The business
consisted of the presentation of bills, acts, and resolves. The daily
sessions lasted barely half an hour. The committee hearings had not
begun, and the legislators found time hanging heavy on their hands.
Harlan Thornton continued to be a frequent caller at the Presson home.
But he did not seem to find an opportunity for a tete-a-tete with
Madeleine. She did not show constraint in his presence. She did not
avoid him. She treated him with the same frank familiarity. But he did
not find himself alone with her. He did not try to force such a
situation, in spite of the provocation she had given him once. He was
not yet sure that he could command the words that real love might demand
for expression. That was his vague excuse to his own heart for
delaying--for his heart insisted that he did love her. He had to admit
to himself that this was not the headlong passion the poets described,
but he consoled himself with the reflection that he was not a poet. So
he made the most of her cordial acceptance of him as he was, and felt
sure that Herbert Linton had won no more from her.
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