XV
FROTHINGHAM let three days pass, and on the fourth called at Senator Pope’s. Elsie was in Philadelphia—was visiting an aunt. It had not occurred to him that she would run away and hide herself, so little did he think of the matter in any other light than that of a game between himself and Rontivogli. He was much upset, and did not know what move to make next. Fate helped him the evening of the same day—the mail brought a note from Elsie:
My Dear Friend:I can’t help writing to thank you. You warned me, and you were good and kind about it, and I was very disagreeable. I should like to say so to you, but I don’t suppose you’ll be in Philadelphia, will you? And it will be many a day before I see Washington. Indeed, I hope I shall never see it again. I didn’t deserve your friendship.E. W. P.
My Dear Friend:
I can’t help writing to thank you. You warned me, and you were good and kind about it, and I was very disagreeable. I should like to say so to you, but I don’t suppose you’ll be in Philadelphia, will you? And it will be many a day before I see Washington. Indeed, I hope I shall never see it again. I didn’t deserve your friendship.
E. W. P.
Frothingham had not reflected on this letter long before he was telling Hutt to get his belongings together. The next afternoon found him at the Bellevue in Philadelphia, and a few hours later he was diningat the Hopkins’ with Elsie and her uncle and aunt. He liked the Hopkinses—stiff and shy, but kindly. He liked the dark furniture, and walls and woodwork, suggesting old English; liked the faces in the family portraits—English faces; liked surroundings where there was nothing new or new-fashioned except his own and Elsie’s dress, where there was so much that was fine as well as old. And he had never liked Elsie so well as now that she was chastened into an appealing gentleness and humility.
He saw that he had been right in thinking her note an apology, and an attempt to recall him. And when the Hopkinses left them alone in the parlour after dinner he soon said: “I’ve come for an answer to that question I asked you—down by the monument.”
She hung her head and flushed deeply. “Oh, I wish to get away from all this,” she said in a low voice. “I’ll be glad to go far away—far as—as you care to take me.”
He sat beside her and took her hand. But he made no effort to show “temperament.” “I’ll go back to Washington and see your father to-morrow—if you wish,” he said, after a silence.
“Yes,” she replied.
She wrote a long letter to her father as soon as Frothingham was gone—her maid posted it at midnight. So it came to pass that Senator Pope was expecting him. He received him with the benign courtesy he gave to the humblest negro. He liked Frothingham—but, for that matter, it was impossible for him to dislike any member of the human race, even Rontivogli, or any well-disposed domestic animal; ever since he had “gathered his bunch,” his content and complacence had, with a few brief pauses, been bubbling over in words and acts of kindness. But when Frothingham said, “I’ve come to see you, sir, about something of which I and your daughter have been talking,” his face clouded with a look of apologetic distress—almost the same look as that with which he had received Rontivogli for the final interview.
Frothingham would not have attributed it to embarrassment had he known Senator Pope better. It was the look he wore whenever the exigencies of fate forced him to do anything unpleasant—whether to refuse a small favour, or to cut a rival’s throat, or to scuttle a financial or political ship. For, being a good man, and a lover of smoothness, it pained him exceedinglyto cause his fellow-beings any other emotion than happiness. In the present instance the cause of his distress was the discovery that an alliance with nobility would destroy his chances for the Vice-Presidential nomination which he was plotting to get. He had not confided his ambition to his closest political lieutenant. But when Rontivogli was exposed and cast out, his colleague and boss had said to him: “I’m glad to hear you’re not going to take a foreign nobleman into your family, Senator. Until the engagement was announced we were hoping you could be induced to make the race for the Vice-Presidency. While an Italian wouldn’t have been as bad as an Englishman on account of the Irish vote, I don’t think the party would have stood for even an Italian. The people don’t like that sort of thing.”
That settled Senator Pope’s aristocratic ambitions.
“I’ve come, sir,” Frothingham was saying, “to ask your consent to marrying your daughter.”
Senator Pope’s eyes swam, so strong was his emotion. “I am highly honoured, Lord Frothingham. But I cannot give you an answer in so important a matter at once. I must consult with her mother.”Mrs. Pope was a shadowy nonentity, flitting nervously in the wake of father and daughter.
He detained Frothingham for a long talk on England and America, and sent him away in an almost jubilant mood—no applicant ever left him downcast. The next day Frothingham got a telegram from Elsie asking him to come to her as soon as he could. He assumed that her father had decided to convey his consent through her, and his spirits rose higher. But the first glimpse of her disturbed him—hers was not the face of a bearer of good news.
“I saw your father,” he began.
“Yes,” she interrupted. “He has written me.”
“Does he consent?”
“Yes and no.” She hesitated. “He asked me not to tell, but I know I can trust you. He has been planning to be nominated for Vice-President. And he has found that he can’t have the nomination if I marry a titled foreigner—especially an Englishman, because of the Irish. They say it would kill the ticket.”
Frothingham retreated behind a vacant look.
“He found it out only a few days ago.” She did not feel equal to telling him that her father had learned this fatal fact through the exposure of Rontivogli.“So,” she ended, “we couldn’t marry until after the election. For he says he’s sure of the nomination.”
“And when is this election?”
“A year from next fall.”
Fortunately Frothingham had not the habit of letting his face speak for him. After a pause he said: “But surely you can persuade him.”
“It’s useless to try. You don’t know him as I do. He seems yielding, and usually he is. But where he’s set he’s hard as granite.”
“Nearly two years,” he repeated. And to himself: “Impossible! I might weather six months, but two years—the creditors would laugh at me.”
“And I wish to go away at once,” she said with a long sigh, looking at him mournfully.
“I—we—can’t wait two years,” he replied.
“We needn’t, need we? We might——” she began, then halted, blushing vividly.
He pretended not to understand—though he did, for he had already thought of that plan.
“You know—I’m of age,” she went on, seeing that he was not going to help her out. “We—we needn’t wait for his consent.” He did not change expression,but he was saying to himself, “Here’s a mess. She’s so mad to get away that she’s ready to do anything.”
“I think he’d forgive us,” she went on. “But even if he didn’t, I’d never regret.”
He knew that he must say something, must say it quickly, and that it must be appreciative but noncommittal. “I couldn’t accept such a sacrifice,” he said. “It wouldn’t be decent to take advantage of you in that fashion. I know it sounds unromantic to say it, but, by Jove, I don’t go in for the sort of romance that makes a fellow a blackguard.” And he frankly told enough of his financial difficulties to make the situation clear to her. “I believe you can talk your father round,” he ended. “He thinks the world of you.”
Elsie smiled—melancholy and cynical. “Yes—so long as I don’t interfere. But I know how he feels about the Vice-Presidency. And that—that other affair has made him——” She shook her head.
This chilled Frothingham. “He’d never forgive her if she ran off with me and lost him the office,” he reflected. “Besides, I can’t afford to go in without settlements arranged beforehand. I must chuck it—quick as ever I can.”
He urged persuading her father, and she promisedto try. He saw her the next day, and the next, both afternoons and evenings. On the third day he did not see her until late in the afternoon—her father had come from Washington, and had spent the morning with her. And while they were talking Frothingham was reading a letter from Honoria which had been languidly pursuing him for a week. Part of it was:
I think you met Cecilia Allerton in Boston. Had you heard of her bolting with Frank Mortimer?
I think you met Cecilia Allerton in Boston. Had you heard of her bolting with Frank Mortimer?
“Frank Mortimer!” he exclaimed, sitting upright in bed in his astonishment. “That brute with the big teeth and the empty head!”
Her father was angry with her for something or other and treated her cruelly. Everyone was pitying her. Frank fell in love with her out of sympathy, and she was so miserable that, when her father wouldn’t consent, she ran off with him. Mr. Allerton has changed his will, they say, leaving everything to colleges and charities. But Frank has an income and will have more when his uncle dies, and she has a rich aunt who loathes her father, and so may leave her something.Cecilia’s quite mad about Frank, now that they’re married. Willie Kennefick was dining with us last night. He says she was in love with Stanley Huddiford, who died a year or so ago. He says she believes Stanley’s soul has entered into Frank! She’s a clever girl, they say, but a bit eccentric, like so many of them down Boston way——
Her father was angry with her for something or other and treated her cruelly. Everyone was pitying her. Frank fell in love with her out of sympathy, and she was so miserable that, when her father wouldn’t consent, she ran off with him. Mr. Allerton has changed his will, they say, leaving everything to colleges and charities. But Frank has an income and will have more when his uncle dies, and she has a rich aunt who loathes her father, and so may leave her something.
Cecilia’s quite mad about Frank, now that they’re married. Willie Kennefick was dining with us last night. He says she was in love with Stanley Huddiford, who died a year or so ago. He says she believes Stanley’s soul has entered into Frank! She’s a clever girl, they say, but a bit eccentric, like so many of them down Boston way——
Frothingham looked on this news as a direct, providentialwarning to him. “I’ll take no risks with Pope,” he said. “It would be sheer madness.”
And before he left his rooms he wrote to Barney, fixing the next day but one for his arrival at Chicago. He felt that there was no hope of winning Pope—at least not at present. “If she by chance succeeds after I’m gone—and I’ll leave her in a good humour—I can easily return. But I know there’s nothing in it.”
Failure was mourning in her eyes when he called at five o’clock. They went for a walk, and in reluctant words she told him that her father was immovable, that their only choice was between disobeying him and breaking the engagement. She listened coldly while he explained his position again; when he had finished she sneered. “You are—unanswerable,” she said bitterly.
“No doubt I do lack ‘temperament,’” he drawled, an ironic gleam on his eyeglass.
She was humble at once. “Oh—I understand,” she answered.
But she was too heartsick to talk; and he forgot that he was walking with her, could only feel ruin’s arm linked firmly in his. It was dusk when they reached the house.
In the doorway he took her hand and held it.
“I shall see you when I return?” he asked. “Will you answer if I write now and then?”
“Yes,” she replied gratefully.
She sent away the servant who came at her ring. She detained Frothingham, hoping against reason and instinct that he would tear off that tranquil mask of his, would forget his responsibilities as the bearer of a proud and ancient name, would say: “I care for only you. Come!” Even after he had left her she lingered, holding the door ajar, listening for returning footsteps. At last she shut the door, and went forlornly and wearily to her great, lonely, sombre dressing room. She stood before the mirror of her dressing table, studying her plain, wistful, woeful little face. “You aren’t pretty,” she said to it, with that candour which has its chance in those rare moments when vanity is quite downcast. “And one can’t expect much when men think of nothing but looks in a woman.” She could no longer see herself for tears. “And I believe he’d have been—at least kind to me.”
She rang for her maid, and began listlessly and mechanically to dress for dinner.