"Seaton, these new scientific discoveries are dangerous tools!" he
said--"If they are not handled carefully they may work more mischief
than we dream of. Be on your guard! Why, we might break up the very
planet we live on, some day!"

"Very possible!" answered Seaton, lightly--"But it wouldn't be
missed! Come,--I'll walk with you half way down the hill."

He threw on a broad palmetto hat as a shield against the blazing
sun, for it was now the full heat of the afternoon, while Gwent
solemnly unfurled a white canvas umbrella which, folded, served him
on occasion as a walking-stick. A greater contrast could hardly be
imagined than that afforded by the two men,--the conventionally
clothed, stiff-jointed Washington senator, and the fine, easy supple
figure of his roughly garbed companion; and Manella, watching them
descend the hill from a coign of vantage in the Plaza gardens,
criticised their appearance in her own special way.

"Poof!" she said to herself, snapping her fingers in air--"He is so
ugly!--that one man--so dry and yellow and old! But the other--he is
a god!"

And she snapped her fingers again,--then kissed them towards the
object of her adoration,--an object as unconscious and indifferent
as any senseless idol ever worshipped by blind devotees.




CHAPTER XIII