He did not hear a low, soft sigh outside the half-open door, for Doctor Perry said, with apparent surprise:
“You astonish me, sir, for we English have been led to believe that in your favored land of America you raise no barriers against marriage with those of inferior birth or fortunes.”
The senator answered testily:
“We raise no barriers against true worth, Doctor Perry. I myself am a self-made man, risen from poverty, and not ashamed of it. But you have heard that circumstances alter cases? Well, let me explain. My son’s offense had not been so unpardonable had he been free to choose the girl he wed, but when he took the marriage vow he dishonored himself and his family because he was already pledged to another, a girl whose heart was almost broken by his falsity.”
“Yet rumor says that she is already consoled by a promise of your hand, sir,” the young physician ventured.
Senator Bonair’s face already reddened by his illness, flushed deeper as he exclaimed:
“You seem well posted on my affairs, sir.”
“I beg your pardon, but no offense was meant, my dear senator. Surely you know that the affairs of so eminent a person as yourself are public property. All I have spoken of to you I have read in the London newspapers, but perhaps I should not have ventured to discuss them with you.”
“You might choose pleasanter subjects,” the senator answered quickly. “For instance, my pretty young nurse whom we were discussing just now, and to whom Tousey says I really owe my life, coming to me as she did when I was in the worst stages of my illness.”
“Tousey tells the truth. You could hardly have lived a day longer without her kindly ministrations at the time she came to you. But the time has come when, for the sake of her own health, she must forsake you and go home to rest.”