Washington society did not see much of Pembroke that winter. He worked very hard, and in the afternoons he took long, solitary rides. Sometimes in his rides he would meet Olivia Berkeley, generally with her father, and often Miles was with them. Then he would join the cavalcade, and exert himself to be gay—for it cannot be denied that he was not in very good spirits at that time. It is one thing to perform an act of rigid justice and another to take pleasure in it. Madame Volkonsky's last words rang in his ears.
He could not but smile at Olivia. She pierced his outward pretense of gayety, and saw that at heart he was sad. She fancied she knew why. By a mighty effort she brought herself to regard his infatuation for Madame Volkonsky with pity.
"It is written that Olivia shall always misunderstand me," he said to himself.
The Volkonsky matter did not end there. The treatment of the Russian representative suddenly presented a party phase. The party in power saw that capital could be made out of it. Pembroke had carried the whole thing through. Pembroke was a Southern man. Russia had offered her fleet during the civil war, in the event that France and England should depart from the strictest neutrality.
