“Sounded true,” suggested Grant.

“Not at all.  Nobody really cares anything about the people, not even themselves.  No, it sounded as if he had at least half-convinced himself, while the others showed they were lying outright.  We rather liked him—­at the safe distance of half the hall.  He’s the kind of man that suggests—­menageries—­lions—­ danger if the bars break.”

“How women do like that in a man!”

“Do you know him?”

“Through and through.  He’s a fraud, of course, like all politicians.  But beneath the fraud there’s a man—­I think—­a great, big man, strong and sure of himself—­which is what can’t be said of many of us who wear trousers and pose as lords of creation.”

The girl seemed to have ceased to listen, was apparently watching the dancers, Arkwright continued to gaze at his friend, to admire the impressive, if obviously posed, effect of his handsome head and shoulders.  He smiled with a tender expression, as one smiles at the weakness of those one loves.  Suddenly he said:  “By Jove, Rita—­just the thing!”

“What?” asked the girl, resuming the languid waving of her eagle fan.

“Marry him—­marry Josh Craig.  He’ll not make much money out of politics.  I doubt if even a woman could corrupt him that far.  But you could take him out of politics and put him in the law.  He could roll it up there.  The good lawyers sell themselves dear nowadays, and he’d make a killing.”

“This sounds interesting.”

“It’s a wonder I hadn’t thought of it before.”

The girl gave a curious, quiet smile.  “I had,” said she.

“You had!” exclaimed Arkwright.

“A woman always keeps a careful list of eligibles,” explained she.  “As Lucy Burke told me he was headed for Washington, I put him on my list that very night—­well down toward the bottom, but, still, on it.  I had quite forgotten him until to-night.”

Arkwright was staring at her.  Her perfect frankness, absolute naturalness with him, unreserved trust of him, gave him a guilty feeling for the bitter judgment on her character which he had secretly formed as the result of her confidences.  “Yet, really,” thought he, “she’s quite the nicest girl I know, and the cleverest.  If she had hid herself from me, as the rest do, I’d never for one instant have suspected her of having so much—­so much—­calm, good sense—­for that’s all it amounts to.”  He decided it was a mistake for any human being in any circumstances to be absolutely natural and unconcealingly candid.  “We’re such shallow fakers,” reflected he, “that if any one confesses to us things not a tenth part as bad as what we privately think and do, why, we set him—­or her—­especially her—­down as a living, breathing atrocity in pants or petticoats.”