her back on Roger, she smiled and beckoned to the
Under-Secretary, who with a triumphant face was making his way to her
through the crowd.

Roger coloured hotly. "May I bring Mrs. Maddison?" he said, passing her;
"she would like to talk to you about a party for next week----"

"Thank you. I am just going home." And with an energetic movement she
freed herself from him, and was soon in the gayest of talk with the
Under-Secretary.

* * * * *

The reception broke up some time after midnight, and on the way home
General Hobson attempted a raid upon his nephew's intentions.

"I don't wish to seem an intrusive person, my dear Roger, but may I ask
how much longer you mean to stay in Washington?"

The tone was short and the look which accompanied the words not without
sarcasm. Roger, who had been walking beside his companion, still deeply
flushed, in complete silence, gave an awkward laugh.

"And as for you, Uncle Archie, I thought you meant to sail a fortnight
ago. If you've been staying on like this on my account----"

"Don't make a fool either of me or yourself, Roger!" said the General
hastily, roused at last to speech by the annoyance of the situation. "Of
course it was on your account that I have stayed on. But what on earth
it all means, and where your affairs are--I'm hanged if I have the
glimmer of an idea!"

Roger's smile was perfectly good-humoured.

"I haven't much myself," he said quietly.

"Do you--or do you not--mean to propose to Miss Floyd?" cried the
General, pausing in the centre of Lafayette Square, now all but
deserted, and apostrophizing with his umbrella--for the night was soft
and rainy--the presidential statue above his head.

"Have I given you reason to suppose that I was going to do so?" said
Roger slowly.

"Given me?--given everybody reason?--of course you have!--a dozen times
over. I don't like interfering with your affairs, Roger--with any young
man's affairs--but you must know that you have set Washington talking,
and it's not fair to a girl--by George it isn't!--when she has given you
encouragement and you have made her conspicuous, to begin the same
story, in the same place, immediately, with someone else! As you say, I
ought to have taken myself off long ago."

"I didn't say anything of the kind," said Roger hotly; "you shouldn't
put words into my mouth, Uncle Archie. And I really don't see why you
attack me like this. My tutor particularly asked