They looked at each other, and broke into laughter.  Yet minds so keen as theirs long before them had read between lines on the printed page, under the outward mask of human countenances.

“Stranger things have happened!” said the gentleman from Kentucky.

“My soul and body’ My dear Sir, you do not speak seriously?” His surprise was feigned, and the other knew it.

“I was never so serious in my life.  My friend, it seems almost as though fate had guided me to your side to-night.  At this time, when our diplomacy abroad is none too fortunate, and when our diplomacy at home is far more delicate and dangerous, you yourself, known the country over as a man of tact and delicacy, are the one man in the world to handle this very mission.  It is the Old Fox of the North, after all, Free Soiler or not, who alone can smooth down matters for us.  Our country had supreme confidence in you.  This administration has such confidence still.  It will give all that is seemly for one of your station to accept.  It will not ask aught of party lines, this or that.”

“Do you speak with authority other than your own?”

“It is not yet time for me to answer that.”

“Yet you dare approach one who is in the opposing camp.”

“But one whose camp we either hope to join, or whom we hope later to have in our own.  Who can tell where party lines will fall in the next three years?  All the bars may be down by then, and many a fence past mending.”

“For the sake of harmony, much should be ventured.”

“Excellent words, Sir.”

“One owes a certain duty to one’s country at any time.”

“Still more excellent.”

“And political success can be obtained best through union and not disunion of political forces.”

“Most excellent of all!  We rejoice to hear the voice of New York speaking in the old way.”

“My faith, I believe you are serious in this!  Have you really formulated any plans?” He was safe in the trap, and the other knew it.

“Sir, I will not discredit you by choosing methods.  As to the results desired, I say no more.”

“Yet we sit here and discuss this matter as though we contemplated a simple, proper and dignified act!”

“Murder is perhaps not legal, even for the sake of one’s country.  But suppose we halt this side of murder.  Suppose that by means known only to yourself, and not even to myself, you gained this young woman’s free consent to accompany you, say, to Europe—­that would be legal, dignified, proper—­and ah! so useful.”

“And rather risky!”

“And altogether interesting.”

“And quite impossible.”

“Altogether impossible.  Oh, utterly!”

“Quite utterly!”

They spoke with gravity.  What the gentleman from New York really thought lay in his unvoiced question:  “Could it by any possibility be true that the Fillmore administration would give me support for the next nomination if I agree to swing the Free Soil vote nearer to the compromise?” What the gentleman from Kentucky asked in his own mind, was this: