"Well!—perhaps not a hundred dollars a day, but pretty near it! Her eyes are the finest I've ever seen."
Seaton made no comment.
"You'll come and dine with me to-night, won't you?" went on Gwent—"You can spare me an hour or two of your company?"
"No, thanks"—Seaton replied—"Don't think me a churlish brute—but I don't like hotels or the people who frequent them. Besides—we've done our business."
"Unfortunately there was no business doing!" said Gwent—"Sorry I couldn't take it on."
"Don't be sorry! I'll take it on myself when the moment comes. I would have preferred the fiat of a great government to that of one unauthorised man—but if there's no help for it then the one man must act."
Gwent looked at him with a grave intentness which he meant to be impressive.
"Seaton, these new scientific discoveries are dangerous tools!" he said—"If they are not handled carefully they may work more mischief than we dream of. Be on your guard! Why, we might break up the very planet we live on, some day!"
"Very possible!" answered Seaton, lightly—"But it wouldn't be missed! Come,—I'll walk with you half way down the hill."
He threw on a broad palmetto hat as a shield against the blazing sun, for it was now the full heat of the afternoon, while Gwent solemnly unfurled a white canvas umbrella which, folded, served him on occasion as a walking-stick. A greater contrast could hardly be imagined than that afforded by the two men,—the conventionally clothed, stiff-jointed Washington senator, and the fine, easy supple figure of his roughly garbed companion; and Manella, watching them descend the hill from a coign of vantage in the Plaza gardens, criticised their appearance in her own special way.