r to draw back except for
that ignoble reason: the reinstatement of herself in her own esteem.
She could not possibly receive all this undeserved adulation and
retain her self esteem. It was all more than she had counted upon.
She had opened Pandora's box with a vengeance and the stinging things
swarmed over her. Wilbur sat on the verandah with her and scarcely
took his eyes of adoring wonder from her face. She had sent the
little girls to bed early. They had told all their playmates and
talked incessantly with childish bragging. They seemed to mock her as
with peacock eyes, symbolic of her own vanity.

"You sent the poor little things to bed very early," Wilbur said.
"They did so enjoy talking over their mother's triumph. It is the
greatest day of their lives, you know, Margaret."

"I am tired of it," Margaret said sharply, but Wilbur's look of
worship deepened.

"You are so modest, sweetheart," he said and Margaret writhed. Poor
Wilbur had been reading _The Poor Lady_ instead of his beloved
newspapers and now and then he quoted a passage which he remembered,
with astonishing accuracy.

"Say, darling, you are a marvel," he would remark after every
quotation. "Now, how in the world did you ever manage to think that
up? I suppose just this minute, as you sit there looking so sweet in
your white dress, just such things are floating through your brain,
eh?"

"No, they are not," replied Margaret. Oh, if she had only understood
the horrible depth of a lie!

"Suppose Von Rosen is making up to little Annie?" said Wilbur
presently.

"I don't know."

"Well, she is a nice little thing, sweet tempered, and pretty,
although of course her mental calibre is limited. She may make a good
wife, though. A man doesn't expect his wife always to set the river
on fire as you have done, sweetheart."

Then Wilbur fished from his pockets a lot of samples. "Thought I must
order a new suit, to live up to my wife," he said. "See which you
prefer, Margaret."

"I should think your own political outlook would make the new suit
necessary," said Margaret tartly.

"Not a bit of it. Get more votes if you look a bit shabby from the
sort who I expect may get me the office," laughed Wilbur. "This new
suit is simply to enable me to look worthy, as far as my clothes are
concerned, of my famous wife."

"I think you have already clothes enough," said Margaret coldly.

Wilbur looked hurt. "Doesn't make much difference how the old man
looks, d