"What have you been doing?" asked Betty, anxiously.
"Nothing, honey," replied Harriet, promptly. "I mean if I did."
"Don't do anything that requires forgiveness. It makes life so much simpler not to. And remember the promise you made me."
"Oh, I don't reckon I'll ever forget that."
IX
Senator North started for Washington that afternoon. Betty did not see him again. He did not write, but she hardly expected that he would. He had remarked once that two-thirds of all the trouble in the world came out of letters, and Betty, with Miss Trumbull in mind, was inclined to agree with him. He would not return for a fortnight.
On Friday, very late, Senator Burleigh arrived. He was on the Finance Committee, but had written that he should break his chains for this brief holiday if he never had another. He had sent her two boxes of flowers since her return, and had written her a large number of brief, emphatic, but impersonal letters during her sojourn in California.
He looked big and breezy and triumphant as he entered the living-room, and he sprinkled magnetism like a huge watering-pot. Betty knew by this time that all men successful in American politics had this qualification, and had come in contact with it so often since her introduction to the Senate that it had ceased to have any effect on her except when emanating from one man.
"Are you not frightfully tired?" she asked. "What a journey!"
"Anything, even a fourteen hours' train journey, is heaven after Washington in hot weather. The asphalt pavements are reeking, and your heels go in when you forget to walk on your toes—and stick. But it is enchanting up here."