ownstairs presently, and left the house for the conservatory,
a favorite haunt of his, usually troubled by no one else save Milicent.
He scarcely knew one flower from another, but he delighted to potter
about, smelling here and there, and the Scotch gardener idolized him as
heartily as he detested the wife, who cared nothing for these treasures
in themselves, and openly avowed that she preferred the odor of
patchouli.

The greenhouses proved rather forlorn too, denuded as they were of so
many potted things for the glory of the mansion; but their quiet
obscurity ministered to Shelby's jaded mood. Then he perceived that he
was not alone. Low voices drifted from another aisle--Ludlow's and
Cora's--doubtless still absorbed in the finishing touch. After an
instant's hesitation the governor moved toward them, till a vivid
little picture framed by the fronds of a drooping fern brought him to a
standstill. He beheld a deliberate kiss.

CHAPTER VII

The scene so nearly paralleled that crucial moment in his own life,
under Joe Hilliard's roof, that the quarry owner seemed fairly to
twitch his sleeve. Then, as the dead man had done before him, Shelby
stayed his hand. Hilliard had respected his hearthstone because it
held the ashes of a burned-out love; the governor respected his office.
Unseen by the rapt pair, he left the conservatory, and regained his
disordered room.

How should he act? There was scant opportunity for reflection. The
dinner hour was presently upon him, with a chattering tableful of
Cora's friends who were staying in the house. Shelby seldom shone in
these mixed companies, and to-night he seemed to himself to stand off
in wondering detachment, while somebody clothed in his likeness said
and did many things. He made clear a bit of political slang for the
woman in yellow on his right; he smiled appreciation of the quip of a
young thing in pink three places distant down the left; he explained to
a foreign gentleman, whose English was irreparably broken, that Albany
was not the capital of the United States; and all this time he watched
his vivacious wife at the table's end, and marvelled at her hypocrisy.
So Joe Hilliard had probably wondered. Hilliard was very real to him.
He seemed to have incased himself in Hilliard's personality. A little
later, when Milicent, all exhilaration now that the bursting of the
cocoon was instant, came in her bravery for his approval, he kissed her
like one who