“I have to help Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop,” she said, as if in explanation. “But, of course, I hate to bother you.”
“Oh, nonsense, dearest,” he said, impatiently. “Come on. Let’s start.”
“But I can’t go looking this way,” she said. She walked across the room, and standing before a mirror, wiped her eyes carefully, then arranged her hat and her veil.
“Would anybody know?” she asked, facing about for his inspection.
“Never—come on.”
They went out, and down the elevator. When they reached the entrance, Vernon looked up and down the street, but there was no carriage in sight. The street was quiet and the hotel wore an air of desertion, telling that all the political activity of Illinois had been transferred to the State House. Vernon looked around the corner, but the old hack that always stood there was not at its post.
“We’ll have to walk,” he said. “It’ll take too long for them to get a carriage around for us. It’s only a few blocks, anyway. The air will do you good.”
As they set forth in the bright morning sun they were calmer, and, having come out into public view, for the time being they dropped their differences and their misunderstandings, and began to talk in their common, ordinary fashion.
“Did Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop ask you to change me on the Ames Amendment?” Vernon asked her.
“The what?”