"This: that I do not choose to stand here and bandy words with you, Senator Winans, exposed to the comment of any chance passer-by. Whatever more on the subject you can have to say to me I will hear at my private parlor at Willard's Hotel this evening between eight and nine o'clock, if you will do me the honor to call. At present, if one of you gentlemen will take me to my carriage, which is in waiting, I will put an end to this scene." She looked quite indifferently from one to the other, feeling all her latent pride rise hotly to the surface, as neither stirred for an instant. Then her lawful master drew her hand through his arm, with the cold deference he might have accorded a stranger. She bowed to Mr. Conway, and was led away and placed in the carriage that awaited her, without a word on either side. And Bruce went back to his aunt and Lulu, whom he had left talking with some friends in the rotunda. He said nothing to them, however, of the scene that had just occurred. But the fact of Mrs. Winans' presence at the capitol was very well known by this time. Some of her "dear five hundred" friends had seen her when the little mask vail had been unconsciously thrown back in her eager excitement, and those who had not seen her were told by those who had. Many eyes curiously followed the hero of that long past love affair, whose shadow still brooded so pitilessly over Grace Winans' life, as he moved away by the side of the brown-eyed belle to whom society reported him as _affianced_. "What next?" he queried, smiling down into the slightly thoughtful face. "I don't know--that is--I believe Mrs. Conway spoke of the Art Gallery next," she answered, listlessly. "After luncheon, though. We go to the hotel first for lunch," interposed Mrs. Conway, briskly, who not being young, nor in love, was blessed with a good appetite. "After that the Art Gallery, and there is that masquerade ball, you know, to-night." "As if our daily life were not masquerade enough," he thinks, with smothered bitterness, as he attends them down the terraced walks to the park, thence to the avenue, for they decide on walking to the hotel, Lulu having a penchant for promenading the avenue on sunny days like this when all the city is doing likewise. "For I like to look at people's faces," she naively explains to the young man, "and build up little romances from the materials culled thereby." "Ah, a youthful student of human nature! Can you read faces?" he retorts, brusquely. "Sometimes, I fancy, but very imperfectly," she says, flushing a little under his keen gaze, as she walks on, her silken skirts sweeping the avenue, in the perfection of grace. "Read mine, then," he answers, half jestingly, half curious as to her boasted power, as they fall a little behind the elder lady. "I cannot," she answers, "I would not attempt it." "Nay," he insists, "fair seeress, read me even one expression that has crossed my tell-tale face to-day--come, I want to test your power."