sympathy. And now, at a
stroke, the whole fabric of self-deception fell from her. It was not
that she saw Peabody so differently, but that she saw herself and her
own heart, and where it lay. And she knew that "Billy" Winthrop,
gentle, joking, selfish only in his love for her, held it in his two
strong hands.

For the moment, when as she sat in the car deserted by Peabody this
truth flashed upon her, she forgot the man lying injured in the street,
the unscrubbed mob crowding about her. She was conscious only that a
great weight had been lifted. That her blood was flowing again,
leaping, beating, dancing through her body. It seemed as though she
could not too quickly tell Winthrop. For both of them she had lost out
of their lives many days. She had risked losing him for always. Her
only thought was to make up to him and to herself the wasted time. But
throughout the day the one-time welcome, but now intruding, friends and
the innumerable conventions of hospitality required her to smile and
show an interest, when her heart and mind were crying out the one great
fact.

It was after dinner, and the members of the house party were scattered
between the billiard-room and the piano. Sam Forbes returned from the
telephone.

"Tammany," he announced, "concedes the election of Jerome by forty
thousand votes, and that he carries his ticket with him. Ernest
Peabody is elected his Lieutenant-Governor by a thousand votes.
Ernest," he added, "seems to have had a close call." There was a
tremendous chorus of congratulations in the cause of Reform. They
drank the health of Peabody. Peabody himself, on the telephone,
informed Sam Forbes that a conference of the leaders would prevent his
being present with them that evening. The enthusiasm for Reform
perceptibly increased.

An hour later Winthrop came over to Beatrice and held out his hand.
"I'm going to slip away," he said. "Good-night."

"Going away!" exclaimed Beatrice. Her voice showed such apparently
acute concern that Winthrop wondered how the best of women could be so
deceitful, even to be polite.

"I promised some men," he stammered, "to drive them down-town to see
the crowds."

Beatrice shook her head.

"It's far too late for that," she said. "Tell me the real reason."

Winthrop turned away his eyes.

"Oh! the real reason," he said gravely, "is the same old reason, the
one I'm not allowed to talk about. It's cruelly hard when I don't see
you," he