e North. He had forgiven
her outrageous indictment of his caste and his associates for the sake
of the imperious but handsome lips that uttered it. But when he was
compelled to listen to her words echoed and repeated by her friends and
family; when he found that with the clannishness of her race she had
drawn closer to them in this controversy,--that she depended upon them
for her intelligence and information rather than upon him,--he had
awakened to the reality of his situation. He had borne the allusions
of her brother, whose old scorn for his dependent childhood had been
embittered by his sister's marriage and was now scarcely concealed. Yet,
while he had never altered his own political faith and social creed
in this antagonistic atmosphere, he had often wondered, with his old
conscientiousness and characteristic self-abnegation, whether his own
political convictions were not merely a revulsion from his domestic
tyranny and alien surroundings.

In the midst of this gloomy retrospect the coupe stopped with a jerk
before his own house. The door was quickly opened by a servant, who
appeared to be awaiting him.

"Some one to see you in the library, sir," said the man, "and"--He
hesitated and looked towards the coupe.

"Well?" said Clarence impatiently.

"He said, sir, as how you were not to send away the carriage."

"Indeed, and who is it?" demanded Clarence sharply.

"Mr. Hooker. He said I was to say Jim Hooker."

The momentary annoyance in Clarence's face changed to a look of
reflective curiosity.

"He said he knew you were at the theatre, and he would wait until you
came home," continued the man, dubiously watching his master's face. "He
don't know you've come in, sir, and--and I can easily get rid of him."

"No matter now. I'll see him, and," added Clarence, with a faint smile,
"let the carriage wait."

Yet, as he turned towards the library he was by no means certain that
an interview with the old associate of his boyhood under Judge Peyton's
guardianship would divert his mind. Yet he let no trace of his doubts
nor of his past gloom show in his face as he entered the room.

Mr. Hooker was apparently examining the elegant furniture and luxurious
accommodation with his usual resentful enviousness. Clarence had got a
"soft thing." That it was more or less the result of his "artfulness,"
and that he was unduly "puffed up" by it, was, in Hooker's
characteristic reasoning, equally clear. As his host smilingly