CHAPTER VIII

"THE KING IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE KING"

Low he lies, yet high and great
Looms he, lying thus in state.--
How exalted o'er ye when
Dead, my lords and gentlemen!

--James Whitcomb Riley.


John Armitage lingered in New York for a week, not to press the
Claibornes too closely, then went to Washington. He wrote himself down on
the register of the New American as John Armitage, Cinch Tight, Montana,
and took a suite of rooms high up, with an outlook that swept
Pennsylvania Avenue. It was on the evening of a bright April day that he
thus established himself; and after he had unpacked his belongings he
stood long at the window and watched the lights leap out of the dusk over
the city. He was in Washington because Shirley Claiborne lived there, and
he knew that even if he wished to do so he could no longer throw an
air of inadvertence into his meetings with her. He had been very lonely
in those days when he first saw her abroad; the sight of her had lifted
his mood of depression; and now, after those enchanted hours at sea, his
coming to Washington had been inevitable.

Many things passed through his mind as he stood at the open window. His