“I couldn’t help hearing,” said Thorndyke, with a burning face. “I couldn’t get out--it would have been beastly to the poor devil----” And then both of them suddenly burst into a gale of laughter, nor could they, all that day and evening, meet each other’s eyes without laughing mysteriously. Thorndyke’s visit lasted a week. It was a week of heaven and hell to him. When he went away, Constance Maitland realised that, to accomplish her heart’s desire, she would have to do the proposing herself, as Queen Victoria did on a similar occasion. _Chapter Twelve_ WHAT IS IT TO BE HONEST IN POLITICS AND TRUE IN LOVE? On the first Monday in December--a gloriously bright winter day--the flags were run up over the Senate and House wings of the Capitol building. Congress had met once more. There were the usual thronging multitudes in the corridors, the usual pleasant buzz of meeting and greeting in cloak and committee rooms, and the cheerfulness and exhilaration of the last session was flamboyant in the present one. Among the last members of the House to arrive was Julian Crane. He had come late because he wished to put off as long as possible the meeting with Senator Bicknell. Of course, they must meet early and often, but that did not make Crane take any less pains to postpone, if even for a day, the sight of the man he had betrayed. But almost the first acquaintance he ran across was the Senator in a group of brother senators who had strolled over to the House side. Senator Bicknell greeted Crane with unusual cordiality. In the first place, he really wished to attach Crane to the Bicknell chariot, but he had such agreeable recollections of his August day in Circleville, of Annette and her spotless table, her roast chicken and boiled corn, her sweet, fresh spare bedroom, where he had enjoyed one of the best naps of his life, and her impromptu reception in the afternoon, that he felt an increased kindliness for Crane. He showed this by button-holing Crane in the midst of the group of senators, and telling the story of his day in Circleville. He paid Annette many sincere compliments, and declared that if Crane should enter the senatorial contest a year and a half hence, and should defeat him, it would simply be on account of the charming Mrs. Crane. It was not fair to pit a man with such a lovely wife against a hopeless and incurable bachelor like himself. Under other circumstances Crane would have been highly gratified, but now it tortured him. He heard once more ringing in his ears Governor Sanders’s words, “It is absolutely necessary that Senator Bicknell be not taken into our confidence.” To cap the climax, Senator Bicknell said: “Be sure and give my warmest regards to Mrs. Crane, and tell her I shall take the first opportunity to call on her--she is here, I suppose? She mentioned last summer that she was coming on with you.”