nt looked about her, saw Mr. Richard Gantry, signalled
to him with her eyes, and, with the traffic manager for her centre-rush
to wedge a way through the crowded rooms, was presently lost to
sight--at least from Miss Anners's point of view.

Whether she knew it or not, from the moment of her appearance at the
hostess's end of the long receiving-line, the senator's wife had been
marked and followed in her slow progress through the rooms by a
thin-faced man who seemed to be nervously trying to hunch himself into
better relations with his ill-fitting dress-coat, an eager gentleman
whose hawk-like eyes never lost sight of the little lady with her hand
on Gantry's arm. Only the senator saw and remarked this bit of by-play,
and he looked as if he were enjoying it, the shrewd gray eyes lighting
humorously as he bent to hear what Patricia was saying.

When his quarry stopped, as she did frequently to chat with one or
another of the guests, the man with the hawk-like profile and the
nervous hunch circled warily, and once or twice seemed about to make the
opportunity which was so slow in making itself. But it was not until the
little lady in the claret-colored party-gown had drifted, still with a
hand on Gantry's arm, in among the palm and banana trees of the
herbarium that the bird-of-prey person made his swoop. A moment later
Gantry, taking a low-toned command from his companion, was disappearing
in the direction of the refreshment-tables, and the lady looked up to
say: "Dear me, Mr. Hathaway, you almost startled me!"

"Did I?" said the lumber-king, rather grimly, if he meant the query to
be apologetic. "I am sorry. I didn't mean to; but Mrs. Gordon said I
would find you here, and so I took the liberty of following you. I'm
needing a little straightening out, you know, and--ah--would you mind
letting me talk business with you for a minute or two, Mrs. Blount?"

She drew her gown aside, and made room for him on the carved rustic
settee, which was exceedingly uncomfortable to sit in, but which was in
perfect harmony with the background of gigantic palmettos. He nodded
gratefully and took the place, and the manner of his sitting down was
that of a man who wears evening-clothes only under compulsion.

"Business?" she was saying. "Certainly not; if you can talk business in
such a place as this"--giving him the coveted permission.

"Perhaps it ain't what you'd call business--maybe it's only politics,"
he resumed; then, with the