Cora herself a much wiser prophet. Her first instinct,
mixed with wonder, was to decline, and she held to this opinion the
better part of an hour. Yet before the impulse could stiffen into
resolution, it met the neutralizing influence of the old town, which,
partly through the military secretary, partly through the scoffing
Ludlow, she had unwittingly assimilated. By these teachings she had
learned the flattering, almost royal, significance of Mrs. Teunis Van
Dam's dinner invitations. She was seized afresh by a curiosity to
observe how they did things in Quality Row, and became of two minds
forthwith. Appointed for the same evening as the club reception, the
dinner had, moreover, the look of a peace overture, a concession to her
power, even an admission of defeat, which was soothing. She could
hardly present the matter to Shelby in this light, as she had withheld
all mention of the Ludlow business from his ear; but with a generosity
which astonished herself, she dwelt on Mrs. Teunis Van Dam's undoubted
prestige, and ended by advising acceptance.

Shelby, preoccupied with an appeal for the pardon of a consumptive
forger, mechanically agreed.

"Sooner or later we'd have had to endure both functions," he said. "It
is time saved to pack them into one evening."

Cora bridled. It was a prodigious affair for her that he took so
indifferently.

"Time, time," she reprimanded; "the state doesn't expect its governor
to grub like a clerk."

Shelby promised to mend his ways; but the dinner and reception occupied
his thoughts so little that he worked beyond his usual hour at the
capitol on the afternoon of the appointed day, and, coming tardy home,
was late in dressing and late in setting forth. Cora was indignant to
the boiling-point. She meant to be behind-hand at the reception, as a
display of what she deemed good form; but a dinner was a dinner, as her
husband, in the privacy of the carriage, was taught past all
forgetting. Yet his fault lost its gravity before Mrs. Van Dam's
welcome.

"If you're really late, I'm delighted," she returned to Cora's
embarrassed excuses; "for you see, I've just found that I must
apologize for a delay myself. What a boon servants run by clockwork
would be! But it won't be very long."

It was long, though neither of the guests suspected it. Shelby was
diverted by Mrs. Van Dam's unimagined vivacity; while his wife had no
immediate room for any impression save satisfaction that th