feel as if no one takes any interest in us unless she has an axe to
grind. But you are what we all have been waiting for I feel sure of
that! Let it be understood that no mere politician, no man who bought
his legislature or is under suspicion in regard to any Trust, can
enter your doors. Of course you will have to study the whole question
thoroughly; and mind, I am to be your instructor-in-chief."

Betty laughed and thanked him, wondering how well he understood her.
He looked like a man who would waste no time on the study of woman's
subtleties: he knew what he wanted, and recognized the desired
qualities at once, but by a strong masculine instinct, not by
analysis.

A few moments later the women went into the drawing-room, and the
conversation for the next half-hour was a languid babble of politics,
dress, New York, the lady of the White House, and the play. Betty
thought the women very nice, but less interesting than the men,
possibly because they were women. They certainly looked more
intelligent than the average one sat with during the trying half-
hour after dinner; but their conversation was fragmentary, and they
oddly suggested having left their personality at home and taken their
shell out to dinner. Betty also was interested to observe that their
composite expression was a curious mingling of fatigue, unselfishness,
and peremptoriness. "What does it mean?" she asked of Lady Mary, with
whom she stood apart for a moment.

"Oh, they are worked to death,--paying calls, entertaining, receiving
people on all sorts of business, and helping their husbands in various
ways. They have no time to be selfish,--rich or poor,--and they have
acquired the art of disposing of bores and detrimentals in short