Oh, base fabrication! Oh, false Senator! There wasn't a word of truth in that remark. You spoke so because you wished _La Cica_ to know that you had a wife and family. Yet it was very badly done.
_La Cica_ changed neither her attitude nor her expression. Evidently the existence of his wife, and the melancholy situation of his unfortunate children, awaked no sympathy.
"But, my Senator--did you not say you wooda seeng yousellef away to affarlasteen belees?"
"Oh, marm, it was a quotation--only a quotation."
But at this critical juncture the conversation was broken up by the arrival of a number of ladies and gentlemen.
But could the Senator have known!
Could he but have known how and where those words would confront him again!
.
"MORERE DIAGORA, NON ENIM IN COELUM ADSCENSURUS ES."--THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE SENATOR (NOTHING LESS--IT WAS A MOMENT IN WHICH A MAN MIGHT WISH TO DIE--THOUGH, OF COURSE, THE SENATOR DIDN'T DIE).