“But I’ve told you that my career—­nay, my life—­now is in the field.”

“Don’t you be a fool, Kla’uns, and leave it there!  You have done your work of fighting—­mighty good fighting, too,—­and everybody knows it.  You’ve earned a change.  Let others take your place.”

He shuddered, as he remembered that his wife had made the same appeal.  Was he a fool then, and these two women—­so totally unlike in everything—­right in this?

“Come, Kla’uns,” said Susy, relapsing again against his shoulder.  “Now talk to me!  You don’t say what you think of me, of my home, of my furniture, of my position—­even of him!  Tell me!”

“I find you well, prosperous, and happy,” he said, with a faint smile.

“Is that all?  And how do I look?”

She turned her still youthful, mischievous face towards him in the moonlight.  The witchery of her blue eyes was still there as of old, the same frank irresponsibility beamed from them; her parted lips seemed to give him back the breath of his youth.  He started, but she did not.

“Susy, dear!”

It was her husband’s voice.

“I quite forgot,” the Senator went on, as he drew the curtain aside, “that you are engaged with a friend; but Miss Faulkner is waiting to say good-night, and I volunteered to find you.”

“Tell her to wait a moment,” said Susy, with an impatience that was as undisguised as it was without embarrassment or confusion.

But Miss Faulkner, unconsciously following Mr. Boompointer, was already upon them.  For a moment the whole four were silent, although perfectly composed.  Senator Boompointer, unconscious of any infelicity in his interruption, was calmly waiting.  Clarence, opposed suddenly to the young girl whom he believed was avoiding his recognition, rose, coldly imperturbable.  Miss Faulkner, looking taller and more erect in the long folds of her satin cloak, neither paled nor blushed, as she regarded Susy and Brant with a smile of well-bred apology.

“I expect to leave Washington to-morrow, and may not be able to call again,” she said, “or I would not have so particularly pressed a leave-taking upon you.”

“I was talking with my old friend, General Brant,” said Susy, more by way of introduction than apology.

Brant bowed.  For an instant the clear eyes of Miss Faulkner slipped icily across his as she made him an old-fashioned Southern courtesy, and, taking Susy’s arm, she left the room.  Brant did not linger, but took leave of his host almost in the same breath.  At the front door a well-appointed carriage of one of the Legations had just rolled into waiting.  He looked back; he saw Miss Faulkner, erect and looking like a bride in her gauzy draperies, descending the stairs before the waiting servants.  He felt his heart beat strangely.  He hesitated, recalled himself with an effort, hurriedly stepped from the porch into the path, as he heard the carriage door close behind him in the distance, and then felt the dust from her horse’s hoofs rise around him as she drove past him and away.