Jessie and she knew it. She wiped the sweat from her face and stammered: "I hope we'll suit each other, Miss—" In her embarrassment she had forgotten my name.

[Pg 17]

"Talltowers," whispered Jessie with a side-splitting look of tragic apology to me. Just then the clock in the corner struck out the half-hour from its cathedral bell—the sound echoed and reëchoed through me, for it marked the beginning of my "career." Jessie went on more[Pg 18] loudly: "And now that our business is settled, can't we have some lunch, Mrs. Burke? I'm starved."

[Pg 18]

Mrs. Burke brightened. "The Senator won't be here to-day," she drawled, in a tone which always suggests to me that, after all, life is a smooth, leisurely matter with plenty of time for everything except work. "As he was leaving for the Capitol this morning, he says to me, says he: 'You women had better fight it out alone.'"

"The dear Senator!" said Jessie. "He's so clever?"

"Yes, he is mighty clever with those he likes," replied Mrs. Burke—Jessie looking at me to make sure I would note Mrs. Burke's "provincial" way of using the word clever.

Jessie saved the luncheon—or, at least, thought she was saving it. Mrs. Burke[Pg 19] and I had only to listen and eat. I caught her looking at me several times, and then I saw shrewdness in her eyes—good-natured, but none the less penetrating for that. And I knew I should like her, and should get on with her. At last our eyes met and we both smiled. After that she somehow seemed less crowded and foreign in her tight, fine clothes. I saw she was impatient for Jessie to go the moment luncheon was over, but it was nearly three o'clock before we were left alone together. There fell an embarrassed silence—for both of us were painfully conscious that nothing had really been settled.

[Pg 19]

"When do you wish me to come—if you do wish it at all?" I asked, by way of making a beginning.

"When do you think you could come?" she inquired nervously.

[Pg 20]"Then you do wish to give me a trial? I hope you won't feel that Mrs. Carteret's precipitate way binds you."

[Pg 20]

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