Wells, or any town in your state; real
give and take in the table talk; really pretty women; the same little
group of people rubbing wits against each other day after day and
getting them sharpened instead of dulled by it; a concentrated, pocket
edition of a social life, but complete--nothing provincial about it," a
very distinguished outsider had said after his last week-end with the
Colonel.

But he was fresh from a visit to the state capital, the most provincial
city in the state when the legislature was not in session; also he had a
known weakness for pretty women. Green River did not admire the
Colonel's circle so unreservedly, but Green River was jealous. Whatever
you thought of it, it was made of fixed and unpromising material, and
making it was no mean achievement, and the man at the head of the table
looked capable of it, and of bigger things.

The Colonel was a big man and a public character, and as with many
bigger men, you could divide the facts of his life into two classes:
what everybody knew and what nobody knew. If the known facts were not
the most dramatic ones, they were dramatic enough. He was sixty now. At
fifteen he had been a student in a small theological seminary, working
for his board on his uncle's farm, and engaged to the teacher of the
district school, who helped him with his Greek at night. He gave up the
ministry for the law, used his law practice as a stepping-stone into
state politics, climbed gradually into national politics, built up a
fortune somehow--these were the days of big graft--married for money and
got an assured position in Washington society thrown in, and soon after
his marriage chose Green River as a basis of operations, spending a
winter month in Washington which later lengthened to three, ostensibly
for the sake of his wife's health. The title of Colonel came from
serving on the Governor's staff in an uneventful year. He had held no
very important office, but his importance to his party in state and
national politics was not to be measured by that.

White haired, slightly built, managing with perfectly apparent tricks
of carriage and dress to look taller than he was, he was the effective
figure in this rather unusually good-looking group of people. Just now
he was lighting a fresh cigarette for Mrs. Burr so gracefully that even
Judge Saxon must enjoy watching, so Judith thought, though there was a
tradition that he did not like women to smoke. Shocking the Judge was
on