“Yes, and he knew Rose was to be there,” Allestree laughed a little bitterly; “it was the merest chance in the world, he was with me when I met her the other day. Of course he came in as handsome, as gay as ever--and as careless!” Mrs. Allestree had left her seat by the window and was mechanically pouring out a cup of tea, her fine old hands under their falls of lace as firm and deft as a girl’s. “I wish he was less careless,” she observed quietly; “I’ve just heard some more gossip about him; Martha O’Neal was here to lunch. It appears that he was really selected for the Navy, could have had the portfolio for the lifting of his finger and, at the last moment, when there was no apposite reason for a change, there was a deal and White got it.” “Well, we can’t blame him for that, can we?” said her son smiling, “you know the saying is that the Administration will not ‘stand hitched.’” She shook her head. “That’s not it--he made the deal himself; he deliberately favored White, and you can imagine what is said; every one believes that silly story that he’s desperately in love with Margaret still, and, of course, it looks like it. He could have saved Wingfield, and he didn’t, and you know Mrs. Wingfield hates Margaret!” “I don’t believe a word of it,” said Allestree calmly; “Fox is too much of an egoist. Probably he didn’t want to go into the Cabinet; in fact I’ve heard him say it was a safe receiving-vault for the defunct candidates. Can’t the women ever forget that he was in love with Margaret?” “Possibly they could,” his mother replied shrewdly, “if Margaret wasn’t in love with him.” “Good Lord, how you all flatter Fox!” her son exclaimed, with exasperation, “for my part, I can’t fancy that Margaret ever loved him; she treated him abominably to marry White, and now she has everything she wants, money, luxury and power; she’s a perfect little sybarite.” The old woman looked at him with an expression of affectionate tolerance. “My dear boy,” she said quietly, “Margaret is wildly unhappy; money never yet purchased happiness; that’s the reason she behaves so outrageously. Have you heard of her latest? She danced a kind of highland fling or a jig after her dinner the other night. White was furious, and they’re telling a story of an open quarrel after the musicale when he swore at her and she laughed in his face.” “White is a brute, but Margaret chose him with her eyes open,” he replied, “and I think Fox feels it. At any rate there’s nothing in that gossip about Wingfield; he had quarrelled with the President. You know the story is that he was found walking up and down his hall, the Wednesday after Congress met, shaking his fist and shouting about the message. ‘That damned message!’ he said, ‘it will ruin the party--if I’d only been here!’ He was away at the time it was written and, of course, that paragraph did virtually condemn his administration of the department. He had to resign; that goes without saying!”