"You look pale," said Amory, staring at him. "You look ghastly. You have not been up to the mark for months. I have seen that. Washington does not agree with you." "That is it," was Tredennis' response. "Washington does not agree with me." And he carried his hat and his pale and haggard countenance out into the night, and left Richard gazing after him, feverish, fretted, thwarted in his desire to pour forth his grievances and defend himself, and also filled with baffled amazement at his sudden departure. CHAPTER XXXI. Mrs. Amory did not receive on New Year's day. The season had well set in before she arrived in Washington. One morning in January Mrs. Sylvestre, sitting alone, reading, caught sight of the little _coupé_ as it drew up before the carriage-step, and, laying aside her book, reached the parlor door in time to meet Bertha as she entered it. She took both her hands and drew her toward the fire, still holding them. "Why did I not know you had returned?" she said. "When did you arrive?" "Last night," Bertha answered. "You see I come to you early." It was a cold day and she was muffled in velvet and furs. She sat down, loosened her wrap and let it slip backward, and as its sumptuous fulness left her figure it revealed it slender to fragility, and showed that the outline of her cheek had lost all its roundness. She smiled faintly, meeting Agnes' anxious eyes. "Don't look at me," she said. "I am not pretty. I have been ill. You heard I was not well in Newport? It was a sort of low fever, and I am not entirely well yet. Malaria, you know, is always troublesome. But you are very well?" "Yes, I am well," Agnes replied. "And you begin to like Washington again?" "I began last winter." "How did you enjoy the spring? You were here until the end of June." "It was lovely." "And now you are here once more, and how pretty everything about you is!" Bertha said, glancing around the room. "And you are ready to be happy all winter until June again. Do you know, you look happy. Not excitably happy, but gently, calmly happy, as if the present were enough for you." "It is," said Agnes, "I don't think I want any future." "It would be as well to abolish it if one could," Bertha answered; "but it comes--_it comes_!" She sat and looked at the fire a few seconds under the soft shadow of her lashes, and then spoke again. "As for me," she said, "I am going to give dinner-parties to Senator Planefield's friends." "Bertha!" exclaimed Agnes. "Yes," said Bertha, nodding gently. "It appears somehow that Richard belongs to Senator Planefield, and, as I belong to Richard, why, you see"-- She ended with a dramatic little gesture, and looked at Agnes once more.