g the young people together, send for a preacher, and marry them in
this very study. I am not to lose a Presidency because you choose to
play the fool."

Mrs. Hanway-Harley, illustrious in all her diamonds, upon the next
evening received Richard in vast state. She proposed to impress him with
her splendors. Dorothy, in anticipation of the meeting between mother
and lover, had gone across to Bess; her nervousness must have support.

Richard, whose diplomacy was barbaric and proceeded on straight lines,
told Mrs. Hanway-Harley of his love for Dorothy. As his handsome face
lighted up, even Mrs. Hanway-Harley was not unswept of admiration. She
could look into Richard's eyes, and see for herself those gray beauties
of tenderness and truth that had won Dorothy to his side. They might
have won even Mrs. Hanway-Harley had she not been a mother. What if he
were tender, what if he were true? He had no fortune, no place; even the
Admirable Crichton, wanting social station and the riches whereon to
base it, would have been impossible.

When Richard had ended his love-tale--which, considering that for all
his outward fortitude he was inwardly quaking, he told full
eloquently--Mrs. Hanway-Harley composed herself for reply. She hardly
required those warnings of Senator Hanway; there was no wish now to
insult or humble him. In truth, Mrs. Hanway-Harley was in the best
possible temper to carry forward her side of the conference in manner
most creditable to herself and most helpful for her purposes. More than
ever, since she had heard him, she knew the perilous sway this man must
own over her daughter. While he talked, the deep, true tones were like a
spell; the great, tender, persistent will of a man in loving earnest
seemed as with a thousand soft, resistless hands to draw her whither it
would. Even she, Mrs. Hanway-Harley, selfish, guarded, worldly, cold,
was shaken and all but conquered beneath the natural hypnotic power of
the male when speaking, thinking, feeling, moving from the heart. Oh,
she would warrant her daughter loved this wizard! She, herself, was
driven to fence against his pleadings to keep from granting all he
asked. But fence she did; Mrs. Hanway-Harley remembered that she was a
mother, an American mother whose daughter had been asked in wedlock by a
Count. She must protect that daughter from the wizard who would only
love to blight.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley never spoke to more advantage. She did not doubt Mr.
Storms's