Mrs. John McCandless Blair was immensely aroused now by the suspicion that her father was about to bring home a second wife, and she steeled her heart against the unknown woman. She was not in the least abashed by her father, who never took her seriously. He began describing his visit to Washington, to cover the four courses of the family dinner that must be eaten before--with proper deliberation and the room freed of the waitress--he apprised his children of the particular purpose of this family gathering. Colonel Craighill was a capital talker and he gave an intimate turn to his account of the Washington meeting, uttering the names of his distinguished associates in the Federation with frank pride in their acquaintance. A Southern bishop, far-famed as a story-teller, was a member and Colonel Craighill repeated several anecdotes with which the clergyman had enlivened the conferences. He quoted one or two periods from his own speech at the dinner, and paused for Mrs. Blair and Wayne to admire their aptness. With a nice sense of climax he mentioned last his invitation to luncheon at the White House, where there was only one other guest--a famous English statesman and man of letters. “It was really quite _en famille_. My impression of the President was delightful; I confess that I had wholly misjudged him. He addressed many questions to me directly--asking about political conditions here at home in such a way that I had to do a good deal of talking. As I was leaving he detained me a moment and asked my opinion of the business outlook. I was amazed to see how familiar he appeared to be with the range of my own interests. He told me that if I had suggestions at any time as to financial policies he wished I would come down and talk to him personally. But the published reports of my visit to the White House annoyed me greatly. I thought it only just to myself to write him a line to repudiate the interview attributed to me. There have, of course, been rumours of cabinet changes, but I don’t want office--all I ask is to be of some service to my fellow-men in the rôle of a private citizen.” Mrs. Blair murmured sympathetic responses through this recital. Wayne ate his salad in silence. He knew that his father enjoyed nothing so much as these conferences in behalf of good causes; they required a great deal of time, but Colonel Craighill had reached an age at which he could afford to indulge himself. If he enjoyed delivering addresses and making after-dinner speeches it was none of Wayne’s affair. Their natures were antipodal. Wayne cared little what his father did, one way or another. Mrs. Blair fell to chaffing her father about the work of the Federation. Her curiosity as to the nature of the announcement he had said he wished to make grew more acute as the minutes passed, and she talked with rather more than her usual nervous volubility.