opportunity it would enclose, were it
unsigned."

"Oh, sign it!" said Troup, wildly. He set his heel on the manuscript,
and looked tentatively at Hamilton. He knew the meaning of the
expression he encountered, and removed his heel. It was months since he
had seen the gay sparkle in Hamilton's eyes, humour and sweetness
curving his mouth. When Hamilton's mouth was not as hard as iron, it
relaxed to cynicism or contempt. He was so thin that the prominence of
the long line from ear to chin and of the high hard nose, with its
almost rigid nostrils, would have made him look more old Roman coin than
man, had it not been for eyes like molten steel. "Politics and
ambition!" thought Troup. "What might not the world be without them?"

"Let us change the subject," he said. "I hear that Mrs. Croix makes a
convert an hour from Federalism to Democracy. That is the estimate. And
a small and select band know that she does it in the hope of hastening
your ruin. I must say, Hamilton, that as far as women are concerned, you
are punished far beyond your deserts. There is hardly a man in public
life who has not done as much, or worse, but the world is remarkably
uninterested, and the press finds any other news more thrilling. The
Reynolds woman is probably responsible for many remorseful twinges in
the breasts of eminent patriots, but your name alone is given to the
public. As for Mrs. Croix, I don't suppose that any mere mortal has ever
resisted her, but if any other man has regretted it, history is silent.
What do you suppose is the reason?"

Hamilton would not discuss Mrs. Croix, but he had long since ceased to
waste breath in denial. He made no reply.

"Do you know my theory?" said Troup, turning upon him suddenly. "It is
this. You are so greatly endowed that more is expected of you than of
other men. You were fashioned to make history; to give birth, not for
your own personal good, but for the highest good of a nation, to the
greatest achievement of which the human mind is capable. Therefore, when
you trip and stumble like any fool among us, when you act like a mere
mortal with no gigantic will and intellect to lift him to the heights
and keep him there, some power in the unseen universe is infuriated, and
you pay the price with compound interest. It will be the same with that
thing on the floor. If you could be sure that it would never fall into
the hands of a Jacobin, even then it would be a mistake to print it, for
it is mainly