Colegrove followed her, hat in hand, and full of apologies, professing ignorance as to how he had offended her. She allowed him to assist her into the cab, but merely bade him a chilly good-bye. Colegrove watched the cab as it fumbled off in the dusk and then said to himself:
"I shall let her get into a tighter place than ever for money before I give her another lift. But, by Jove! if I were in March's place I would have had that woman's confidence long ago."
Then it occurred to him that there was in reality a great gulf between Senator March and the woman who was his wife, and a man like himself. This did not disconcert Colegrove in the least, as it was his invariable practice to see things as they were and never to blink the truth.
It was half-past six o'clock before Alicia March entered the door of her home. Instead of going to her boudoir, she went into Senator March's study. He was at his desk hard at work--he was known as the hardest worked man in the Senate--but he had not failed to notice his wife's absence.
"Really," he said, turning in his chair and taking her hand as she came forward into the circle of light cast by the old-fashioned student lamp which burned upon his desk, "you must not stay out so late. If I had known in what direction you had walked, I should have gone to meet you at six o'clock."
"You are fanciful," replied Alicia, and, for almost the first time in their married life, gave him an unasked caress, passing her arm around his neck and stooping to kiss him. It was not lost on Senator March.
"You know how to win pardon," he said, "but--but don't do it again. Since you have been gone I have been studying up some of the performances of your friend Colegrove, and I can't make out whether he is a virtuous sufferer or a very able and accomplished scamp."
"I met Mr. Colegrove while I was out," said Alicia, remembering the sum in her little bag, which would by no means pay all her bills, "and I promised to ask him to dinner," and then suddenly remembered that Colegrove had told her not to mention his presence in Washington. She had in truth been thinking more of her husband than of Colegrove for the last half-hour.
Senator March, however, did not observe any significance in his wife's casual words, and answered:
"Oh, very well! I am not down on Colegrove personally; he is a very good dinner guest, and there isn't any reason why you shouldn't ask him if you wish to. Will you invite him to meet the Carlyons?"