put in, smiling.

"The same chairs, the same brown prints on the wall. And that little
vase, isn't it the one you had on your desk that day?" she asked,
bending forward to look at it more closely.

"The very same. You put a rose into it that day, do you remember?"

"No, but I do remember that I was in love with you, John. A woman of
sixty may admit that now!" she laughed.

"I wish you had admitted it then. I tried hard enough to win you, Susan.
We should have been a team!"

"No, we should not. We are both headstrong. We should have obstructed
each other. I married the right man."

"I suppose so. Certainly you never could have henpecked me into Congress
the way you did Jim Walton! Why did you do it?" he asked, showing the
ends of a sword smile as he regarded her.

"Well, you see I couldn't go myself," she laughed.

"So you sent your husband, next best thing."

"It wasn't so bad. I helped him, you know."

"Wrote all his speeches, kicked up all of his dust for him, didn't you?"

"Not all, but I helped."

"With your scrapbooks, for example?"

"Yes," she admitted.

"If you had been a man, Susan, you'd not have survived some of the
things you've said and done."

"If I'd had the rights you men keep from us I'd never have done them!"
she retorted quickly.

"I don't know," he replied, wagging his head and smiling. "Having
rights, including the ballot, would not change the nature of a woman!
Tell me, Susan, have I escaped the scrapbooks? I've wondered many times
if you were keeping record of me, too."

"You never did--anything I could put in. And if you had----" she
hesitated.

"Would you have pasted it down against me?" he finished.

"I don't know. I'm glad I wasn't tempted. How have you kept yourself so
aloof all these years, John--so far above the furious issues of our
times?"

"Not above, not above, my dear," he objected; "I've been busy. The law
is a legal profession, not an illegal one, like politics."

They looked at each other and laughed, then the Judge added:

"And it may be I was afraid of your famous scrapbooks!"

"You were never afraid of anything," she returned.

"Yes, I am. I'm afraid of something now," he answered, flipping the
pages of some papers which lay upon his desk. "I'm an old man holding in
my hands a fuse which I must light presently, and I dread the
consequences."

"What are you talking about?" she exclaimed, leaning forward and staring
at him in faint alarm as if she di