recalled him as an amiable and aimless boy; and after she had gone East
she had received with incredulity and then with amusement the news of his
venture into altruistic politics. It was his efficiency she had doubted,
not his sincerity. Later tidings, contemptuous and eventually irritable
utterances of her own father, together with accounts in the New York
newspapers of his campaign, had convinced her in spite of herself that
Bedloe Hubbell had actually shaken the seats of power. And somehow, as
she now took him in, he looked it.

His transformation was one of the signs, one of the mysteries of the
times. The ridicule and abuse of the press, the opposition and enmity of
his childhood friends, had developed the man of force she now beheld, and
who came forward to greet her.

"Alison!" he exclaimed. He had changed in one sense, and not in another.
Her colour deepened as the sound of his voice brought back the lapsed
memories of the old intimacy. For she had been kind to him, kinder than
to any other; and the news of his marriage--to a woman from the Pacific
coast--had actually induced in her certain longings and regrets. When
the cards had reached her, New York and the excitement of the life into
which she had been weakly, if somewhat unwittingly, drawn had already
begun to pall.

"I'm so glad to see you," she told him. "I've heard--so many things.
And I'm very much in sympathy with what you're doing."

They crossed the street, and walked away from the church together. She
had surprised him, and made him uncomfortable.

"You've been away so long," he managed to say, "perhaps you do not