“I feel sure that all you say is true and I am sorry if I have wounded you—but what you ask is not to be thought of for a moment.”
“Well,” remarked the Senator, resignedly, “it’s a disappointment, it’s a great disappointment, but there are other things in life, Miss Maitland. There’s the pleasure of helping widows and orphans, and I swear to you I have done that as well as I could iver since I was a clerk in good ould Danny Hogan’s corner store, and there’s the pleasure of managing the primaries and handing over the biggest batch of votes for the money of any man in the State——”
“Mr. Mulligan!” cried Constance, in horror.
“Yes, there’s no denying of it in some States—and there’s automobiling and plenty of other clean, dacent pleasures to make up for love. But I tell you, Miss Maitland, there never can be the time, if I’m still single, that you can’t be Mrs. Michael Patrick Mulligan, and your money may go to the bow-wows for all I care, and I honour and admire you above all the women I iver knew, I do that. Good-bye. Don’t snub the life out of me in Washington if I meet you next winter.”
“I shall not, I promise you—good-bye,” said Constance, and walking briskly into the summer-house, while Senator Mulligan turned away, she almost walked into Geoffrey Thorndyke’s arms.
“I couldn’t help hearing,” said Thorndyke, with a burning face. “I couldn’t get out—it would have been beastly to the poor devil——”
And then both of them suddenly burst into a gale of laughter, nor could they, all that day and evening, meet each other’s eyes without laughing mysteriously.
Thorndyke’s visit lasted a week. It was a week of heaven and hell to him. When he went away, Constance Maitland realised that, to accomplish her heart’s desire, she would have to do the proposing herself, as Queen Victoria did on a similar occasion.
Chapter Twelve
WHAT IS IT TO BE HONEST IN POLITICS AND TRUE IN LOVE?
On the first Monday in December—a gloriously bright winter day—the flags were run up over the Senate and House wings of the Capitol building. Congress had met once more.