He accompanied her gravely to the carriage.  As it rolled away, she buried her little figure in its ample cushions and chuckled to herself, albeit a little hysterically.  When she had reached her destination, she found herself crying, and hastily, and somewhat angrily, dried her eyes as she drew up at the door of her lodgings.

“How have you prospered?” asked Mr. Harlowe, of counsel for Royal Thatcher, as he gallantly assisted her from the carriage.  “I have been waiting here for two hours; your interview must have been prolonged,—­that was a good sign.”

“Don’t ask me now,” said Carmen, a little savagely, “I’m worn out and tired.”

Mr. Harlowe bowed.  “I trust you will be better to-morrow, for we expect our friend, Mr. Thatcher.”

Carmen’s brown cheek flushed slightly.  “He should have been here before.  Where is he?  What was he doing?”

“He was snowed up on the plains.  He is coming as fast as steam can carry him; but he may be too late.”

Carmen did not reply.

The lawyer lingered.  “How did you find the great New-England Senator?” he asked with a slight professional levity.

Carmen was tired, Carmen was worried, Carmen was a little self-reproachful, and she kindled easily.  Consequently she said icily: 

“I found him A gentleman!”

CHAPTER XV

HOW IT BECAME UNFINISHED BUSINESS

The closing of the ——­ Congress was not unlike the closing of the several preceding Congresses.  There was the same unbusiness-like, impractical haste; the same hurried, unjust, and utterly inadequate adjustment of unfinished, ill-digested business, that would not have been tolerated for a moment by the sovereign people in any private interest they controlled.  There were frauds rushed through; there were long-suffering, righteous demands shelved; there were honest, unpaid debts dishonored by scant appropriations; there were closing scenes which only the saving sense of American humor kept from being utterly vile.  The actors, the legislators themselves, knew it, and laughed at it; the commentators, the Press, knew it and laughed at it; the audience, the great American people, knew it and laughed at it.  And nobody for an instant conceived that it ever, under any circumstances, might be otherwise.

The claim of Roscommon was among the Unfinished Business.  The claimant himself, haggard, pathetic, importunate, and obstinate, was among the Unfinished Business.  Various Congressmen, more or less interested in the success of the claim, were among the Unfinished Business.  The member from Fresno, who had changed his derringer for a speech against the claimant, was among the Unfinished Business.  The gifted Gashwiler, uneasy in his soul over certain other Unfinished Business in the shape of his missing letters, but dropping oil and honey as he mingled with his brothers, was King of