There were the usual thronging multitudes in the corridors, the usual pleasant buzz of meeting and greeting in cloak and committee rooms, and the cheerfulness and exhilaration of the last session was flamboyant in the present one.
Among the last members of the House to arrive was Julian Crane. He had come late because he wished to put off as long as possible the meeting with Senator Bicknell. Of course, they must meet early and often, but that did not make Crane take any less pains to postpone, if even for a day, the sight of the man he had betrayed. But almost the first acquaintance he ran across was the Senator in a group of brother senators who had strolled over to the House side.
Senator Bicknell greeted Crane with unusual cordiality. In the first place, he really wished to attach Crane to the Bicknell chariot, but he had such agreeable recollections of his August day in Circleville, of Annette and her spotless table, her roast chicken and boiled corn, her sweet, fresh spare bedroom, where he had enjoyed one of the best naps of his life, and her impromptu reception in the afternoon, that he felt an increased kindliness for Crane. He showed this by button-holing Crane in the midst of the group of senators, and telling the story of his day in Circleville. He paid Annette many sincere compliments, and declared that if Crane should enter the senatorial contest a year and a half hence, and should defeat him, it would simply be on account of the charming Mrs. Crane. It was not fair to pit a man with such a lovely wife against a hopeless and incurable bachelor like himself.
Under other circumstances Crane would have been highly gratified, but now it tortured him. He heard once more ringing in his ears Governor Sanders’s words, “It is absolutely necessary that Senator Bicknell be not taken into our confidence.” To cap the climax, Senator Bicknell said:
“Be sure and give my warmest regards to Mrs. Crane, and tell her I shall take the first opportunity to call on her—she is here, I suppose? She mentioned last summer that she was coming on with you.”
“Yes,” replied Crane, “we are established for the season”—and he gave the name of a comfortable, but not expensive or fashionable, apartment house where they had quarters.
“And say to her that, although I can’t give her a dinner half so good as what she gave me, I shall expect her and you to arrange to dine with me at my house at a very early day. Good morning.”
Crane escaped and went to his seat in the House. While he was contemplating the baseness of his own conduct, Thorndyke came over and spoke to him.
Thorndyke’s first impression of Crane was that he looked haggard and worn, and Crane’s impression of Thorndyke was that he had grown about ten years younger. His greeting to Thorndyke was very cordial, but he was conscious of a strange thing—that ever since his bargain with Sanders, the meeting with former friends, men of sterling probity, gave him a vague uneasiness. It seemed to him as if, in duping Senator Bicknell, he was duping every honest man he knew. Thorndyke, too, asked after Mrs. Crane, and it began to dawn upon Crane’s mind that Annette had the power, in a remarkable degree, of pleasing men of the world. Still, he thought her not quite good enough for himself, particularly if the brilliant future he planned should materialise—as it must and should.
The proceedings of the day were perfunctory, and it was but little after three o’clock when Thorndyke left the House. The afternoon was briskly cold, and the sun glittered from a heaven as blue as June. Just as Thorndyke came out on the plaza he encountered Crane, who would have avoided him, but it was scarcely possible.