into a reception room that was shut off, by portieres, from a larger
parlor. There, when he had invited me to be seated, he said, winningly:
"I was not sure you would come in answer to my message."

I assured him that I had not so far lost my regard for the men with whom
my father was associated. "And besides," I said, "if there were no other
reason, it is my place, as the younger of the two, to attend on your
convenience."

"I did not know," he replied, "but that you thought me one of the
'Pharisees' of whom you spoke."

I did not accept this invitation to reply that I did not consider him
one of the Pharisees. I explained merely that I had identified the
Pharisees in my speech by name and deed and accusation. "Unless
something there said is applicable to you, I have no charge to make
against you."

He excused himself a moment to go to an infant whom we could hear crying
in an inner room; and, when he returned, he had the child in his arms--a
little girl, in a night gown. He sat down, petting her, stroking her
hair with his supple lean hand, affectionately, and smiling with a sort
of absentminded tenderness as he took up the conversation again.

This memory of him sticks in my mind as one of the most extraordinary
pictures of my experience. I knew that I had come there to hear my own
or some other person's political death sentence. I knew that he would
not have invited me at such an hour, with such secrecy, unless the issue
of our conference was to be something dark and fatal. And in the soft
radiance of the lamp he sat smiling--fragile of build, almost spiritual,
white-haired, delicately cultured--soothing the child who played with
his long silvery beard and blinked sleepily. He inquired whether my
carriage was waiting for me, and I replied that it was. He asked me to
dismiss it. When I returned to the room, the little girl was resting
quiet, and he excused himself to take her to her cot. I heard him
closing the doors behind him as he came back. "We may now talk with
perfect freedom," he announced. "There's no one else in this part of the
house."

He sat down in his chair, composing himself with an air that might have
distinguished one of the ancient kings. "I have sent for you to talk
about the Senatorial situation. May I speak plainly to you?"

I replied that he might. He was watching me, under his gray eyebrows,
with his soft eyes, in which there was a glitter of blackness but none
of the rheum of old age.