"They don't care about me," she said to Arbuthnot one night, with a rueful laugh, as she looked around her. "And I am always afraid of their privately suspecting that I don't care about them. Sometimes when I look at them I cannot help being overpowered by a sense of there being a kind of ludicrousness in it all. Do you know, nearly every one of them has a reason for being here, and it is never by any chance connected with my reason for inviting them. I could give you some of the reasons. Shall I? Some of them are feminine reasons, and some of them are masculine. That woman at the end of the sofa--the thin, eager-looking one--comes because she wishes to accustom herself to society. Her husband is a 'rising man,' and she is in love with him, and has a hungry desire to keep pace with him. The woman she is talking to has a husband who wants something Senator Planefield may be induced to give him--and Senator Planefield is on his native heath here; that showy little Southern widow has a large claim against the government, and comes because she sees people she thinks it best to know. She is wanted because she has a favorite cousin who is given patriotically to opposing all measures not designed to benefit the South. It is rather fantastic when you reflect upon it, isn't it?" "You know what I think about it without asking," answered Arbuthnot. "Yes, you have told me," was her response; "but it will be all over before long, and then--Ah! there is Senator Blundel! Do you know, it is always a relief to me when he comes;" and she went toward him with a brighter look than Arbuthnot had seen her wear at any time during the entire evening. It had taken her some time herself to decide why it was that she liked Blundel and felt at ease with him; in fact, up to the present period she had scarcely done more than decide that she did like him. She had not found his manner become more polished as their acquaintance progressed; he was neither gallant nor accomplished; he was always rather full of himself, in a genuine, masculine way. He was blunt, and by no means tactful; but she had never objected to him from the first, and after a while she had become conscious of feeling relief, as she had put it to Arbuthnot, when his strong, rather aggressive, personality presented itself upon the scene. He was not difficult to entertain, at least. Finding in her the best of listeners he entertained himself by talking to her, and by making sharp jokes, at which they both laughed with equal appreciation. He knew what to talk about too, and what subjects to joke on; and, however apparently communicative his mood might be, his opinions were always kept thriftily in hand. "He seems to talk a good deal," Richard said, testily; "but, after all, you don't find out much of what he really thinks."