"He has been pointed out to me, but in those days when I was only interested in possible partners for the German. I do not recall him."
"That is he, the second one."
The men were entering the drawing-room. Betty was relieved that the political beard was not on Senator North. He wore only a very short moustache on his ugly powerful face.
He stood for a few moments talking to his host, and Betty, to whom the political beard was immediately presented, gave him an occasional glance of exploration while her companion was assuring her, with neither a twang nor an accent, that he had long looked forward to the pleasure of meeting the famous Miss Betty Madison. Senator Shattuc was in his late fifties, but it was evident that the cares of Congress had not smothered his appreciation of a pretty woman. He had a strong face and an infantile complexion, and his beard sparkled with care. Senator Ward, who was presented a few moments later, told her that he had envied Burleigh throughout the long dinner. Betty decided that the senatorial manner certainly was agreeable.
The two men fell into conversation with one another, and Betty turned her attention to Senator North. He was standing alone for the moment, glancing about the room. His attitude was one of absolute repose; he did not look as if he ever had hurried or wasted his energies or lost his self-control in his life. His face was impenetrable; his eyes, black and piercing, were wholly without that limpidity which reveals depths and changes of expression; his mouth was somewhat contemptuous, and betrayed neither tenderness nor humour. If possible, he stood even more squarely on his feet than the other men. He had the powerful thick-set figure which invariably harbours strong passions.
"I don't know whether I like him or not," thought Betty. "I think I don't—but perhaps I do. He might be made of New England rock, and he looks as if the earth could swallow him before he'd yield an inch. But I can feel his magnetism over here. Why have all these men so much magnetism? Is that, too, senatorial?"
Senator North caught her eye at the moment, and turned at once to Lady Mary. A moment later he had been presented to Betty and they stood alone.
"I once mended your hoop for you, when you were a little girl, just in front of your house; but I am afraid you have forgotten it." "Oh,—I think I do remember it. Yes—I do." She evoked the incident out of the mists of childish memories. "Was it you? I am afraid I was looking harder at the hoop than at its mender. But—I recall—I thought how kind you were."
And then he inquired for her mother, and spoke pleasantly of his own and his wife's acquaintance with Mrs. Madison at Bar Harbor. Betty wondered afterward why she had thought his face repellent. His eyes defied investigation, but his mouth relaxed into a smile that was very kind, and his voice had almost a caress in it. But at the moment she was too eager to hear him express himself to receive a strong personal impression, and while she was casting about in her mind for a leader, she was obliged to give him her hand.
"Good-night," she said with a little pout, "I am so sorry."
"So am I," he said, smiling, and shaking her hand. "Good-night. I shall look forward to meeting you again soon."
"Miss Madison, may I see you to your carriage?" asked Senator Burleigh. "I have tried to get near you ever since dinner," he said discontentedly, as they walked down the hall, "and now you are going. But you will come to the Senate to-morrow? Come right up to the door of the Senators' Gallery at precisely three o'clock and I will meet you there."
A few moments later, Betty paused on her way to her own room and opened her mother's door softly.
"Molly," she whispered.
"Well?" asked a severe voice.
"I went in to dinner with the son of one of papa's old Chamberlin companions, and he was simply charming. So were all the others, and I never met a man who could shake hands as well as Senator North. I had a heavenly time."
Mrs. Madison groaned and turned her face to the wall.
"And there wasn't a toothpick, and I didn't hear a twang."
"Kindly allow me to go to sleep."
As soon as Betty awoke the next morning, she turned her mind to the events of the night before. Unlike most occasions eagerly anticipated, it had contained no disappointment; she had, indeed, been pleasurably surprised, for despite her strong common-sense the dark picture of corruption and objectionable toilet accessories had made its impression upon her. She foresaw much amusement in witnessing the unwilling surrender of her mother to even Senator Shattuc, him of the political beard. As for Senator Burleigh, she would yield to his magnetism and power of compelling interest in himself, while pronouncing his manners too abrupt and his personality too "Western." And if he admired intelligently the old lace which she always wore at her throat and wrists and on her pretty head, she would confess that there might be exceptions even to political rules.
But somewhat to Betty's surprise it was not of Senator Burleigh that she thought most, although she had talked with him for two hours and pronounced him charming. She had talked with Senator North for exactly six minutes, but she saw his face more distinctly than Burleigh's and retained his voice in her ear. He had not paid her a compliment, but his manner had expressed that she interested him and that he thought her worth meeting. For the first time in her life Betty felt flattered by the admiration of a man; and she had held her own with more than one of distinction on the other side. Even royalty had not fluttered her, but she conceived an eager desire to make this man think well of her. It irritated her to remember that she could have made no mental impression on him whatever. She became uncheerful, and reflected that the subtle flattery in his manner was probably a mere habit; Lady Mary had intimated that he liked women and had loved several. Well, she cared nothing about that; he was thirty years older than herself and married; but she admired him and wished for his good opinion and to hear him talk. Doubtless they soon would meet again, and if they were left in conversation for a decent length of time she would ask him to call. She cast about in her mind for a subterfuge which would justify a note, but she could think of none, and was too worldly-wise to evoke a smile from the depths of a man's conceit.
Her mother refused to bid her good-by when, accompanied by her maid, she started for the Capitol at twenty minutes to three. A few moments later she found herself admiring for the first time the big stately building on the hill at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue. She always had thought Washington a beautiful city, with its wide quiet avenues set thick with trees, its graceful parks, each with a statue of some man gratefully remembered by the Republic, but she had given little heed to its public buildings and their significance. As she approached the great white Capitol, she experienced a sudden thrill of that historical sense which, after its awakening, dominates so actively the large intelligence. The Capitol symbolized the greatness of the young nation; all the famous American statesmen after the first group had moved and made their reputations within its walls. All laws affecting the nation came out of it, and the Judges of the Supreme Court sat there. And of its kind there was none other in the civilized world, had been but one other since the world began.
The historic building shed an added lustre upon Senator Burleigh; but it was of Senator North that she thought most as she half rose in the Victoria and scanned the long sweep. The cleverest of women cannot class with anything like precision the man who has stamped himself into her imagination. Betty knew that there were six men in the Senate who ranked as equals; their quiet epoch gave them little chance to discover latent genius other than for constructive legislation; nevertheless she arbitrarily conceived the Capitol to-day as the great setting for one man only; and the building and the man became one in her imagination henceforth. The truth was that Betty, being greatly endowed for loving and finding that all men fell short of her high standard, was forced to seek companionship in an ideal. She had had several loves in history, but had come to the conclusion some years since that dead men were unsatisfactory. Since then she had fancied mightily one or two public men on the other side, whom she had never met; but in time they had bored or disappointed her. But here was a conspicuous figure in her own country, appealing to her through the powerful medium of patriotic pride; a man so much alive that he might at any moment hold the destinies of the United States in his hands, and who, owing to his years and impenetrable dignity, was not to be considered from the ordinary view-point of woman. She would coquet with Senator Burleigh; it was on the cards that she would love him, for he was brilliant, ambitious, and honourable; but Senator North was exalted to the vacant pedestal reserved for ideals, and Betty settled herself comfortably to his worship; not guessing that he would be under her memory's dust-heap in ten days if Senator Burleigh captured her heart.
The coachman was directed by a policeman to the covered portico of the Senate wing. Betty had a bare glimpse of corridors apparently interminable, before another policeman put her into the elevator and told her to get off when the boy said "Gallery."
Senator Burleigh was waiting for her, and she thought him even manlier and more imposing in his gray tweed than in evening dress. He shook her hand heartily, and assured her in his abrupt dictatorial way that it gave him the greatest pleasure to meet her again.
"I'm sorry I haven't time to take you all over the building," he said, "but I have two Committee meetings this afternoon. You must come down some morning."
His manner was very businesslike, and he seemed a trifle absent as he paused a moment and called her attention to the daub illustrating the Electoral Commission; but this, Betty assumed, was the senatorial manner by day. In a moment he led her to one of the doors in the wall that encloses the Senate Gallery.
"You see this lady," he said peremptorily to the doorkeeper, who rose hastily from his chair. "She is always to be admitted to this gallery. Take a good look at her."
"Yes, sir; member of your family, I presume?"
"You can assume that she is my sister. Only see that you admit her."
"The rules are very strict in regard to this gallery," he added, as he closed the door behind them. "It is only for the families of the Senators, but you will like it better than the reserved gallery. Send for me if there should be trouble at any time about admittance."
"I usually get where I wish! I sha'n't trouble you."
"Don't you ever think twice about troubling me," he said. "Let us go down to the front row."
The galleries surrounding the great Chamber were almost dark under the flat roof, but the space below was full of light. It looked very sumptuous with its ninety desks and easy-chairs, and a big fire beyond an open door; and very legislative with its president elevated above the Senators and the row of clerks beneath him. There were perhaps thirty Senators in the room, and they were talking in groups or couples, reading newspapers, or writing letters. One Senator was making a speech.
"I don't think they are very polite," said Betty. "Why don't they listen? He seems to be in earnest and speaks very nicely." "Oh, he is talking to his constituents, not to the Senate—although he would be quite pleased if it would listen to him. He does not amount to much. We listen to each other when it is worth while; but this is a Club, Miss Madison, the most delightful Club in the United States. Just beyond are the cloakrooms, where we can lounge before the fire and smoke, or lie down and go to sleep. The hard work is in the Committee rooms, and it is hard enough to justify all the pleasure we can get out of the other side of the life. Now, I'll tell you who these are and something about them."
He pointed out one after the other in his quick businesslike way, rattling off biographical details; but Betty, feeling that she was getting but a mass of impressions with many heads, interrupted him.
"I don't see Senator North," she said. "I thought he was going to speak."
"He will, later. He is in his Committee room now, but he'll go down as soon as a page takes him word that the clerk is about to read the bill whose Committee amendments he is sure to object to. Now I must go. I shall give myself the pleasure of calling a week from Sunday. You must come often, and always come here. And let me give you two pieces of advice: never bow to any Senator from up here, and never go to the Marble Room and send in a card. Then you can come every day without attracting attention. Good-bye."
Betty thanked him, and he departed. For the next hour she found the proceedings very dull. The unregarded Senator finished his speech and retired behind a newspaper. Other members clapped their hands, and the pages scampered down the gangways and carried back documents to the clerk below the Vice-President's chair, while their senders made a few remarks meaningless to Betty. Two or three delivered brief speeches which were equally unintelligible to one not acquainted with current legislation. During one of them a man of imposing appearance entered and was apparently congratulated by almost every one in the room, the Senators leaving their seats and coming to the middle aisle, where he stood, to shake him by the hand. Betty felt sorry for Leontine, who was on the verge of tears, but determined to remain until Senator North appeared if she did not leave until it should be time to dress for dinner.
He entered finally and went straight to his desk. He looked preoccupied, and began writing at once. In a few moments the clerk commenced to read from a document, and Senator North laid aside his pen and listened attentively. So did several other Senators. It was a very long document, and Betty, who could not understand one word in ten as delivered by the clerk's rumbling monotonous voice, was desperately bored, and was glad her Senators had the solace of the cloak-rooms. Several did in fact retire to them, but when the clerk sat down and Senator North rose, they returned; and Betty felt a personal pride in the fact that they were about to listen to the Senator whom herself had elected to honour.
She had to lean forward and strain her ears to hear him. It was evident that he did not recognize the existence of the gallery, for he did not raise his voice from beginning to end; and yet it was of that strong rich quality that might have carried far. But it neither "rang out like a clarion," nor "thundered imprecation." Neither did he utter an impassioned phrase nor waste a word, but he denounced the bill as a party measure, exposed its weak points, riddled it with sarcasm, and piled up damaging evidence of partisan zeal. "This is an honourable body," he concluded, "and few measures go out of it that are open to serious criticism by the self-constituted guardians of legislative virtue, but if this bill goes through the Senate we shall invite from the thinking people of the country the same sort of criticism which we now receive from the ignorant. If the high standard of this body is to be maintained, it must be by sound and conservative legislation, not by grovelling to future legislatures."
Having administered this final slap, he sat down and began writing again, apparently paying no attention to the Chairman of the bill, who defended his measure with eloquence and vigour. It was a good speech, but it contained more words than the one that had provoked it and fewer points. Senator North replied briefly that the only chance for the bill was for its father to refrain from calling attention to its weak points, then went into the Republican cloak-room, presumably to smoke a cigar. Betty, whose head ached, went home.
That evening, as Betty was rummaging through a cupboard in the library looking for a seal, she came upon a box of Cuban cigars. They could have been her father's only and of his special importation: he had smoked the choicest tobacco that Havana had been able to furnish.
She knew that many men would prize that box of cigars, carefully packed in lead and ripened by time, and she suddenly determined to send it to Senator North. She felt that it would be an acute pleasure to give him something, and as for the cigars they were too good for any one else. She took the box to her room and wrapped it up carefully and badly; but when she came to the note which must accompany it, she paused before the difficulties which mechanically presented themselves. Senator North might naturally feel surprise to receive a present from a young woman with whom he had talked exactly six minutes. If she wrote playfully, offering a small tribute at the shrine of statesmanship, he might wonder if she worked slippers for handsome young clergymen and burned candles before the photograph of a popular tenor. She might send them anonymously, but that would not give her the least satisfaction. Finally, she reluctantly decided to wait until she met him again and could lead the conversation up to cigars. "Perhaps he will see me in the gallery to-morrow," she thought.
But although he sat in his comfortable revolving-chair for two hours the next afternoon, he never lifted his eyes to the gallery. She heard several brief and excellent speeches, but went home dissatisfied. On the day after her return from New York, whither she went to perform the duty of bridesmaid; she had a similar experience, twice varied. Senator Burleigh made a short speech in a voice that was truly magnificent, and following up Senator North's attack on the bill unpopular on the Republican side of the Chamber. He was answered by "Blunderbuss" Pepper, the new Senator who had turned every aristocrat out of office in his aristocratic Southern State and filled the vacancies with men of his own humble origin. He was a burly untidy-looking man, and frequently as uncouth in speech, a demagogue and excitable. But the Senate, now that three years in that body had toned him down, conceded his ability and took his abuse with the utmost good-nature. Betty recalled his biography as sketched by Senator Burleigh, and noted that almost every Senator wheeled about with an expression of lively interest, as his reiterated "Mr. President, Mr. President," secured him the floor. They were not disappointed, nor was Betty. In a few moments he was roaring like a mad bull and hurling invective upon the entire Republican Party, which "would deprive the South of legitimate representation if it could." He was witty and scored many points, provoking more than one laugh from both sides of the Chamber; and when he finished with a parting yell of imprecation, his audience returned to their correspondence and conversation with an indulgent smile. Betty wondered what he had been like before the Senate had "toned him down."
That night she addressed the cigars to Jack Emory and sent them off at once. "I do believe I came very close to making a fool of myself," she thought. "What on earth made me want to give those cigars to Senator North?—to give him anything? What a little ninny he would have thought me!" She puzzled long over this deflection from her usual imperious course with men, but concluding that women having so many silly twists in their brains, it was useless to try to understand them all, dismissed the matter from her mind.
"How many politicians are coming this afternoon?" asked Mrs. Madison, at the Sunday midday dinner. Her voice indicated that all protest had not gone out of her.
"Senator Burleigh and Mr. Montgomery—and Lady Mary. Not a formidable array."
"They are exactly two too many. I have written and asked Sally Carter to come over and chaperon you in case I do not feel equal to the ordeal at the last moment. I am surprised that she takes your course so quietly, but on the whole am relieved; you need some one respectable to keep you in countenance."
"This house reeks with respectability; no one would ever notice the absence of a chaperon. Sally is not only quiescent, but sympathetic. She knows that I have got to the end of teas and charities, and she believes in people choosing their own lives. She says she would join a travelling circus if her proclivities happened to point that way."
Mrs. Madison shuddered. "I do not pretend to understand the present generation, and the more I hear of it the less I wish to. As for Sally I love her, but I should detest her if I didn't, for she is the worst form of snob: she is so rich and so well born that she thinks she can dress like a servant-girl and affect the manners of a barmaid." "Molly! So you were haunting 'pubs' when I supposed you were yawning at home? I hope you did not tell the barmaids your real name."
"Well, I suppose I should not criticise people that I know nothing about," said Mrs. Madison, colouring and serious. She changed the subject hastily. "Jack, I hope you will stay this afternoon. It would be the greatest comfort to have you in the house."
"I will stay, certainly," said Emory. He had taken his Sunday dinner at the old house in I Street for almost a quarter of a century. To-day he had been unusually silent, and had contracted his brows nervously every time Betty looked at him. She understood perfectly, and amused herself by turning round upon him several times with abrupt significance. However, she spared him until they had taken Mrs. Madison to the parlor and gone to the library, where he might smoke his after-dinner cigar. He sat down in front of a window, and the sunlight poured over him, glistening his handsome head and illuminating his skin. Betty supposed that some women might fall quite desperately in love with him; and in addition to his beauty he was a noble and high-minded gentleman, whose narrowness was due to the secluded life he chose to lead.
"Now!" she exclaimed, "come out with it! You've had eleven days, and one can learn a good deal in that time."
He bit sharply at the end of his cigar, but answered without hesitation.
"It is almost impossible to learn anything in Washington to the detriment of the Senate. There seems to be a sort ofesprit de corpsin the entire city. They look politely horrified if you suggest that a Senator of the United States, honouring Washington with the society of his wives and daughters, is anything that he should not be. I was obliged to go to New York and Boston to get the information I wanted, and even now it is far from complete. I don't believe it is possible to arrive at anything like accurate knowledge on the subject."
"Well, what did you get? Washington is a well-ordered community with a high moral tone—it is said to have fewer scandals than any city in the country—and there is no sordid commercial atmosphere to lower it. It is the great city of leisure in everything but legislation and paying calls; so it seems to me that it would be the last place to fondle in its bosom ninety distinguished scoundrels. But go on. What did you learn in Boston and New York?"
"That a little of everything is represented in the Senate,—that is about what it amounts to. There are unquestionably men there who bought their seats from legislatures, and there are men who are agents for trusts, syndicates, and railroad corporations, as well as three party bosses—"
"Ninety Senators leave a large margin for a number of loose fish. What I want to know is, how do the big men stand—North, Maxwell, Ward, March—and fifteen or twenty others, all the men who are the Chairmen of the big Committees? The New England men seem to have charge of everything of importance in the House and of a good deal in the Senate."
"Some of the Southern and North-western and most of the New England States seem to have honest enough legislatures," said Emory, unwillingly. "But that leaves plenty of others. Only a few of the Western States are above suspicion, and as for New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, they would not waste time defending themselves; and as no Senators are better than the people that elect them—"
"Oh, yes, they are sometimes—look at the Senator from Delaware. I too have been asking questions for eleven days. It all comes to this: there are millionaireism and corrupting influences in the Senate, but that element is in the minority, and the greater number of leading, or able Senators are above suspicion. And they seem to have things pretty much all their own way. They could not if the majority in the Senate were scoundrels. No corrupt body was ever led by its irreproachable exceptions—"
"In another ten years there will be no exceptions. All that are making a desperate stand for honesty to-day will be overwhelmed by the unprincipled element—"
"Or have forced it to reform. The good in human nature predominates; we are a healthy infant, and do not know the meaning of the word 'decadent;' and we are extraordinarily clever. Senator Burleigh says that you can always bank on the American people going right in the end. They may not bother for a long time, but when they do wake up they make things hum."
"Senator Burleigh evidently has all the easy-going optimism of this country. But, Betty, I am no more reconciled than I was before to your having anything to do with these people. Politics have a bad name, whatever the truth of the matter. I think myself our sensational press is largely to blame—" "There is nothing so interesting as the pursuit of truth," said Betty, lightly. "Reconcile yourself to the sight of me in pursuit of it—"
"Ah, here you are!" exclaimed a staccato voice. Sally Carter entered the room, kissed Betty, shook hands heartily with Emory, and threw herself into a chair. Her fortune equalled Betty's, but it was her pleasure to wear frocks so old and so dowdy that her friends wondered where they had come from originally. She had been a handsome girl, and her blue eyes were still full of fire, her fair hair abundant, but her face was sallow and lined from many attacks of malarial fever. Her manner was breezy and full of energy, and she was not only popular but a very important person indeed. She lived alone with her father in the old house in K Street and entertained rarely, but she had strawberry leaves on her coronet, and it was currently reported that when she arrived in England, clad in a rusty black serge and battered turban,—which she certainly slept in at intervals during the day,—she was met in state by the entire ducal family—including a prolific connection—whose ancestor had founded the great house of Carter in the British colonies of North America. What their private opinion was of this representative of the American dukedom was never quite clear to the Washington mind, but to know Sally Carter in her own city meant complete social recognition, and not to know her an indifferent success.
"Senator North tells me that he met you the other day and would like to meet you again," she said to Betty, who lifted her head with attention. "I dropped in on my way here for a little call on Mrs. North, poor dear! There's a real invalid for you—something the matter with her spine—is liable to paralysis any minute. It must be so cheerful to sit round and anticipate that. Why on earth do women let their nerves run away with them, in the first place? Nerves in this country are a mixture of climate, selfishness, and stupidity. I could be as nervous as a witch, but I won't. I walk miles every day and don't think about myself. Well! I told Mr. North all about the bold course of the young lady weary of frivolities, and he seemed much interested, paid you some compliment or other, I've forgotten what. He said he would look out for you in the Senate gallery and go up and speak to you—"
Emory rose with an exclamation of disgust. "I hope you told him to do nothing of the kind."
"On the contrary, I told him not to forget, for as Betty would sail her little yacht on the political sea, I wanted her to be recognized by the men-of-war, not by the trading-ships and pirates."
Emory threw away his cigar. "I think I will go in and see my aunt," he said. "All this is most distasteful to me."
He left the room, followed by Betty's mocking laugh. But Miss Carter said with a sigh,—
"He can't expect us all to live up to his ideals. It is better not to have any, like my practical self. But I'm afraid he sits out there in his damp old library and dreams of a world in which all the men are Sir Galahads and all the women Madame Rolands. He is an ideal himself, if he only knew it; I've always been half in love with him. Well, Betty, how do you like your new toy? After all, what is even a Senate but a toy for a pretty woman? That is really your attitude, only you don't know it. Life is serious only for women with babies and bills. As for charities, they were specially invented to give old maids like myself an occupation in life. What—what—should I have done without charities when Society palled?"
"Why did you never marry, Sally?" asked Betty, abruptly. The question never had occurred to her before, but as she asked it her eyes involuntarily moved to the empty chair before the window.
"What on earth should I do with a husband?" asked Miss Carter, lightly. "I only love men when they are in bronze in the public parks. Poor dear old General Lathom proposed to me four times, and the only time I felt like accepting him was when I saw his statue unveiled. I couldn't put a man on a pedestal to save my life, but when my grateful country does it I'm all humble adoration. Could you idealize a live thing in striped trousers and a frock coat?"
"Woolen is hopeless," said Betty, with an attempt at playfulness. "We must do the best we can with the inner man."
"How on earth do you know what a man is like on the inside? Idealize is the right word, though. Women make a god out of what they cannot understand in a man. If he has a bad temper, they think of him as a 'dominant personality.' If he is unfaithful to his wife, he is romantic in the eyes of a woman who has given no man a chance to be unfaithful to her. If he comes to your dinner with an attack of dyspepsia, you compare him sentimentally with the brutes that eat.Youhaven't married yet, I notice, and you are on the corner of twenty-seven."
"American men don't give you a chance to idealize them," said Betty, plaintively. "They tell you all about themselves at once. And although Englishmen have more mystery and provoke your curiosity, they don't understand women and don't want to; the women can do the adapting. I never could stand that; and as I can't endure foreigners I'm afraid I shall die an old maid. That's the reason I've gone into politics—"
The butler announced that Senator Burleigh was in the parlor.
"What of his inner man?" asked Sally.
"I never have given it two thoughts. But his outer is all that could be desired."
"He would look well in bronze. I understand that his State thinks a lot of him: as you know, I read thePostandStarthrough every day to papa. Ihaveto know something of politics."
They found Senator Burleigh talking to Mrs. Madison, apparently oblivious of her frigid attempt at tolerance and of Emory's sullen silence. Sally Carter's eyes flashed with amusement, and she shook the Senator warmly by the hand.
"Such a very great pleasure!" she announced in her staccato tones. "Now the only time I really allow myself pride is when I meet the statesmen of my country. I am sure that is the way you feel, dear Cousin Molly—is it not? We are such oysters, the few of us who always have lived here, that a whiff from the political world puts new life into us."
Emory left the room. Burleigh looked surprised but gratified, and assured her that it was the greatest possible pleasure as well as an honour to meet Miss Carter. He appeared to have left his businesslike manner on Capitol Hill, and he was even less abrupt than on the night of the dinner. Only his exuberant vitality seemed out of place in that dark old room, and it was an effort for him to keep his sonorous voice in check.
"Mrs. Madison says she takes no interest in politics," he added, "and fears to be a wet blanket on the conversation. I have been assuring her that on one day of the week politics are non-existent so far as I am concerned."
Mrs. Madison, who had been staring at Sally Carter, replied with an evident attempt to be agreeable, "Of course I always find it interesting to hear people talk about what they understand best." "Politics are what I should like to understand least. Since I have come to the Senate I have endeavoured to forget all I ever knew about them. I rely upon my friends to keep me in office while I am making a desperate attempt to become a fair-minded legislator."
He spoke lightly. Betty could not determine whether he was posing or telling the simple truth to people who would be glad to take him at his word. There was a twinkle of amusement in his eye; but he looked too impatient for even the milder sort of hypocrisy.
Mrs. Madison thawed visibly. "You younger men should try to restore the old ideals," she said.
"Ah, madam," he replied, "if you only knew what the censors said about the old ideals when they were alive! If Time will be as kind to us, we can swallow our own dose with a reasonable amount of philosophy. John Quincy Adams arraigned the politics of his day in the bitterest phrases he could create; but to-day we are asked to remember the glorious past and hide our heads."
The Montgomery's entered the room. Randolph, who was as tall as Senator Burleigh and very slender, looked so distinguished that Mrs. Madison immediately decided to remember only that his family was as old as her own. He had lost none of the repose he had found during his three years' residence in Europe, but the effort to keep it in the House had made his handsome face thin and touched his mouth with cynicism. His hair was still black, and there were no lines about his cool gray eyes.
"Blessed day of rest!" exclaimed his wife. "I got up just one hour ago. Do you know, Miss Madison, I paid twenty-six calls on Thursday, eighteen on Friday and twelve on Saturday? Never marry into political life."
Senator Burleigh, who had been talking to Miss Carter, turned round quickly. "Some women are so manifestly made for it," he said, "that it would be folly for them to attempt to escape their fate."
A month passed. Betty received with Lady Mary on Tuesdays, and under that popular young matron's wing called on a number of women prominent in the official life of the dying Administration, whom she received on Fridays. They were very polite, and returned her calls promptly; but they did not always remember her name, and her personality and position impressed but a few of these women, overwhelmed with social duties, visiting constituents, and people-with-letters. Most of them paid from fifteen to twenty calls on six days out of seven, and had filled their engagement books for the season during its first fortnight. Betty was chagrined at first, then amused. Moreover, her incomplete success raised the political world somewhat in Mrs. Madison's estimation; she had expected that her house would be besieged by these temporary beings, eager for a sniff at Old Washington air. Betty realized that she must be content to go slowly this winter, and begin to entertain as soon as the next season opened. Lady Mary took her to four large receptions, and she was invited to two or three dinners of a semi-official character; for several women not only fancied her, but appreciated the fact that the official were not the highest social honours in the land, and were glad to further her plans.
Senator Burleigh called several times. One day he arrived with a large package of books: Bryce's "American Commonwealth," a volume containing the Constitution and Washington's Farewell Address, and several of the "American Statesmen" monographs.
"Read all these," he said dictatorially. ("He certainly takes me very seriously," thought Betty. "Doubtless he'll stand me in a corner with my face to the wall if I don't get my lessons properly.") "I want you to acquire the national sense. I don't believe a woman in this country knows the meaning of the phrase. Study and think over the characters of the men who created this country: Washington and Hamilton, particularly. You'll know what I mean when you've read these little volumes; and then I'll bring you some thirty volumes containing the letters and despatches and communications to Congress of these two greatest of all Americans. I don't know which I admire most. Hamilton was the most creative genius of his century, but the very fact that he was a genius of the highest order makes him hopeless as a standard. But all men in public life who desire to attain the highest and most unassailable position analyze the character of Washington and ponder over it deeply. There never was a man so free from taint, there never was such complete mental poise, there never was such cold, rarified, unerring judgment. The man seems to us—who live in a turbulent day when the effort to be and to remain high-minded makes the brain ache—to have been nothing less than inspired. And his political wisdom is as sound for to-day as for when he uttered it; although, for the life of me, I cannot help disregarding his admonition to keep hands out of foreign pie, this time. I want the country to go to the rescue of Cuba, and I'll turn over every stone I can to that end."
Betty had listened to him with much interest. "Would Washington have gone?" she asked. "Would he advise it now, supposing he could?"
"No, I don't believe he would. Washington had a brain of ice, and his ideal of American prosperity was frozen within it. He would fear some possible harm or loss to this country, and the other could be left to the care of an all-merciful Providence. I love my country with as sound a patriotism as a man may, and I revere the memory of Washington, but I have not a brain of ice, and I think a country, like a man, should think of others besides itself. And the United States has got to that point where almost nothing could hurt it. A few months' patriotic enthusiasm, for that matter, would do it no end of good. If you care to listen, I'll read the Farewell Address to you."
He read it in his sonorous rolling voice, that must have done as much to make him a popular idol in his State as his more distinguished gifts for public life. Betty decided that the more senatorial he was the better she liked him. She knew that he was a favourite with men, and had a vague idea that men, when in the exclusive society of their own sex, always told witty anecdotes, but she could not imagine herself making small talk with Senator Burleigh. Her day for small talk, however, she fervently hoped was over.
She had seen Senator North again but once. Lady Mary Montgomery gave a great evening reception, as magnificent an affair of the sort as Betty was likely to see in Washington. It was given in honour of a distinguished Englishman, who, rumour whispered, had come over in the interests of the General Arbitration Treaty between the United States and Great Britain, now at the mercy of the Committee on Foreign Relations. There was another impression, equally alive in Washington that Lady Mary aspired to be the historic link between the two countries. Certain it was that the Secretary of State, the British Ambassador, and the Committee on Foreign Relations dined and called constantly at her house. The Distinguished Guest had called on her every day since his arrival.
Betty knew what others divined; for the friends were inseparable, and Mary Montgomery was very frank with her few intimates. "Of course I want the treaty to go through," she had said to Betty, only the day before her reception; "and I am quite wild to know what the Committee are doing with it. But of course they will say nothing. Senator Ward kisses my hand and talks Shakespeare and Socrates to me, and when I use all my eloquence in behalf of a closer relationship between the two greatest nations on earth—for I want an alliance to follow this treaty—he says:'Ma belle dame sans merci,the American language shall yet be spoken in the British Isles; I promise you that.' He is one of the few Americans I cannot understand. He has eyes so heavy that he never looks quite awake, and he is as quick as an Italian's blade in retort. He has a large and scholarly intellect, and it is almost impossible to make him serious. You never see him in his chair on the floor of the Senate, although he sometimes drifts across the room with a cigar in the hollow of his hand, and he is admittedly one of its leading spirits, and the idol of a Western State—of all things! Senator North is the reverse of transparent, but sometimes he goes to the point in a manner which leaves nothing to be desired. He is not on the Committee of Foreign Relations, so I asked him point blank the other day if he thought the treaty would go through and if he did not mean to vote for it. He is usually as polite as all men who are successful in politics and like women, but he gave a short and brutal laugh. 'Lady Mary,' he said, 'when some of my colleagues were cultivating their muscles on the tail of your lion in the winter of 1895, I told them what I thought of them in language which only senatorial courtesy held within bounds. If the Committee on Foreign Relations—for whose members I have the highest respect: they are picked men—should do anything so foolish and so unpatriotic as to report back that treaty in a form to arouse the enthusiasm of the British press, I fear I should disregard senatorial courtesy. But the United States Senate does not happen to be composed of idiots, and the President may amuse himself writing treaties, but he does not make them.'
"Then I asked him if he had no sentiment, if he did not think the spirit of the thing fine: the union of the great English-speaking races; and he replied that he saw no necessity for anything of the sort: we did very well on our separate sides of the water; and as for sentiment, we were like certain people,—much better friends while coquetting than when married. He added that the divorce would be so extremely painful. I asked him what was to prevent another lover's quarrel, if there were no ring and no blessing, and he replied: 'Ah that is another question. To keep out of useless wars with the old country and to tie our hands fast to her quarrels are two things, and the one we will do and the other we won't do.'
"That is all he would say, but fortunately there is a less conservative element in the Senate than his, although I believe they all become saturated with that Constitution in time. I can see it growing in Senator Burleigh."
All elements had come to her reception to-night. Ambassadors and Envoys Extraordinary were there in the full splendour of their uniforms. So were Generals and Admirals; and the women of the Eastern Legations had come in their native costumes. The portly ladies of the Cabinet were as resplendent as their position demanded, and the aristocracy of the Senate and the women of fashion were equally fine. Other women were there, wives of men important but poor, who walked unabashed in high-neck home-made frocks; and their pretty daughters, were as simple as themselves. One wore a cheese-cloth frock, and another a blue merino. The dames of the Plutocracy were there, blazing with converted capital,—Westerners for the most part, with hogsheads of money, who had come to the City of Open Doors to spend it. It was seldom they were in the same room with the Old Washingtonians, and when they were they sighed; then reminded themselves of recent dinners to people whose names were half the stock in trade of the daily press. Sally Carter, who regarded them through her lorgnette with much the same impersonal interest as she would accord to actors on the boards, wore a gown of azure satin trimmed with lace whose like was not to be found in the markets of the world. Her hair was elaborately dressed, and her thin neck sufficiently covered by a curious old collar of pearls set with tiny miniatures. Careless as she was by day, it often suited her to be very smart indeed by night. She looked brilliant; and Jack Emory, who had been commanded by Betty to accept Lady Mary's invitation, did not leave her side. And she snubbed her more worldly-minded followers and devoted herself to his amusement.
All the men wore evening clothes. It seemed to be an unwritten law that the politician should have his dress-suit did his wife wear serge for ever. Consequently they presented a more uniformly fine appearance than their women, and most of them held themselves with a certain look of power. Their faces were almost invariably keen and strong. Few of the younger members of the House were here to-night, only those who had been in it so many years that they were high in political importance. Among them the big round form and smooth round head of their present and perhaps most famous Speaker were conspicuous: the United States was moving swiftly to the parting of the ways, and there are times when a Speaker is a greater man than a President.
What few authors Washington boasts were there, as well as Judges of the Supreme Court, scholars, architects, scientists, and journalists. And they moved amid great splendour. Lady Mary had thrown open her ball-room, and the walls looked like a lattice-work of American Beauty roses and thorns. Great bunches of the same expensive ornament swung from the ceiling, and the piano was covered with a quilt of them deftly woven together. The pale green drawing-room was as lavishly decorated with pink and white orchids and lilies of the valley. Lady Mary felt that she could vie in extravagance with the most ambitious in her husband's ambitious land.
Betty was entertaining four Senators, the Distinguished Guest, and the Speaker of the House when she caught a glimpse of Senator North. She immediately became a trifle absent, and permitted Senator Shattuc, who liked to tell anecdotes of famous politicians, to take charge of the conversation. While he was thinking her the one woman in Washington charming enough to establish asalon, she was congratulating herself that she should meet Senator North again when she looked her best. She wore a wonderful new gown of mignonette green and ivory white, and many pearls in her warm hair and on her beautiful neck. She looked both regal and girlish, an effect she well knew how to produce. Her head was thrown back and her eyes were sparkling with triumph as they met Senator North's. He moved toward her at once.
"I should be stupid to inquire after your health," he said as he shook her hand. "You are positively radiant. I shall ask instead if you still find time to come up and see us occasionally, and if we improve on acquaintance?"
"I go very often indeed, but I have seen you only three times."
"I have been North for a week, and in my Committee Room a good deal since my return."
Betty was determined not to let slip this opportunity. She resented the platitudes that are kept in stock by even the greatest minds, and wished that he would hold out a peremptory arm and lead her to some quiet corner and talk to her for an hour. But he evidently had a just man's appreciation of the rights of others, for he betrayed no intention to do anything of the kind. His eyes dwelt on her with frank admiration, but Washington is the national headquarters of pretty women, and he doubtless contented himself with a passing glimpse of many. And this time Betty felt the full force of the man's magnetism. She would have liked to put up a detaining hand and hold him there for the rest of the evening. Even were there no chance for conversation, she would have liked to be close beside him. She forgot, that he was an ideal on a pedestal and shot him a challenging glance. "I have hoped that you would come up to the gallery and call on me," she said pointedly.
He moved a step closer, then drew back. His face did not change.
"I certainly shall when I am so fortunate as to see you up there," he said. "But the fourth of March is not far off, and the pressure accumulates. I am obliged to be in my Committee Room, as well as in other Committee Rooms, for the better part of every day. But if I can do anything for you, if there is any one you would care to meet, do not fail to let me know. Send word to my room, and if possible I will go to you."
Betty looked at him helplessly. She wanted to ask him to call at her house on Sunday, but felt a sudden diffidence. After all, why should he care to call on her? He had more important things to think of; and doubtless he spent his few leisure hours with some woman far more brilliant than herself. Her head came down a trifle and she turned it away. He stood there a moment longer, then said,—
"Good-night," and, after a few seconds' hesitation, and with unmistakable emphasis: "Remember that it would give me the greatest possible pleasure to do anything for you I could." Immediately after, he left the room.
When she was alone an hour later, she anathematized herself for a fool. Diffidence had no permanent part in her mental constitution. She was sure that if she could talk with him for thirty consecutive minutes she could interest him and attach him to her train. Her pride, she felt, was now involved. She should estimate herself a failure unless she compelled Senator North to forget the more experienced women of the political world and spend his leisure hours with her. She had been a brilliant success in other spheres, she would not fail in this.
But two more weeks passed and she did not see him. He came neither to the floor of the Senate within her experience of it, nor to the gallery. Nor did he appear to care for Society. Few of the Senators did, for that matter. They did not mind dining out, as they had to dine somewhere, and an agreeable and possibly handsome partner would give zest to any meal; but they were dragged to receptions and escaped as soon as they could.
Betty rose suddenly from the breakfast-table and went into the library, carrying a half-read letter. She had felt her face flush and her hand tremble, and escaped from the servants into a room where she could think alone for hours, if she wished.
The letter ran as follows:—
THE PARSONAGE, ST. ANDREW, VIRGINIA. To MISS ELIZABETH MADISON:
DEAR MADAM,—I have a communication of a somewhat trying nature to make, and believe me; I would not make it were not my end very near. Your father, dear madam, the late Harold Carter Madison, left an illegitimate daughter by a woman whom he loved for many years, an octaroon named Cassandra Lee. Before his death he gave poor Cassie a certain sum of money, and made her promise to leave Washington and never return. She came here and devoted the few remaining years of her life to the care of her child. I and my wife were the only persons who knew her story, and when she was dying we willingly promised to take the little one. For the last ten years Harriet has lived here in the parsonage and has been the only child I have ever known,—a dearly beloved child. She has been carefully educated and is a lady in every sense of the word. I had until the last two years a little school, and she was my chief assistant. But the public school proved more attractive—and doubtless is more thorough—and this passed from me. Last year my wife died. Now I am going, and very rapidly. I have only just learned the nature of my illness, and I may be dead before you receive this letter. I write to beg you to receive your sister. There is no argument I can use, dear lady, which your own conscience will not dictate. You will not be ashamed of her. She shows not a trace of the taint in her blood. The money your father gave Cassie has gone long since, but Harriet asks no alms of you, only that you will help her to go somewhere far from those who know that she is not as white as she looks, and to give her a chance to earn her living. She is well fitted to be a governess or companion, and no doubt you could easily place her. But she is lonely and frightened and miserable. Be merciful and receive her into your home for a time.
"I dare not write this to your mother. She has no cause to feel warmly to Harriet. But you are young, and wealthy in your own right. Her future rests with you. Here in this village she can do absolutely nothing, and after I am buried she will not have enough to keep her for a month. Answer to her—she bears my name."
I am, dear lady,Your humble and obd't servant,ABRAHAM WALKER.
P. S. Harriet is twenty-three. She has letters in her possession which prove her parentage.
Betty's first impulse was to take the next train for St. Andrew. Her heart went out to the lonely girl, deprived of her only protector, wretched under the triple load of poverty, friendlessness, and the curse of race. She remembered vividly those two men in the church whose bearing expressed more forcibly than any words the canker that had blighted their manhood. And this girl bore no visible mark of the wrong that had been done her, and only needed the opportunity to be happy and respected. Could duty be more plain? And was she a chosen instrument to right one at least of the great wrongs perpetrated by the brilliant, warm-hearted, reckless men of her race?
But in a moment she shuddered and dropped the letter, a wave of horror and disgust rising within her. This girl was her half-sister, and was, light or dark, a negress. Betty had seen too much of the world in her twenty-seven years to weep at the discovery of her father's weakness, or to shrink from a woman so unhappy as to be born out of wedlock; but she was Southern to her finger-tips: the blacks were a despised, an unspeakably inferior race, and they had been slaves for hundreds of years to the white man. To be sure, she loved the old family servants, and rarely said a harsh word to them, and it was a matter of indifference to her that they had been freed, as she had plenty of money to pay their wages. But that the negro should vote had always seemed to her incredible and monstrous, and she laughed to herself when she met on the streets the smartly dressed coloured folk out for a walk. They seemed farcically unreal, travesties on the people to whom a discriminating Almighty had given the world. To her the entire race were first slaves, then servants, entitled to all kindness so long as they kept their place, but to be stepped on the moment they presumed. She recoiled in growing disgust from this girl with the hidden drop of black in her body.
But her reasoning faculty was accustomed to work independently of her brain's inherited impressions. She stamped her foot and anathematized herself for a narrow-minded creature whose will was weaker than her prejudices. The girl was blameless, helpless. She might have a mind as good as her own, be as well fitted to enjoy the higher pleasures of life. And she might have a beauty and a temperament which would be her ruin did her natural protectors tell her that she was a pariah, an outcast, that they could have none of her. Betty conjured her up, a charming and pathetic vision; but in vain. The repulsion was physical, inherited from generations of proud and intolerant women, and she could not control it.
She longed desperately for a confidant and adviser. Her mother she could not speak to until she had made up her mind. Emory and Sally Carter would tell her to give the creature an allowance and think no more about her; and the matter went deeper than that. The girl had heart and an educated mind; her demands were subtle and complex. Senator Burleigh? He would laugh impatiently at her prejudices, and tell her that she ought to go out and live in the free fresh air of the West. They probably would quarrel irremediably. Mary Montgomery would only stare. Betty could hear her exclaim: "But why? What? And you say she is quite white? I do not think that negroes are as nice as white people, of course; but I cannot understand your really tragic aversion."
There was only one person to whom it would be a luxury to talk, Senator North. She knew that he would not only understand but sympathize with her, and she was sure he would give her wise counsel. She regretted bitterly that she had not been able to make a friend of him, as she had of several of his colleagues. She would have sent for him without hesitation.
She glanced at the clock; it pointed to ten minutes past ten. He was doubtless at that moment in his Committee Room looking over his correspondence. She knew that Senators received letters at the rate of a hundred a day, and were early risers in consequence. If only she dared to go to him, if only he were not so desperately busy. But he had intimated that he had leisure moments, had taken the trouble to say that it would give him pleasure to serve her. Why should he not? What if he were a Senator? Was she not a Woman? Why should she of all women hesitate to demand a half-hour's time of any man? She needed advice, must have it: a decision should be reached in the next twenty-four hours. Not for a second did she admit that she was building up an excuse for the long-desired interview with Senator North. She was a woman confronted with a solemn problem. Her coupe was at the door; she had planned a morning's shopping. She ran upstairs and dressed herself for the street, wondering what order she would give the footman. She changed her mind hurriedly twenty times, but was careful to select the most becoming street-frock she possessed, a gentian blue cloth trimmed with sable. There were three hats to match it, and she tried on each, to the surprise of her maid, who usually found her easy to please. She finally decided upon a small toque which was made to set well back from her face into the heavy waves of her hair. She was too wise to wear a veil, for her complexion was flawless, her forehead low and full, and her hair arranged loosely about it; she wore no fringe.
As the footman closed the door of the coupe and she said curtly, "The Capitol," she knew that her mind had made itself up in the moment that it had conceived the possibility of a call upon Senator North.
That point settled, she was calm until she reached the familiar entrance to the Senate wing, and rehearsed the coming interview.
But her cheeks were hot and her knees were trembling as she left the elevator and hurried down the corridor to the Committee Room which Burleigh, when showing her over the building one morning, had pointed out as Senator North's. She never had felt so nervous. She wondered if women felt this sudden terror of the outraged proprieties when hastening to a tryst of which the world must know nothing. And she was overwhelmed with the vivid consciousness that she was actually about to demand the time and attention of one of the busiest and most eminent men in the country. If it had not been for a stubborn and long-tried will, she would have turned and run.
A mulatto was sitting before the door. When she asked, with a successful attempt at composure, for Senator North, he demanded her card. She happened to have one in her purse, and he went into the room and closed the door, leaving her to be stared at by the strolling sight-seers.
The mulatto reopened the door and invited her to enter a large room with a long table, a bookcase, and a number of leather chairs. Before he had led her far, Senator North appeared within the doorway of an inner room.
"I am glad to see you," he said. "I know that you are in trouble or you would not have done me this honour. It is an honour, and as I told you before I shall feel it a privilege to serve you in any way. Sit here, by the fire."
Betty felt so grateful for his effort to put her at her ease, so delighted that he was all her imagination had pictured, and had not snubbed her in what she conceived to be the superior senatorial manner, that she flung herself into the easy-chair and burst into tears.
Senator North knew women as well as a man can. He let the storm pass, poked the already glowing fire, and lowered two of the window-shades.
"I feel so stupid," said Betty, calming herself abruptly. "I have no right to take up your time, and I shall say what I have to say and go."
"I have practically nothing to do for the next hour. Please consider it yours."
Betty stole a glance at him. He was leaning back in his chair regarding her intently. It was impossible to say whether his eyes had softened or not, but he looked kind and interested.
"I never have told you that your father was a great friend of mine," he said. "You really have a claim on me." In spite of the fact that the Congressional Directory gave him sixty years, he looked anything but fatherly. Although there never was the slightest affectation of youth in his dress or manner, he suggested threescore years as little. So strong was his individuality that Betty could not imagine him having been at any time other than he was now. He was Senator North, that was the rounded fact; years had nothing to do with him.
"Well, I'm glad you knew papa; it will help you to understand. I—But perhaps you had better read this."
She took the clergyman's letter from her muff, and Senator North put on a pair of steel-rimmed eyeglasses and read it. When he had finished he put the eyeglasses in his pocket, folded the letter, and handed it to her. He had read the contents with equal deliberation. It seemed impossible that he would act otherwise in any circumstance.
"Well?" he said, looking keenly at her. "What are you going to do about it?"
"I am ashamed to tell you how I have felt. But we Southerners feel so strongly on—on—that subject—it is difficult to explain!"
"We Northerners know exactly how you feel," he said dryly. "We should be singularly obtuse if we did not. However, do not for a moment imagine that I am unsympathetic. We all have our prejudices, and the strongest one is a part of us. And for the matter of that, the average American is no more anxious to marry a woman with negro blood in her than the Southerner is, and looks down upon the Black from almost as lofty a height. Only our prejudice is passive, for he is not the constant source of annoyance and anxiety with us that he is with you."
"Then you understand how repulsive it is to me to have a sister who is white by accident only, and how torn I am between pity for her and a physical antipathy that I cannot overcome?"
"I understand perfectly."
"That is why I have come to you—to ask you what Imustdo. This is the first time I have been confronted by a real problem; my life has been so smooth and my trials so petty. It is too great a problem for me to solve by myself, and I could not think of anybody's advice but yours that—that I would take," she finished, with her first flash of humour.
"I fully expect you to take the advice I am going to give you. Your duty is plain; you must do all you can for this girl. But by no means receive her into your house until you have made her acquaintance. Take the ten o'clock B. & O. to-morrow morning and go to St. Andrew; it is about four hours' journey and on the line of the railroad. Spend several hours with the girl, and, if she is worth the trouble, bring her back with you and do all you can for her: it would be cruel and heartless to refuse her consolation if she is all this old man describes—and you are not cruel and heartless. And if this drop of black blood is abhorrent to you, think what it must be to her. It is enough to torment a high-strung woman into insanity or suicide. On the other hand, if she is common, or looks as if she had a violent temper, or is conceited and self-sufficient like so many of that hybrid race, settle an income on her and send her to Europe: in placing her above temptation you will have done your duty."
"But that is the whole point—to be sure thatyoudo the right thing."
"I almost hope she will be impossible, so that I can wipe her off the slate at once. Otherwise it will be a terrible problem."
"It is no problem at all. There is no problem in plain duty. Problems exist principally in works of fiction and in the minds of unoccupied women. If you meet each development of every question in the most natural and reasonable manner,—presupposing that you possess that highest attribute of civilization, common-sense,—no question will ever resolve itself into a problem. And difficulties usually disappear as the range of vision contracts. If your house takes fire, you save what you can, not what you have elaborately planned to save in case of fire. Train your common-sense and let the windy analysis pertaining to problems alone."
"But how can I ever get over the horror of the thing, Mr. North?"
"You will forget all about it when she has been your daily companion for a few weeks. If she lacked a nose, you would as soon cease to remember it. If this girl is worth liking, you will like her, and soon cease to feel tragic. Leave that to her!"
"I know that you are right, and of course I shall take your advice. I did not come here to trouble you for nothing. But if I liked her at first and not afterward—"
"Pack her off to Europe. Europe will console an American woman for every ill in life. If you take the right attitude in the beginning, it all rests with her after that. You will have but one duty further. If she wishes to marry, you must tell the man the truth, if she will not. Don't hesitate on that point a moment. Her children are liable to be coal-black. That African blood seems to have a curse on it, and the curse is usually visited on the unoffending."
"I will, I will," said Betty. She rose, and he rose also and took her hand in both of his. She felt an almost irresistible desire to put her head on his shoulder, for she was tired and depressed.
"Your attitude in the matter is the important thing to me," he said. "That is why I have spoken so emphatically. You are a child yet, in spite of your twenty-seven years and your admirable intelligence. This is practically your first trial, the first time you have been called upon to make a decision which, either way, is bound to have a strong effect on your character, and to affect still greater decisions you may be called upon to make in the future. You have only one defect; you are not quite serious enough—yet."
"I feel very serious just now," said Betty, with a sigh; and in truth she did, and her new-found sister was not the only thing that perplexed her.
"One of these days you will be a singularly perfect woman," he added, and then he dropped her hand and walked to the door. As he was about to open it, she touched his arm timidly.
"Will you come and see me on Sunday?" she asked. "I shall have been through a good deal between now and then, and I shall want—I shall want to talk to you."
"I will come," he said.
"Not before half-past four. My mother will be asleep then, and my cousin, Jack Emory, have gone home—there will be so many things I shall want to talk to you about."
"I shall be there at half-past four," he said. "Good-bye. Good-bye."