Instead of making his way home at once Arbuthnot turned up the side of the street on which the Amorys\' house stood. As he reached the house the door was opened, and a man came out and walked down the steps. He was a man with a large frame, a darkly florid complexion, and heavily handsome features. As he passed Arbuthnot he gave him a glance and a rather grudging bow, which expressed candidly exactly the amount of pleasure he derived from encountering him.

Bertha was in the parlor alone. When Arbuthnot entered he found her standing in the middle of the room, looking down at the roses on her gayly painted fan, and evidently not seeing them.

"Well," he began, by way of greeting, "I hope you have been enjoying yourself—with your senators."

She looked up, and made a quick, eager little movement toward him, as if she was more glad to see him than usual.

"Ah!" she exclaimed. "I believe I was wishing you would come."

"Thank you," he said; "but the compliment would be greater if you were sure of it."

"I think I am sure of it, now you are here," she answered, "though I don\'t know at all why I wanted you—unless it was to tell you that I have not been enjoying myself in the least—with my senators."

"I am delighted to hear it," he replied. "Nothing could please me better. They are always too numerous, and lately one is continually meeting them on the steps and being scowled at."

She shut her fan quickly, with a slight frown.

[Pg 130]

"Why scowled at?" she said. "That would be absurd enough."

"Absurd or not," he laughed, "it is true."

But, notwithstanding his laugh, there was no change in her face he did not see.

They had seated themselves by this time, and Bertha was looking at her fan again, and opening and shutting it slowly.

"They are not my senators," she said. "They are Richard\'s, and—I am getting a little tired of them, though I should not like to tell him so. When it is warm, as it is to-day, I am very tired of them."

"I should not think it at all improbable," remarked Arbuthnot, dryly. "It has struck me that it would be necessary for the mercury to be several degrees below zero before you would find the one who went out just now, for instance, especially exhilarating."

"He is not exhilarating at all," she said. "Richard likes him," she added, a moment afterward. "I don\'t know exactly why, but he really seems to admire him. They are quite intimate. I think the acquaintance began through some law business he gave him in connection with the Westoria lands. I have tried to like him on Richard\'s account. You must remember," she said, with a smile, "I first tried to like you on Richard\'s account."

"I hope you succeeded better than you will with Planefield," he said.

"I might succeed with him if I persevered long enough," she answered. "The difficulty lies in the perseverance. Richard says I would make a good lobbyist, but I am sure I should not. I could not be persistently amiable and entertaining to people who tired me."

"Don\'t deplore your deficiencies until it becomes necessary for you to enter the profession," said Arbuthnot. "I don\'t like to hear you speak of it," he added, with a touch of sharpness.

[Pg 131]

"I don\'t deplore them," said Bertha. "And it is only one of my little jokes. But, if the fortunes of the Westoria lands depended on me, I am afraid they would be a dismal failure."

"As they don\'t depend on you," he remarked, "doesn\'t it occur to you that you might as well leave them to Senator Planefield? I must confess it has presented itself to me in that light."

"It is rather odd," she said, in a tone of reflection, "that though I have nothing whatever to do with them, they actually seem to have detained me in town for the last two weeks."

"It is quite time you went away," said Arbuthnot.

"I know that," she answered. "And I feel it more every day."

She raised her eyes suddenly to his.

"Laurence," she said, "I am not well. Don\'t tell Richard, but I think I am not well at all. I—I am restless and nervous—and—and morbid. I am actually morbid. Things trouble me which never troubled me before. Sometimes I lose all respect for myself. You know I always was rather proud of my self-control. I am not quite as proud of it as I used to be. About two weeks ago I—I positively lost my temper."

He did not laugh, as she had been half-afraid he would. His manner was rather quiet; on the contrary—it was as if what she said struck him as being worth listening to with some degree of serious attention, though his reply was not exactly serious.

"I hope you had sufficient reason," he said.

"No," she answered. "I had no reason at all, which makes it all the more humiliating. I think I have been rather irritable for a month or two. I have allowed myself to—to be disturbed by things which were really of no consequence, and I have taken offence at things and—and—resented trifles, and it was the merest trifle which made me lose my temper—yes, actually lose my temper, and say what I did not intend to say, in the[Pg 132] most open and abject manner. What could be more abject than to say things you did not intend to say? You know I never was given to that kind of thing."

"No," he responded, "it cannot be said that you were."

"It was so—so revolting to me after it was over," she went on, "that it seemed to make me more weak-minded than ever. When you once give way to your emotions it is all going down-hill—you do it again and again. I never did it before, but I have been on the verge of doing it two or three times since."

"Don\'t go any farther than the verge," he said.

"I don\'t intend to," she answered. "I don\'t like even the verge. I resent it with all my strength. I should like to invent some kind of horrible torture to pay myself for—for what I did."

He was watching her very closely, but she was not aware of it. She had arrested his attention completely enough by this time, and the fact made itself evident in his intent and rather startled expression.

"I hope it was nothing very serious," he said.

"It was serious enough for me," she replied. "Nobody else was hurt, but it was serious enough for me—the mere knowing that for a few minutes I had lost my hold on myself. I didn\'t like it—I didn\'t like it!"

There was an intensity in her manner, in her voice, in he............