Page:Despotism and democracy; a study in Washington society and politics (IA despotismdemocra00seawiala).pdf/60

 Chapter Three

DOWN AMONG THE CAPTAINS AND THE SHOUTING

After four hours of sleep Thorndyke waked with the uncomfortable feeling which waits on excess in everything, especially excess in the emotions after one is forty years of age. The tumults of youth are killing after forty.

He got through with his breakfast and his mail under the disadvantages of seeing visions of Constance Maitland floating all about him—visions of Constance offering to give up her fortune and live with him on what he could save of his Congressional salary after supplying the wants of his crippled sister, Elizabeth. And in case he should lose the nomination at the hands of his boss, as he had once done, there would be nothing at all for Constance or Elizabeth, either, nor for himself that he could then foresee. What a strange infatuation was Congressional life! It was almost as strange as the infatuation for a woman forever barred from him—*