John Graham had, all his life, dominated his family circle, his
friends, his party, and for the last five years had ruled the
Province. Success, applause, wealth, had come easily to him, and he
had taken them as naturally as he accepted the breath of his nostrils.
They were his. But on this bright night in May, as he went angrily
down the back street, unconsciously striking the pavement with his
cane, with angry blows, the echo of the people's laughter in his ears
was bitter as the pains of death.

CHAPTER XXIII

COMPENSATION

The next day the Premier kept to his room, and refused to look at the
papers. The cabinet ministers telephoned in vain; he was out, the
maid said. He hated them, every one--for their insane laughter their
idiotic applause--this disloyal attendance at such a place! He could
not speak to them or see them.

When his wife spoke to him, he snapped back at her like an angry
rattlesnake, and asked her why she had never tried to develop a mind
of her own. Her patience, submissiveness, the abject way she deferred
to him and tried to please him--the very qualities he had demanded of
her, now infuriated him beyond words. He began to despise her for her
spiritless submission.

Fortunately for her, the days that followed took him away from home,
and the household breathed easier each time he departed.

"This settles it," said Rosie, the housemaid, when he went out angrily
slamming the front door. "I will never marry a member of Parliament,
no, not though he goes on his bended knee to ask me. I may not have
wealth or fame--but I'll have peace."

"Don't be too sure," said the cook, who was Scotch, and a
Presbyterian. "You can't be sure of any of them--they are all queer.
You never know what a man will do till he's dead."

The Woman's Parliament held sessions for three nights in the city
before it began its tour of the country with every night an audience
that packed the theatre to the roof. Each night the woman "Premier"
took her curtain calls and received the bouquets which came showering
in, but not a word could the public find out about her. The papers
said her identity would remain a mystery until all the engagements
were filled.

On the last night, when Pearl went to her room--she was staying with
the President of the Woman's Club--a box of flowers was on her table.
When she opened it, she found an armful of American Beauty roses, and
a letter. Pearl's face went suddenly aflame like t