which I almost admire.  He has persuaded both the Livingstons and the Clintons that here is their chance to pull you down, and he is only too willing to be the instrument—­the wretched little mole!  I shall hate myself to-morrow for telling you this, for God knows I am loyal to my people, but I have watched you go up—­up—­up.  I should feel like your mother would if I saw you in the dust.  I am afraid it is too late to do anything now.  These two hostile parties will not let slip this chance.  But get Burr under your foot when you can, and keep him there.  He is morbid with jealousy and will live to pull you down.”

“My dear girl,” exclaimed Hamilton, who was holding her hand between both his own, “do not let your imagination run away with you.  I am very well with Burr, and he is jealous by fits and starts only.  Why in the name of heaven should he be jealous?  He has never given a thought to the welfare of the country, and I have devoted myself to the subject since boyhood.  If I reap the reward—­and God knows the future is precarious enough—­why should he grudge me a power for which he has never striven?  I know him to be ambitious, and I believe him to be unscrupulous, and for that reason I have been glad that he has hitherto kept out of politics; for he would be of no service to the country, would not hesitate to sacrifice it to his own ends—­unless I am a poor student of character.  But as to personal enmity against me, or jealousy because I occupy a position he has never sought,—­and he is a year older than I, remember,—­I find that hard to believe, as well as this other; he is not powerful enough to unite two such factions.”

“He has a tongue as persuasive from its cunning as yours is in its impetuosity, and he has convinced greater men than himself of his usefulness.  Believe me, Alexander, I speak of what I know, not of what I suspect.  Accept the fact, if you will not be warned.  You always underrate your enemies.  Your confidence in your own genius—­a confidence which so much has occurred to warrant—­blinds you to the power of others.  Remember the old adage:  Pride goeth before a fall—­although I despise the humble myself; the world owes nothing to them.  But I have often trembled for the time when your high-handed methods and your scorn of inferior beings would knock the very foundations from under your feet.  Now, I will say no more, and we part for ever.  Perhaps if you had not worn that colour to-night, I should not have betrayed my family—­heaven knows!  We women are compounded of so many contradictory motives.  Thank your heaven that you men are not half so complex.”

“My dear friend,” said Hamilton, drily, “you women are not half so complex as men.  You may lay claim to a fair share because your intelligence is above the average, but that is the point—­complexity is a matter of intelligence, and as men are, as a rule, far more intelligent than women, with far more densely furnished brains—­”