And Lulu answered, with an unconscious sigh:
"I could not have imagined any one so perfectly lovely."
"Grace here—is it possible?" commented Mrs. Conway, lifting her eye-glass to stare across at the young wife. "Well, really, I wonder what has happened, and why she is here, and where she is staying? I must find out and call."
In which laudable desire she continued to gaze across, trying to catch the young lady's eye; but Mrs. Winans had neither eyes nor ears for any one but her husband. Her whole soul was intent on him, and when the speech came to an end she remained in the same rapt, eager position until, just as he was resuming his seat amid the prolonged applause, one of those strange psychological impressions that inform one of the intense gaze of another caused him to look up, and his dark eyes, still blazing with eloquent excitement, met the deep, impassioned gaze of her violet orbs, swimming in unshed tears; he sank into his seat as if shot.
As for her, she started up, horrified at having betrayed her presence, and was trying to get out of the thronged gallery when a sudden request to have the galleries cleared while the Senate went into executive session set all the crowd on their feet and moving toward the doors. Mingling with them and quite unaccustomed to visiting the capitol unaccompanied, Grace found herself suddenly alone, and quite lost in a maze of corridors far away from the moving throng of people. Perplexed and frightened at she knew not what, she hurried on, only losing herself more effectually, seeing no outer door to the vast, wandering building, and, strangely enough, meeting no one of whom to learn the way out, until as she desperately turned into yet another long corridor she stumbled against a gentleman coming in the opposite direction. Looking up she met the surprised eyes of Bruce Conway, and remembering only that she wanted to get out of that place, that she was in trouble, and that he had been her friend, her white detaining hand caught nervously at his coat-sleeve.
"Oh, Mr. Conway," she almost sobbed, "I have lost my way and cannot get out of the capitol; will you set me right?"
Before a word had passed his lips, while she yet stood with her dark, uplifted, appealing eyes burning in Conway's soul, a quick, ringing step came along the corridor, and Paul Winans stood beside them, towering over both in his kingly height and beauty.
And the untamed devil of a jealous nature rose in his eyes and shone out upon the two.
"Great God!" he breathed, in tones of concentrated passion, "Grace Winans, are you as false as this?"
The small hand fell nervelessly from Conway's coat-sleeve and transferred itself to her husband's arm, her eyes lifted proudly, gravely to his.