Page:The Author of Beltraffio, Pandora, Georgina's Reasons, The Path of Duty, Four Meetings (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1885).djvu/153

Rh together, for he had a vague feeling that he was losing her.

"And shall you be in Washington many days yet?" he asked her, as they went.

"It will all depend. I am expecting some news. What I shall do will be influenced by that."

The way she talked about expecting news made him feel, somehow, that she had a career,—that she was active and independent, so that he could scarcely hope to stop her as she passed. It was certainly true that he had never seen any girl like her. It would have occurred to him that the news she was expecting might have reference to the favor she had begged of the President, if he had not already made up his mind—in the calm of meditation after that talk with the Bonnycastles—that this favor must be a pleasantry. What she had said to him had a discouraging, a somewhat chilling, effect; nevertheless it was not without a certain ardor that he inquired of her whether, so long as she stayed in Washington, he might not come and see her.

"You may come as often as you like," she answered; "but you won't care for it long."

"You try to torment me," said Vogelstein.

She hesitated a moment. "I mean that I may have some of my family."

"I shall be delighted to see them again."

She hesitated again. "There are some you have never seen."

In the afternoon, returning to Washington on the