"How much?"
"That will depend upon the quality of statesmanship in both Houses."
"I wish you would explain what you mean by that." Lady Mary's wide voice was too well trained to sharpen. Her cold blue eyes wore the dreamy expression of their most active moments.
"I wish I knew whether the statesmen of the future were to be Populists or Republicans."
"Well, whatever you mean you have no sentiment."
"I have no sentimentalism."
Lady Mary shrugged her shoulders and turned to Senator Ward. She knew better than to talk politics to him before dinner was two thirds over, but she bent her pretty head to him, and gave him her distinguished attentions while he re-invigorated his weary brain. He smiled encouragingly.
"The statesmen of the future will be Populists, Senator," announced Betty's last recruit, a man with a keen sharply cut face and a slightly nasal though not displeasing voice. He was forty and looked thirty.
"The Populist will have called himself so many things by that time that 'statesman' will do as well as any other," growled the Speaker. "'The Statesmen's Party' would sound well, and would be worthy of the noble pretensions of your leader."
"Well, they are noble," said Armstrong tartly, but glad of the opportunity to talk back to the personage who treated him in the House as a Czar treats a minion. "We are the only party that is ready to cling to the Constitution as if it were the rock of ages."