They talked a little longer, walking across the floor two or three times together, and then Tredennis went away. He was in a strange frame of mind. It was almost as if he had received a blow which had partially stunned him. When he reached the street he stood for a moment looking up at the starlit sky. "A strong fellow," he said. "_Am_ I such a strong fellow? And _I_ am to stand between you and your lover,--_I_? That is a strange thing, Bertha--a strange thing." And, rousing himself suddenly, he strode down the street, and the professor, who had gone to his room, heard his military tread ringing steady and measured upon the pavement and felt a vague comfort in the sound. CHAPTER IX. During the next few weeks Bertha did not appear as well as usual. The changes Tredennis had seen in her became more marked. She lost color and roundness, and now and then was forced to show signs of fatigue which were not habitual with her. She made no alteration in her mode of life, however. When Tredennis called in the evening the parlor was always full, and she was always vivaciously occupied with her guests. Chief among her attractions was counted her pet pretence of being interested in politics. It was not a very serious pretence, but, being managed deftly and with a sense of its dramatic value, animated many an hour which might otherwise have been dull, in view of the social material which occasionally fell into her hands. "What should I do," Tredennis heard her say once, "if I knew nothing of politics? There are times when they are my only salvation. What should I have done last night with the new member from Arkansas if I had not remembered that he was interested in the passage of the Currency Bill? He is an excellent, solid, sensible creature; we are frivolous, aimless beings compared with him. It is such men as he who do everything worth doing and being done, but he is purely a politician, and he has spent his life in a small provincial town, where he has been a most important person, and he cares as much for the doings of society and discussions of new novels and pictures as I do for the linseed-oil market--if there is a linseed-oil market. When I began to ask him modest questions about his bill, his face brightened at once, and he became a self-respecting and well-informed person,--at ease with himself and with me, and quite forgot his coat and his large boots, which had been slowly and painfully dawning upon him a few moments before when he contrasted them with Mr. Arbuthnot's silk attire. My very mistakes were a pleasure to him, as they gave him an opportunity to say several things very well worth remembering. He could not have told whether I was well or ill dressed, but he detected my flimsiness in argument in a moment, and gave me more information in half an hour than you scoffers could have given me in a week, and"--with much modesty of demeanor--"he mentioned to Senator Vaughan, in the course of the evening, that I was a most