Her husband, also, was giving some thought to the questions which the situation presented, with the difference that he had not thought of anything else since the evening began. With nothing to do since eight o’clock, and free to go home, he had stopped to see Helen in her coming-out glory. His livery was a passport; and he divided the time of the reception—rather unequally, to be sure—between scraps of conversation with coming and going coachmen he knew and long periods of gazing upon Helen’s loveliness through a broad low window of the East Room. He had never seen her in the role or in the conventional evening dress of womanhood, and the vision enchanted him. Crowning the piquancy of youth and freshness and _élan_ in the girl, was the unstudied dignity and stateliness and graciousness of the woman; and the metamorphosis held him entranced. He looked and looked and looked at her while every variant tremor of love and pride and impatience swept over his heart-strings. He saw the most notable men in America, men whose business was world-politics, bow in evident admiration before her beauty, and linger to barter persiflage for her smiles and airy speeches: and she was _his_ wife. He saw her receive the magnificent Chief of Staff of the Army, resplendent in the uniform of his exalted rank: her, the wife of Sergeant Graham of "the 10th." And that towering figure with the stamp of "Briton" in every massive line? Yes, Hayward recognized him: the English member of the Canadian Fisheries Commission—a lawyer of international repute, a belted earl—bending a grand head low in obeisance to a footman’s wife—to _his_ wife. The insolence of pride filled his heart for a minute. Then a twinge of doubt went through him: she would not be a _footman’s_ wife: she had decreed _her_ husband must be an officer—oh, the bother and the worry of it—and the uncertainty! But she was his beyond escape, and if the worst came to—no, that would be disloyalty.... Look, who is that shaking hands with her now? Hal Lodge, by all that’s Boston! Where did he come from, and what’s he doing here? No matter, he’s here. Look out, Hal, old boy, don’t hold my wife’s hand so long—nor gaze into her eyes so meaningly—I know your failing! My what a joke it would be if you fell in love with her!—it would be too funny. I owe it to old friendship to warn you, but I mustn’t." For the greater part of two hours Hayward watched the reception. He saw the last man presented.