f the cars
to see if they could catch a glimpse of whom they sought. Suddenly the
senator broke into a smile and waved his cane. The action was so unusual
for him that it looked grotesque. Margaret stood on tiptoe and waved her
hand, and a presentiment came to Aladdin and took away all his joy.

Peter Manners, looking fresh and clean in spite of his long, dusty ride,
got off the train and made a hilarious rush for his friends. He
shook hands with Margaret, then with the senator, and turned again to
Margaret. She was altogether too pretty, and much too glad to see him.
In the excitement of the moment it couldn't be borne, and he kissed her.
Then they both laughed, and the senator laughed, for he was glad. He put
his great hand on Manners' shoulder, and laughing and talking, the three
went to the carriage. Then the senator remembered that the checks had
been forgotten, and against a voluble protest he secured them from
Manners, and went after an expressman. Having found the expressman--one
of his constituents and a power in the town,--he handed him the checks,
a fifty-cent piece, and a ponderous joke as old as Xerxes, at which the
expressman roared. Manners stood by the carriage and looked at Margaret.
"Lord God," he thought, "it has come at last!" and they grinned at each
other.

"Mmm!" said Margaret, who stood for the glory that was Greece and the
grandeur that was Rome. She had not expected to be so glad to see him.

Meanwhile Aladdin had turned and was going home.

Margaret caught sight of his back, and the pitiful little droop in the
usually erect shoulders, and she divined like a flash, and called
after him. He pretended not to hear and went on. In his pocket was the
editor's letter which he had designed to show her. It had lain down and
died.

"Why does that man hate me so?" said Manners.

A little of the joy of meeting had gone. A cloud passed over the sun,
and the earth was darkened. Many drops of rain began to fall, each
making a distinct splash as it struck. One began to smell the disturbed
dust. But the flowers continued to send up their incense to heaven, and
Manners put his light overcoat about Margaret.

XI

Aladdin had a large acquaintance in the town among all sorts of men,
and, as he went home sorrowfully in the rain, he met a youth, older
than himself, who had an evil notoriety; for being born with brains, of
respectable people, and propitiously launched on the world, he had begun
in h