And Jack went.  What hold had this woman on him?  Undoubtedly she had fascinations, but he knew—­knew well enough by this time—­that her friendship was based wholly on calculation.  And yet what a sympathetic comrade she could be!  How freely he could talk with her; there was no subject she did not adapt herself to.  No doubt it was this adaptability that made her such a favorite.  She did not demand too much virtue or require too much conventionality.  The hours he was with her he was wholly at his ease.  She made him satisfied with himself, and she didn’t disturb his conscience.

“I think,” said Jack—­he was holding both her hands with a swinging motion—­when she came forward to greet him, and looking at her critically—­“I think I like you better in New York than in Washington.”

“That is because you see more of me here.”

“Oh, I saw you enough in Washington.”

“But that was my public manner.  I have to live up to Mr. Henderson’s reputation.”

“And here you only have to live up to mine?”

“I can live for my friends,” she replied, with an air of candor, giving a very perceptible pressure with her little hands.  “Isn’t that enough?”

Jack kissed each little hand before he let it drop, and looked as if he believed.

“And how does the house get on?”

“Famously.  The lot is bought.  Mr. Van Brunt was here all the morning.  It’s going to be something Oriental, mediaeval, nineteenth-century, gorgeous, and domestic.  Van Brunt says he wants it to represent me.”

“How?” inquired Jack; “all the four facades different?”

“With an interior unity—­all the styles brought to express an individual taste, don’t you know.  A different house from the four sides of approach, and inside, home—­that’s the idea.”

“It appears to me,” said Jack, still bantering, “that it will look like an apartment-house.”

“That is just what it will not—­that is, outside unity, and inside a menagerie.  This won’t look gregarious.  It is to have not more than three stories, perhaps only two.  And then exterior color, decoration, statuary.”

“And gold?”

“Not too much—­not to give it a cheap gilded look.  Oh, I asked him about Nero’s house.  As I remember it, that was mostly caverns.  Mr. Van Brunt laughed, and said they were not going to excavate this house.  The Roman notion was barbarous grandeur.  But in point of beauty and luxury, this would be as much superior to Nero’s house as the electric light is to a Roman lamp.”

“Not classic, then?”

“Why, all that’s good in classic form, with the modern spirit.  You ought to hear Mr. Van Brunt talk.  This country has never yet expressed itself in domestic inhabitation.”

“It’s going to cost!  What does Mr. Henderson say?”

“I think he rather likes it.  He told Mr. Van Brunt to consult me and go ahead with his plans.  But he talks queerly.  He said he thought he would have money enough at least for the foundation.  Do you think, Jack,” asked Carmen, with a sudden change of manner, “that Mr. Henderson is really the richest man in the United States?”