or what passes for such, in an era of
frank commercialism. Inheriting her mother's rare beauty of face and form,
and uniting with it a sympathetic gift in grasp of detail, political and
other, she soon became her father's confidante and loyal partizan, taking
the place, as a daughter might, of the ambitious young wife and mother,
who had set her heart on seeing the Van Brock name on the roll of the
United States Senate.

Rensselaer Van Brock had died before the senatorial dream could be
realized, but not before he had made a sufficient number of lucky
investments to leave his daughter the arbitress of her own future. What
that future should be, not even Loring could guess. Since her father's
death Miss Van Brock had been a citizen of the world. With a widowed aunt
for the shadowiest of chaperons, she had drifted with the tide of
inclination, coming finally to rest in the western capital for no better
reason, perhaps, than that some portion of her interest-bearing securities
were emblazoned with the great seal of this particular western State.

Kent was thinking of Loring's recountal as he stood looking down on her.
Other women were younger--and with features more conventionally beautiful;
Kent could find a round dozen within easy eye-reach, to say nothing of the
calm-eyed, queenly _improvisatrice_ at the piano--his constant standard of
all womanly charm and grace. Unconsciously he fell to comparing the two,
his hostess and his love, and was brought back to things present by a
sharp reminder from Portia.

"Stop looking at Miss Brentwood that way, Mr. David. She is not for you;
and you are keeping me waiting."

He smiled down on her.

"It is the law of compensation. I fancy you have kept many a man
waiting--and will keep many another."

There was a little tang of bitterness in her laugh.

"You remind me of the time when I went home from school--oh, years and
years ago. Old Chloe--she was my black mammy, you know--had a grown
daughter of her own, and her effort to dispose of her 'M'randy' was a
standing joke in the family. In answer to my stereotyped question she
stood back and folded her arms. 'Naw, honey; dat M'randy ain't ma'ied yit.
She gwine be des lak you; look pretty, an' say, _Howdy! Misteh Jawnson_,
an' go 'long by awn turrer side de road.'"

"A very pretty little fable," said Kent. "And the moral?"

"Is that I amuse myself with you--all of you; and in your turn you make
use of me--or you think you do.