Within a week after Evans Rutledge and Elise Phillips parted at the St. Lawrence resort, the newspapers told the people that at a Saratoga restaurant Colonel Phillips and his wife and daughter, and Doctor Martin, a negro of national reputation, had sat down to dine together. It was soon after this that one evening, at his home in Cleveland, Ohio, Colonel Phillips happened upon a mixed quartette (all negroes) who had been brought over from New York to sing at a sacred concert in one of the fashionable churches, but who could not obtain what they considered a respectable lodging-place.

With characteristic impulsiveness the Colonel, who heard of it, invited the two men and two women up to his house and entertained them overnight.

On those occasions Mrs. Phillips had shown unmistakable opposition to the acts of her liege lord. Elise had more than seconded her mother in haughty indignation; though with her superb training in obedience she could not be openly rebellious. When he had brought the quartette into his home Mr. Phillips could not fail to see the pain in his wife's eyes as she asked:

"Was that necessary?"

"Why, can you not see," he replied with some hot feeling in his tones, "that it was the only thing to be done? They are very respectable people, all of them. They are intelligent and well-bred, as you can see. Why should the simple matter of colour alone keep me from doing what I just as quickly might have done for a white man?"

The unconscious humour of this way of putting it did not reach Mrs. Phillips, and the Colonel's tone and manner, not his words, kept her silent when he had finished. She could not quarrel with him; and he thought he had answered her reason, though he admitted inwardly that her prejudices were unconverted. Nevertheless he did not open the discussion again.

Helen, however, naturally siding with her father, did not hesitate to bring it up repeatedly, and youthfully to descant at length and with some elaboration of ideas on the propriety and admirableness of her father's act. Mrs. Phillips, with the sole purpose of preserving parental discipline and not wishing even slightly to encourage insubordination, had very little to say to Helen about it; while Elise answered all the younger girl's effusions with sniffs of disdain.

* * * * *

These incidents and Elise's womanly perversity and curiosity really gave Evans Rutledge a great opportunity if he only could have read the portents of circumstance and calculated to a nicety the eccentricity of a woman's heart. The entertainment of negro guests at the mansion of an aspirant for the presidency was given wide publicity by the press and was the subject of universal though temporary notice by newspapers and editorial writers of every class. Rutledge, in his capacity as Washington representative of a half-dozen newspapers over the country, contributed his share to the general chorus of comment.

When Elise read in a Cleveland paper a clipping accredited to "Evans Rutledge in Chicago American," she suddenly became desirous of seeing that young man again. The sentiments, stripped of the tartness in their expression and a seeming lack of appreciation of her distinguished father's dignity, were so in accord with hers that she was startled at the exact coincidence of thought-while still resentful of the free and fierce criticism.

Resentment and thoughts of coincidences were pushed out of her mind, however, by the question, "Would he tell me again he loves me?" This was both a personal and a sentimental question and was therefore of chief interest to her woman's mind. Not that she had a whit more of love for him than upon that last day upon the St. Lawrence-oh, no; but his love for her? his willingness to avow it? was it still hers? was it ever hers really?-for not a word or a line had he addressed to her since the day they fought the river. She would confess to a slight curiosity and desire to meet him when she should go to Washington on that promised visit to Lola DeVale.

Rutledge assuredly had escaped none of the untoward influences which the Phillips-negro incidents might have had upon his love for Elise. His good mother religiously attended to the duty of impressing upon him the disgraceful horrors of those affairs. She found no words forceful enough properly to characterize them, though she applied herself with each new day to the task. What might have been the result if her son's heart had been inclined to fight for the love of Elise of course cannot be known. His mother's philippics effected nothing, for the good reason that he had lost hope of winning Elise before the negro incidents occurred, and the personal turn his mother gave them was only tiresome to him. Elise's last words to him, "There is no answer," had put their affair beyond the effect of anything of that sort. She had not only refused him, but had flouted him, treated him with contempt: yes, had said to him in effect that his proffer of love was not worth even a negative answer. He had gone over every incident of their association, and, with a lover's carefulness of detail, had considered and weighed her every word and look and gesture; and, with a lover's proverbial blundering, had found as a fact the only thing that was not true.

* * * * *

When Elise came to Washington on her visit Rutledge knew of course that she was in town, and he kept his eyes open for her. His pride would not let him call upon her, for he had meditated upon her treatment of him till his grievance had been magnified many fold and his view had become so distorted that in all her acts he saw only a purpose to play with his heart. Yet, he wished to see her, wished very much to see her-doubtless for the same reason that a bankrupt will look in upon "the pit" that has gulfed his fortune.

They met unexpectedly at Senator Ruffin's, where only time was given them to shake hands in a non-committal manner before Mrs. Ruffin sent them in to dinner together. If each had spoken the thoughts in the heart a perfect understanding would have brought peace and friendship at least, but no words were spoken from the heart. All of their conversational sparring was of the brain purely. They fenced with commonplaces for some little time, each on guard. Rutledge, without a thought of Doctor Martin or the negro quartette, formed all of his speeches for the ear of a woman who had mocked his love; while Elise talked only for the man who had written the article in the Chicago American. She saw the change in his manner, in his polite aloofness, his insincere, careless pleasantries.

"It is delightfully kind of you, Miss Phillips, to come over and give Washington some of those thrills with which you have favoured Cleveland."

"What is the answer?" asked Elise blankly.

"My meaning is no riddle surely," said Rutledge. "The Cleveland newspaper reporters have taught us to believe that you are the centre of interest in that city and that, as one signing himself 'Q' wrote in yesterday's Journal,-something to the effect that you radiate a sort of three-syllable waves which make the younger men to thrill and the old beaux to take a new lease on life. When I read that, I could see a lot of small boys crowding around an electric machine, all wanting to get a touch of the current but fearful of being knocked endways."

"Now diagnose the form of your dementia," said the girl. "You not only read but you believe the statements of the penny-a-liners. Your case is hopeless."

"I must read somewhat of such things-to know my craft. I must believe somewhat of them-to respect my craft."

"Is either knowledge or respect necessary, Mr. Rutledge? The craft is admitted; but I had thought the purpose of all this craft was the penny-a-line,-not knowledge or truth-which are not only incidental but often unwelcome. Why read or believe the line after the cent has been paid?"

"You are unmerciful to us, Miss Phillips. It is true every news item of interest has its money value for a newspaper man, but you must understand that we try to use them honestly and say no more than we feel-often far less than we feel."

Rutledge's manner was serious when he had finished; and Elise, feeling sure that the same incident was in his mind as in hers, had it on her tongue's end to reply with spirit and point, when he continued lightly:

"But that is shop. It is good of you to come over now and gradually accustom us to those Q-waves instead of giving us the sudden full current when Colonel Phillips rents the White House. You will not care if some few become immune before that time, for there will be no end of rash youths to get tangled up with the wires."

Elise had not been a woman if Rutledge's impersonal "we" and "us" and suggestion of persons immune to her charms had not piqued her. He need not put his change of heart so bluntly, she thought. Yet what incensed her was not the loss of his love, but that that love had been so poor and frail a thing.

"I am glad you guarantee a full supply of the raw material, Mr. Rutledge. It is a very interesting study, I think, to watch the effect of the-current-on youths of different temperaments: on the black-haired, black-eyed one who raves and swears his love-to two women in the same month; or the light-haired, blue-eyed one who laughs both while the current is on and when it is off; or the red-headed lover who will not take 'no' for an answer; or the gray-eyed, brown-haired man who would appear indifferent while his heart is consuming with a passion that changes not even when hope is gone. I will depend on you to see that they all come along, Mr. Rutledge-even to that young Congressman over there who is so devoted to Lola," she added in an undertone, "if he can be persuaded to change his court."

"Oh, he will come. His present devotion does not signify. There is nothing true but Heaven," Rutledge replied, not to be outdone in cynicism by this young woman who had quite taken his breath away with her impromptu classification of lovers. His own hair was black and his eyes, like hers, were gray; and he saw she was making sport of him under both categories and yet betraying not her real thought in the slightest degree.

"Beware, Mr. Rutledge. Only woman may change her mind. Men must not usurp our prerogative."

"True," said Rutledge; "but a man does not know his mind or his heart either till he's forty. He is not responsible for the guesses he makes before that time. After that, he knows only what he does not want which is much; and, if undisturbed, can enjoy a negative consistency and content."

"I may not defend the sex against such an able and typical representative," said Elise as the diners arose.

Neither of these wholesome-minded young people had any taste for such a fictitious basis of conversation; but each was on the defensive against the supposed attitude of the other, and the moment their thoughts went outside conventional platitudes they were given an unnatural and cynical twist. Both felt a sense of relief when the evening was past. But despite this condition, which prevailed during Elise's visit, Rutledge could not put away the desire to see as much of her as an assumption of indifference would permit, if only with the unformulated hope that he might catch unawares if but for a moment the unstudied good camaraderie and congenial spirit which had won his heart on the St. Lawrence. But the sensitive consciousness of one or the other ever had been present to exorcise the natural spirit from their conversations.

Rutledge lived bravely up to his ideas of what a proper pride demanded of him, but his assumption of indifference was sorely tried from their first meeting at Senator Ruffin's. The mischief began with Elise's offhand little discourse on the colour of eyes and hair as indicia of the traits and fates of lovers-particularly with her statement that a red-headed man will not take a woman's "no" for an answer. The point in that which irritated the cuticle of Mr. Rutledge's indifference was that Mr. Second Lieutenant Morgan had a head of flame.

Now man-natural man-usually has the intelligence to know when a thing is beyond his reach, and the philosophy to content himself without it. He rejoices also in his neighbour's successes. But natural man, with all his intelligence and all his philosophy and all his brotherly love, cannot look with patience or self-deceit upon another's success or probable success where he himself, striving, has failed. In the whole realm of human experience there are exceptions to this rule perhaps; but in the tropical province of Love there is none. There a man may conclude that the woman he wants would not be good for him, even perforce may decide he loves her not: but the merest suggestion of another man as a probable winner will surely bring his decision up for review-and always to overrule it. So with Rutledge: from the moment of Elise's unstudied remark he conceded to his own heart that his indifference was the veriest sham and pretence-while still a pretence necessary to his self-respect.

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