She shook her head impatiently.  “I’m tired.  I don’t like walking.”

“Well, I reckon it’s easier to sit anyway.  We’ll go inside.”

“No, if I’ve got to talk to you I’d rather do it out of doors,” she replied, turning back toward the gate.

“That’s right.  The air’s fine.  I shouldn’t wonder if the bad weather ain’t all over.”

“I don’t mind the bad weather,” she retorted pettishly because it was the only remark she could think of that sounded disagreeable.

They passed through the gate, and walked rapidly in the direction of the Washington monument, which lifted a splendid silhouette against a deep blue background of sky.  It was one of those soft, opal-tinted February days which fall like a lyric interlude in the gray procession of winter.  The sunshine lay like flowing gold on the pavement; and the breeze that stirred now and then in the leafless boughs of the trees was as roving and provocative as the air of spring.  In the winding brick walks of the Square children were at play with the squirrels and pigeons; and old men, with gnarled hands and patient hopeless faces, sat warming themselves in the sunshine on the benches.  “Life!” she thought.  “That’s life.  You can’t get away from it.”  Then one of the old men broke into a cackle of cheerful laughter, and she added:  “After all nobody is ever pathetic to himself.”

“I believe I’ll go in,” she said, turning to Gershom.  “I want to take off my hat.”

He laughed.  “Your hat’s all right, ain’t it?  It looks pretty good to me.”

A shiver of aversion ran through her.  If only he wouldn’t try to be funny!  If only he had been born without that dreadful sense of humour, she felt that she might have been able to tolerate him.

“Please don’t,” she replied fretfully.

“Well, I won’t, if you’ll walk a little slower.  I told you I had something to say to you.”

“I don’t want to hear it.  There’s no use talking about it.  I’ll say the same thing if you ask me for a hundred years.”

A chuckle broke from him while he stood jauntily fingering the diamond in his tie, as if it were some talisman which imparted fresh confidence.  Oh, it was useless to try to put a man like that in his place—­for his place seemed to be everywhere!

“Well, it won’t do any harm,” he said at last.  “As long as I like to listen to it.”

“I wish you would leave me alone.”

“But suppose I can’t?” He was still chaffing.  He would continue to chaff, she was convinced, if he were dying.  “Suppose I ain’t made that way?”

“I don’t care how you’re made.  You may talk to Father if you like; but I’m going upstairs to take off my hat.”

His chuckle swelled into a roar of laughter.  “Talk to Father!  Haven’t I been talking to Father over at the Capitol for the last three hours?”