“You will write, dear, the moment you get there, will you not?  I am so afraid of accidents,” she had said.

“Why, I will telegraph, sweet,” he had replied, quite gayly.

“Will you?  Telegraph?  I never had that sort of a message.”  It seemed a very wonderful thing that he should use the public wire for this purpose, and she looked at him with new admiration.

“Are you timid about the train?” he asked.

“No.  I never think of it.  I never thought of it for myself; but this is different.”

“Oh, I see.”  He put his arm round her and looked down into her eyes.  This was a humorous suggestion to him, who spent half his time on the trains.  “I think I’ll take out an accident policy.”

“Don’t say that.  But you men are so reckless.  Promise you won’t stand on the platform, and won’t get off while the train is in motion, and all the rest of the directions,” she said, laughing a little with him; “and you will be careful?”

“I’ll take such care of myself as I never did before, I promise.  I never felt of so much consequence in my life.”

“You’ll think me silly.  But you know, don’t you, dear?” She put a hand on each shoulder, and pushing him back, studied his face.  “You are all the world.  And only to think, day before yesterday, I didn’t think of the trains at all.”

To have one look like that from a woman!  To carry it with him!  Henderson still forgot to light his cigar.

“Hello, Rodney!”

“Ah, Hollowell!  I thought you were in Kansas City.”

The new-comer was a man of middle age, thick set, with rounded shoulders, deep chest, heavy neck, iron-gray hair close cut, gray whiskers cropped so as to show his strong jaw, blue eyes that expressed at once resolution and good-nature.

“Well, how’s things?  Been up to fix the Legislature?”

“No; Perkins is attending to that,” said Henderson, rather indifferently, like a man awakened out of a pleasant dream.  “Don’t seem to need much fixing.  The public are fond of parallels.”

Hollowell laughed.  “I guess that’s so—­till they get ’em.”

“Or don’t get them,” Henderson added.  And then both laughed.

“It looks as if it would go through this time.  Bemis says the C. D.’s badly scared.  They’ll have to come down lively.”

“I shouldn’t wonder.  By-the-way, look in tomorrow.  I’ve got something to show you.”

Henderson lit his cigar, and they both puffed in silence for some moments.

“By-the-way, did I ever show you this?” Hollowell took from his breast-pocket a handsome morocco case, and handed it to his companion.  “I never travel without that.  It’s better than an accident policy.”

Henderson unfolded the case, and saw seven photographs—­a showy-looking handsome woman in lace and jewels, and six children, handsome like their mother, the whole group with the photographic look of prosperity.