“Yes,” replied Crane, “we are established for the season”--and he gave the name of a comfortable, but not expensive or fashionable, apartment house where they had quarters. “And say to her that, although I can’t give her a dinner half so good as what she gave me, I shall expect her and you to arrange to dine with me at my house at a very early day. Good morning.” Crane escaped and went to his seat in the House. While he was contemplating the baseness of his own conduct, Thorndyke came over and spoke to him. Thorndyke’s first impression of Crane was that he looked haggard and worn, and Crane’s impression of Thorndyke was that he had grown about ten years younger. His greeting to Thorndyke was very cordial, but he was conscious of a strange thing--that ever since his bargain with Sanders, the meeting with former friends, men of sterling probity, gave him a vague uneasiness. It seemed to him as if, in duping Senator Bicknell, he was duping every honest man he knew. Thorndyke, too, asked after Mrs. Crane, and it began to dawn upon Crane’s mind that Annette had the power, in a remarkable degree, of pleasing men of the world. Still, he thought her not quite good enough for himself, particularly if the brilliant future he planned should materialise--as it must and should. The proceedings of the day were perfunctory, and it was but little after three o’clock when Thorndyke left the House. The afternoon was briskly cold, and the sun glittered from a heaven as blue as June. Just as Thorndyke came out on the plaza he encountered Crane, who would have avoided him, but it was scarcely possible. The two men walked down the hill, and toward Thorndyke’s old quarters. They talked amicably and even intimately, but Thorndyke got a curious impression of reserve from Crane--and reserve was the last thing in the world to develop in Julian Crane. As they walked along the streets in the dazzling sun of December in Washington, they were speaking of the great economic questions with which the Congress would have to deal. Thorndyke, as an accomplished lawyer, saw certain difficulties in the way of regulating these matters which Crane did not at first perceive. “After all,” said Thorndyke, “it comes down to whether either political party will deal honestly with these questions. If they do, a solution will be found, and the whole matter can, in the course of a few years, be properly adjusted.” “What do you call perfect honesty in politics?” asked Crane, after a moment. “That’s rather a large proposition,” replied Thorndyke, laughing. “I should say, if called upon to give an immediate definition, that perfect honesty in politics means keeping one’s hands clean in money matters, and being an outspoken friend or enemy.” Crane’s heart sank at this. He did not know why he should have asked such a question, and he was hard hit by Thorndyke’s reply.