"I am not a lobbyist," she exclaimed. "I never wanted to be one. That was only a part of the nonsense I have talked all my life. I have talked too much nonsense. I wish--I wish I had been different!" "Don't allow your repentance to be too deep," he remarked, dryly. "You won't be able to get over it." "It's too late for repentance; but I shall not be guilty of that particular kind of folly again. It was folly--and it was bad taste"-- "As I had not observed it, you might have been content to let it rest," he interrupted. She checked herself in the reply she was about to make, clasping her hands helplessly. "O Richard!" she said; "we are beginning again!" "So we are," he responded, coolly; "we seem to have a tendency in that direction." "And it always happens," she said, "when I speak of Senator Planefield, or of going away." "You have fallen into the habit of wanting to go away lately," he answered. "You wanted to go to Europe"-- "I want to go still," she interposed, "very much." "And I wish you to remain here," he returned, petulantly. "What's the use of a man's having a wife at the other side of the globe?" She withdrew a pace and leaned against the side of the window, letting her eyes rest upon him with a little, bitter smile. For the moment she had less care of herself and of him than she had ever had before. "Ah!" she said, "then you keep me here because you love me?" "Bertha!" he exclaimed. Even his equable triviality found a disturbing element in the situation. "Richard," she said, "go and finish your cigarette out of doors. It will be better for both of us. This has gone far enough." "It has gone too far," he answered, nervously. "It is deucedly uncomfortable, and it isn't our way to be uncomfortable. Can't we make it smooth again? Of course we can. It would not be like you to be implacable. I am afraid I was a trifle irritable. The fact is, I have had a great deal of business anxiety lately,--one or two investments have turned out poorly,--and it has weighed on my mind. If the money were mine, you know; but it is yours"-- "I have never wished you to feel the difference," she said. "No," he replied. "Nothing could have been nicer than your way about it. You might have made me very uncomfortable, if you had been a hard, business-like creature; but, instead of that, you have been charming." "I am glad of that," she said, and she smiled gently as he put his arm about her, and kissed her cheek. "You have a right to your caprices," he said. "Go to your summer haunts of vice and fashion, if you wish to, and I will follow you as soon as I can; but we won't say any more about Europe, just at present, will we? Perhaps next year." And he kissed her again. "Perhaps next year or the year after," she repeated, with a queer little smile. "And--and we will take Senator Planefield with us." "No," he answered, "we will leave him at home to invest the millions derived from the Westoria lands."