"If you could make anything of me but Bertha Amory," she replied, "you might do a service to society; but that is out of the question, and as to there being something wrong with me, there is something wrong with all of us. There is something wrong with Mr. Arbuthnot, he is not enjoying himself; there is something wrong with Senator Planefield, who has been gloomy all the evening." "Planefield," he said. "Ah! yes, there he is! Here pretty often, isn't he?" "He is a great friend of Richard's," she replied, with discretion. "So I have heard," he returned. And then he gave his attention to Planefield for a few minutes, as if he found him also an object of deep interest. After this inspection he turned to Bertha again. "Well," he said, "I suppose you enjoy all this, or you wouldn't do it?" "You are not enjoying it," she replied. "It does not exhilarate you as I hoped it would." "I am out of humor," was his answer. "I told you so. I have just heard something I don't like. I dropped in here to stay five minutes, and take a look at you and see if"-- He checked himself and rubbed his upright hair impatiently, almost angrily. "I am not sure that you mightn't be enjoying yourself better," he said, "and I should like to know something more of you than I do." "If any information I can give you"--she began. "Come," he said, with a sudden effort at better humor, "that is the way you talk to Planefield. We are too good friends for that." His shrewd eyes fixed themselves on her as if asking the unanswered question again. "Come!" he said. "I'm a blunt, old-fashioned fogy, but we are good, honest friends,--and always have been." She glanced across the room at Richard, who was talking to a stubborn opposer of the great measure, and making himself delightful beyond description. She wished for the moment that he was not quite so picturesque and animated; then she gathered herself together. "I think we have been," she said. "I hope you will believe so." "Well," he answered, "I shouldn't like to believe anything else." She thought that perhaps he had said more than he originally intended; he changed the subject abruptly, made a few comments upon people near them, asked a few questions, and finally went away, having scarcely spoken to any one but herself. "Why did he not remain longer?" Richard asked afterward, when the guests were gone and they were talking the evening over. "He was not in the mood to meet people," Bertha replied. "He said he had heard something he did not like, and it had put him out of humor. I think it was something about me." "About you!" Richard exclaimed. "Why, in Heaven's name, about you?" "His manner made me think so," she answered, coldly. "And it would not be at all unnatural. I think we may begin to expect such things."