"Why do you think that?" exclaimed she.

"You told me."

"_I_!"

"You, yourself. Have you not said you could not live on what I get
as a public man, and that if I were a gentleman I'd not expect you
to?"

Margaret stared foolishly at this unescapable inference from her
own statements and admissions during his cross-examination. She
began to feel helpless in his hands--and began to respect him whom
she could not fool.

"I know," he went on, "you're too intelligent not to have
appreciated that either we must live on my salary or I must leave
public life."

He laughed--a quiet, amused laugh, different from any she had ever
heard from him. Evidently, Joshua Craig in intimacy was still
another person from the several Joshua Craigs she already knew.
"And," said he, in explanation of his laughter, "I thought you
married me because I had political prospects. I fancied you had
real ambition....I might have known! According to the people of
your set, to be in that set is to have achieved the summit of
earthly ambition--to dress, to roll about in carriages, to go from
one fussy house to another, from one showy entertainment to
another, to eat stupid dinners, and caper or match picture cards