“Eh? you did, did you?” Fox paused an instant to light his cigar; “so I did,” he admitted, tossing away the match, “I talked tommyrot for an hour and a half to keep the House sitting; I might be going on still if old Killigrew hadn’t got to his feet and howled for adjournment. He usually dines at six sharp, and it’s a quarter to seven now; he had death and starvation in his eye, and I yielded the point as a matter of humanity.” “According to recent information you have very little humanity in you,” Allestree replied, as they descended the long flight of steps from the terrace, “in fact, you are a ‘damned egoist.’” Fox threw back his head with a hearty, careless laugh. “Which of my enemies have you been interviewing?” he asked, with unruffled good humor. His cousin briefly related the result of his accidental début in the rôle of eavesdropper, incidentally describing the two men. “I know who they are,” Fox said amusedly; “one is Burns of Pennsylvania, and the other a fellow from Rhode Island who is picking flaws in everything and everybody; the government’s rotten, the Senate’s corrupt, the Supreme Court is senile--so on and so on _ad infinitum_! Meanwhile there’s some kind of a scandal attached to his own election--no one cares what! He reminds me of Voltaire’s enraged description of Jean Jacques with the rotten hoops off Diogenes’ tub.” “That is not all; even your admirer feared the suicidal effects of your tongue,” continued Allestree teasingly, “which is said to be two-edged, while your sarcasm is ‘infernal.’” “Oh, that’s a mere _façon de parler_,” laughed Fox, “I’m really as mild as a lamb and as harmless as a dove!” “Quite so!” retorted his cousin dryly, “yet I think most of your enemies and some of your friends resort to the litany when you cut loose for an oratorical flight.” “Well, it’s said that even the devil goes to prayers on occasions,” said Fox with a shrug, “so why not my enemies? By the way, the nominations were sent to the Senate just before adjournment to-night, and the Cabinet changes are slated; I heard it as I came out.” “Does Wingfield go out?” Allestree asked, after a momentary pause, as they threaded their way between the electric cars and the carriages which were slightly congested at the crossing below the Peace Monument. Fox nodded. “And Seymour gets his place, while Wicklow White is made Secretary of the Navy.” His companion looked up quickly and caught only his pale profile outlined against the surrounding fog; his expression was enigmatical. “Upon my word!” exclaimed Allestree, “White’s luck is stupendous--you remember what a block-head we always thought him at Harvard? Well, well, Margaret will have her heart’s desire,” he added amusedly. Fox slightly frowned. “So!” he said contemptuously, “you think the sum total of a woman’s desire is to see a chump of a husband with his foot in the stirrup?”