She had felt a little ripple in the current ever since the eventful night, and had regretted it sorely, and now, just for the moment, it was something stronger. So she was very still as she sat with averted face, and the hour spent upon the water was a singularly silent one. When they returned home they found Colonel Tredennis with Mrs. Merriam, but just on the point of leaving her. "I am going to see Amory," he said. "I have heard some news he will consider bad. The Westoria affair has been laid aside, and will not be acted upon this session, if at all. It is said that Blundel heard something he did not like, and interfered." "And you think Mr. Amory will be very much disappointed?" said Agnes. "I am afraid so," answered Tredennis. "And yet," said Agnes, "it isn't easy to see why it should be of so much importance to him." "He has become interested in it," said Mrs. Merriam. "That is the expression, isn't it? It is my opinion that it would be better for him if he were less so. I have seen that kind of thing before. It is like being bitten by a tarantula." She was not favorably inclined toward Richard. His sparkling moods did not exhilarate her, and she had her private theories concerning his character. Tredennis she was very fond of; few of his moods escaped her bright eyes; few of the changes in him were lost upon her. When he went away this evening she spoke of him to Agnes and Arbuthnot. "If that splendid fellow does not improve," she said, "he will begin to grow old in his prime. He is lean and gaunt; his eyes are dreary; he is beginning to have lines on his forehead and about his mouth. He is enduring something. I should be glad to be told what it is." "Whatever he endured," said Agnes, "he would not tell people. But I think 'enduring' is a very good word." "How long have you known him?" Mrs. Merriam asked of Arbuthnot. "Since the evening after his arrival in Washington on his return from the West," was the reply. "Was he like this then?" rather sharply. Arbuthnot reflected. "I met him at a reception," he said, "and he was not Washingtonian in his manner. My impression was that he would not enjoy our society, and that he would finally despise us; but he looked less fagged then than he does now. Perhaps he begins to long for his daily Pi-ute. There _are_ chasms which an effete civilization does not fill." "You guess more than you choose to tell," was Mrs. Merriam's inward thought. Aloud she said: "He is the finest human being it has been my pleasure to meet. He is the natural man. If I were a girl again I think I should make a hero of him, and be unhappy for his sake." "It would be easy to make a hero of him," said Agnes.