"
"You might go to Geneva--both of you," replied Jane; "I wish you would,
if only on my account. Mrs. Bates is just about getting tired of asking
you, and I'm 'most worn out with making up excuses for your not going."
Jane had been giving an occasional attendance on Susan Bates's dormitory
and children. Mrs. Bates herself had bowed to Rosy's preference with a
resigned reasonableness, and had abated not one jot in her friendliness
towards Rosy's family.
But to Eliza Marshall a summer's outing could easily be made to seem
superfluous, impracticable, revolutionary; nor did Jane succeed any
better with her father himself. He seemed to take a pathetic pride in
standing at his post; he almost appeared to be imbued with the fatalistic
notion that there was, indeed, no leaving it. He continued to smoke his
cigar outside, to cover haltingly sheets of paper with figures under the
library lamp, and to yield himself to hours of depressing and harassing
reflection within the shadows of the bay-window.
When Truesdale came home his father's decline was even more noticeable.
Truesdale commented briefly on his appearance, suggested as briefly a
little trip into the country, and after these few passes at filial duty
he concentrated his attention upon his own personal affairs.
On his second visit to Madison he had met Bertie Patterson
face to face. He had encountered her in one of the broad and
leafy walks before the Capitol, and she was in company with
another young man.
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