en dwarf the lonely
central figure that had so lately touched him! He wanted to escape it
all!

But his fate brought him to the entrance at the same moment that
Boompointer was leaving it, and that distinguished man brushed hastily
by him as a gorgeous carriage, drawn by two spirited horses, and driven
by a resplendent negro coachman, dashed up. It was the Boompointer
carriage.

A fashionably-dressed, pretty woman, who, in style, bearing, opulent
contentment, and ingenuous self-consciousness, was in perfect keeping
with the slight ostentation of the equipage, was its only occupant. As
Boompointer stepped into the vehicle, her blue eyes fell for an instant
on Brant. A happy, childlike pink flush came into her cheeks, and a
violet ray of recognition and mischief darted from her eyes to his. For
it was Susy.

CHAPTER II.

When Brant returned to his hotel there was an augmented respect in the
voice of the clerk as he handed him a note with the remark that it had
been left by Senator Boompointer's coachman. He had no difficulty in
recognizing Susy's peculiarly Brobdingnagian school-girl hand.

"Kla'uns, I call it real mean! I believe you just HOPED I wouldn't know
you. If you're a bit like your old self you'll come right off here--this
very night! I've got a big party on--but we can talk somewhere between
the acts! Haven't I growed? Tell me! And my! what a gloomy swell the
young brigadier is! The carriage will come for you--so you have no
excuse."

The effect of this childish note upon Brant was strangely out of
proportion to its triviality. But then it was Susy's very triviality--so
expressive of her characteristic irresponsibility--which had always
affected him at such moments. Again, as at Robles, he felt it react
against his own ethics. Was she not right in her delightful materialism?
Was she not happier than if she had been consistently true to Mrs.
Peyton, to the convent, to the episode of her theatrical career, to Jim
Hooker--even to himself? And did he conscientiously believe that Hooker
or himself had suffered from her inconsistency? No! From all that he
had heard, she was a suitable helpmate to the senator, in her social
attractiveness, her charming ostentations, her engaging vanity
that disarmed suspicion, and her lack of responsibility even in her
partisanship. Nobody ever dared to hold the senator responsible for her
promises, even while enjoying the fellowship of both, and it is
said that the