“What, after I had known you?” She gave him a reproachful glance.  “And you were so cruel to me—­as soon as you had made your little Nettie jealous you cared for me no longer.  Look what I’ve declined to!” She indicated Jim Shore, leaning disconsolately against the cornice, chewing his moustache.  “Now don’t give him your place unless you really want to; well, if you’re tired of me already—­thank you ever so much, and I am proud of you to-night, Billy!”

Her lustrous eyes dwelt on him lingeringly as he left her; he smiled back into them.  The lines around her mouth were a little hard; she reminded him indefinably of “She;” but she was a handsome woman, and he had enjoyed the encounter.  The sight of her brought back so vividly the springtime of life; his hopes, the pangs of love, the joy that was his when Nettie was won; he felt an overpowering throb of tenderness for the wife at home who had been his early dream.

The last speeches were over, but Mr. William Belden’s triumph had not ended.  As the acknowledged orator of the evening he had an ovation afterward; introductions and unlimited hand-shakings were in order.

He was asked to speak at a select political dinner the next week; to speak for the hospital fund; to speak for the higher education of woman.  Led by a passing remark of Henry Belden’s to infer that his cousin was a whist player of parts, a prominent social magnate at once invited him to join the party at his house on one of their whist evenings.

“My wife, er—­will have great pleasure in calling on Mrs. Belden,” said the magnate.  “We did not know that we had a good whist player among us.  This evening has indeed been a revelation in many ways—­in many ways.  You would have no objection to taking a prominent part in politics, if you were called upon?  A reform mayor is sadly needed in our city—­sadly needed.  Your connection with Judge Belden would give great weight to any proposition of that kind.  But, of course, all this is in the future.”

Mr. Belden heard his name whispered in another direction, in connection with the cashiership of the new bank which was to be built.  The cashiership and the mayoralty might be nebulous honors, but it was sweet, for once, to be recognized for what he was—­man of might; a man of talent, and of honor.

There was a hurried rush for the train at the last on the part of the visitors.  Mr. William Belden snatched his mackintosh from the peg whereon it had hung throughout the evening, and went with the crowd, talking and laughing in buoyant exuberance of spirits.  The night had cleared, the moon was rising, and poured a flood of light upon the wet streets.  It was a different world from the one he had traversed earlier in the evening.  He walked home with Miss Wakeman’s exaggeratedly tender “Good-by, dear Billy!” ringing in his ears, to provoke irrepressible smiles.  The pulse of a free life, where men lived instead of vegetating, was in his veins.  His footstep gave forth a ringing sound from the pavement; he felt himself stalwart, alert, his brain rejoicing in its sense of power.  It was even with no sense of guilt that he heard the church clocks striking twelve as he reached the house where his wife had been awaiting his return for four hours.