It was a cold, quick air to which they emerged and Alonzo, daring to look at her, found that she had pulled the veil down over her face, the colour of which, in the keen wind, was like that of June roses seen through morning mists. At the curb a long, low, rakish black motor-car was in waiting, the driver a mere swaddled cylinder of fur.
Truslow, opening the little door of the tonneau, offered his hand to the lady. “Come over to the club, Senator, and lunch with me,” he said. “Mrs. Protheroe won't mind dropping us there on her way.”
That was an eerie ride for Alonzo, whose feet were falling upon strange places. His pulses jumped and his eyes swam with the tears of unlawful speed, but his big ungloved hand tingled not with the cold so much as with the touch of that divine grey fur upon his little finger.
“You intend to make many speeches, Mr. Truslow tells me,” he heard the rich voice saying.
“Yes ma'am,” he summoned himself to answer. “I expect I will. Yes ma'am.” He paused, and then repeated, “Yes ma'am.”
She looked at him for a moment. “But you will do some work, too, won't you?” she asked slowly.
Her intention in this passed by Alonzo at the time. “Yes ma'am,” he answered. “The committee work interests me greatly, especially drains and dikes.”
“I have heard,” she said, as if searching his opinion, “that almost as much is accomplished in the committee-rooms as on the floor? There—and in the lobby and in the hotels and clubs?”
“I don't have much to do with that!” he returned quickly. “I guess none of them lobbyists will get much out of me! I even sent back all their railroad tickets. They needn't come near me!”
After a pause which she may have filled with unexpressed admiration, she ventured, almost timidly: “Do you remember that it was said that Napoleon once attributed the secret of his power over other men to one quality?”