All this Anne thought out while her hair was being dressed and her dainty slippers put on her feet and her Paris gown adjusted by her maid. In that little interval of solitude before, when she lay in her bed in the soft darkness, she had thought of nothing but Richard Baskerville and the touch of his lips upon hers. But with her maid’s knock at the door the outer world had entered, with all its urgent claims and insistence. But through all her perplexities still sounded the sweet refrain, “He loves me.” She thought as she fastened the string of pearls around her white neck, “The last time I wore these pearls I was not happy, and now—“ And so, on her way to the dinner and through–out it and back home again, the thought of Richard Baskerville never left her; the sound of his voice in her ears, the touch of his lips upon hers, and above all the nobility of his loving her purely for herself—rare fortune for the daughter of a man so rich, even if not so wicked, as James Clavering. Anne tasted of joy for the first time, and drank deep of it. She was glad to be alone with her love and her happiness, to become acquainted with it, to fondle it, to hold it close to her heart. She was very quiet and subdued at the dinner, and by a sort of mistaken telepathy among the others present it was understood that Miss Clavering felt deeply the situation in which Senator Clavering was placed. But Anne Clavering was the happiest woman in Washington that night. Even the impending disgrace of her father, of which she was well assured, was softened and illumined by the lofty and self–sacrificing love bestowed upon her by Richard Baskerville. When she came home, after eleven o’clock, she stopped as she always did at her mother’s door. Mrs. Clavering calling her softly, Anne went into the room. With her mother’s hand in hers she told the story of her love and happiness. If she had ever doubted whether it would be well to tell Mrs. Clavering, that doubt was dispelled. The poor lady wept, it is true, being tender–hearted and given to tears like the normal woman, but her tears were those of happiness. “I’ve been a–wishin’ and a–hopin’ for it ever since I saw him that Sunday,” said the poor soul. “I want you to have a good husband, Anne, the sort of husband my father was to my mother; never a cross word between ’em before us children, Ma always havin’ the dinner on time and the old leather arm–chair ready for Pa—we didn’t have but one easy–chair in the house in them days. And Pa always sayin’ Ma was better lookin’ than any one of her daughters, and kissin’ her before us all on their weddin’ anniversary, and givin’ her a little present, if it wasn’t no more than a neck ribbon; for they was always poor; but they loved each other and lived as married folks ought to live together.”