eresting. Nor should I make even a passing allusion to
it, were it not for its political ultimates. A couple of blackmailers
laid a trap for the Secretary of the Treasury, and he walked into it, as
the wisest of men have done before and since, when the woman has been
sufficiently attractive at the right moment. This woman was common and
sordid, but she was young and handsome, and her affectation of violent
attachment, if ungrammatical, was plausible enough to convince any man
accustomed to easy conquest; and the most astute of men, provided his
passions be strong enough, can be fooled by any woman at once designing
and seductive. Ardent susceptibility was in the very essence of
Hamilton, with Scotland and France in his blood, the West Indies the
mould of his youthful being, and the stormy inheritance of his parents.

But although Hamilton might succumb to a woman of Mrs. Reynold's type,
she could not hold him. After liberally relieving the alleged pecuniary
distress of this charmer, and weary of her society, he did his best to
get rid of her. She protested. So did he. It was then that he was made
aware of the plot The woman's husband appeared, and announced that only
a thousand dollars would heal his wounded honour, and that if it were
not immediately forthcoming, he would write to Mrs. Hamilton.

Hamilton was furious. His first impulse was to tell the man to do his
worst, for anything in the nature of coercion stripped him for the fray
at once. But an hour of reflection cooled his blood. No one was to blame
but himself. If he had permitted himself to be made a fool of, it was
but just that he should take the consequences, and not cruelly wound the
woman he loved the better for his vagaries. Moreover, such a scandal
would seriously affect the high office he filled, might indeed force him
to resignation; not only thwarting his great ambitions, but depriving
the country of services which no other man had the ability or the will
to render. And a few moments forecast of the triumph of his enemies, not
only over himself but possibly over his party, in case of his downfall,
was sufficient in itself to force him to terms. Few are the momentous
occasions in which men are governed by a single motive. Hamilton's
ambitions were welded into the future happiness and glory of the country
he had so ardently adopted. And if love of power was his ruling passion,
it certainly was directed to the loftiest of ends. To desire to create a
na