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Show to find was several blocki away and got the car, while Neal read the morning paper, for It was, of course, Important that he should keep himself thoroughly informed about current events. By the time she had taken the children to school he was, however, ready to have her take him to the senate office building; and after she had left him there she did the marketing, market-ing, for the "cash and carry" stores were much cheaper than the ones that "delivered." Back at the little lit-tle yellow brick house, the charu-berwork charu-berwork awaited her, for Dora had agreed to take care of the furnace if Anne would do this. In no time the hands of the clock were pointing point-ing to the hour at which she must go and get the children ; steer them through their luncheon, plan for their afternoon outing. Then there were the simple home lessons with which they needed help, preparation prepara-tion for Sunday school on Saturday night, dancing school to dress them for and take them to Saturday morning. There was supper to get for all of them on Dora's night out a hearty supper, for Neal had quickly fallen Into the way of taking tak-ing a very light lunch, and came home hungry. Anne found herself standing beside be-side her bed at night pressing her hands against her throbbing temples, as If by the pressure she could push back the pressing duties which we din nny more TOam th ronSt 16 coUnSe-"t much, cost I a i ,y,U know wh" tha C(,htl And there's no garage" tomC8, ,n Uie t,p of llcr t0Se Li "'1 t0 K 0Ut nnd h"t 'or it , fuit ho cm,,d d bct- "ut s,le managed to restrain on'.f ' rCmnrklnS ""'J'- "I Wish monlg",e l0k Qt U ln tlie "I really ought to get to the office In good season. You see" "Yes, I know; but It will take only a few minutes." Somewhat grudgingly, Neal consented con-sented to accompany her; and equally grudgingly he signed the lease a few days later, conveying the Impression, though he did not actually say so, that he could have done much better himself If the affairs of the nation had not weighed so heavily upon him. Then Anne bought herself some cheap gingham dresses, a supply of scrubbing scrub-bing brushes, cleansing powders and soft cloths and began the process of cleaning house from top to bottom. It was backbreaking work; and her muscles were soft after her summer of physical Inactivity. But she did not know where to seek a scrubwoman ; and she already saw, very plainly, that she would have to begin to save pennies again. She did not even have the satisfaction satis-faction of doing her housecleaning In uninterrupted peace. The telephone tele-phone rang constantly. At first she answered It conscientiously, believing believ-ing that its peal might portend tidings tid-ings of Importance to Neal. It usually proved, however, v to be a photographer, who wished her to have her picture taken. When the same firm called three times In twenty-four hours she hung up the receiver with a bang, and answered the telephone no more. Then, of course, a magnate from Belford, who had only a day In the city, called and received the report that "they didn't answer." He went home to Belford and wrote Neal an Indignant letter, and spread the news among his neighbors that "Conrad was getting a swelled head already." Neal was very angry about It, and Anne felt that he had a right to be. At the hands of the newspapers she fared even worse. The society ,pTER VMI-Contlnued 10 deopenlnK twilight he ! rfenly toward her, nnd ,' anus about her. Then, ",t nil restraint, he kissed "xni over again, on the Tne passion nnd violence embrace, without prolim-, prolim-, struck her like a blow. ' -j j sickening souse of self-i' self-i' che realized that she had s .''determined effort to escape C5i that she had, for a mo-vv mo-vv 'tlljiT responded to It; really real-ly that Clare, still holding J&Vpeaklng to her in a voice s iti triumph. a lie whispered. "Anne, won't you admit for you i. . tliat you love me. You -. ; have kissed back if you f-" m make everything very ; - r you, about the children 5: that Neal wouldn't take r;- you. Xou know you r i stay here with me. In this j ight city, where you've ,t. to live for the first time. ;e were married, every one forget all about It, if we ourselves." ' -iow Anne wrenched herself Her lips were shaking, as ! her body ; nevertheless -i 735 an Inner force about her , smpelled him to listen to 3 : :'t love you," she reiterated, s, j but persistently. "I've been J, to you and I always shall ;-in spite of what's hap-F1 hap-F1 : I believe some day you'll CHAPTER IX '"pO THE day of her death Anne Conrad will remember her first winter In Washington us a senator's sena-tor's wife, with driving Insistence. She and Neal discussed the question ques-tion of a temporary home all the way over on the boat coming back from Paris, nnd finally decided, on account of the children, that a small house would be preferable to an npartment. She went on at once to Washington with Neal to begin her search for a dwelling place. It should not, she thought, be very hard to find exactly, what they wanted, and she urged Neal to follow fol-low his Impatient desire to begin "getting settled" In his quarters at the senate office. She agreed with him perfectly when he told her that everything was In terrible confusion, and that he did not see how he was ever going go-ing to get straightened out and adjusted. ad-justed. So she went out to look for houses by herself. The real estate agent to whom she had applied led her to several untenanted marble palaces, hung with mangy tapestries tapes-tries and furnished In rickety gilt, and to a long succession of tall narrow nar-row edifices made of bright red brick, with one tin bath, and gloomy "back-parlors." She regarded these docilely at first : then she began to object mildly. "Will you please show me what I asked you for in the beginning; small houses, with about eight rooms, conveniently arranged, and at a reasonable rental? Unless it is clear to you now What I want, arry that it happened as I a lid you're right. I have 13 -m attracted by you. Per-"; Per-"; iat's what made me for ....' antkiss back something . ; mi reckless and primitive. " : are primitive sometimes as ; I men. I wish more people ( :ecognize that. But I don't i It's Neal I love. I'd :o back to Hinsboro, to all "igery and Isolation as you " -to being neglected and for-. for-. 3 :y him as you've hinted, as - i I can be with him, than here in Paris and all that j with you, because I love " sanse I know he belongs to -; matter what he does or -i Because I belong to him. Ss, I'm willing to fall with -mm ' W fit' rv -k'ri I'd editors, like the photographers, had telephoned her; like the photographers, photog-raphers, she had put them off. She could not bear the thought of giving giv-ing interviews. But Miss Sharp, of the Evening Inquirer, decided to present herself at the new senator's sena-tor's residence, and take her chances on being rebuffed, even though she went without an appointment. ap-pointment. Her ring at the doorbell door-bell remained unanswered ; and she turned for help to a young woman, her head enveloped In a mopcap, who was vigorously washing windows. win-dows. "Can you tell me whether Mrs. Conrad Is at home?" she asked. The window-washer wrung out her cloth from the pall of steaming steam-ing suds by her side, and turned her head half-way around. "I am Mrs. Conrad," she replied calmly, and went on washing windows. win-dows. Miss Sharp fled; but as she fled, she thought, and thought rapidly. Before the sun had gone down, Anne had been surreptitiously photographed pho-tographed in the act of washing her last window ; and the following evening, this distorted likeness of herself, together with the heavy headline, "Senator's Wife Acts as Own Scrubwoman" surmounted two columns, more conspicuous for their Imagination than their accuracy, on the front page of the Inquirer. This was- such good "copy" that it was, of course, copied from one end of the United States to the other. Reporters Re-porters were sent to Hamstead and to Hinsboro, to dig up forgotten or unknown facts or fancies about the new senator's wife. Photographs of "Pupper and Mummer" with Sol and Sam on the front porch between be-tween them adorned the Sunday supplements. Anne was delineated bending over the washtub and milking milk-ing the family cow. Had Neal been 1 a candidate for the Presidency no sort of publicity could have been more helpful; since he was Instead an appointee to the senate, none could have been more disastrous. By the time the nine days' ex-1 ex-1 citement had subsided somewhat, the housecleaning was finished, gro-' gro-' ceries and coal had been installed, and Anne had. gone to Hinsboro to t help Dora finish closing the house there, and bring the maid and the ! children back with her to Wash- Ington. , Then Anne's daily round of work , began.- After an early breakfast, . she walked over to the garage the nearest one they had been able I think I had better go to another agent." The agent was grieved. It had not occurred to him that such a young, pretty, and gentle lady would be so unamenable to his blandishments. blan-dishments. Allowing her to see that his feelings were hurt, he led her from one small dingy dwelling .to another. They were all dirty beyond be-yond description, and in most of them both plumbing and heating plants were antiquated and inadequate. in-adequate. Anne went back to the Willard, dizzy with discouragement, and Neal expressed surprise at her lack of success. "Aren't you a little too fussy? We ought to be getting settled, you know, and having Dora and the children chil-dren come down. Surely you must be able to get something. I'd take a day off and help you hunt, but things are so terribly piled up at the office" "I know, Neal. I'll try again. But honestly, it's awfully hard." The next morning she dismissed the agent and started out by herself her-self on foot, stopping before every house that displayed in Its window a sign of "For sale or to let." At last she discovered tucked away between be-tween two handsome brownstone "residences" a small house of yellow-painted brick. It was only two stories high; its location was excellent ex-cellent Tremblingly, Anne sought out the agent. The house proved to contain a small but sunny drawing draw-ing room opening into a dark little dining room whose one window overlooked a diminutive back yard, and a kitchen in the ell ; on the second sec-ond story two large bedrooms and one small one, and a bathroom ; in the basement, under the drawing room, a storeroom which might conceivably con-ceivably be used as a playroom. Anne felt, at last, that she had found something which offered possibilities, pos-sibilities, at last. She asked the amount of rent. "Two hundred and fifty dollars a month, without heat or light, linen and silver, of course. Very reasonable." reason-able." Anne was aghast. But she was also desperate. "I'll let you know tomorrow. 1 think probably I'll take it." "I'm sure you couldn't do better, Mrs. Conrad." It was because Anne was so miserably mis-erably sure of this herself that she painted the little house in brighter colors than it deserved tc Neal that evening. And, even with this effort at couleur-de-rose he was not enthusiastic. "Can You Tell Me Whether Mrs. Conrad Is at Home?" drove her forward. She was continually con-tinually hurried and hurried; her driving weariness threatened to annihilate an-nihilate her. For, as she soon discovered, dis-covered, the demands made upon her time and strength by her home and family were as nothing compared com-pared with the outside demands made upon her In her official position posi-tion as a senator's wife. Anne had settled herself with an overflowing mending basket before the living room fire one rainy afternoon, aft-ernoon, comfortably conscious that she had an hour or more to herself before It would be time to go for Neal. She had on a rather shabby little serge house dress, because she found it easier, with running the car so much, to slip a big coat over such a dress, than to keep changing all the time to her smart Parisian tailleur. She knew, of course she knew, that she ought to put on something more suitable for afternoon, but It hardly seemed worth while, when she must go out again so soon In that driving rain. But oh. well she picked up her fourth sock. The doorbell rang. She went to the front door and flung it open. Two -very elegant ladies confronted confront-ed her. Behind them, at the curb, stood a shiny limousine with a man in livery at the wheel. "Is Mrs. Conrad receiving today?" they asked simultaneously, in shrill, high voices. And as they .did so, they each extended their cards. . Mechanically, Anne reached behind be-hind her for the silver card tray that reposed on the hall table, and set It down again, the cards fluttering flut-tering over the edge, before she answered. an-swered. Then, in spite of her bewilderment, be-wilderment, she spoke cordially. "Won't you come in? I'm Mrs. Conrad. ... I think you'll find these chairs, here by the fire, comfortable." com-fortable." "Oh, thank you. We didn't know whether you'd have begun your Thursdays yet or not, It's so early In the season. And it's early In the afternoon, too, of course we know that. But perhaps you weren't 1 quite ready to begin receiving, Mrs. ! Conrad? You must excuse us, but we've been so anxious to meet the new senator's wife. I'm Mrs. Roper and this Is my friend Mrs. Ranger. We always make our calls together, we're such friends." Anne's head was whirling. Her Thursdays? Mrs. Roper and Mrs. Ranger? She groped towards a light which she could not find, and her visitors were Instantly aware of the fact. "Of course you know, Mrs. Conrad, Con-rad, that senators' wives receive on Thursdays? The Supreme court ladies on Mondays, the congressional congres-sional ladies on Tuesdays, the cabinet ladies on Wednesdays, the senatorial ladies on Thursdays, the diplomatic ladies on Fridays that leaves Saturdays and Sundays for the resident society, the cave-dwellers, you know. But of course I don't need to tell you all this I How are you getting on with your own visits?" (TO BE CO-VTLXCED.) ! itandonlng All Restraint, He !,iHer, Over and Over Again, ' :i Mouth. !' if he succeeds, in the end, .: ' :tS to be there to see it, even j J't share it." ' "ne vibrant moment of sill si-ll they faced each other then . Ms head, stricken by the '"sness that he had been very , t0 violating a shrine ':'the bottom of my heart," i1'"! ask your forgiveness." ' ' :nS her way down the dark, 1'ttle corridor that led to ; 'Ns, Anne was suddenly con-W'ith con-W'ith a large lozenge of ,,"eal had heard her ap-. ap-. lnS footsteps he must have 1 ; 'stening for them and had "e door of their little salon, welcoming radiance, wide ' d hashing out to meet her, i ost smothered her In a bear :';nne. where have you been . ;- I thought you'd never hat bUrry ! You can,t Imag' U happened. Anne Anne ,", cablegram-" f matched at the flimsy bit of VtfJjer which he was waving 'icjvp!?' 11 was signed by Low, !;. ertl0r of their state. And it ''thn1; NJOR senator, J- ArV,I0RNlNa- HOPE YOU 11 H PT APPOINTMENT NATE." SEAT UNITED THE STORY FROM THE BEGINNING at the capital. Alu" , charge of the Bltual1"' -(- eiKht years a In Neal'B absence he ta' es b he Iw'Bnow , a remorse over his lect. i beaut is fading. Hatha ay. Hathaway, long secret, out success. |