“I dare say I should get on here well enough after a time, though I should find difficulty in considering that it was right to give so much time to merely social matters.  But Mr. Lyons and I have already decided that I can be more use to him at present in Benham.  There I feel at home.  I am known, and have my friends, and there I have important work—­literary lectures and the establishment of a large public hospital under way.  If the time comes, as you kindly predict, that my husband is chosen a United States Senator, I shall be glad to return here and accept the responsibilities of our position.  But I warn you, Mr. Elton,—­I warn the people of Washington,” she added with a wave of her fan, while her eyes sparkled with a stern light “that when I am one of their leaders, I shall do away with some of the—­er—­false customs of the present administration.  I shall insist on preserving our American social traditions inviolate.”

Here was the grain of consolation in the case, which she clutched at and held up before her mind’s eye as a new stimulus to her patriotism and her conscience.  Both Mr. Elton and Flossy had indicated that there was a point at which exclusiveness was compelled to stop in its haughty disregard of democratic ideals.  There were certain women whom the people who worshipped lack of enthusiasm and made an idol of cynicism were obliged to heed and recognize.  They might be able to ignore the intelligence and social originality of a Congressman’s wife, but they dared not turn a cold shoulder on the wife of a United States Senator.  And if a woman—­if she were to occupy this proud position, what a satisfaction it would be to assert the power which belonged to it; assert it in behalf of the cause for which she had suffered so much!  Her disappointment tasted bitterly in her mouth, and she was conscious of stern revolt; but the new hope had already taken possession of her fancy, and she hastened to prove it by the ethical standard without which all hopes were valueless to her.  Even now had anyone told her that the ruling passion of her life was to be wooed and made much of by the very people she professed to despise, she would have spurned the accuser as a malicious slanderer.  Nor indeed would it have been wholly true.  Mrs. Williams had practically told her this at their last meeting in New York, and its utterance had convinced her on the contrary of repugnance to them, and of her desire to be the leader of a social protest against them.  Now here, in Washington of all places, she was confronted by the bitter suggestion that she was without allies, and that her enemies were the keepers of the door which led to leadership and power.  Despondency stared her in the face, but a splendid possibility—­aye probability was left.  She would not forsake her principles.  She would not lower her flag.  She would return to Benham.  Washington refused her homage now, but it should listen to her and bow before her some day as the wife of one of the real leaders of the State, whom Society did not dare to ignore.