 
 " He certainly can't afford such a loss," 
 said Noel, gravely. " He'll ruin himself and 
 family if he keeps it up." 
 
 " He can't lose anything more, he has noth 
 ing more to lose, I believe," said Van Horn, in 
 his iciest tone. " The house and furniture 
 and the rest of the family income are in Mrs. 
 Alcott's name." 
 
 His cold-blooded manner irritated Noel ex 
 tremely. 
 
 " What are you going to do about it? " he 
 asked, sharply. 
 
 " About what, pray ? " said Van Horn. 
 
 " About these bits of paper. Surely you'll 
 not cash them ? " 
 
 Van Horn leaned slowly forward in his 
 chair, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. "Young 
 Mr. Paxson," said he, " will you be good 
 enough to confine your attention to your own 
 private affairs. Mine are in capable hands."
 
 164 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 The set-back was so sudden that Noel could 
 only glare at the pale, fierce face before him, 
 and just as he sprang to his feet with an oath, 
 the door flung open, and Alcott came between 
 them, waving a packet of bank-notes. Tak 
 ing no note of the situation he sat eagerly 
 down in the chair from which Noel had just 
 arisen, and poured himself out a glass of 
 brandy. 
 
 " There you are, Van Horn," said he ; 
 " another two hundred. I'll play you four 
 cold hands for fifty each ; and this time I'll 
 do you, so help me." 
 
 He was full of confidence and quite merry, 
 and looking up at Noel he tapped his pocket 
 and his fingers and winked ; and Noel saw 
 that his rings and his watch were gone. 
 
 " Are we to play alone ? " asked Van Horn, 
 sneering up at Noel. Without giving or 
 awaiting a' reply Alcott shuffled the cards, 
 passed them to Van Horn to cut, and then 
 dealt two hands, face up. This time he drew 
 three fours and Van Horn held four diamonds,
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 165 
 
 and the lieutenant burst into song. "I've 
 struck my gait," said he, " I give you warn- 
 ing." 
 
 " The last shall be first," said Van Horn, 
 dealing another cold hand, and adding with 
 a cheerful smile, " as you see." For again 
 he drew nothing while Alcott drew a pair of 
 sevens. Once more Van Horn lost; and 
 then the lieutenant placed the $150 he had 
 won in the centre of the table and Van Horn 
 covered it and the luck turned. 
 
 " We're where we started from," said Al 
 cott, by no means crestfallen. " Let's begin 
 all over again." And they did, and in four 
 minutes the miserable lieutenant lay back in 
 his chair trying to whistle " The Last Rose 
 of Summer." Noel leaned over him. "Don't 
 you think it's time to go home ? " said he. 
 
 Alcott looked at his finger nails and 
 grunted. "Oh, yes, it's time to go home; 
 but I haven't the nerve." Then from the 
 eyes of this tipsy fool came the moisture that 
 is warranted to wash away sin.
 
 166 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 "Come," Noel coaxed, tugging at his 
 shoulder. "It will turn out all right." 
 
 " Yase, yase," wheedled the Levantine. 
 
 Then as Alcott reluctantly pushed back 
 his chair, Van Horn stood up and beckoned 
 to him. 
 
 "Lieutenant, I'd like a word with you 
 alone. Come into the other room." 
 
 It was pitiful to see the quick alacrity with 
 which the ruined man followed at the heels 
 of his conqueror. They were gone some 
 minutes, and Noel with a face of apparent 
 attention to the whisperings of the Levantine 
 was really all ears to the halting murmur of 
 Van Horn's voice in the next room, when 
 suddenly there came a pause and then a 
 roaring oath and the bellowing of Alcott. 
 They found him holding Van Horn by the 
 throat, glaring like a wild-cat, his right arm 
 drawn back ready for a smashing blow, while 
 from his drunken lips came the putrid lan 
 guage that cannot be embalmed in print. 
 
 " Let go of me, Paxson," he cried, " he's a
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 167 
 
 dog I've got to kill. Shooting's too good 
 for him, the damned hound. Why I'll 
 Here Noel wrenched the almost throttled 
 man from Alcott's grasp, and led him to a 
 chair, while the Levantine brought brandy 
 and administered it. Meanwhile Alcott stood 
 with clenched hands in the middle of the 
 room under the chandelier and looked to be 
 upon the verge of apoplexy. Then, as his 
 victim revived and sprang to his feet he ad 
 vanced toward him, but came to a sudden 
 halt as Van Horn, white as skin can be, ex 
 tended a quivering hand and turning to Noel 
 cried in a quavering voice : 
 
 " Look at him, Paxson, look at him ! Shall 
 I tell you what he is ? Say," he screamed, 
 stooping and peering up at Alcott with the 
 eyes of a maniac ; " shall I tell them what I 
 told you, you brute ? Shall I ! Shall I ! ! " 
 
 To the astonishment of the others Alcott 
 drew back, and thrusting his hands in his 
 pockets laughed boisterously but briefly. 
 Then he walked quietly up to Van Horn
 
 168 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 and looked down into his eyes. " You dare ! " 
 he said. It was now the other's time to 
 laugh, and he did it noiselessly but with the 
 air of a master. " We know one another," 
 he sneered. 
 
 Completely bewildered by the scene, Noel 
 stepped between them, and extending his 
 hand to the chandelier began to turn out 
 the lights. " Come," said he, " we've had 
 enough fun to-night. Let's go." The room 
 in darkness, he and the Levantine passed 
 out, the others following, but they stopped 
 at the threshold of the dining-room, and 
 Noel was amazed to hear the lieutenant say 
 in a voice that was mildness itself: "Well, 
 why didn't you put it that way ? " 
 
 "I did," Van Horn replied hotly, "but 
 you misunderstood me. You don't suppose 
 I meant " 
 
 " Hush," whispered Alcott ; and then in a 
 loud, cheerful tone, " Paxson," he called, " I 
 say, Paxson; lend me twenty, won't you?" 
 
 Noel came back, wearied and disgusted
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 169 
 
 with all he had seen. " Alcott," said he, "if 
 you want twenty dollars to play more poker 
 with you can't have it from me. You've 
 played more than enough. Go home." 
 
 "I don't want it for poker," the lieutenant, 
 answered, testily. "And I don't want it at 
 all from you if you don't care to lend it. 
 Here," turning to look for the Levantine, 
 " have you twenty about you? " 
 
 But the Levantine had gone, and Noel 
 without another word, handed Alcott a bank 
 note and turning on his heels went slowly 
 and in much perplexity of mind out into the 
 night. It was close upon two o'clock. 
 
 Oh, most surely the passion of love is not 
 to be named in a breath with that of the 
 gamester. Not half the value of the bor 
 rowed bank-note had been exchanged for 
 wine, when the lieutenant, his head in his 
 hands, sat listening with a melting smile to 
 the deprecatory words of Van Horn. 
 
 " I wanted to give you another chance ; 
 and I could think of nothing else ; you had
 
 170 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 nothing left to stake. But you gave me no 
 time to explain. You were so devilish 
 quick, Alcott," said he, softly rubbing his 
 throat. 
 
 The lieutenant gazed complacently at his 
 companion. " How much did you bet Mrs. 
 Bunce ? " he asked. 
 
 Van Horn, after the slightest pause, said, 
 " Two thousand ; but you needn't mention 
 that to her." 
 
 " It's the most damned absurd thing I ever 
 heard of, Van," said the lieutenant good- 
 naturedly; adding with some irrelevance, 
 " But if you win, will she be good for the 
 pay?" 
 
 "As gold; trust me for that," said Van 
 Horn with a knowing air. Then as the 
 other laughed like a man in doubt, he said 
 in an effective off-hand way, " You can't 
 lose, you see. If I win, these notes of yours 
 are torn up, and I get the ready money, from 
 Mrs. Bunce. If you win, you get the notes 
 Iback anyhow. As for our little arrange-
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 171 
 
 ment bah, Alcott ! you know her and you 
 ought to know me ; and you know very well 
 it's all a case of a woman's wager ; a woman 
 whose mouth we can shut as tight as an 
 electric globe." 
 
 " I'll attend to that." It was evident the 
 lieutenant's mind was fully made up. 
 
 He leaped to his feet, and with a noiseless 
 laugh went over to the escritoire, and after 
 several unsatisfactory trials composed a brief 
 letter quite unconscious of the triumphant 
 expression on the face of the man who sat 
 behind him caressing his throat. "Here," 
 said Alcott, wheeling round in his chair, 
 " I've just written this : 
 
 " ' LIEUTENANT ALCOTT, U. S. A., 
 
 " ' My dear Lieutenant : A certain pre 
 posterous story affecting Mrs. Alcott having 
 come to my ears, I take immediate oppor 
 tunity of assuring you that the empty silli 
 ness of it is as well known to me as it is to 
 you. I'll explain to you at the club to 
 night, 
 
 " ' Sincerely yours,'
 
 172 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 "There," added Alcott, "will you copy 
 that and sign it?" 
 
 " With pleasure," said Van Horn, and by 
 token of the grin that broadened his face as t 
 he transcribed and signed the note, he told 
 the truth. "Now," said he, in his softest 
 tones, " for the last cold hand. It's your 
 deal." 
 
 But the lieutenant was not so prompt to 
 act. He stood, as if suddenly sobered, with 
 the note in his hand, and his gaze fastened 
 searchingly upon Van Horn. That the lat 
 ter was unconscious of his companion's silent 
 scrutiny is just conceivable, but, whether 
 adroitly or not, he brought matters to a head 
 in an instant by whipping from his pocket 
 the little bundle of Alcott's I. O. U's. and 
 tearing them to bits. "There you are," said 
 he, casting the pieces on the floor, "that's 
 done. Now go ahead." And he drew his 
 chair nearer to the table and filled both 
 glasses with wine. Then the lieutenant, 
 like a man eager to be over and done with a
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 173 
 
 bad thing, hurriedly shuffled the cards and 
 dealt them. 
 
 He drew three jacks. 
 
 Van Horn drew a flush of diamonds. 
 
 There was the briefest interval of silence, 
 so long as it took Van Horn with steady 
 fingers and watchful eyes to light a cigarette. 
 Then Alcott drained his wine, and laughed 
 till the tears ran down his face. 
 
 " That was very good of you, Van," said 
 he. " Almost too good to be true." 
 
 "Don't mention it, my boy," said the 
 other, cordially, darting across the table, 
 however, a swift, suspicious glance. "But 
 don't you think we better move ? " He 
 looked at his watch. " It's getting near to 
 three." 
 
 "Plenty of time, plenty of time," said the 
 lieutenant. " Let's have another bottle." 
 
 "As many as you like," returned Van 
 Horn in. a voice so chilling that it arrested 
 Alcott's hand outstretched toward the bell. 
 " Only it would be better afterward."
 
 174 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 The hand dropped to the lieutenant's side, 
 and he came back with a badly affected 
 swagger. " Oh, see here, Van Horn," said 
 he, " you're not such a chump as to sup 
 pose " 
 
 " One moment ! " Van Horn interposed, 
 his face and voice expressive of the most con 
 centrated bitterness. " If you fail to carry 
 out our agreement after I have carried out 
 mine and saved you from ruin, who is the 
 chump? Answer me that !" He seized his 
 hat and stick, flung his overcoat over his 
 arm, and walked toward the door. Without 
 another word, meekly, but with shame crim 
 son on his cheeks, Alcott followed his ex 
 ample. 
 
 The coupe" drew up within a block of the 
 doll's house, and the two men approached 
 and entered it in silence, and they had not 
 exchanged a word since they left Carl's, for 
 they had nothing in common to chat about. 
 In the heart of one was murder, in the heart
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 175 
 
 of the other was something nameless; some 
 thing subtler and more bold than the heroic 
 sin of Tarquin. Alcott led the way on tip 
 toe to the tiny dining-room, and drew from 
 a cabinet a couple of decanters. Van Horn 
 shook his head, but as a matter of fact he 
 had not been asked to drink. The host 
 helped himself and turned on his heel, and 
 at the hallway door spoke for the first time. 
 " Wait here till I come," said he. 
 
 Van Horn, rocking on his heels, gazed 
 about the room with a pensive smile. Pres 
 ently he noted a miniature portrait hung low 
 on the wall arid he went over and stared hard 
 at it, with quivering nostrils. It was a well- 
 done portrait of Mrs. Alcott, and it showed 
 her in evening dress in the simple modest at 
 titude that was all and always her own. 
 The pure, sweet face smiled up at the man, 
 its innocence quite proof against the evil 
 that shot from his eyes. What thoughts 
 were his, who may say? Whether of the 
 speaking canvas or of the woman herself in
 
 176 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 the room overhead? It was not with the 
 eye of a virtuoso, however, that Van Horn 
 was still studying the picture, when the 
 lieutenant stole back into the room and softly 
 closed the door. He walked over to Van 
 Horn with his finger on his lips. 
 
 " She's asleep," he whispered. He was 
 breathing hard like a runner far spent. "I 
 wish to God, Van Horn, you'd call this non 
 sense off. Tell that fool woman you've won 
 the bet I'll back you up." He took Van 
 Horn by the arm and looked down on him 
 with the pleading eyes of a dog. But the 
 look he got back straightened and stiffened 
 him like an electric shock. " Very well," he 
 said, sharply, taking out his watch in an aim 
 less way and winding it with a shaking hand. 
 " Go up the stairs, turn to the right, and 
 enter the first door. I've left it open. Don't 
 make the least noise." He laid his hand 
 heavily on Van Horn's shoulder. " You 
 are to go in, and come right out again. 
 If you don't, if you dare to utter a word,
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 177 
 
 or lift a finger I'll kill you as I would a 
 snake." 
 
 "Pshaw!" said Van Horn, laying down 
 his hat and stick; "you're getting excited 
 about nothing." 
 
 " Go on," said Alcott. He stood for an in 
 stant holding his breath by the fireplace, and 
 listening while his heart beat within him like 
 the head of a drum to the almost noiseless 
 footfalls on the stairs. When they ceased 
 he found himself holding Van Horn's walk 
 ing-stick. The clock behind him ticked im 
 possibly loud ; he could hear nothing for it. 
 Then he detected a muffled tread in the room 
 above him. Dry-eyed, and clutching the 
 stick with a grip of steel, he sobbed out a 
 terrible prayer for his own damnation, and 
 fled from the room. 
 
 On a slender Japanese tea-stand by the 
 curtained brass bed burned a small night- 
 lamp, with a dainty silk shade over it. Be 
 yond the narrow reach of its suffused glow
 
 178 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 the room lay in darkness ; but clear and ex 
 quisite in the blush of the soft rose light her 
 fair face shone from the pillow. She lay 
 with her right arm under her head, and in 
 her hand was a book. The pink silk cover 
 let had been drawn full to her rounded 
 throat, and none but a heart beyond cure 
 could thrill to other sense than that of 
 beauty in gazing upon her clean sweet face 
 with its low broad brows and parted smiling 
 lips. 
 
 It may have been that Van Horn had such 
 a heart. With his face in the darkness, it 
 cannot be said with what feelings he looked 
 upon the sleeping woman. This he did, 
 however, with uplifted hands ; he strained to 
 catch a sound. None reached him save the 
 gentle breathing of the woman before him, 
 he glanced back and around and then slipped 
 swiftly forward. 
 
 Desperate things may be done in a mo 
 ment. As Van Horn bent down, he heard 
 with a sudden icy touch on all his nerves, a
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 179 
 
 rush behind him, and a cry to freeze the 
 blood. Quickly as he started back, he was 
 yet too late, though in that fleeting instant 
 the blue eyes on the bed opened and flashed 
 a look of terror upon him, and then, lifting, 
 seemed to note the fate he dreaded behind 
 him. Her wild scream stung his heart 
 even as the rose light died away and he fell 
 with his crushed face on the bed. 
 
 As the lieutenant stood there over him, 
 raining down savage blows with the heavy 
 silver-headed stick, he, of a sudden, saw his 
 wife fall forward over the lifeless body and 
 protect it as she might her child. He drew 
 back and glared down upon her with ex 
 pressionless eyes. How long he stood trera- 
 ; bling in every limb, and waiting, with a 
 deadly fear and a piteous loathing of him 
 self, he never knew. All he could remember 
 
 i 
 afterward of the horror of that final scene, 
 
 was the drawn, tearless face, ghastly white, 
 even in the glow of the red lamp, that turned 
 slowly round, and the broken voice that
 
 10 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 mildly reproached him with words that 
 stopped the pounding of his heart. 
 
 " Oh, Dick, how could you ? I loved him 
 so!"
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 181 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 'Tis better to have loved than not, 
 
 Let your life be loose and fast. 
 And a goodly thing is the love that is hot, 
 
 But a better the love that can last. 
 
 APOLOGY FOE PASSION. 
 
 . BUNCE," said the senator at break 
 fast the following morning, "I think your 
 time has come." He had eaten five eggs, 
 while Ruth still toyed with the grapes. The 
 senator's appetite for eggs was only equalled 
 by his appetite for legislation. 
 
 " Yes ? " said she, not in the least know 
 ing or caring what he said, and showing it 
 clearly. He leaned back in his chair and 
 thrust his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. 
 
 " Mrs. Burgess thinks," he began sharply. 
 
 Then Ruth smiled from over the way and 
 threatened him with a bunch of Malagas. 
 
 " Well ? " said the senator,
 
 182 TEE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 " Oh, nothing, you adorable humbug ; go 
 on," said Ruth. And the humbug, without 
 change of countenance, proceeded. 
 
 " She thinks we are losing time here. 
 Thinks it would be better for me to go West 
 for a week. I showed her that last batch 
 from Guffy." He drew from his coat a large 
 envelope filled with newspaper clippings, and 
 .bearing the portrait and signature of one 
 Guffy, the enterprising gentleman who pro 
 vides one, for so much a month or year, with 
 all that is said of one by a contumelious 
 press. The senator's love for seeing his 
 name in print began with its first appearance 
 on the wrapper of his county weekly. 
 
 Smiling at the grape she was rolling be 
 tween forefinger and thumb, Ruth said : 
 
 " For you to go West ? " 
 
 " Yes, for me. I'll leave the East in your 
 charge." 
 
 "So nice." 
 
 "I don't know whether you are conscious 
 of it, Mrs. Bunce," said the senator slowly
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 183 
 
 and in adjusting his eye-glasses, "but your 
 tone and manner toward me of late have 
 been have been, ... I beg your par 
 don, most damnable. I don't understand 
 you, and by God, madam, you don't under 
 stand me ! " 
 
 " O, yes, I do," murmured Ruth, dangling 
 her hands in the finger bowl. "Ask Mrs. 
 Burgess." 
 
 The senator whipped the glasses from hist 
 cauliflower nose and flung an astigmatic 
 glare across the table. But it was not wholly 
 a look of anger, as Ruth saw and seeing 
 noted with a laugh. " Perhaps you'll do me 
 the honor of explaining what you mean? 
 Why Mrs. Burgess?" 
 
 " We're such friends, you know. Isn't 
 that enough?" 
 
 The senator appeared to think it was. 
 
 "You know the situation," said he. "It 
 can't be trifled with. The convention is 
 only three months off, and here are these 
 damned Populists at my heels. I know who
 
 184 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 set them on, and there's only one way to call 
 them off. I'll have to go out and buy up 
 that hound Greggs of the k Squawk.' He can 
 
 be bought, but Ja er Mrs. Burgess thinks 
 
 he'll come high." 
 
 "How does Janet know that?" 
 
 " They are related in some way, I believe. 
 How, I don't know." 
 
 "I do. They were related, don't you 
 think?" 
 
 The senator put on his glasses, and reached 
 out his hand. " Are you through with the 
 New York papers?" 
 
 Ruth was an unconscionable time in gath 
 ering the sheets from the floor, and seemed 
 to be very particular in folding one paper so 
 that the first column of the first page was 
 conspicuously exposed. The head-lines 
 glared. 
 
 As she held it toward him she said : " But 
 it will cost a tremendous lot of money, 
 won't it? How will you manage that?" 
 
 For answer he snatched the paper from
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 185 
 
 her hand and gaped at the heavy head 
 lines. 
 
 "'The Senate is salted,'" said Ruth 
 sweetly. "Are you reading that? I 
 couldn't make it out. What does the 'con 
 spiracy' mean? What has the Senate to do 
 with the salt trust? Why is 'Bunco the 
 centre of the Bunch'? You do seem inter 
 ested," she added, pensively. 
 
 Then he looked up at her with a very 
 malignant expression arid crashed the paper 
 into the finger-bowl. His blood reddened 
 the table, but he did not remove his clenched 
 hand from the shattered glass. "If you had 
 helped me as you should as you could as 
 I expected you would, you, you icicle ! 
 this would not have happened," he roared at 
 her. " Do you think I married you for your 
 face, you fool ! Well, I did. And how have 
 you used it? To help me? To ruin me! 
 To ruin me ! ! Do you know what that 
 article means? My political death." He 
 was actually shaking his fist in her face ; but
 
 186 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 Ruth was not in the least frightened, only 
 very much astonished and dismayed. 
 
 " Do you mean to say it is true ? " she de 
 manded. 
 
 The senator had turned away but he 
 stopped and his hand went up to his chin. 
 It is so that great legislative minds touch as 
 it were, the button that summons the lag 
 gard servant, tact. " ' True ' ? " said he. 
 "How the devil can you ask that?" 
 
 Then Ruth felt of a sudden guilty and 
 contrite and afraid of her future so inter 
 woven with his ; and she went up to him 
 and flung her arms around his neck and 
 cooed to him as though he were a child in 
 stead of an indignant statesman shaped in 
 profile like an obese cat-fish. 
 
 " Why didn't you come to me always ? 
 Why Mrs. Burgess? Can you trust her? 
 Can you trust Burgess?" 
 
 It was the senator's time to melt, and his 
 deliquescence was very rapid. " Site knows 
 nothing; she is nothing to me," he said,
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 187 
 
 hastily, rocking her in his arms; "you know 
 that. It was only Greggs. He's in Burgess' 
 district. In this, however, she may be of 
 use. She knows all the correspondents; 
 gives them points; they can't go back on 
 her. Shall I see her or will you? " 
 
 Ruth stopped nestling on his chest and 
 taking his fat hands talked in a simple, busi 
 ness-like way. "I'll see her. I should 
 have seen Paxson ; I intended to, but I 
 was afraid of him. To day, however, I'll see 
 both." 
 
 After this pretty little conjugal scene 
 Ruth sat her down and wrote two hasty 
 notes. Then she lighted a cigarette and 
 took from a secret drawer of her escritoire 
 a paper-back book with a startling cover de 
 sign. That is, the design might startle the 
 reader ; it didn't startle Ruth. Nor did the 
 contents, whatever they may have been, 
 seem to stir in her any other feeling than 
 one of languid amusement. She was slowly 
 turning the pages when Mrs. Alcott came
 
 188 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 swiftly into the room, and then Ruth, in 
 looking up at her was startled. There wa 
 fin excitement in the pretty face never seen 
 there before. 
 
 " Don't get up," she said. " I'm sorry to 
 break in on you this way, but I had to see 
 some one. I'm in terrible trouble." She 
 looked it so that Ruth was thrilled with de 
 lightful curiosity, and yet was sufficiently 
 self-possessed to toss the paper-back volume 
 under the divan. 
 
 " Tell me, dear ; tell me all about it." 
 
 " Oh, I can't do that ; not all. I don't 
 feel that it's mine to tell. It's terrible, ter 
 rible ! " 
 
 " Take your time, dear. There, there ! 
 Do you know, after all, you're only a child. 
 Don't get hysterical ; it can't be so bad as 
 that." 
 
 " Oh, it's worse. You couldn't think 
 you couldn't believe it." 
 
 No woman could put up with that sort of 
 thing. Ruth sprang to the bell, and then to
 
 SENATORS WIFE 189 
 
 the door, and told the maid to tell the butler 
 to serve wine. 
 
 "No, no," cried Mrs. Alcott. "Let me 
 alone. It's a thing I can't even think about. 
 It's too awful for me to tell, and yet I can't 
 cry over it. I must have help ; I must tell 
 you but I can't." 
 
 Then Ruth fell back among the cushions 
 and, like the shrewd woman she was, threw 
 out a hint. 
 
 " The lieutenant has, ah " 
 
 " Yes, yes, he has. But even now I don't 
 
 understand how. It almost frightened me to 
 
 death. And in my own bedroom ! " Ruth 
 
 gasped " He's not seriously hurt ; but, oh I 
 
 , if you had seen the blows falling on his 
 
 j head! the blood '' 
 
 Ruth leaped to her feet, her face grown sud 
 denly as white as her shuddering and un 
 welcome guest's. 
 
 " Your bedroom ? Alcott tried to kill him 
 there?" 
 
 " Yes, yes ; he did ! Don't misjudge. I
 
 190 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 did not know. You don't believe I knew he 
 would be there?" She looked up into 
 Ruth's hard face with the eyes of a child. 
 " Dick doesn't, of course ; how could he ? 
 But Dick's gone and it's all too strange for 
 me DOW to talk about. It'll be cleared up 
 it must be cleared." She said this firmly 
 enough. But in the next breath, appeal- 
 ingly, " Only we must keep it out of the 
 papers. You'll help me to do that, won't 
 you?" 
 
 Of course she did not see the hate that 
 burned in Ruth's eyes ; she only caught the 
 words, " Yes, yes ; it must be kept out of 
 the papers ; " and she welcomed them. 
 
 " Your friend, Mr. Paxson " 
 
 Ruth walked away and at the door nodded 
 to Annette, her maid, who said : " Mr. Pax- 
 son," also. She did not hear. She was 
 thinking only of him. He had been so much 
 to her ; really he had been the most and bet 
 ter part of all her little life. She had mar 
 ried Rogers because she wished to forget her
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 191 
 
 lover; she had married Bunce in spite of 
 him. Yet her lover he was and now to 
 hear from this doll-faced woman that he had 
 been caught by her husband in her bedroom 
 and 
 
 It was even too much for the aplomb of 
 Mrs. Bunce, at this juncture, to hear his 
 voice saying quietly : " You wished to see 
 me?" She ran toward where he stood in 
 the doorway, and peered into his face. He 
 was not only scathless, but most disgustingly 
 cool. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Paxson," cried Mrs. Alcott ; 
 " how fortunate you are here ! You know 
 about it, then ? I came to see Mrs. Bunce to 
 ask her to urge you to keep it out of the 
 papers. You were with them last night ? 
 You know all about it ? " 
 
 Noel, of course, did not ; but he had been 
 educated to surmise with snap judgment. 
 So he said simply, " I believe so." 
 
 Mrs. Alcott buried her face in her hands. 
 " I don't wish you to tell me a word now,"
 
 192 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 she gasped. " Only do do use your influ 
 ence to prevent disgrace. For my children's 
 sake ; for their sake ; please, Mr. Paxson, 
 please keep it out of the papers ! " 
 
 " I'll try," said Noel. " But what ? " 
 
 " Oh, if you don't know what happened 
 afterward, don't ask. But he's very badly 
 
 hurt. He's " Here Mrs. Alcott had 
 
 nothing further to say or do but turn crim 
 son. 
 
 " Served him right," said Noel. 
 
 Mrs. Alcott looked up at him in a sur 
 prised and timid reproachful way. Then 
 she went over to Ruth and embraced her, 
 and whispered something and left the room. 
 Ruth closed the door, and stood face to face 
 with Noel and very close, her hands hard 
 clasped behind her back. 
 
 " Have you anything to say to me ? " 
 
 "I?" said Noel. "Yes, lots; but after 
 you." 
 
 " Don't be formal. Or, if you choose to, 
 I sha'n't. What are you to that woman ? "
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 103 
 
 He did not pretend, as a mere callow 
 youth might, to misapprehend her meaning. 
 And if it flattered him he gave no sign. 
 
 " Nothing." Said in a low voice and 
 simply. 
 
 " Or all Oh, you are all 
 
 alike ! " She turned aside, and as he came 
 after her, she twisted away from him, and 
 very quietly, with downcast eyes, said this : 
 " Why shouldn't I do what you do ? I've 
 heard you and a dozen other men speak of 
 that woman as a paragon. Is she better 
 than I ? Isn't it because you thought she 
 was, that you pursued her ? Now that you 
 know what she is " 
 
 " I only know," said Noel, really as 
 tounded, "that, if you have reference to 
 Mrs. Alcott, I believe her now to be what I 
 have believed her to be from the beginning. 
 I believe she is, on her face, a pure, sweet 
 woman." 
 
 Ruth mocked him with elaborate gesture. 
 "And the pretty little bedroom scene?"
 
 194 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 The honesty of the surprise in his face 
 could not be questioned. 
 
 " Then, if not you, whom did Alcott try 
 to kill last night ? " 
 
 She had told more than enough to a news 
 paper man, even if he had not had sufficient 
 personal knowledge of the facts at which 
 she hinted. 
 
 "Come, my dear Mrs. Bunce," said he; 
 " I don't know, and I'm sure you'll under 
 stand me when I say, I don't care to know 
 what you are talking about. Suppose you 
 tell me why you sent for me ? To be agree 
 ably confiding, and willing to go to the opera 
 to-night?" 
 
 She looked in his eyes, and felt immensely 
 relieved. She laughed up at him, and she 
 led him toward the darkened window, and, 
 without knowing it, swayed his hands. Mrs. 
 Alcott was forgotten. 
 
 "You would be willing to do me a 
 favor?" 
 
 "You must know I would."
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 195 
 
 " A big favor ? " 
 
 " The bigger the better." 
 
 " Well, you have read this morning's 
 papers ? " 
 
 " I have." 
 
 "The New York Tetter?" 
 
 " Yes." Noel grew red. 
 
 " Did you read the article about what-d'ye- 
 call 'em ? ' The Senate is Salted ' ? " 
 
 Noel cleared his throat. " I did." 
 
 " Do you know? you must know what 
 that means to us. It's ruin to the senator 
 if it isn't corrected. He's in the heat of his 
 campaign. Noel, you must help him you 
 must help us. I'm not theatrical. You 
 know I'm cold-blooded enough. Keep these 
 things out of the papers." 
 
 It was a very uneasy laugh he gave. 
 " First comes Mrs. Alcott with a mystery. 
 * Please keep it out of the papers.' It's so 
 easy a thing to do. All I have to say is, 
 stop it ! Don't you think ? " 
 
 She knew him so well that the affected
 
 198 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 suavity of his tone worked conviction. So 
 she took him by the arm. And very 
 quietly, 
 
 " Tell me," she said, " did you know of 
 this article ? Did you know it was to be 
 written? Did you know it was to be 
 printed ? " 
 
 He wriggled and laughed, but it would 
 not do. 
 
 "Tell me!" 
 
 " Why you see, my dear," taking her 
 coaxingly by the arms. " It was this 
 way. . . ." 
 
 " Then you knew ? " 
 
 "Why. . . ." 
 
 She drew away from him, and looked, and 
 shrank. Then, with tranquil scorn : " Tell 
 me you wrote it." 
 
 " I did." 
 
 Ruth tottered. But, being a latter day 
 woman of the world, recovered herself in an 
 instant, and, leaning against the window-sill, 
 waited quietly for Noel to speak. There was
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 197 
 
 nothing, however, for him to say, and pres 
 ently the most commonplace thought came 
 to her, and it stiffened her back and drew 
 her toward him. 
 
 " You wrote that . . . why?" 
 
 " Because it was true." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Ruth. And all the stiffness 
 went suddenly out of her legs, and she fell 
 toward him, and, (in the retrospect) so amaz 
 ing are the little things of life, she was woe 
 fully shocked a minute later to find herself 
 reclining in Noel's arms, and to hear familiar 
 but forbidden phrases in her ear. 
 
 However, let that be neither here nor 
 there. Only let us note the extraordinary 
 coincidence of the slow revival of Mrs. 
 Bunce with the abrupt appearance in the 
 doorway of Mrs. Burgess. 
 
 "Do I disturb you?" asked Mrs. Burgess 
 sweetly, while gliding forward. 
 
 " Not at all, my dear," said Mrs. Bunce, 
 gushing toward her. "So good of you to 
 come."
 
 198 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 " And you, Mr. Paxson ? " 
 " Oh," said Noel, really tired, " I don't 
 count, do I?"
 
 THE SENATOR' 8 WIFE 199 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Lifts the eye from the lawn to the higher sky, 
 
 To the restful regions afar ; 
 From the fugitive flash of the firefly, 
 
 To the steady light of the star. 
 
 THE TEMPTRESS TURNED DOWN. 
 
 ONE must be either very fast or very slow 
 in Washington. As everywhere else, how 
 ever, society there likes its men fast and its 
 women not so fast. " The difficulty about 
 this life," said Mrs. Burgess, who knew, "is 
 that it tells so dreadfully on the skin." 
 
 Noel, who was talking to her and Ruth, 
 perceived the guile in this remark. For 
 Mrs. Burgess was looking exceptionally well, 
 and Ruth was not. 
 
 " Yes, it tells abominably on the purse if 
 that's the skin you mean," said he. 
 
 Ruth looked at him. "Haven't I told 
 you before what a pity it is that you aren't
 
 200 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 rich ? Just think ! " And she raised her 
 eyes in affected ecstasy. Then, as Mrs. 
 Burgess laughed, she lowered them slowly 
 upon her, and asked : " By the way, my 
 dear, have you heard lately from my hus 
 band?" 
 
 "Yes. A note this morning. Do you 
 care to read it ? " 
 
 "No, no," cried Ruth. "It's enough to 
 look after his domestic affairs. I'll have 
 none of the political and monetary." 
 
 "Monetary?" said Noel. The two women 
 said nothing. " I have no monetary affairs," 
 murmured Ruth. "I owe for this," touch 
 ing her gown ; " and that," touching a ring ; 
 " and that," touching another ; " and oh, 
 lots." 
 
 "No wonder men embezzle," said Mrs. 
 Burgess. 
 
 "The wonder is that more of them don't," 
 said Ruth. 
 
 Noel took his eyes away from her and had 
 a glimpse of better things.
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 201 
 
 " You too would like me to think you are 
 desperate, wouldn't you?" said he. " Don't 
 talk like that like Van Horn." 
 
 "Oh Van's going to leave town. Perhaps 
 he isn't deep ! " Mrs. Burgess clasped her 
 hands about her knees. "He said: 'We 
 have had about three presidents who were 
 gentlemen. I think I'll come back under 
 the next administration and see whether 
 we are to have a fourth.' He incidentally 
 showed me a rather interesting paper signed 
 by Lieutenant Alcott. Just why he did so, 
 I can't fancy." 
 
 "As a newspaper man, understanding a 
 little about the art of disseminating news, 
 Mr. Paxson might guess, my dear ; " said 
 Ruth. 
 
 Bat Mrs. Burgess refused to see the point. 
 " I'm so sorry he put me under the seal of 
 secrecy. . . . "When did you last see 
 Mrs. Alcott ? . . . Such a change ! The 
 kind that Van used to call the ' past femi-
 
 202 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 "The 'fast feminine'?" asked Ruth. 
 " What is that ? " 
 
 " I think I know the look," Noel ventured. 
 "Isn't it the timid invitation which corre 
 sponds with the fast masculine the look 
 which disrobes and dishonors a woman ? I 
 really don't know." 
 
 "Can you give me that look?" Mrs. 
 Burgess pleaded. 
 
 As he afterward phrased his feelings, Noel 
 was utterly done up. But he said in iciest 
 calm : 
 
 " I can't give it, I hope. I have only seen 
 it." Then he thought to himself : What a 
 splendid specimen of a libertine you are ! 
 .You have learned the trick of that look. 
 You know it or you wouldn't talk about it. 
 You are no better than other men than 
 Van Horn. . . . Well, why should I 
 be ? Isn't history full of examples to fit my 
 case? How about the intrigues of Goethe 
 and Nelson?
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 203 
 
 "What do you think of Washington 
 women?" he heard from Ruth. 
 
 " Most charming," said he. 
 
 " We should be the most swagger/' said 
 Ruth. 
 
 " Which, as you know, my dear, we are 
 not," said Mrs. Burgess. "And no wonder. 
 What are the men ? Oh, consider the 
 lilies!" 
 
 For, after all, the thing most interesting to 
 women, high and low, is social position. 
 Those who have it not are almost as un 
 happy as those who have. 
 
 Noel was sorry to be left alone with Ruth 
 on this particular afternoon. He dreaded to 
 hear what he knew she had to tell him ; that 
 is, he dreaded the manner in which she 
 would be likely to tell it. For Senator 
 Bunce had been sadly worsted in the West. 
 The newspaper dispatches quoted him as 
 saying that he would soon be out of politics ; 
 the newspaper editorials suggested the likeli 
 hood of his soon being in jail. It was cer-
 
 204 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 tainly not a cheerful subject to discuss, and, 
 greatly to Noel's relief, Ruth was in no haste 
 to open it up. She said, instead, so soon as 
 the Burgess had turned her back, "There 
 goes the most cold-blooded women in the 
 world." 
 
 " That's a pretty stiff compliment." 
 
 " She tells me she has thrown Alcott 
 over." 
 
 " Why, I thought Mrs. Alcott was the one 
 to do that." 
 
 " Don't be banal. She said to me, ' It 
 wouldn't do now, you know. . . . Be 
 sides, what has he ever done for me? I 
 told him frankly last night that I was tired, 
 and the poor fool cried. He's lost his 
 nerve. . . . " 
 
 " She retains hers," said Noel. 
 
 "She told me," continued Ruth, "that it 
 was as much as she could do to keep from 
 laughing in his face. He was very eloquent: 
 * Let us leave this place, my dear. Let's go 
 abroad.' He painted a paradise ; and I sup-
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 205 
 
 pose," added Ruth, reflectively, "she took 
 his caresses and soothed him and went to her 
 bed and burst into laughter and wondered 
 how he could be such a fool as to imagine 
 that she would intrust the rest of her life to 
 his keeping." 
 
 Noel stared. " Why do you suppose any 
 such thing?" 
 
 " Because, my dear," said Ruth, simply, 
 " I expect very shortly to undergo a similar 
 disagreeable experience, and you don't think 
 I can put up with Bunco after our after 
 his disgrace ? " 
 
 He tried to laugh, but it wasn't a success. 
 He wanted to say, " Wife cleave to your 
 husband," but he couldn't. He had such a 
 vivid memory of Rogers. 
 
 "You think it all very ridiculous, don't 
 you?" said Ruth. "I dare say it is, 
 but and she fell back among the 
 
 cushions sobbing. 
 
 Bearing in mind a previous experience, 
 Noel held aloof. " Oh, come," said he,
 
 206 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 "there's no need of that. Drop Bunce, if 
 you wish ; I'm sure I don't care." 
 
 The sobbing stopped in a sharp gasp, and 
 Ruth lifted her tearless face from the pillows. 
 "Care!" she cried. "Of course you don't. 
 You wouldn't care if I went to the dogs. 
 You never cared ! No, go away," she said, 
 as with a clearer sense of the situation and 
 what it called for, Noel started toward her. 
 " I have been a fool from the beginning. 
 Why don't you say at once that you don't 
 respect me? You don't you know you 
 don't. You think I'm a thoroughly bad 
 woman yes, yes, you do. I've brought ruin 
 to all. But whose fault is it? I am hard ! 
 Who made me so ? " 
 
 Thereupon Noel, who had overestimated 
 his gift of speech, scorning prologue, stated 
 a naked fact. " I have not." 
 
 She stood up and faced him and this time 
 the tears did come. She looked at him 
 through them, and the look was like a shaft 
 of light shot through gently troubled waters.
 
 SENATORS WIFE 207 
 
 It has been said that no man can resist a 
 face like this : eyes almost almond, wide at 
 the corners and a soft hazel brown color; 
 eyebrows arched slightly ; a nose of the old 
 Greek type, \vith line from roots of hair to 
 tip of nose unbroken ; the upper lip short ; 
 the mouth delicately curved ; the teeth even, 
 white and small ; the chin round and un- 
 dimpled ; the ears small and pink, like a 
 tropic shell ; the outline of the face oval ; 
 the complexion clear and rosy, the ground 
 tint being olive rather than pink ; the hair a 
 bright golden brown, and waving softly from 
 a low forehead. 
 
 It was toward such a face as this that 
 Noel leaned.
 
 208 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 I said to my soul sometime ago when I had sinned ; 
 "I'm tired of life, are you?" " I am," he said, and 
 
 grinned. 
 
 " Come then," said I, " be brave and die !".... 
 He looked me coldly in the eye. 
 
 THE REGENERATED COWAEB. 
 
 Now if women are inscrutable, at least 
 they are very much of a kind. If one 
 knows one, doesn't one know all ? 
 
 A comfortable doctrine that for infirm or 
 commonplace minds. 
 
 j Mrs. Bunce was far from being the worst 
 woman in Washington. There were times 
 when she was one of the best when deep 
 in the pages, for instance, of "Little Dorrit" 
 or kindred edifying tales. 
 
 It will be admitted, however, by the most 
 punctilious of her sex that her position was 
 very trying a week from the date of the
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 209 
 
 paltry episode indicated in our last chapter. 
 There lay the letter from Buuce with its con 
 cluding awful lines : " So when I meet you 
 on Friday be prepared to hear the worst. I 
 take it for granted, however, that you are as 
 tired as I am of Washington. A season of 
 rest will do us both good, and I am convinced 
 by the canvass I have made that it must be 
 brief. You are not as familiar with Western 
 life as I, but I'm sure that a year in Bunce- 
 boro' will not completely overwhelm you. 
 Tell Mrs. Burgess I congratulate her. . . ." 
 
 Ruth clasped her hands behind her head. 
 Bunceboro' ! 
 
 She stopped, then sank to the carpet and 
 began to pick up and examine a dozen or 
 more scraps of paper. She arranged and 
 fitted them together with feverish haste, and 
 when they lay before her in the semblance 
 of a shattered pane of glass she murmured 
 out the mutilated message : 
 
 " I can do no more. You must admit that. 
 I will not urge you I only say that, if you
 
 210 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 wish me to be so, I am forever yours from 
 eleven o'clock to-night." 
 
 "Sweet, sweet, sweet ! " said Ruth, press 
 ing her lips to the bits of paper. And then, 
 of a sudden, her eyes opened very wide and 
 into them came a staring look of terror. 
 She saw on one of the scraps of paper that 
 she had tossed aside the figure 6. 
 
 A week accomplishes wonders. From a 
 man or woman of nerve one may easily 
 within lesser time become a man or woman 
 of nerves. Here was a robust young mar 
 ried woman who had undergone that trans 
 formation, one who a week before would 
 have tripped beneath a ladder and been only 
 too delighted to sit at a dinner of thirteen 
 plates. 
 
 "To-day is the sixth," said Ruth, actually 
 with a gasp ; " the sixth ! His birthday, and 
 the. . . . Oh!" 
 
 When a woman falls like that on a sofa 
 with no one to see her do it, any cynical 
 criticism of the act is obviously bad form.
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 211 
 
 Ruth arose, white and determined. She 
 went to her writing desk and tried to think ; 
 but we have already remarked how, even in 
 cold blood, Emerson himself has said what 
 a deuce there is to pay when a thinker is let 
 loose on the earth. So, after some minutes, 
 she looked at her purse instead, and then 
 packed a diminutive bag and went out into 
 the wide, wide world. It was not yet nine 
 o'clock. Three hours and then 
 
 She secured the last chair in the last car 
 (it was not a sleeper) and so was unseen by 
 all save the trainmen and the Omniscient 
 eye she feared. She would not take the 
 sleeper she knew so many people who 
 might be there. 
 
 The sixth ! The anniversary of his birth 
 day the date of her death ! She wasn't 
 superstitious, of course not. She told her 
 self that a dozen times. But the sixth ! 
 When death impends to a woman of nerve 
 it may chill the heart to a degree, but it can-
 
 212 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 not paralyze the brain. At least she would 
 not involve him in her fate. The woman of 
 nerves, however, dies many deaths as her 
 t fate looms larger and draws near. 
 
 
 
 If she could only see him once more even 
 at a distance. ... It was not yet ten 
 o'clock. Would the train never go ? 
 
 Into the car came a big man with a terra 
 cotta face. He walked down the aisle and, 
 passing Ruth stood at the rear door talking 
 to the brakeman. 
 
 " No, you don't," said he. " The young 
 woman can have the whole seat. There's no 
 use getting smashed if you can help it. I 
 guess I'll take that seat in the middle. With 
 your permission." 
 
 It came upon Ruth then, suddenly, that 
 she was sitting where an end-on collision 
 could hardly overlook her. So that was to 
 be her fate, she thought, quaking. A sharp 
 shock sent her hands to her face ; but it was 
 only the engine coupling on. She tried to 
 look unconcerned after that, and made a
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 213 
 
 pretense of hunting through the little bag 
 for a thing that did not exist even in her 
 own imagination. When presently the bell 
 rang and the train slipped out into the night, 
 she stopped shuddering and sat bolt upright 
 and made a pitiful show of searching for her 
 ticket. 
 
 There was a silver flask in the diminutive 
 bag to which she made more than one appeal 
 for help ; and that and the soft onward 
 pounding of the train steadied her consider 
 ably. Her thoughts fluttered back to her 
 girlhood ; she could see herself at school, 
 standing suddenly up with a white face and 
 her hands to her head, and hear the master 
 saying sharply : " Now, Miss Dixon, what 
 is it ? " It had been her mother then ; a 
 stiff and waxen vision ; the first awful pre 
 sentiment, which the master treated as in 
 cipient chills and fever and used most effect 
 ively as the subject of an eloquent discourse 
 on the sin of excessive skating. But that 
 very night he had begged her pardon in.
 
 214 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 driving her to the station, and in the midst 
 of his pompous condolences had vowed it 
 " A most remarkable, a most inexplicable in 
 stance of telepathic sympathy." 
 
 Then came the breaking off of her engage 
 ment with Noel, had she not trembled the 
 night before in a sudden premonition of it ? 
 Did she not foresee the suicide of Rogers ? 
 the failure and the death of her father ? 
 And there were so many little things, cred 
 ible warnings of good and evil, all realized, 
 that now started up in her memory, and pro 
 jected the figure 6 before her closed eyes in 
 huge proportions, the crook fashioned like 
 the handle of a sword, the stem like its 
 blade, wavering and blood red. 
 
 So she cowered in her seat and waited, 
 giving no outward sign of the terror that 
 gripped her by the heart. More than one 
 male passenger, coming down the aisle, noted 
 the pallid lovely face and coughed at the 
 closed eyelids. But they did not open. 
 Not when the jocose drummer from New
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 215 
 
 York, who sat opposite, gave for her especial 
 benefit and pianissimo the whole of " La 
 Traviata," whistled as he never whistled it 
 before or after. Not when the seedy actor 
 in front, talking at her, told his admiring 
 auditor, the conductor, those rare profes 
 sional experiences of his when Booth and 
 Irving and Modjeska estranged themselves 
 and embittered their lives in the famous 
 struggle to secure his support. Not when 
 Baltimore was reached. Not when it was 
 left at a distance of some twenty miles and 
 a hot box brought the train to a halt. Not, 
 indeed, until the engine getting under way 
 again, screamed shrilly as it shot beneath a 
 bridge. Then the eyes opened very slowly, 
 and all of her rich color was home again in 
 Ruth's cheeks. 
 
 She sat up and looked about her and re 
 membered. The melodic piping of the drum 
 mer had given way to a vulgar snore ; the 
 voice of the reminiscent actor was stilled. 
 Only the brakeman was awake, and he, it
 
 216 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 was plain to see by token of the gradual 
 drop and quick recovery of the head, pre 
 served his faculties from a sense of duty and 
 under protest. 
 
 Ruth remembered, and a draught of cold 
 air seemed to hit her in the face. But the 
 long doze into which she had sunk stimulated 
 her amazingly, as did another appeal to the 
 silver flask. Then she looked at her watch, 
 and 
 
 The brakeman was so surprised to see this 
 hitherto tranquil white-faced young woman 
 laughing heartily by herself in a somnolent 
 car that he stood up and gazed at her se 
 verely, as if to demand an explanation. 
 Ruth was all rosy now and self-possessed. 
 
 "It's after twelve, isn't it? "she asked. 
 
 "Ten minutes after," said the brakeman. 
 
 It was the seventh. The sixth had come 
 and gone ; from a woman of nerves she had 
 become a woman of nerve again. But she 
 had deliberately fled from the only hope of 
 happiness that could ever come to her. What
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 217 
 
 a fool, what a fool, she had been ! Why 
 couldn't she have seen that even instant death 
 with him were preferable to endless life with 
 the other. Oh, oh ! One cannot imme 
 diately cast off the tyranny of one's nerves. 
 Even a woman of nerve may yield to tears. 
 
 The brakeman, without being an excep 
 tionally impressionable young man, had a 
 keen eye for beauty in distress. 
 
 "Is there anything I can do, madam?" he 
 asked. Ruth shook her head, and the brake 
 man coughed sympathetically in his left 
 hand. 
 
 "Any telegraph-er ? " he suggested. 
 
 She looked up at him eagerly. Eleven 
 o'clock. And it was now after midnight. 
 Perhaps a telegram might catch and hold 
 him. She took the highly gratified brakeman 
 by the hand. 
 
 " When could I get a dispatch through to 
 Washington ? " 
 
 " To Washington ? " 
 
 "Yes,"
 
 218 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 " Why say in in an hour. Eh ? " 
 She sank back trembling all over into the 
 corner of the seat ; and the sympathetic 
 brakeman relieved the intensity of his feel 
 ings by cracking the middle joint of each in 
 dividual finger of his right hand in a really 
 dextrous and winsome manner. And there 
 after, discerning no symptoms of revival on 
 the part of the distressed beauty, he gener 
 ously run the gamut of his left hand ; then, 
 pausing in vain for a recognition of this per 
 formance, he went softly away to the end of 
 the car. Standing there in pensive regard 
 of the two parallel black ribbons spinning 
 swiftly out from under the hindmost wheels 
 of the Washington express, the brakeman, in 
 a moment or two, was led by the hand of 
 Providence, gradually to lift his eyes and 
 note the oncoming of freight No. 12. The 
 headlight shone faintly far down the tangent, 
 but our sympathetic friend had seen it there 
 many a night and had stood out on the plat 
 form and enjoyed the perilous pleasure of
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 219 
 
 shaking hands with Bilks, the engineer, as 
 No. 12 stole very slowly past the express. 
 For that was the one chance the fast freight 
 had of keeping company with its aristocratic 
 chum. 
 
 Whether led by the hand of Providence or 
 not, our brakeman no sooner saw the head 
 light of No. 12 than he returned to the side 
 of the desolate lady and touched her on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " If it's very partick'ler," said he, and as 
 gruffly as he could, " mebbe I kin git that 
 telegrapht through for you now. Here's a 
 fast freight comiu' on behind us. Hurry up 
 an' write it. I'll hand it to the 'geneer 
 Bilks." 
 
 Ruth looked at him, then stood up and 
 saw far down the track the brilliant headlight 
 coming slowly on. 
 
 " How can you give it to him ? " she asked. 
 
 " Why," said he, in a patronizing profes 
 sional tone, " don't you see he's on'y takin' 
 advantage of the grade. He'll run up to us
 
 220 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 and 'longside of us and raebbe git ahead of 
 us for a couple of hundred yards or so. But 
 that's all. And we generally run even about 
 here. When I'm awake I shake hands with 
 Bilks. When I ain't he taps on the window. 
 Now if you want that telegrapht to git off, 
 just write her down. I'll give it to him. 
 He'll hand it to Lumps at the next station. 
 Or," said the thoughtful brakeman, as if 
 to himself, " if it wasn't in such a hell of a 
 hurry the express might take it right down 
 and Joe 'ud be on'y too d d glad to de 
 liver it for a half a dollar." 
 
 Ruth heard and she stopped writing and 
 put both of her hands on the brakeman's 
 shoulders. " Why can't I go myself? Here, 
 here!" taking out her purse and pressing 
 it upon him "If you can shake hands 
 with the engineer I can step into his cab. I 
 must I will ! ! " 
 
 The smitten brakeman gave her one in 
 telligent and admiring look, as if to say: 
 "There's railroad genius gone to waste." He
 
 THK SENATORS WIFE 22i 
 
 then snatched up the diminutive bag, siezed 
 Ruth by the arm and hurried her uncere 
 moniously to the front platform of the car. 
 No. 12 was thrusting its blazing nose insidu- 
 ously forward was in fact, within a hundred 
 yards of the express. 
 
 " Now, you stay here," shouted the brake- 
 man. "Git on that second step and hold 
 hard. I'll take your cabbie back with me 
 and hand it to Bilks, and tell him to give 
 you a lift into the cab. Now, hold tight I " 
 
 He dashed into the car and down the aisle 
 and flung open and banged back the rear 
 door with a crash that awakened all the oc 
 cupants. Ruth all atingle with the thrill of 
 her hope and her peril, leaned a little for- 
 ' ward, saw her faithful cavalier waving the 
 diminutive bag in the glare of the advancing 
 headlight. Then she saw two heads come 
 close together and the bag disappear. Then 
 the great flashing eye of the engine blinded 
 her, and its deep, fierce rushing throb sent 
 her trembling back. The next instant she
 
 222 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 was conscious of a face in front of her that 
 seemed stationary and smiling a welcome. 
 A long brown hairy arm stretched out and 
 grasped her firmly by the left shoulder ; at 
 the same instant the right was siezed from 
 behind and the familiar, reassuring voice 
 of the sympathetic brakeman whispered 
 hoarsely : " Now, here we are. Let go. 
 Bilks will look after you. My name's 
 Tootle. By, by, Bilks ! " She was poised for 
 the merest fraction of a second between the 
 two fast speeding trains, and then the dis 
 creet Bilks, hoisting her gently into his cab, 
 gave a tragic twist to the lever. And the 
 express shot by.
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 223 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 And as the night sped on his passion waxed not bolder. 
 He did not care to give her up ; he did not wish to hold 
 
 her. 
 
 His valor still held good, but discretion held the better ; 
 And so he sat him down, and wrote that fatal letter. 
 
 LOVE'S GOOD-BYE. 
 
 NOEL was stronger than Ruth, and we 
 hold it an admirable sign of his gentleness 
 that he was as much ashamed of his moral 
 superiority before her as he had always been 
 of his fine physical gifts in the presence of 
 the weak. The young and vigorous con 
 stantly, though perhaps not always con 
 sciously, insult the old and feeble with the 
 flaunting display of their health. Noel never 
 did. He was himself of too sensitive and 
 sympathetic a fibre to square his great shoul 
 ders before a consumptive or a hunchback ; 
 he was too kindly and well-bred to dwarf a
 
 224 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 smaller rival by deliberately opposing his 
 larger bulk in flagrant contrast; lie was too 
 wise to awaken envy by confident talk of 
 his own ambitious projects. To show you 
 how clever as well as tactful he was, here 
 are a few things he said at the club on the 
 night he sat waiting to hear from Ruth. 
 
 "It seems to me that if I were a very little 
 man I'd find modesty more than the better 
 part of valor." 
 
 . . . . " The debates in Congress are 
 as interesting and intelligible as the Greek 
 chorus." 
 
 . . . . " Most good fellows who fail in 
 life get blind drunk. Of course, after that, 
 they can't see their opportunities." 
 
 . . . . " Shakespeare is Shakespeare 
 because he found a publisher." 
 
 . . . . " Renan perceived the possi 
 bility of an infinity of universes in a grain 
 of granite ; endless worlds with suns rising 
 and setting in firmaments too infinite for our 
 fancy, too fine for our touch. The same
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 225 
 
 idea is in the Lord's Prayer : ' World with 
 out end.'" 
 
 . . . . " I overheard two charming 
 women of irreproachable character, discuss 
 ing the nameless iniquity of the newspapers 
 in announcing at great length the impending 
 birth of an heir at the White House. They 
 said they thought 'it was simply shocking 
 and disgusting.' As a matter of fact, you 
 know, they really thought it an outrage that 
 their own little contributions to our common 
 stock had been passed by unchronicled as a 
 drug in the market. The proudest, stingiest, 
 most jealous of all God's folk is a young 
 mother. Human or cat." 
 
 . . . . " I am going to give up books. 
 They don't help me to be a better man. 
 The facts I gather from them I can't recall 
 to mind when I have use for them ; those I 
 involuntarily remember are, for the present 
 purpose, worse than useless, for they obstruct 
 the current of thought." 
 
 . . . . "Every literary man leads a
 
 226 THE SENATORS WIFE 
 
 double life. He is in a higher and better 
 world with a rarer atmosphere when im 
 mersed in the pages of a first-class novel. 
 He sits at the feet of Heloise and sees the 
 stars through the halo above the head of 
 Lady Esmond. Then he goes out to dinner 
 and meets women twice as beautiful; but 
 they are not heroines. Or, again, in reading 
 or writing a romance he feels himself a hero. 
 Presently, out in the open, the opportunity 
 is offered him of protecting a drunken Mag 
 dalene, cr of rescuing a wharf-rat. Unfor 
 tunately at that very instant his shoe-strings 
 require tying, or he must search in the gutter 
 for that convenient thing that never was on 
 land or sea." 
 
 . . . . " For the sake of the perpetua 
 tion of its faith, Christianity should pur 
 chase and destroy most classic examples of 
 ecclesiastical art dating from the middle 
 ages. Particularly all Madonnas. That is 
 to say, if the hand that rocks the cradle 
 really rules the world. For there lives no
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 227 
 
 modern mother worthy of respect whose ad 
 miration is not unbounded for the advertised 
 angel reared on Helen's Food. If you show 
 her Murillo's masterpiece, she'll suggest 
 peptonized milk for the puny infant." 
 
 He said these things in the smoking-room, 
 there being with him about the fireplace 
 some half-dozen club men, who appeared to 
 be vastly edified by his moody talk. One of 
 them, indeed, a correspondent, carried his 
 appreciation to the point of making notes of 
 some of Noel's remarks, politely inquiring 
 each time whether he was at liberty to use 
 thai; which at length so disconcerted our 
 orator that he buttoned his lips. The 
 polite newspaper man thereupon closed his 
 note-book, and opening his knife began osten 
 tatiously *to sharpen a lead pencil by whit 
 tling it rapidly away from him a trick 
 wherein he so excelled that he had built 
 upon it quite an enviable reputation. Noel, 
 with the others, watched in silence the inter 
 esting operation through to its triumphant
 
 228 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 and impressive end, and then he flung him 
 self down on a lounge, and tried to find 
 some reason for not loathing his life. 
 
 It was not a satisfactory thing to contem 
 plate in the past ; it was gloomy enough in 
 the present; it was anything but promising 
 in the future. Look at it any way, it was a. 
 failure. Looked at closely, he could see that 
 it had been a very selfish life thus far ; and 
 that its single whole-hearted interest had 
 been an unholy one ; his passion for Ruth. 
 Whole-hearted but unwholesome. A pas 
 sion, but not a grand one. There was noth 
 ing good in it ; nothing to come of it but 
 sin and perhaps disgrace. The good blood 
 in him heated quickly at thought of her ; 
 and then as quickly chilled at thought of 
 what the world would say of him if it knew. 
 Verily his life had been unlovely, and his 
 love had been lifeless. He could make noth 
 ing more of it. Only life, though a failure, 
 was still sweet to him ; and love was not. 
 So he would give it up. And, after all, that
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 229 
 
 was the manly thing to do. He would write 
 again to Ruth at once, saying so, recalling 
 his foolish vows, bidding her beware of him 
 and his fast and loose love, confessing in all 
 honesty and contriteness of spirit his'hope- 
 less selfishness. Yes, that was the one thing 
 to do, and he would do it. 
 
 . . . . But, meanwhile, what in the 
 world could she be doing ? He had waited 
 hours ! 
 
 As he raised upon his elbow at the 
 thought, a stray word from the group about 
 the fireplace held him to the lounge. 
 
 " Alcott ? Oh, Alcott's got himself ordered 
 to sea. Ah, the grief of Penelope ! " 
 
 " I thought the name began with a B ? " 
 
 " It used to, but ' B ' is a bird of another 
 plumage now. Look in the /Star, my boy. 
 We are no longer of the commons." 
 
 " You don't mean to say that Burgess has 
 sold out Bunce ? " 
 
 " Well, rather. But why Burgess or 
 Buuce? Uaid'E'i plaiu'B.'"
 
 230 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 " Picture the home-coming of Bunce ! " 
 
 " I say, Page," Noel called out, " toss me 
 the Star when you're done with it, won't 
 you?" 
 
 The news dispatch was a brief oii ; a 
 mere naked statement of the fact leaded 
 and set conspicuously on the page. But an 
 editorial drew at greater length attention to 
 its peculiar significance. It asked whether 
 treachery was an essential to success in 
 American public life ; whether an Iscariot 
 was the less abominable because he betrayed 
 his friend in politics. " Mr. Burgess has ad 
 vanced himself to the Senate over the dead 
 body of his friend ; he has exalted himself at 
 the expense of his political honor ; he has 
 sold out his master, Bunce, and we shall ex 
 pect him to sell out his party." 
 
 Having no admiration for Bunce, Noel felt 
 no pity for him now. The news interested 
 him only in its relation to Ruth. It seemed 
 propitious for the plan he had in mind look 
 ing to her moral sanitatiuu. She could now
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 231 
 
 turn her back upon Washington and go West 
 in search of Godliness. 
 
 So lie sat him down to the most difficult 
 literary task of his life. The grotesque 
 thing he wrote was wound up with this 
 touching valedictory : 
 
 " Shall you always care for me I wonder; 
 and yet wonder but an instant. I don't 
 think you will. It's a very noble organ, that 
 heart of yours, my dearest ; a fierce bound 
 ing thing not at all to be put down. The 
 fate that brought us two together was un 
 speakably unkind. I have never done you 
 good. You know that. But I'll do you 
 good now, so help me. I'll get out of your 
 life, walking away from it deliberately, 
 though with tears. You are not an angel, 
 my darling, thank God, but you are better, 
 oh ! far better than I, else I had taken your 
 passion in hand and choked it. No, sweet, I 
 am not worthy of you ; I am not worthy of 
 a thought of yours. I must try to be ; and 
 that is why I am going out of your life. I
 
 232 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 kiss your lips, dear, dear Ruth ; and oh, my 
 little girl, my little girl, be good and pure 
 again and forgive me." 
 
 So amazing is the power of self-deception, 
 so delightful is it to pity one's self and pat 
 one's magnitude on the back, that Noel 
 actually watered the last page of this inter 
 esting human document with his tears. 
 
 Then he went out and posted it, and was 
 very particular thereafter in directing the 
 manufacture of a Welsh rarebit. He ate it 
 all, and, moreover, digested it.
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 233 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The truth as the hills is old ; 
 
 A truth so simple as this : 
 A whisper, a touch, and a kiss 
 
 Then love grown cold, so cold. 
 
 FEOM THE FATE OF FLESH. 
 
 RUTH had read the letter many times, and 
 only one phrase in it stuck to her mind. " I 
 am going out of your life." She said it to 
 herself over and over again, always with an 
 added bitterness. Going out of her life ! 
 The fool man had never got into it. And 
 he was " walking away from it deliberately, 
 though with tears ! " This was retribution, 
 and with a vengeance. 
 
 There was no doubt of the genuineness of 
 her own tears. They were of the sort an 
 enraged tigress might shed ; not copious but 
 exceedingly hot, Aftcl through them,
 
 234 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 ently, when the first fierce spasm of passion 
 was spent, she saw the face of the martyr 
 Rogers, and all her wrath went softly away, 
 and she sobbed like a little child. The God 
 she had asked an instant before to torture 
 the soul of her recusant lover, she now be 
 sought to have pity on her own. For what 
 was Noel's guilt compared to hers? Poor 
 old Dave ! Poor faithful, loving, and unbe- 
 loved Dave ! How handsomely he was 
 avenged. She had forsaken him ; yet now 
 that he knew all and saw her suffering as she 
 had made him suffer, he would ask his Mas 
 ter to consider her weakness, arid let her 
 atone for her sins in the daily, hourly mem 
 ory of her great crime against his love. Oh, 
 she knew he would. Poor Dave, now sud 
 denly so dear. He would, he would ! 
 
 She had reached home very late from her 
 memorable ride the night before, to find that 
 the senator had returned. But she had de 
 fied herself the pleasure of seeing him, and
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 235 
 
 had instructed the butler to say that she did 
 not wish to be awakened in the morning. 
 The maid might fetch her breakfast when 
 she rang. The maid had also brought Noel's 
 letter, and had since taken away the untasted 
 toast and tea, and made several ineffectual 
 efforts to establish communication with her 
 mistress by coughing hintfully on the other 
 side of the screen. Now, when Ruth came 
 forth and submitted herself like a sleepy 
 child, to be dressed, the maid hurried through 
 her task, and said, " The senator, ma'am." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "He wishes to see you. He's waited 
 hours, ma'am, and, ... he don't look 
 pleasant like." 
 
 " I dare say. Tell him he may come up 
 now, if he cares." 
 
 The senator came up slowly and heavily, 
 and entered the room after the manner of an 
 Atlantic liner tying to its dock. On his face 
 was still the old portentous look, though it 
 was greatly subdued ; and his thick nostrils
 
 236 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 beat gratefully to the delicate scent of the 
 apartment. 
 
 She did not get up to greet him, but she 
 held out her hand, and gave him the shadow 
 of a smile. He stooped as if making to kiss 
 her, but she drew back and he sat down. 
 The senator did not look his best in a chair, 
 and he felt much more at ease on his feet. 
 
 " Well, I'm sorry," said Ruth, simply and 
 truthfully. "Very sorry." 
 
 "It isn't so bad as you think," said he, 
 rather eagerly, and bending toward her. " It 
 can be only for a term, and you may rest as 
 sured I'll not fail to improve every opportu 
 nity in the meantime. Why I've the promise 
 of the very scoundrels who sold me out to 
 Burgess " 
 
 " Mrs. Burgess among them ? " 
 
 He turned the color of boiled salmon, and 
 seemed to forget her presence as he stood 
 upon his feet and clenched his hands. 
 
 " Damn her ! Damn her perjured soul ! 
 J'U hunt her ciowu. to the gutter she belongs
 
 THE SENATORS WIFE 237 
 
 to, if it takes me the rest of my life to do 
 it!" 
 
 " Why not elope with her ? " He either 
 did not hear or did not wish her to think he 
 had. 
 
 " When I heard what she had done," Ruth 
 went on placidly, " I cut her. Then I wrote 
 her a note to say that she could have you 
 now if she wanted you ; that I really 
 thought you belonged to her. But I sup 
 pose she thinks it would look rather swinish 
 for her to take you, too after she had taken 
 your money and your office. Maybe it 
 would." 
 
 He was too wroth and ashamed to retort, 
 though she waited quietly for him to do so. 
 
 "What are your plans now?" she at 
 length asked. 
 
 The emphasis stung him, but he prudently 
 ignored it, and said, as he paced before the 
 screen : " They are about what I wrote 
 you. I must retrieve this disaster by hard 
 good work. You must help me. You can
 
 238 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 do all that I once expected-er-hoped you 
 would do. I'll place you yet where I prom 
 ised, so help me God ! I'll " He stopped at 
 a wave of her hand, and added lamely, well. 
 leave Washington at once. WE'!! go West 
 before the end of the month." 
 
 " Very well, very well," said Ruth, rising. 
 " Yes, we'll leave Washington at once. But 
 don't let us discuss our plans any more to 
 day. I'm very tired. Good-bye." And he 
 suffered her, big man as he was, and very 
 beautiful and desirable and unattainable as 
 she then appeared in his sight, to dismiss 
 him from the room. 
 
 The rest of that day was a busy one with 
 both of them. Ruth spent most of it with 
 her lawyer, but late in the afternoon she 
 found time to look in upon Mrs. Alcott, and 
 when she left there it was in a four-wheeler 
 with Mrs. Alcott by her side and the adven 
 turous bag on the opposite seat, and a 
 steamer trunk on the roof. They parted af-
 
 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 239 
 
 fectionately at the railroad station, arid Ruth 
 said, "I'll write you from Paris, my dear," 
 and Millicent said, " Until July," and Ruth 
 said, " Yes, until July ; " and both of them 
 looked as happy as they could under the cir 
 cumstances. 
 
 Senator Bunce, we repeat, was also kept 
 busy that day, winding up his senatorial 
 career. He came home late in a particularly 
 despondent mood, and sat down alone to a 
 particularly bad dinner. 
 
 That was of small consequence, however, 
 for he did not attempt to eat it, and the 
 whiskey was irreproachable. The butler 
 handed him a note. It read : 
 
 "I don't wish to spoil your dinner, but 
 you'll have to know sooner or later. I am 
 leaving you forever. If you had not been 
 Senator Bunce I would not have married 
 you. Now that you are no longer senator 
 you are nothing to me. You told me your 
 plans ; they are wise. If you will see my 
 lawyer in the morning he will tell you mine.
 
 240 THE SENATOR'S WIFE 
 
 Don't let us have any needless scandal about 
 it. Go your way, as I am going mine. I 
 hope you'll eventually reach the White 
 House. Forget that I ever wished to go 
 with you there. Good-bye." 
 
 THE END.
 
 CAPTAIN CHARLES KING'S 
 WORKS. 
 
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 out a peer in his chosen field, which he indus 
 triously cultivates. There has for some years 
 been a steadily increasing demand for his 
 army stories, and if it were put to a vote to 
 day, as to the most popular American novelist, 
 the name of Captain King would undoubtedly 
 be found among the leaders. 
 
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 Cloth, 75c. 
 
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 Goth, $1.25 
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 Cloth, $1.25. 
 
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 POINT PARALLEL," 
 
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 fbe Most Remarkable or Mr. Hope's Stories. 
 
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 portrayer of characters of sharp distinctness and individ 
 uality, he has no superior." 
 
 Evening "A writer of great merit. ... Mr. Hope's 
 Wisconsin work has a quality of straightforwardness 
 that recommends it to readers who have grown tired of 
 the loaded novel." 
 
 Phillipsburg ' This is considered by his critics to be oe 
 Journal of the strongest, most beautiful and in* 
 
 teresting novels Mr. Hope has ever written. There is not 
 a dull line in the entire volume." 
 
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 Gazette the other characters do not suffer because 
 
 so prominent is the hero ; they are well drawn, and quite 
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 would seem to have made peculiarly his own." 
 
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 Journal of the action to hold the reader's mind. It 
 
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 Every Saturday, " Anthony Hope is a master of dialogue, 
 Ifilgin, 111. and to his art in this particular is due 
 
 the enticing interest which leads the reader on from page 
 
 to page." 
 
 Hebrew "The strife between the obligation of a vow of 
 Standard celibacy and the promptings of true love are 
 
 vividly portrayed in this little book. ... It contains an 
 
 admirable description of English country life, and is wU 
 
 written." 
 
 Boston Dally "It has enough of the charm of the M* 
 Globe thor's thought and style to identify It 80 
 
 Characteristic, and make it very pleasing." 
 
 Gilt Top. Retail. 75 Cent*
 
 BV ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. 
 
 .Edward H The author Is a genius without a living equal. 
 Cllls so far as I am aware, in his peculiar field. It 
 
 is a masterpiece. ... I have read many portions sev 
 eral times, captivated by the unapproachable tints of the 
 painting. None but a genius of the highest order could 
 do such work." 
 
 W . Y. Commercial The short prose tale should be a syn- 
 Advertiser thesis ; it was the art of Edgar Poe, 
 
 it is the art of Mr. Chambers. . . . His is beyond ques 
 tion a glorious heritage. ... I fancy the book will 
 create a sensation ; ... in any case it is the most 
 notable contribution to literature which has come from an 
 American publisher for many years ; and fine as the ao 
 complishment is, ' The King in Yellow ' is large in promise. 
 One has a right to expect a great deal from an author of 
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 strange, imaginative force." 
 
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 perceptible in this volume of stories." 
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 World words ; he is a good painter. His situations 
 
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 means madness. The tenderest fancy is a sad mirage. 
 . . . ' The King in Yellow ' is a very interesting contri 
 bution to the present fund of materio-mysticism. . . , 
 To read Mr. Chambers' little book is to escape from the a 
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 curiosity." 
 
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 Times 
 
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 Item lull of color and delicately tinted." 
 
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 Gazette weird, uncanny, picturesque, and yet a geoj 
 
 of exquisite coloring, dreamy, symbolic, exciting." 
 
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