of this queer
little Albany corner of it in particular, you must permit me to tell
you that you have been too generously lenient with a person who has
forfeited the right to darken decent people's doors. I mean ex-Senator
Ludlow; and I presume I needn't specify his misdeeds."

"No. You need not," rejoined Cora, stiffening. "I'm not interested in
scandal."

Mrs. Teunis Van Dam straightened rigidly in her chair.

"I fear that, after all, I must particularize," she replied.
"Obviously you can't know the truth of things."

"I know that his wife divorced him, and I have heard a dozen or more
malicious tales about his present life. I doubt if you can add to the
collection."

"You put me in a false position."

"And you reflect on mine in assuming to dictate whom I shall receive.
This house belongs to the state. Every citizen is welcome."

Mrs. Van Dam had gathered her furs and risen, but at this she paused.

"There," she exclaimed, with a little laugh, "what women we are! I've
been talking of one thing, you of another. You have the right view of
your official obligations precisely. Of course the man is free to come
to your public receptions. The state can't establish a moral
quarantine, more's the pity."

"Ex-Senator Ludlow is free to come to my house at all times," cut in
Cora, with a brilliant crimson dot in either cheek. "I do not sit in
pharisaical judgment on the unfortunate. I've had his story as well as
that of you who are against him. I believe him a misjudged man who
deserves a courageous friend."

"Oh, if it is a question of friendship--" and Mrs. Van Dam terminated
sentence and interview with a shrug.

Yet Cora had not seen the last of her visitor's stately back before she
repented her open championship of Handsome Ludlow. Knickerbocker
domination, not conviction, had forced her hand. Since she had hung
her banner on the walls, however, she resolved to stand fast, and the
following Sunday morning issued an unmistakable declaration of war. On
her way to service she saw Ludlow crossing the park before the capitol,
and stopped her carriage.

"'Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remember'd,'" quoted the man,
his handsome, impudent eyes on hers.

"I propose that you'll do that for yourself," Cora retorted archly.
"Get in."

She had intended going to the cathedral, but withal sudden resolve she
ordered the carriage driven to an older church just at hand, which time
out of mind had made