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"Why, Amelia, what a question!"
"But you didn't? Don't evade, Morley."
"Oh well, now, she's not bad looking, exactly, but as for beauty-well, she's rather what I'd call handsome."
"Handsome!" Amelia exclaimed, drawing back.
"Why, yes. Don't you see, dear?" Vernon was trying to laugh. "Can't you see the distinction? We call _men_ handsome, don't we? Not pretty, or anything like that. But women! Ah, women! Them we call, now and then, beautiful! And you, darling, you are beautiful!"
They were face to face again, both smiling radiantly. Then Amelia drew away, saying:
"Morley, don't be ridiculous."
"But I'm dead in earnest, dear," he went on. "And I think you ought to make some sort of amends for all the misery you've caused me."
"You poor boy!" she said, with the pity that is part of a woman's triumph.
"I did it," he said, "just because I love you, and have learned in you what women are capable of, what they might do in politics-"
"In politics! Morley! Can you imagine me in politics? I thought you had a more exalted opinion of women; I thought you kept them on a higher plane."
"But you-" Vernon laughed, and shook his head at the mystery of it, but did not go on.
"Why, Morley, would you want to see your mother or your sister or me, or even Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop in politics?"
"Well," he said, with a sudden and serious emphasis, "not Mrs.
Hodge-Lathrop exactly. She'd be chairman of the state central committee from the start and, well-the machine would be a corker, that's all."
The elevator was rus.h.i.+ng down again in its perilous descent, and when its door flew open they saw Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop come out of the car. Vernon rose hastily.
"There she is," he said. "We mustn't keep her waiting."
Amelia rose, but she caught his hand and gave it a sudden pressure.
"But you haven't answered my question," she said, with a continuity of thought that was her final surprise for him. "Are you so very badly disappointed, after all?"
"Well, no," he said. "I don't think it would do. It would-well, it would complicate."
Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop was standing in the door, peering impatiently into the dim little room. They started toward her.
"Anyway, dear heart," Amelia whispered as they went, "remember this-that you did it all for me."
