him a cup of tea. "I
feel sure that you will be chosen," she said. "See if I am not right.
When is the election?"

"In six weeks. Six weeks from to-morrow."

"Then you will go to Washington to live?"

"Not until the fourth of March."

"I envy you. If I were a man I should prefer success in politics to
anything else."

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Will you help me to achieve
success? Will you go with me to Washington as my wife?"

His courtship had been formal and elaborate, but his declaration was
signally simple and to the point. Selma noticed that the cup in his hand
trembled. While she kept her eyes lowered, as women are supposed to do
at such moments, she was wondering whether she loved him as much as she
had loved Wilbur? Not so ardently, but more worthily, she concluded, for
he seemed to her to fulfil her maturer ideal of strong and effective
manhood, and to satisfy alike her self-respect and her physical fancy. A
man of his type would not split hairs, but proceed straight toward the
goal of his ambition without fainting or wavering. Why should she not
satisfy her renewed craving to be yoked to a kindred spirit and
companion who appreciated her true worth?

"I cannot believe," he was saying, "that my words are a surprise to you.
You can scarcely have failed to understand that I admired you extremely.
I have delayed to utter my desire to make you my wife because I did not
dare to cherish too fondly the hope that the love inspired in me could
be reciprocated, and that you would consent to unite your life to mine
and trust your happiness to my keeping. If I may say so, we are no boy
and girl. We understand the solemn significance of marriage; what it
imports and what it demands. Of late I have ventured to dream that the
sympathy in ideas and identity of purpose which exist between us might
be the trustworthy sign of a spiritual bond which we could not afford to
ignore. I feel that without you the joy and power of my life will be
incomplete. With you at my side I shall aspire to great things. You are
to me the embodiment of what is charming and serviceable in woman."

Selma looked up. "I like you very much, Mr. Lyons. You, in your turn,
must have realized that, I think. As you say, we are no boy and girl.
You meant by that, too, that we both have been married before. I have
had two husbands, and I did not believe that I could ever think of
marriage again. I don't wish you to suppose that my last