You don't mean to say that he is coming here?" asked Hamilton, in
disgust. "Who next?"

"Mr. Jefferson succumbed quite three weeks ago," said Mrs. Croix, gaily.
"He amuses me, and I am instilling the conviction that no human being
can force you to do anything you don't want to do, and that the sooner
he retreats gracefully the better."

Hamilton shrugged his shoulders and made no answer. He had ceased
remonstrance long since. If it pleased her to think she was fighting the
battles he was forced to fight with undiminished vigour himself, he
should be the last to interfere with her amusement. She was a born
intrigante, and would have been miserable freckling her complexion in
the open sunlight. He was too grateful to her at this time to risk a
quarrel, or to condemn her for any of her violations of masculine
standards. It was to her he poured out his wrath, after an encounter
with Jefferson which had roused him too viciously for reaction at
Washington's board or at his own. His wife he spared in every way. Not
only was her delicate health taxed to the utmost with social duties
which could not be avoided, the management of her household affairs, and
an absorbing and frequently ailing family, but he would have controlled
himself had he burst, before he would have terrified her with a glimpse
of passions of whose existence she had not a suspicion. To her and his
family he was ever the most amiable and indulgent of men, giving them
every spare moment he could command, and as delighted as a schoolboy
with a holiday, when he could spend an hour in the nursery, an evening
with his wife, or take a ramble through the woods with his boys. He took
a deep pride in his son Philip, directed his studies and habits, and was
as pleased with every evidence of his progress as had he seen Madison
riding a rail in a coat of tar and feathers. He coddled and petted the
entire family, particularly his little daughter Angelica, and they
adored him, and knew naught of his depths.

But Mrs. Croix knew them. In her management of Hamilton she made few
mistakes, passionately as she loved him. It was in her secluded presence
he stormed himself cool, was indignantly sympathized with first, then
advised, then soothed. He was made to understand that the more he
revealed the black and implacable deeps of his nature, the more was he
worshipped, the more keen the response from other and not dissimilar
deeps. His wife was necessary to him in many ways, his