ered very calmly and certainly:

"Yes."

He leaned toward her. And then between him and her lips a dark and
shadowy face; two great storm-swept eyes looked into his out of a world
of infinite pain, and he dropped his head in hesitation and shame, and
kissed her hand. Miss Wynn thought him delightfully bashful.

_Twenty-six_

CONGRESSMAN CRESSWELL

The election of Harry Cresswell to Congress was a very simple matter.
The Colonel and his son drove to town and consulted the Judge; together
they summoned the sheriff and the local member of the State legislature.

"I think it's about time that we Cresswells asked for a little of the
political pie," the Colonel smilingly opened.

"Well, what do you want?" asked the Judge.

"Harry wants to go to Congress."

The Judge hesitated. "We'd half promised that to Caldwell," he objected.

"It will be a little costly this year, too," suggested the sheriff,
tentatively.

"About how much?" asked the Colonel.

"At least five thousand," said the Legislator.

The Colonel said nothing. He simply wrote a check and the matter was
settled. In the Fall Harry Cresswell was declared elected. There were
four hundred and seventy-two votes cast but the sheriff added a cipher.
He said it would look better.

Early December found the Cresswells domiciled in a small house in Du
Pont Circle, Washington. They had an automobile and four servants, and
the house was furnished luxuriously. Mary Taylor Cresswell, standing in
her morning room and looking out on the flowers of the square, told
herself that few people in the world had cause to be as happy as she.
She was tastefully gowned, in a way to set off her blonde beauty and her
delicate rounded figure. She was surrounded with wealth, and above all,
she was in that atmosphere of aristocracy for which she had always
yearned; and already she was acquiring that poise of the head, and a
manner of directing the servants, which showed her born to the purple.

She had cause to be extremely happy, she told herself this morning, and
yet she was puzzled to understand why she was not. Why was she restless
and vaguely ill at ease so often these days?

One matter, indeed, did worry her; but that would right itself in time,
she was sure. She had always pictured herself as directing her husband's
work. She did not plan to step in and demand a share; she knew from
experience with her brother that a woman must prove her usefulness to a
man before