"
"And we'll call this--"
"A stale-mate! I didn't win everything, yet what I lost was of no
moment--"
"Do you think so?" she asked sharply.
"To my client, the United States," he added. "So far as I am concerned,
Madeline, we still are friends."
He put out his hand again; she hesitated just an instant; then, with one
of her rare, frank smiles, she laid her own hand in it.
"Guy," she whispered, "she wasn't as bad as she was painted; in fact,
she wasn't bad at all--and I know."
* * * * *
"Your Secretary of State is a peculiar man?" Mrs. Clephane observed, as
she and Harleston came down the steps into the Avenue.
Harleston leaned over. "I'll confide to you that he is an egotistical
and insufferable old ass," he whispered.
"And yet he thinks he is a perfect fascinator with the ladies!" she
laughed. "Even now he is contemplating what a conquest he made of Mrs.
Spencer. It was great fun to watch her playing him; and then how
suddenly he pulled himself up and assumed a judicial manner--which
deceived no one. Certainly it didn't deceive her, for the flying look
she gave him, as she went out, was the cleverest thing she did. It told
him everything he wanted to know, and simply gorged his vanity.
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