But she had lost interest in the conversation.  She rid herself of Branch as speedily as the circumstances permitted.  She wished to be alone, to revolve the situation slowly from the new viewpoint which Branch, half-unconsciously and wholly reluctantly, had opened up.  She had lived a long time, had occupied a front bench overlooking one of the world’s chief arenas of action.  And, as she had an acute if narrow mind, she had learned to judge intelligently and to note those little signs that are, to the intelligent, the essentials, full of significance.  She had concealed her amazement from Branch, but amazed she was, less at his news of Craig as a personage full of potentiality than at her own failure, through the inexcusable, manlike stupidity of personal pique, to discern the real man behind his mannerisms.  “No wonder he has pushed so far, so fast,” reflected she; for she appreciated that in a man of action manners should always be a cloak behind which his real campaign forms.  It must be a fitting cloak, it should be a becoming one; But always a cloak.  “He fools everybody, apparently,” thought she.  “The results of his secret work alarm them; then, along he comes, with his braggart, offensive manners, his childish posings, his peacock vanity, and they are lulled into false security.  They think what he did was an accident that will not happen again.  Why, he fooled even me!”

That is always, with every human being, the supreme test, necessarily.  Usually it means nothing.  In this case of Cornelia Bowker it meant a great deal; for Cornelia Bowker was not easily fooled.  The few who appear in the arena of ambition with no game to play, with only sentiment and principle to further, the few who could easily have fooled her cynical, worldly wisdom could safely be disregarded.  She felt it was the part of good sense to look the young man over again, to make sure that the new light upon him was not false light.  “He may be a mere accident in spite of his remarkable successes,” thought she.  “The same number sometimes comes a dozen times in succession at roulette.”  She sent her handy man, secretary, social manager and organizer, mattre d’hotel, companion, scout, gossip, purveyor of comfort, J. Worthington Whitesides, to seek out Craig and to bring him before her forthwith.

As Mr. Whitesides was a tremendous swell, in dress, in manner and in accent, Craig was much impressed when he came into his office in the Department of Justice.  Whitesides’ manner, the result of Madam Bowker’s personal teaching, was one of his chief assets in maintaining and extending her social power.  It gave the greatest solemnity and dignity to a summons from her, filled the recipient with pleasure and with awe, prepared him or her to be duly impressed and in a frame of mind suitable to Madam Bowker’s purposes.

“I come from Madam Bowker,” he explained to Craig, humbly conscious of his own disarray and toiler’s unkemptness.  “She would be greatly obliged if you will give her a few minutes of your time.  She begs you to excuse the informality.  She has sent me in her carriage, and it will be a great satisfaction to her if you will accompany me.”