I  
John Rawn stood looking at the unceasing throng which surged confusedly through the corridors of the gilded hotel. Warmth, music, a Babel of voices, were all about. There approached a little group of laughing men coming from the carriage entrance, bound, no doubt, to a banquet hall somewhere under the capacious roof. One voice rose above the the others as the group advanced. There appeared, rapidly talking and gesticulating as he came, a ruddy-faced, stocky figure, with head close-cropped, jaw undershot, small eyes, fighting terrier make-up.
 
"I tell you, gentlemen, I'll compromise not in the least on this matter! It makes no difference what they do with the ticket or with me. There's only one way about these matters, and that's the right way! I care nothing whether this man be a rich man or a poor man. The only question is, whether he is right. If he is not right, he will never—I say to you, gentlemen—" this with close-shut jaw and fist hard smitten into palm—"I say to you, it makes no difference who he is or what he is, he'll never win through; and in the event you suffer from us—"
 
He passed on, gesticulating, talking. Men commented audibly, for there was no mistaking a man idealized by some, dreaded by others, scorned by none, anathematized by not a few. He was to address that night a meeting of independent politicians, so-called, here in the very house of individualistic power, and many old-line members of his party had their doubts, the fear of a new party being ever present in the politician's mind—the same fear professional politicians, Whig, Democrat, what-not, had of the new party formed before the Civil War at the command of a people then claiming self-government as their ancient right—as now they begin again to do, facing our third War of Independence.
 
"Going strong, isn't he?" commented one sardonically, within Rawn's hearing.
 
"That's all right, my friend," was the smiling answer of yet another. "Strong enough to make a lot of you hunt your holes yet. There's quite a few people in this little old country outside this island—and he'll—"
 
"Nonsense! No chance, not the least chance in the world!"
 
"You underestimate this new movement," began the other.
 
"New movement!—you're 'progressive,' eh? Got that bee? A lot of good it'll do you. It will be simply a new line-up following our old and time-tried political methods—it all comes to that, take my word. The people aren't in politics. A lot of professionals do our governing for us."
 
"All the same, there goes the people's candidate!"
 
"Take him and welcome," was the answer. "Take your candidate. We'll eat him up—if he runs."
 
They also passed on down the hall, gesticulating, their voices swallowed up with others, arising confusedly. This and that couple or group passed by, also talking, among them many persons obviously of notoriety, importance or distinction, though unknown to their observer. Rawn stood and watched them all. The scene was to his liking. The stir, the confusion, appealed to him. The flowering of the great city's night life was here, such as that is. It was the focus of our country's civilization, such as that is. Men worth millions passed, shoulder to shoulder, a wondrous procession, such as that is.
 
 
 
 
II
 
And here and there, always moving and mingling with those men whose reception or whose raiment announced them as persons of importance, moved women, beautiful women, floating by, brightly, radiantly, rustlingly—women blazing with jewels, women with bright eyes, women whose apparel bespoke them as accepted integers of the city's vast human sum.
 
Rawn stood studying the procession for a long time, eying group after group carefully. A conclusion was forming in his mind. He was learning that when a man has achieved power, success, wealth, notoriety even, he turns with his next thought to some woman; and finds some woman waiting.
 
Not, as he reflected, a woman grown old and gray. Not a woman with finger-tips blackened and roughened, of bowed figure and ill-fitting garb, of awkward and unaccustomed air—not to that sort of woman who would be noticed here for her lack of fitness in this place. No, rather, as he noticed, men of influence or position or power turned to such women as these about him now—of distinct personality, of birth and breeding, or at least of beauty; women shimmering in silks, blazing in gems, women who looked up laughing as they passed, women young and beautiful, whose voices were soft, around whom floated as they walked some subtle fascination.
 
Rawn pondered. He saw passing a few men whom he knew, all with women whom he did not know. In each case his new-formed rule seemed to hold good; the exception being noted only in the bored and weary faces of men accompanied by women perhaps rustling and blazing in silks and diamonds, but not owning youth and fascination.
 
John Rawn found that power and beauty go hand in hand; that money and beauty also go hand in hand—which is to say the same thing. He began to ponder upon youth, beauty and love as appurtenances of wealth, success and power.
 
"That's the game!" he said half to himself. "Why, look at those chaps. They look pretty much alike, act pretty much alike, too. When a man has money to burn, there is only one way—and there it is!"
 
 
 
 
III
 
And then it occurred to John Rawn with sudden and unpleasing force that, although he was among this throng, he was not of it. Himself a man of power, success, yes, even of wealth, he lacked in certain betokening appurtenances thereto. A not unusual wave of self-pity crept slowly over him. Why should he, a man of his attainments, lack in any degree what others had?
 
He stood pondering, not wholly happy, until presently he felt, rather than saw, a glance bent upon him by a man who passed, a stately and well-garbed young woman upon his arm. He was a man now in faultless evening dress, yet easily to be recognized—none less, indeed, than the dyspeptic director who so summarily had been dismissed by John Rawn himself not three hours ago. His dark face became even darker as he saw the victor of that controversy standing here alone. He smiled sardonically. To Rawn it seemed that he smiled because he saw the solitary attitude of a man as good as himself, as fit as himself for all the insignia of power, yet publicly self-confessed as lacking all such insignia. He started, flushed, frowned. He had shown these men, these influential magnates in New York, that he could be their master upon occasion—he had mastered this man passing yonder. Yet now he stood here alone, with no woman to advertise his power to the world; and men laughed at him! No woman wore his silks, displayed his jewels. He was John Rawn, born to the purple; yet he might be taken here for a country merchant on his first trip from home....
 
He turned to the key-counter. The clerk, with infallible instinct—without his request—handed him the key to his room, not lacking acquaintance with men of Mr. Rawn's acquaintance, and knowing money when he saw it.... Rawn passed down the hall, went up two flights in the elevator, turned into the left-hand corridor, and at length knocked deliberately at a door where a light showed.
 
 
 
 
IV
 
"Come!" called a soft voice. He knocked again, a trifle hesitant, and looked down the corridor, each way. The voice repeated, "Come!" He pushed open the door.
 
Virginia Delaware stood before her dressing-glass, her toilet for evening completed except perhaps for a touch or two about her coiffure. She turned now, and flushed as she saw her visitor.
 
"Mr. Rawn!" she exclaimed; "I thought it was the maid! I had just called her."
 
Rawn turned and shut the door. "Never mind her," he said. "I will be gone in a minute. I just wanted—"
 
"You must go!" she exclaimed. "You ought not to have come—it is not permitted—it is not right!"
 
"How stunning you look, Miss Delaware!" was all he said. He had never before seen her arrayed in keeping with these other lilies of the field. Indeed, his life had given him small acquaintance with conventions, or those who practised them. He had no mental process of analysis as he gazed at her now, or he might have seen that after all the young woman's costume was no more than one of filmy blue, draped over a pure and lustrous white. He could not have named the fashion which drew it so daringly close at hip and hem as to reveal frankly all the lines of a figure which needed not to dread revelation for its own sake, whether or not for other sake. He could not have guessed what skill belonged to the hand that fashioned this raiment, could not have told its cost. To him the young woman was very beautiful; and he was too much confused to be capable of analysis. The corsage of the gown, cut square and daringly deep, displayed neck and shoulders white as those of any woman of any city. Her figure gave lines had her costume not aided. She was beautiful, yes.
 
 
 
 
V
 
And there was something more, Rawn could not tell what. There was some air of excitement, of exaltation, some sort of fever about her, upon her. In her eyes shone something Rawn had never noticed there before. Hastily he made such inventory as he might of unanalyzed charms. He arrived at his conclusion, which was, that Virginia Delaware would do!
 
"You could travel in fast company, my dear girl," said he approvingly.
 
"What do you mean?" She turned upon him.
 
"That you could go quite a considerable pace, my dear girl. You'll do. Let me see your hands!" he demanded. And in spite of her he coolly took up a hand, examining the shapely finger-tips. He sighed. No needle had blackened or roughened them, the typewriter keys had not yet flattened them. He stepped back, looked at her from head to foot, appraising all her graces, valuing her height and roundness of figure. There was small light in his eye other than that of judicial approval. She bore out his theory.
 
"You surprise me!" was all he said.
 
"How do you mean, Mr. Rawn?—But you must go, you really must!"
 
There came a knock at the door. Rawn's negative gesture was positive. After a moment's hesitation the girl stepped to the door and spoke to the maid. "You may return again in a little while, maid," she said. "I'm not quite ready now." In turn she stood with her back against the door, her own color rising.
 
"Oh, don't be uneasy," said John Rawn smiling. "This is quite considerable of a hotel, taking it as it is. There won't be any scandal over this."
 
"I don't think I understand you."
 
"I'm going in just five minutes. But I want to say something to you in the way of a business proposition, Miss Delaware."
 
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean." Her head was high, her color still rising.
 
"Nothing in the least wrong, my dear girl," said John Rawn. "It's simply a matter of business, as I said. You're here as my assistant, of course. But did it ever occur to you that as you stand there now, and as I stand here, we might pass in that crowd below there and not be known by any one?"
 
 
 
 
VI
 
She still stood looking at him, her color high, undecided as to his meaning even now as he went on.
 
"It would be rather a pleasant experience, perhaps, for you—as it would be for me—just to mingle with that giddy throng—say, for dinner. Would you like to be part of it? It's just a foolish thought that came to me."
 
She turned to him, her eyes bright, her face eager. "Could we, Mr. Rawn?" she said. "I'm crazy over it!"
 
"I see," he commented dryly. "You were dressing to go down to dinner?"
 
"No, no, I couldn't afford to do that, of course. I couldn't go alone, and I had no company. I wasn't going down at all. I just dressed up—to—to—"
 
"Just to look at yourself in the mirror, isn't that it, Miss Delaware?"
 
"Yes, it's the truth!" She turned to him calmly at last, well in hand again. "I couldn't be one of them—couldn't be like those people down below, so I did the best I could up here—I dressed as much like them as I knew how. I—I—I imagined! I dreamed, Mr. Rawn. I've never known a real evening of that sort in all my life—but it's in my blood. I want to go, I want to dine, and drink, and dance—I'm mad about it, I know, but it's the truth! I want what I can't have. I want to be what I'm not. I don't know what's the reason. It's in the air—maybe it's in the day, in the country!"
 
 
 
 
VII
 
"Yes, it's the country," said John Rawn. "We're all going a swift pace, men and women both. I don't blame you. I understand you. Now I know what you want."
 
"What do you mean?"
 
"You want just about what I want."
 
"But, Mr. Rawn—"
 
"It's the same thing—it's power that you want, just as I do. I feel it in the air when I come near you. You feel the same way when you come near me!"
 
She nodded rapidly, her eyes narrowing. "Yes, it's true!" she said. "That's true."
 
"You want to have it within your ability to influence men, just as I do, don't you, Miss Delaware? That's what was in your soul when you stood before your m............