expect him,
to his chauffeur to be on hand. He never had to tell her a thing twice,
nor did she interrupt--as Miss Ottway sometimes had done--the processes
of his thought. Without realizing it he fell into the habit of listening
for the inflections of her voice, and though he had never lacked the
power of making decisions, she somehow made these easier for him
especially if, a human equation were involved.

He had, at least, the consolation--if it were one--of reflecting that his
reputation was safe, that there would be no scandal, since two are
necessary to make the kind of scandal he had always feared, and Miss
Bumpus, apparently, had no intention of being the second party. Yet she
was not virtuous, as he had hitherto defined the word. Of this he was
sure. No woman who moved about as she did, who had such an effect on him,
who had on occasions, though inadvertently, returned the lightning of his
glances, whose rare laughter resembled grace notes, and in whose hair was
that almost imperceptible kink, could be virtuous. This instinctive
conviction inflamed him. For the first time in his life he began to doubt
the universal conquering quality of his own charms,--and when such a
thing happens to a man like Ditmar he is in danger of hell-fire. He
indulged less and less in the convivial meetings and excursions that
hitherto had given him relaxation and enjoyment, and if his cronies
inquired as to the reasons for his neglect of them he failed to answer
with his usual geniality.

"Everything going all right up at the mills, Colonel?" he was asked one
day by Mr. Madden, the treasurer of a large shoe company, when they met
on the marble tiles of the hall in their Boston club.

"All right. Why?"

"Well," replied Madden, conciliatingly, "you seem kind of preoccupied,
that's all. I didn't know but what the fifty-four hour bill the
legislature's just put through might be worrying you."

"We'll handle that situation when the time comes," said Ditmar. He
accepted a gin rickey, but declined rather curtly the suggestion of a
little spree over Sunday to a resort on the Cape which formerly he would
have found enticing. On another occasion he encountered in the lobby of
the Parker House a more intimate friend, Chester Sprole, sallow,
self-made, somewhat corpulent, one of those lawyers hail fellows well met
in business circles and looked upon askance by the Brahmins of their
profession; more than half politician, he had been in Congr