with her hands.

"That was brutal of me," he said hurriedly. "Your dinner is the
brilliant success that it deserves to be, and you should be permitted
to be entirely happy. There is not a bored face, and if they are all
jabbering about the everlasting subject, so much the better for you.
It gives your _salon_ its political character at once; you would have
had a hard time getting them to begin on bimetallism and the census--
perish the thought! Ward is now making Lady Mary think that she is a
greater diplomatist than himself. Maxwell and the Speaker are
wrangling across your mother, who looks alarmed; Burleigh is flirting
desperately with Miss Alice Maxwell, who is purring upon his
senatorial vanity; your Populist is breaking out into the turgid
rhetoric of Mr. Bryan; French has persuaded that charming English girl
that he is the most literary man in America, and Miss Carter is
condoling with March about an ungrateful State. So be happy, my
darling, be happy."

His voice had dropped suddenly. She made an involuntary movement
toward him.

"I am," she said below her breath. "I am." She added in a moment,
"Will you always come to my Thursday evenings, no matter what
happens?"

"Always."

He had turned slightly, and one hand was on his knee. She slipped hers
into it recklessly; they were safe in the crowd, and her hand ached
for his. It ached from the grasp it received, for he was a man whose