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passion, which she gave way to with little effort to control.
A servant came to summon her to dinner. She had a headache. The hour
came for the President's reception. She had a raving headache, and the
Senator must go without her.
That night of agony was like another night she recalled. How vividly it
all came back to her. And at that time she remembered she thought she
might be mistaken. He might come back to her. Perhaps he loved her,
a little, after all. Now, she knew he did not. Now, she knew he was a
cold-blooded scoundrel, without pity. Never a word in all these years.
She had hoped he was dead. Did his wife live, she wondered. She caught
at that--and it gave a new current to her thoughts. Perhaps, after all
--she must see him. She could not live without seeing him. Would he smile
as in the old days when she loved him so; or would he sneer as when she
last saw him? If he looked so, she hated him. If he should call her
"Laura, darling," and look SO! She must find him. She must end her
doubts.
Laura kept her room for two days, on one excuse and another--a nervous
headache, a cold--to the great anxiety of the Senator's household.
Callers, who went away, said she had been too gay--they did not say
"fast," though some of them may have thought it. One so conspicuous and
successful in society as Laura could not be out of the way two days,
without remarks being made, and not all of them complimentary.
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