“Mr. Hollowell has been here,” she said, when Henderson returned.

“Old Jerry?  He is a character.”

“Do you trust him?”

“It never occurred to me.  Yes, I suppose so, as far as his interests go.  He isn’t a bad sort of fellow—­very long-headed.”

“Dear,” said Margaret, with hesitation, “I wish you didn’t have anything to do with such men.”

“Why, dearest?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  You needn’t laugh.  It rather lets one down; and it isn’t like you.”

Henderson laughed aloud now.  “But you needn’t associate with Hollowell.  We men cannot pick our companions in business and politics.  It needs all sorts to keep the world going.”

“Then I’d rather let it stop,” Margaret said.

“And sell out at auction?” he cried, with a look of amusement.

“But aren’t Mr. Morgan and Mr. Fairchild business men?”

“Yes—­of the old-fashioned sort.  The fact—­is, Margaret, you’ve got a sort of preserve up in Brandon, and you fancy that the world is divided into sheep and goats.  It’s a great mistake.  There is no such division.  Every man almost is both a sheep and a goat.”

“I don’t believe it, Rodney.  You are neither.”  She came close to him, and taking the collar of his coat in each hand, gave him a little shake, and looking up into his face with quizzical affection, asked, “What is your business here?”

Henderson stooped down and kissed her forehead, and tenderly lifted the locks of her brown hair.  “You wouldn’t understand, sweet, if I told you.”

“You might try.”

“Well, there’s a man here from Fort Worth who wants us to buy a piece of railroad, and extend it, and join it with Hollowell’s system, and open up a lot of new country.”

“And isn’t it a good piece of road?”

“Yes; that’s the trouble.  The owners want to keep it to themselves, and prevent the general development.  But we shall get it.”

“It isn’t anything like wrecking, is it, dear?”

“Do you think we would want to wreck our own property?”

“But what has Congress to do with it?”

“Oh, there’s a land grant.  But some of the members who were not in the Congress that voted it say that it is forfeited.”

In this fashion the explanation went on.  Margaret loved to hear her husband talk, and to watch the changing expression of his face, and he explained about this business until she thought he was the sweetest fellow in the world.

The Morgans had arrived at the same hotel, and Margaret went about with them in the daytime, while Henderson was occupied.  It was like a breath of home to be with them, and their presence, reviving that old life, gave a new zest to the society spectacle, to the innocent round of entertainments, which more and more absorbed her.  Besides, it was very interesting to have Mr. Morgan’s point of view of Washington, and to see the shifting panorama through his experience.  He had been very much in the city in former years, but he came less and less now, not because it was less beautiful or attractive in a way, but because it had lost for him a certain charm it once had.