"Ah, Bertha, you are here!" he said. "I am glad you are not out! How warm it is! Fancy having such weather early in May! And three days ago we had fires. What a climate! There is something appropriate in it. It is purely Washingtonian, and as uncertain as--as senators. There's a scientific problem for the Signal Service Bureau to settle,--Does the unreliability of the climate affect the senatorial mind, or does the unreliability of the senatorial mind affect the climate?" "It sounds like a conundrum," said Bertha, "and the Signal Service Bureau would give it up. You have been walking too fast, you foolish boy, and have overheated yourself. Come and lie down on the sofa and rest." She picked up the cushion, which had fallen, and put it in place for him. There was always a pretty touch of maternal care for him in her manner. He accepted her invitation with delighted readiness, and, when he had thrown himself at luxurious full length upon the sofa, she took a seat upon its edge near him, having first brought from the mantel a large Japanese fan, with which she stirred the air gently. "Why were you glad that I had not gone out?" she said. "Did you want me?" "Oh!" he answered, "I always want you. You are the kind of little person one naturally wants,--and it is a sort of relief to find you on the spot. How nice this Grand Pasha business is,--lying on cushions and being fanned,--and how pretty and cool you look in your white frills! White is very becoming to you, Bertha." Bertha glanced down at the frills. "Is it?" she said. "Yes, I think it is, and this is a pretty gown. Richard!" "Well?" "You said it was a sort of relief to find me on the spot. Did you say it because I am not always here when you want me? Do you think I go out too much? Does it ever seem to you that I neglect you a little, and am not quite as domesticated as I should be? Should you be--happier--if I lived a quieter life and cared less for society?" There was a touch of unusual earnestness in her voice, and her eyes were almost childishly eager as she turned them upon him. "Happier!" he exclaimed, gayly. "My dear child! I could not easily be happier than I am. How could I accuse you of neglecting me? You satisfy me exactly in everything. Whose home is more charming, and whose children are better cared for than mine? It is not necessary for you to cook my dinner, but you are the most delightful sauce to it in the world when you sit at the head of the table. What more could a man want?" "I--I don't know," she said, slowly, "but I could not bear to think that I was not what I should be in my own home. It has always seemed to me that there could be no bad taste and bad breeding so inexcusable as the bad taste and bad breeding of a woman who is disagreeable and negligent in her own house. One has no need to put it on moral grounds even--the bad taste of it is enough. I don't think I could ever be disagreeable, or that you could think me so; but it struck me"--