"You have come to see me at an unusual hour, sir. It must be important--" "Of the utmost importance, Senator. A high official in the confidence of the President sent me to inform you that Stanton, the Attorney General, is planning to issue a warrant for your arrest for high treason." "Indeed?" "You are advised to leave Washington on the first train." A dry smile flickered about the corners of the Senator's strong mouth. "Thank you. Please say to my friend that I appreciate the spirit that prompted his message. Ask him to say to Mr. Stanton that I have decided to remain in Washington a week. Nothing would please me better than to submit this issue to the courts for adjustment. He will find me at home every day and at all hours." CHAPTER V BOY AND GIRL From the moment Dick Welford had seen Socola bowing and smiling before Jennie Barton he had hated the man. He hated foreigners on general principles, anyhow. This kind of foreigner he particularly loathed--the slender, nervous type which suggested over-refinement to the point of effeminacy. He had always hated slender, effeminate-looking men of the native breed. This one was doubly offensive because he was an Italian. How any woman with true womanly instincts could tolerate such a spider was more than he could understand. Jennie Barton had always frankly said that she admired men of his own type. He was six feet one, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and weighed a hundred and ninety-six pounds at twenty-one years of age. He had always felt instinctively that he was exactly the man for Jennie's mate. She was nineteen, dark and slender, a bundle of quick, sensitive, nervous intelligence. Her brown eyes were almost black and her luxuriant hair seemed raven-hued beside his. He had always imagined it nestling beside his big blond head in perfect contentment since the first summer he had spent with Tom Barton at their cottage at the White Sulphur Springs. He had taken it for granted that she would say yes when he could screw up his courage to speak. She had treated him as if he were already in the family. "Confound it," he muttered, clenching his big fist, "that's what worries me! Maybe she just thinks of me as one of her brothers!" It hadn't occurred to him until he saw the light kindle in her eyes at the sight of that smooth-tongued reptilian foreigner. He was on his way now to her house, to put the thing to the test before she could leave Washington. Thank God, the spider was tied down here at the Sardinian Ministry. He hoped Victor Emmanuel would send him as Consul to Shanghai. Mrs. Barton met him at the door with a motherly smile. "Walk right in the parlor, Dick. It's sweet of you to come so early to-day. We're all in tears, packing to go. Jennie'll be delighted to see you. Poor child--she's sick over it all."