Page:Despotism and democracy; a study in Washington society and politics (IA despotismdemocra00seawiala).pdf/114

 he said. "At the very outset of my real career I may have ruined it. I couldn't describe to you what I have suffered this day—yet no one has suspected it. I felt the necessity for sympathy, the necessity to tell my story to some one, and I came to you. I know I have no right to do it—but it seems to me, Constance, that ever since the day I first saw you, you have had some strange power of sustaining and comforting me."

As Crane spoke her name, Constance involuntarily rose and assumed an air of offended dignity. But Crane's distress was so real, his offence so unconscious, that her indignation could not hold against him.

Without noticing her offended silence he came and sat down heavily in the chair that Thorndyke had just vacated.

"You know," he said, "in cases like this of Senator Brand's death, the Governor appoints a senator until the Legislature meets and can elect, which will not be until the first of next January. Just as I had heard the news about poor Brand at my hotel I ran into Sanders, our Governor. I didn't know he was in Washington. Sanders is a brute—al