"A great deal may be accomplished by cleverness and prudence of that particular kind," was the answer. "And, as I said, she has been both prudent and clever."
"It isn't pleasant to think about," remarked the man. "She will lose her friends and—and all the rest of it, and may gain nothing in the end. But I suppose there is a good deal of that sort of thing going on here. We outsiders hear it said so, and are given to believing the statement."
"It does not usually occur in the class to which this case belongs," was the response. "The female lobbyist is generally not so—not so"—
"Not so picturesque as she is painted," ended her companion with a laugh. "Well, I consider myself all the more fortunate in having seen this one who is picturesque, and has quite a charming natural color of her own."
CHAPTER XXIV.
They moved away and went to the supper-room themselves, leaving Tredennis to his reflections. What these were he scarcely knew himself for a few seconds. The murmur of voices and passing to and fro confused him. For half an hour of quiet in some friendly corner, where none could see his face, he felt that he would have given a year or so of his life—perhaps a greater number of years than a happier man would have been willing to part with. It was of Bertha these people had been speaking—of Bertha, and it was Bertha he could see through the open doors of the supper-room, eating ices, listening to compliment and laughter and jest! It was Planefield who was holding her flowers, and the man who had just picked up her fan was one of his friends; in two or three others near her, Tredennis recognized his associates: it seemed as if the ground had been ceded to them by those who had at first formed her little court.
Tredennis was seized with a wild desire to make his way into their midst, take her hand in his arm, and compel her to come away—to leave them all, to let him take her home—to safety and honor and her children. He was so filled with the absurd impulse that he took half a step forward, stopping and smiling bitterly, when he realized what he was prompted to do.
"How she would like it," he thought, "and like me for doing it; and what a paragraph it would make for the society column!"