Betty went home to her room and cried steadily for an hour. She would not analyze the complex source of her emotions, but addressed a bitter reproach to her father's shade; and she reassured herself by frankly admitting that it would give her pleasure to win the approval of Senator North.
She bathed her eyes and went to her mother's room. The sooner that ordeal was over, she reflected, the better. Mrs. Madison was reading an amusing novel and looked up with a smile, then pushed the book aside.
"Have you been crying, darling?" she asked. "What can be the matter?"
Betty told her story without preamble. Her mother's nerves could stand a shock, but not three minutes of uncertainty. Mrs. Madison listened with more equanimity than Betty anticipated.
"I suppose I may consider myself fortunate that I have not had one of his brats thrust on me before," she remarked philosophically. "What are we to do about this creature?"
"There is only one human thing to do. It is not her fault, and she is very wretched at present. And now that I know the truth I suppose I am as responsible as my father would be if he were alive. I shall go to see her to-morrow, and if she is presentable and seems good I shall bring her to Washington. Of course I shall not bring her here without your permission—it is your house. Let me read you his letter."
"Do you feel very strongly on the subject?" Mrs. Madison asked whenBetty had finished.
"Oh, I do! I do! I will promise not to bring her to Washington at all if she is impossible, but if she is all I feel sure she must be, let me bring her here for a few weeks, until we have decided what to do for her. I know it is a great deal to ask—her presence cannot fail to be hateful to you—"
"My dear, I have outlived any feeling of that sort, and I have not put everything on your shoulders all these years to thwart you now, when you feel so deeply. Moreover, an old memory came to me while you were reading that letter. When I was a little girl, about eight or ten, I spent an entire summer with Aunt Mary Eager at her home in Virginia. She had a house full, and there were five other little girls beside myself. A brook ran across the foot of the plantation, and we were very fond of playing there. Directly across was the hut of a freed slave who had a little girl about our own age. The child was a beautiful octaroon. I can see her plainly, with her honey-coloured skin, her immense black eyes, her long straight black hair, and her stiff little white frock tucked to the waist. Her mother took the greatest pride in her, and was always changing her clothes.
"Every day she used to come to the edge of her side of the brook and watch us. We never noticed her, for although we often played with the little black piccaninnies, the yellow child of a freed slave was another matter. One day—I think she had watched us for about a week—she came half-way across the bridge. We stared at each other, but took no notice of her. The next day she walked straight across and up to us, and asked us very nicely if she might play with us. We turned upon her six scarlet scandalized faces, and what we said, in what brutal child language, I do not care to repeat. The child stared at us for a moment as if she were looking into the Inferno itself, and I expect she was, poor little soul! Then she gave a cry, and tore across the bridge and up the 'pike as hard as she could run. As long as we could see her she was running, and as I never saw her again—we avoided the brook after that—it seemed to me for years as if she must be running still. And for years those flying feet haunted me, and I used to long as I grew older to do penance in some way. I befriended many a poor yellow girl, hoping she might be that child. Then life grew too sad for me to remember the sins of my childhood. But I like the idea of making penance at this late day and receiving this girl for a few weeks into my house: it will be a penance, for I do not fancy sitting at the table with a woman with negro blood in her veins, I can assure you. But I shall do it. I believe if I did not I should be haunted again by those little flying feet. There is no chance of this being her daughter, for she would have been too old to attract your father's fancy. But that is not the point. I make one condition. No one must know the truth, not even Sally or Jack. She must pass for a distant relative, left suddenly destitute." "She would probably be the last to wish the truth known. But you have taken a weight off my mind, Molly dear, and I am deeply grateful to you."
The next day Betty left the train a few minutes after two o'clock and walked up the winding street of a small village to the parsonage. She passed a number of cottages picturesquely dilapidated, a store in which a half-dozen men were smoking, and about thirty lounging negroes. On rising ground was a large house, but the village looked forlorn, neglected, almost lifeless.
The men in the store came out and stared at her; so did the women from the cottages. And the negroes stood still. Doubtless they thought her a wealthy vision; the day was cold, and she wore a brown cloth dress and a sable jacket and toque.
"What a life for an intelligent woman!" she thought, glancing about her with deep distaste. "It would be enough to induce melancholia without the 'taint.'"
She had made a desperate effort in the last twenty-four hours to overcome her repugnance, but had only succeeded in making sure that she could conceal it. She had recalled her interview with Senator North again and again. His indubitable interest gave her courage, and a desire to use the best that was in her. And she had turned her mind more often still to those men in the church and the sentiments they had inspired. The shutters of the parsonage were closed, there was crape on the door. Betty turned the knob and entered. A number of people were in a room on the right of the hall. At the head of the room, barely out-lined in the heavy shadows, was a coffin on its trestle.
The house smelt musty and damp. Betty pushed back the door and let in the bright winter sunlight. Some one rose from the group beside the coffin and came slowly forward. Betty waited, clinching her hands in her muff, her breath coming shorter. The dark figure in the dark room looked like the shadow of death itself. But it was not superstition that made Betty brace herself. In a moment the figure had stepped into the sunlight beside her.
Betty had imagined the girl handsome; she was not prepared for splendid beauty. Harriet Walker was far above the ordinary height of woman, and very slender and graceful. Her hair and eyes were black, her skin smooth and white, her features aquiline. Hauteur should have been her natural expression, but her eyes were dreamy and melancholy, her mouth discontented. Betty, in that first rapid survey, detected but two flaws in her beauty: her chin was weak and her hands were coarse.
"You are Miss Madison," she said, with the monotonous inflection of grief. "Thank you for coming."
"I am your half-sister," said Betty, putting out her hand. And then the desire to use the best that was in her overcame the repugnance that made her very knees shake, and she put her arms about the girl and kissed her.
"You are mighty kind," said the other. "Will you come into my room?" Betty followed her into a small room, simpler than any in her own servants' quarter. But it was neat, and there was an attempt at smartness in the bright calico curtains and bedspread. The furniture looked home-made, and there was no carpet on the floor.
"Poor girl! poor girl!" exclaimed Betty, impulsively. "Have you ever been happy—here?"
"Well, I don't reckon I've been very happy, ever; but I've given some happiness and I've been loved and sheltered. That is something to be thankful for in this world."
"I am going to take you away," said Betty, abruptly. "Mr. Walker wrote me that you'd be willing to come."
"Oh, yes, I'll go, I reckon. I told him I would. I want to hold up my head. Here I never have, for everybody knows. The white men all round here insulted me until they got tired of trying to make me notice them. One of the young men up on the plantation fell in love with me, and they sent him away and he was drowned at sea. He never knew that I had the black in my blood, and he had asked me to marry him. They did not tell him the truth, for they feared he would then wish to make me his mistress."
She spoke without passion, with a deep and settled melancholy, as if her intelligence had forbidden her to combat the inevitable. Betty burst into tears.
"Don't cry," said the other. "I never do—any more. I used to. And if you'll kindly take me away, I know I'll feel as if I were born over. If there is anything in this world to enjoy, be right sure I shall enjoy it. I'm young yet, and I reckon nobody was made to be sad for ever."
"You shall be happy," exclaimed Betty. "I will see to that. I pledge myself to it. I will make you forget—everything."
Harriet shook her head. "Not everything. Somewhere in my body, hidden away, but there, is a black vein, the blood of slaves. I might get to be happy with lots of books and kind people and no one to despise me for what I can't help, but every night I'd rememberthat, and then I reckon I'd feel mighty bad."
"You think so now," said Betty, soothingly, and longing for consolation herself. "But when you are surrounded by friends who love you for what you are, by all that goes to make life comfortable and—and—gay; it seems terribly soon to speak of it, but I shall take you to all the theatres and buy you beautiful clothes, and I shall settle on you what your father left me: it is only right you should have it and feel independent. You will travel and see all the beautiful things in Europe. Oh, I know that in time you will forget. When you are away from all that reminds, you cannot fail to forget."
Harriet, who had followed Betty's words with an eager lifting of her heavy eyelids and almost a smile on her mouth, brought her lips together as Betty ceased speaking, and held out her hand.
"Do you see nothing?" she asked.
Betty took the hand in hers. "What do you mean?" she demanded. "All that—the roughness—will wear off. It will be gone in a month."
"There is something there that will never wear off. Look right hard at the finger-nails."
Betty lifted the hand to her face, vaguely recalling observations of her mother when discussing suspicious looking brunettes seen in the North. There was a faint bluish stain at the base of the nails; and she remembered. It was the outward and indelible print of the hidden vein within. The nails are the last stronghold of negro blood. She dropped the hand with an uncontrollable shudder and covered her face with her muff.
"I feel so horribly sorry for you," she said hastily. "It seemed to me for the moment as if your trouble were my own."
If the girl understood, she made no sign; hers had been a life of self-control, and she had been despised from her birth.
"Tell me what you wish me to do now," said Betty, lifting her head. "When can you leave here? Do you wish me to stay with you? Is it impossible for you to go to-day?"
"I cannot leave him until he is buried. And you couldn't stay here.This is Tuesday. I'll go Thursday."
Betty thrust a roll of bills into a drawer. "They are yours by right," she said hurriedly. "Go first to Richmond and get a handsome black frock; you will be sure to find what you want ready made, and it will be better—on account of the servants—for you to look well when you arrive. Spend it all. There is plenty more. Buy all sorts of nice things. I will go now. There is a train soon. Telegraph when you start for Washington and I will meet you. Good by, and please be sure that I shall make you happy."
Harriet walked out to the gate, and Betty saw that there were fine lines on her brow and about her mouth. But she was very beautiful, sombre and blighted as she was. She clung to Betty for a moment at parting, then went rapidly into the house.
When Betty reached the street, she restrained an impulse to run, but she walked faster than she had ever walked in her life, persuading herself that she feared to miss her train. She waited three quarters of an hour for it, and there were four dreary hours more before she saw the dome of the Capitol. She arrived at home with a splitting headache and an animal craving to lock herself in her room and get into bed. For the time being no mortal interested her, she was exhausted and emotionless. She described the interview briefly to her mother, then sought the solitude she craved. And as she was young and healthy, she soon fell asleep.
When she awoke next morning she arose and dressed herself at once: in bed the will loses its control over thought, and she wished to think as little as possible. But her mind reverted to the day before, in spite of her will, and she laughed suddenly and went to her desk and wrote on a slip of paper,—
"Every woman writes with one eye on the page and one eye on some man, except the Countess Hahn-Hahn, who has only one eye."—HEINE.
"Some day when I know him better I will give him this," she thought, and put the slip into a drawer by itself.
The load of care had lifted itself and gone. She had done the right thing, the momentous question was settled for the present, and Betty Madison had merely to shake her shoulders and enjoy life again. She threw open the window and let in the sun. There had been a rain-storm in the night and then a severe frost. The ice glistened on the naked trees, encasing and jewelling them. A park near by looked as if the crystal age of the world had come. The bronze equestrian statue within that little wood of radiant trees alone defied the ice-storm, as if the dignity of the death it represented rebuked the lavish hand of Nature.
Betty felt happy and elated, and blew a kiss to the beauty about her. She always had had a large fund of the purely animal joy in being alive, but to-day she was fully conscious that the tremulous quality of her gladness was due to the knowledge that she should see Senator North within five more days and the light of approval in his eyes. Exactly what her feeling for him was she made no attempt to define. She did not care. It was enough that the prospect of seeing him made her happier than she ever had felt before. That might go on indefinitely and she would ask for nothing more. Her recent contact with the serious-practical side of life—as distinct from the serious-intellectual which she had cultivated more than once—had terrified her; she wanted the pleasant, thrilling, unformulated part. For the first time one of her ideals had come forth from the mists of fancy and filled her vision as a man; and he was become the strongest influence in her life. As yet he was unaware of this honour, and she doubtless occupied a very small corner of his thought; but he was interested at last, and he was coming to see her. And then he would come again and again, and she would always feel this same glad quiver in her soul. She felt no regret that she could not marry him; the question of marriage but brushed her mind and was dismissed in haste. That was a serious subject, glum indeed, and dark. She was glad that circumstance limited her imagination to the happy present. She felt sixteen, and as if the world were but as old. Love and the intellect have little in common. They can jog along side by side and not exchange a comment.
"Come down and take a walk," cried a staccato voice. Sally Carter was standing on the sidewalk, her head thrown back. Betty nodded, put on her things and ran downstairs. Miss Carter was wrapped in an old cape, and her turban was on one side, but she looked rosier than usual.
"I've been half-way out to Chevy Chase," she said, "and I was just thinking of paying poor old General Lathom a visit. He does look so well in bronze, poor old dear, and all that ice round him will make him seem like an ogre in fairy-land. He wasn't a bit of an ogre, he was downright afraid of me."
"I suppose a man really feels as great a fool as he looks when he is proposing to a woman he is not sure of. I wonder why they ever do. After I gave up coquetting, came to the conclusion that it wasn't honest, they proposed just the same."
"Some women unconsciously establish a habit of being proposed to. I've had very few proposals, and I know several really beautiful women who have had practically none. As I said, it's a habit, and you can't account for it."
"I went yesterday to Virginia to call on a relative who has just lost her last adopted parent," said Betty, abruptly, "and she looked so forlorn that I asked her to visit us for a while. I hope you'll like her."
"Ah? She must be some relation of mine, too. You and I are third cousins."
"Don't ask me to straighten it out. The ramifications of Southern kinships are beyond me. She is a beauty—very dark and tragic."
"That is kind of you—to run the risk of Senator Burleigh going off at a tangent," said Miss Carter, sharply. "By the way, you cannot deny that you have given him encouragement; you have neither eyes nor ears for any one else when he is round."
"He is usually the most interesting person 'round;' and I have a concentrative mind. But I never intend to marry, and Senator Burleigh has never even looked as if he wanted to propose. By the way, Molly has actually asked him to come to the Adirondacks for a few days. Can't you and your father come for a month or two? Jack has promised to stay with us the whole summer, and we'll be quite a family party."
"Yes, I will," said Miss Carter, promptly. "I haven't been in theAdirondacks for six years and I should love it."
"Harriet Walker—that's our new cousin—will be with us too, most likely. She looks delicate, and I shall try to persuade her that she needs the pines."
"Ah! Look out for the Senator—in the dark pine forests on the mountain."
"I don't know why you should be so concerned for me. I usually have kept an admirer as long as I wanted him."
"Oh, no offence, dear. The dark and tragic lady merely filled my eye at the moment. By the way, Mrs. North thinks of going to the Lake Hotel this summer. Isn't that close by your place?"
"It is just across the lake. There is your old General. He does look like an ogre, and he's got a patch of green mould on his nose. You ought to take better care of him."
"He looks so much better than he did in life that I have no fault to find. The doctor has told Mrs. North that the pine forests may do her all the good in the world, prolong her life, and Mr. North has written to see if he can get an entire wing for her. I hope he can go too, but he always seems to have so much to do at home in summer. I do like him. He's the only man I know who, I feel positive, never could make a fool of himself."
"I am half starved. Come home and have your breakfast with me."
"I should like to. Senator North—"
"There is Mr. Burleigh on horseback—with Mr. Montgomery. Hewilllook well in bronze—but they only put Generals on horseback, don't they? There—he sees me. I am going to ask them to come in to breakfast."
"I believe you like him better than you think, my dear. Your eyes shine like two suns, and I never saw you look so happy."
"The morning is so beautiful and I am so glad that I am alive. I know exactly how much I like Mr. Burleigh."
"Do all Southerners make such delicious coffee?" asked Senator Burleigh, as the four sat about the attractive table in the breakfast-room.
"The Southerners are the only cooks in the United States," announced Miss Carter. "The real difference between the South and the North is that one enjoys itself getting dyspepsia and the other does not."
"There are just six kinds of hot bread on this table," said Burleigh, meditatively.
"And no pie and no doughnuts. Mr. Montgomery, you are really aSoutherner—ar'n't you glad to get back to darky cooks?"
"I was until we began on this tariff bill, and now there is not an object you can mention, edible or otherwise, that I don't loathe."
"The details of such a bill must be maddening," said Betty, sympathetically, "but, after all, it is an honour to be on the Ways and Means Committee. There is compensation in everything."
"I don't know. When a man lobbyist tries to find out your weak spot and play on it, you can kick him out of the house, but when they set a woman at you, all you can do is to bow and say: 'My dear madam, it is with the greatest regret I am obliged to inform you that I have sat up every night until three o'clock studying this subject, and that I have made up my mind.' Whereupon she talks straight ahead and hints at trouble with certain constituents next year who want free coal and an exorbitant duty on Zante currants, raisins, wine, and wool. The whole army of lobbyists have camped on my doorstep ever since we began to draw up this bill. How they find time to camp on any one's else would make an interesting study in ubiquity."
"I am afraid some of your ideals have been shattered, and I am afraid you are shattering some of Miss Madison's," said Burleigh, smiling into Betty's disgusted face.
"I hate the dirty work of politics," said Montgomery, gloomily. "Of course it doesn't demoralize you so long as you keep your own hands clean, but it is sickening to suspect that you are sitting cheek by jowl in the Committee Room with a man whose pocket is stuffed with some Trust Company's shares."
"I used to hate it, but I don't see any remedy until we have an educated generation of high-class politicians, and I think that millennium is not far off. As matters stand, there is bound to be a certain percentage of scoundrels and of men too weak to resist a bribe in a great and shifting body like the House. Any scoundrel feels that he can slink among the rest unseen. The old members who have been returned term after term since they began to grow stubby beards on their cast-iron chins are an argument against rotation; they have had a chance to acquire the confidence of the public, they are experienced legislators, and they are incorruptible."
Betty drew a long sigh of relief. "You have cleared up the atmosphere a little," she said. "I thought I was going to learn that the House, at least, was one hideous mass of corruption, praying for burial."
"That is what they think of us outside," said Montgomery. "We might as well all be gangrene, for we get the credit of it."
"I don't like your similes," said Miss Carter; "I haven't finished my breakfast. Mr. Burleigh, you've put on your senatorial manner and I like you better without it. I thought you were going to say, 'Don't interrupt, please,' or 'Would you kindly be quiet until I finish?' at least twice."
"I beg pardon humbly. I am flattered to know that you have thought it worth while to listen to any remarks I may have been forced to make in the Senate."
"I have been twice to the gallery with Betty, and both times you were talking like a steam-engine and warning people off the track."
It was so apt a description of Burleigh's style when on his feet that even he laughed.
"I don't like to be interrupted or contradicted," he said, "I frankly admit it."
"Better not marry an American girl."
"Some Englishwomen have wills of their own," remarked Mr. Montgomery.
"Some men are tyrants in public life and slaves at home—to a beautiful woman," remarked Senator Burleigh.
"Some men are so clever," said Miss Carter. "Give me another waffle, please."
Betty went to the Senate Gallery that afternoon for the first time in several days. It was hard work to keep up with the calling frenzy of Washington and cultivate one's intellect at the same time. There was no one in the private gallery but an old man with a hayseed beard and horny hands. He sat on the first chair in the front row, but rose politely to let Betty pass; and she took off her veil and jacket and gloves and settled herself for a comfortable afternoon. She felt almost as much at home in this family section of the Senate Gallery as in her own room with a copy of the Congressional Record in her hand. Sometimes save for herself it would be empty, when every other gallery, but the Diplomats', of that fine amphitheatre would be nearly full. It was crowded, however, when it was unofficially known that a favourite Senator would speak, or an important bill on the calendar provoke a debate. Leontine no longer accompanied her mistress; she had threatened to leave unless exempted from political duty.
To-day a distinguished Senator on the other side of the Chamber was attacking with caustic emphasis a Republican measure. He was the only man in the Senate with a real Uncle Sam beard. Senator Shattuc's waved like a golden fan from his powerful jaw; but the Democratic appendage opposite was long and narrow, and whisked over the Senator's shoulder like the tail of a comet, when he became heated in controversy. It was flying about at a great rate to-day, and Betty was watching it with much interest, when a proud voice remarked in her ear,—
"That's my Senator, marm. He's powerful eloquent, ain't he?"
Betty nodded. "He's quite a leader."
"I allow he is. He's been leadin' in our State fur twenty years. I allus wanted to hear him speak in Congress, and when I called on him last Monday—when I come to Washington—he told me to come up here to-day and hear him, and he would set me in the Senators' Gallery. And he did."
His voice became a distant humming in Betty's ears. Senator North had entered and taken his seat. He apparently settled himself to listen to the speech, and he looked as calm and unhurried as usual.
"That's North," whispered the old man. "There wuz a lady in here a spell since who pinted a lot of 'em out to me. He looks a little too hard and stern to suit me. I like the kind that slaps you on the back and says 'Howdy.' Now Senator North, he never would: I know plenty that knows him. He's aristocratic; and I don't like his politics, neither. I allus suspicion that politicians ain't all right when they're aristocratic."
"He does not happen to be a politician."
"Hey?"
"Don't you want to listen to your Senator? He is very eloquent."
"He's been speakin' fur an hour steady," said the visitor to Washington, philosophically. "I kinder thought I'd like to talk to you a spell. Hev you seen the new library?" "Oh, yes; I live here."
"Do ye? Well, you're lucky. For this city's so grand it's jest a pleasure to walk around. And that Library's the most beautiful buildin' I ever saw in all my seventy-two years. I've been twice a day to look at it, and it makes me feel proud to be an Amurrican. If Paradise is any more beautiful than that there buildin', I do want to go there."
Betty smiled with the swift sympathy she always felt for genuine simplicity, and the old man's pride in his country's latest achievement was certainly touching. She refrained from telling him that she thought the red and yellow ceilings hideous, and delighted him with the assurance that it was the finest modern building in the world.
"What's happened to ye?" he asked sharply, a moment later. "You've straightened up and thrown back your head as if ye owned the hull Senate."
Senator North had wheeled about slowly and glanced up at the private gallery. Then he had risen abruptly and gone into the cloak-room.
"Perhaps I do," said Betty.
She spoke thickly. It seemed incredible that he was coming up to the gallery at last. She had another humble moment and felt it to be a great honour. But she smiled so brilliantly at the old man that he grinned with delight.
"I presume you're the darter of one of these here Senators," he said; "one of the rich ones. You look as if ye hed it all your own way in life, and seein' as you're young and pretty, meanin' no offence, I'm glad you hev. Is your pa one of the leadin' six?"
"My father is dead." She heard the door open and turned her head quickly. It was Senator Shattuc who had entered. He walked rapidly down the aisle, took a seat in the second row of chairs, and gave her a hearty grip of the hand.
"How are you?" he asked. "I was glad to see you were up here. You always look so pleased with the world that it does me good to get a glimpse of you."
Betty liked Senator Shattuc, and held him in high esteem, but at that moment she would willingly have set fire to his political beard. She was used to self-control, however, and she chatted pleasantly with him for ten minutes, while her heart seemed to descend to a lower rib, and her brain reiterated that eternal question of woman which must reverberate in the very ears of Time himself.
He came at last, and Senator Shattuc amiably got up and let him pass in, then took the chair behind the old man and asked him a few good-natured questions before turning to Betty again.
"I started to come some time ago," said Senator North, "but I was detained in one of the corridors. It is hard to escape being buttonholed. This time it was by a young woman from my State who wants a position in the Pension Office. If it had been a man I should have ordered him about his business, but of course one of your charming sex in distress is another matter. However, I got rid of her, and here I am."
"I knew you were coming. I should have waited for you." Now that he was there she subdued her exuberance of spirit; but she permitted her voice to soften and her eyes to express something more than hospitality. He was looking directly into them, and his hard powerful face was bright with pleasure.
"It suddenly occurred to me that you might be up here," he said; "and I lost no time finding out." He lowered his voice. "Did you go? Has it turned out all right?"
"Yes, I went! I'll tell you all about it on Sunday. I never had such a painful experience."
"Well, I'm glad you had it. You would have felt a great deal worse if you had shirked it. However—Yes?"
Senator Shattuc was asking him if he thought the Democratic Senator was in his usual form.
"No," he said, "I don't. What is he wasting his wind for, anyway? We'll pass the bill, and he's all right with his constituents. They know there's no more rabid watch-dog of the Treasury in America."
"I suspect it does him good to bark at us," said Senator Shattuc.
The old man looked uneasy. "Ain't that a great speech?" he asked.
The two Senators laughed. "Well, it's better than some," said Shattuc. "And few can make a better when he's got a subject worthy of him," he added kindly.
"That's perlite, seein' as you're a Republican. I allow as I'll go.Good-day, marm. I'll never forgit as how you told me you'd bin all overYurrup and that there ain't no modern buildin' so fine as our newLibrary. Good-day to ye, sirs."
Senator Shattuc shook him warmly by the hand. Senator North nodded, and Betty gave him a smile which she meant to be cordial but was a trifle absent. She wished that Senator Shattuc would follow him, but he sat down again at once. He, too, felt at home in that gallery, and it had never occurred to him that one Senator might be more welcome there than another. Senator North's face hardened, and Betty, fearing that he would go, said hurriedly,—
"Ar'n't you ever going to speak again? I have heard you only once."
"I rarely make set speeches, although I not infrequently engage in debate—when some measure comes up that needs airing."
"You ought to speak oftener, North," said Senator Shattuc. "You always wake us up."
"You have no business to go to sleep. If I talked when I had nothing to say, you'd soon cease to be waked up. Our friend over there has put three of our esteemed colleagues to sleep. He'll clear the galleries in a moment and interfere with Norris's record.—I suppose you have never seen that memorable sight," he said to Betty: "an entire gallery audience get up and walk out when a certain Senator takes the floor?"
"How very rude!"
"The great American public loves a show, and when the show is not to its taste it has no hesitation in making its displeasure known."
"Why do you despise the great American public? You never raise your voice so that any one in the second row up here can hear you."
"I have no love for the gallery. Nor do I talk to constituents. When it is necessary to talk to my colleagues, I do so, and it matters little to me whether the reporters and the public hear me or not. When my constituents are particularly anxious to know what stand I have taken on a certain question, I have the speech printed and send it to them; but as a rule they take my course for granted and let me alone."
"But tell me, Mr. North," said Betty, squaring about and putting her questions so pointedly that he, perforce, must answer them, "would you really not like to make a speech down there that would thrill the nation, as the speeches of Clay and Webster used to? And you could make a speech like that.Whydon't you?"
"My dear Miss Madison, if I attempted to thrill the American people by lofty emotions and an impassioned appeal to their higher selves, I should only bring down a storm of ridicule from seven-eighths of the American press. I could survive that, for I should not read it, but my effort would be thrown away. The people to whom it was directed would feel ashamed of what thrill was left in it after it had reached them through the only possible medium. This is the age—in this country—of hard practical sense without any frills, or thrills. It is true that there is a certain amount of sham oratory surviving in the Senate, but the very fact that it is sham protects it from the press. The real thing would irritate and alarm the spirits of mediocrity and sensationalism which dominate the press to-day. A sensational speech, one in which a man makes a fool of himself, it delights in, and it encourages him by half a column of head-lines. A speech by a great man, granted that we had one, carried away by lofty patriotism and striving to raise his country, if only for a moment, to his own pure altitude, would make the press feel uneasy and resentful, and it would neutralize every word he uttered by the surest of all acids, ridicule. An American statesman of to-day must be content to legislate quietly, to use his intellect and his patriotism in the Committee Room, and to keep a sharp eye on the bills brought forward by other Committees. As for speeches, those look best in the Record which make no appeal to the gallery. There, you cannot say I have not made you a speech!" "Well, make me another, and tell me why you even consider the power of the press. I mean, how you bring yourself even to think about it. You have defied public opinion more than once. You have stood up and told your own State that it was wrong and that you would not legislate as it demanded. I am sure you would defy the whole country, if you felt like it."
"Ah, that is another matter. The hard-headed American respects honest convictions, especially when they are maintained in defiance of self-interest. I never shall lose my State by an unwavering policy, however much I may irritate it for the moment. I could a heterogeneous Western State, of course, but not a New England one. We are a conservative, strong-willed race, and we despise the waverer. We are hard because it always has been a hard struggle for survival with us. Therefore we know what we want, and we have no desire to change when we get it. There goes the bell for Executive Session. You and I must go our different ways."
"Do you dislike her?" asked Betty anxiously of her mother on the night of Harriet's arrival. "I do not, and yet I feel that I never can love her—could not even if it were not forthat."
"It is that. You never will love her. I cannot say that she has made any impression on me whatever, so far. She seems positively congealed. I suppose she is frightened and worn out, poor thing! She may improve when she is rested and happier."
And the next day, as Betty drove her about the city and showed her the classic public buildings, the parks, white and glittering under a light fall of snow, the wide avenues in which no one seemed to hurry, and the stately private dwellings, Harriet's eyes were wide open with pleasure, and she sat up straight and alert.
"And I am really to live in this wonderful city?" she exclaimed. "How long will it be before I shall have seen all the beautiful things inside those buildings? Do you mean that I can go through all of them? Why, I never even dreamed that I'd really see the world one day. All I prayed for was books, more books. And now I'm living in a house with a right smart library, and you will let me read them all. I don't know which makes me feel most happy."
"I will ask my cousin, Mr. Emory, to take you to all the galleries, and you must go to the White House and shake hands with the President."
"Oh, I should like to!" she exclaimed. "I should like to! I should indeed feel proud." She flushed suddenly and turned away her head. Betty called her attention hastily to a shop window: they had turned into F Street. She was determined that the obnoxious subject should never be mentioned between them if she could help it.
"I'll take you to New York and show you the shops there," she continued. "New York was invented that woman might appreciate her superiority over man."
"I'd love a yellow satin dress trimmed with red and blue beads," saidHarriet, thoughtfully.
Betty shuddered. For the moment F Street seemed flaunting with oldAunty Dinah's bandannas. She replied hurriedly,—
"You will have all sorts of new ideas by the time you go out of mourning. I suppose you will wear black for a year."
"That makes me think. While I'm in black I can't see your fine friends.I'd like to study. Could I afford a teacher?"
"You can have a dozen. I've told you that I intend to turn over to you the money father left me. Mr. Emory will attend to it. You will have about five hundred dollars a month to do what you like with."
The girl gasped, then shook her head. "I can't realize that sum," she said. "But I know it's riches, and I wish—I wishhewere alive."
"If he were you would not have it, for I should not know of you. You will enjoy having a French teacher and a Professor of Belles Lettres. Have you any talent for music?"
"I can play the banjo—"
"I mean for the piano."
"I never saw one till yesterday, so I can't say. But I reckon I could play anything."
Her Southern brogue was hardly more marked than Jack Emory's, but she mispronounced many of her words and dropped the final letters of others: she said "hyah" for "here" and "do'" for "door," and once she had said "done died." Betty determined to give special instructions to the Professor.
Senator Burleigh and Emory dined at the house that evening, and although Harriet was shy, and blushed when either of the men spoke to her the deep and tragic novelty of their respectful admiration finally set her somewhat at her ease, and she talked under her breath to Emory of the pleasurable impression Washington had made on her rural mind. After dinner she went with him to the library, where he showed her his favourite books, and advised her to read them.
"Will you have a cigarette?" he asked. "Betty accuses me of being old-fashioned, but I am modern enough to think that a woman and a cigarette make a charming combination: she looks so companionable."
"I've smoked a pipe," said Harriet, doubtfully; "but I've never tried a cigarette. I reckon I could, though."
He handed her a cigarette, and she smoked with the natural grace which pervaded all her movements. She sank back in the deep chair she had chosen, and puffed out the smoke indolently.
"I am so happy," she said. "I reckoned down there that the world was beautiful somewhere, but I never expected to see it. And it is, it is. Poor old uncle used to say that nothing amounted to much when you got it, but he didn't know, he didn't know. This room is so big, and the light is so soft, and this chair is so lazy, and the fire is so warm—" She looked at Emory with the first impulse of coquetry she had ever experienced; and her eyes were magnificent.
"Are you, too, happy?" she asked softly.
He stood up suddenly and gave a little nervous laugh, darting an embarrasing glance over his shoulder.
"I feel uncommonly better than usual," he admitted.
Betty awoke the next morning with the impression that she was somewhere on the border of a negro camp-meeting. She had passed more than one when driving in the country, and been impressed with the religious frenzy for which the human voice seemed the best possible medium. As she achieved full consciousness, she understood that it was not a chorus of voices that filled her ear, but one,—rich, sonorous, impassioned. It was singing one of the popular Methodist hymns with a fervour which not even its typical African drawl and wail could temper. It was some moments before Betty realized that the singer was Harriet Walker, and then she sprang out of bed and flung on her wrapper.
"Great heaven!" she thought. "How shall we ever be able to keep her secret? A bandanna gown and a voice like a cornfield darky's! I suppose all the servants are listening in the hall."
They were,—even the upper servants, who were English,—but they scuttled away as their mistress appeared. She crossed the hall to Harriet's room, rapped loudly, and entered. Her new sister, still in her nightgown, was enjoying the deep motion of a rocking-chair, hymn-book in hand. She brought her song to a halt as Betty appeared, but it was some seconds before the inspired expression in her eyes gave place to human greeting. Her face happened to be in shadow, and for the moment Betty saw her black. Her finely cut features were indistinct, and the ignorant fanaticism of a not remote grandmother looked from her eyes. "Harriet!" exclaimed Betty. "I don't want to be unkind, but you must not do that again. If you want to keep your secret, never sing a hymn again as long as you live."
"Ah!" Harriet gave a gasp, then a half-sob. "Ah! But I love to sing them, honey. I have sung them every Sunday all my life, andheloved them. He said I could sing with anybody, he wouldn't except angels. I 'most felt he was listening."
"You have a magnificent voice, and you must have it cultivated. But never sing another hymn."
"When I go to church I know I'll just shout—without knowing what I'm doing."
"Then don't go to church," said Betty, desperately.
"I must! I must! What'll the Lode say to me? Oh, my po' old uncle!"
She was weeping like a passionate child. Betty sat down beside her and took her hand.
"Come," she said, "listen to me. The first time I saw you the deepest impression I received of you was one of fine self-control. Doubtless you wept and stormed a good deal before you acquired it—at all the different stages of what was both renunciation and acquisition. The last few days have unsettled you a little because you have found yourself in a new world, minus all your old responsibilities and trials, and the experience has made you feel younger, robbed you of some of your hold on yourself. But that habit of self-control is in your brain,—it is the last to leave us,—and all you have to do is to sit down and think hard and adjust yourself. It is even more important that you make no mistakes now than it was before. Fate seldom gives any one two chances to begin life over again. Think hard and keep a tight rein on yourself."
Betty had more than negro hymns in her mind, but she did not care to be explicit. The generalities of the subject were disagreeable enough.
Harriet had ceased her sobbing and was listening intently. She dried her eyes as Betty finished speaking.
"You are right, honey," she said. "And I reckon you haven't spoken any too soon, for I was likely to get my head turned. I'll go to church and Iwon'tsing. First I'll tie a string round my neck to remember, and after that it'll be easy. I'm afraid I'm just naturally lazy, and if I didn't watch myself I'd soon forget all the hard lessons I've learned and get to be like some fat ornary old nigger who's got an easy job."
Betty shuddered. "The white race is not devoid of laziness. If you want a reason for yours, just remember that the Southern sun has prevented many a man from becoming great. Keep your mind as far away from the other thing as possible."
"Oh, I think I'll forget it. I felt that way yesterday. But perhaps I'd better not," she added anxiously, as her glance fell on the hymn-book. "No cross, no crown."
"You will find crosses enough as you go through life," said Betty, dryly. She rose to go, and Harriet rose also and drew herself up to her full height. For the moment she looked again the tragic figure of the first day of their acquaintance.
"You must have seen by this time how ignorant I am," she said mournfully. "Poor old uncle gave me all the schooling he had himself, but I knew even then it wasn't what they have nowadays. And I've had so few books to read. Once I found a five-dollar bill, and as he wouldn't take it—the most I could do—I tramped all the way to the nearest town and back, twenty miles, and bought a big basket full of cheap reprints of English standard novels. Those and the few old Latin books and the Bible and the Pilgrim's Progress are about all I've ever read. I felt like writing you that when I read his letter, and also telling you that I was afraid you wouldn't find me a lady in your sense of the word—"
"You are my sister," interrupted Betty; "of course you are a lady. Dismiss any other idea from your mind. And in a year you will know so much that I shall be afraid of you. I have neglected my books for several years."
"You are mighty good, and I'll humbly take all the advice you'll give me."
Betty went back to her room and sought the warm nest she had left. "She makes me feel old," she thought. "Am I to be responsible for the development of her character? I can't send her off to Europe yet. There's nothing to do but keep her for at least a year, until she knows something of the world and feels at home in it. Meanwhile I suppose I must be her guide and philosopher! I believe that my acquaintance with Senator North has made me feel like a child. He is so much wiser in a minute than I could be in a lifetime; and as I have made him the pivot on which the world revolves, no wonder I feel small by contrast.
"But after all, I am twenty-seven, and what is more, I have seen a good deal of men," she added abruptly. And in a moment she admitted that she had allowed her heart, full of the youth of unrealities and dreams, to act independently of her more mature intelligence.
"And that is the reason I have been so happy," she mused. "There is a facer for the intelligence. As long as I have exercised it I have never felt as if I were walking on air and song."
But still her imagination did not wander beyond today's meeting and many like it. He was married, and, independent as she was, she had received that sound training in the conventions from which the mind never wholly recovers. She registered a vow then and there that she would become his friend of friends, the woman to whom he came for all his pleasant hours, in time his confidante. She would devote her thought to the making of herself into the companion he most needed and desired; and she would conceal her love lest he conceive it his duty to avoid her. She wondered if she had betrayed herself, and concluded that she had not. Even he could not guess how much of her admiration emanated from frankness and how much from coquetry. She would be careful in the future.
"That point settled," she thought, curling down deeper into her bed and preparing for a nap, "I'll anticipate his coming and think about him with all the youthful exuberance I please."
Betty had invited Senator Burleigh to dinner on Saturday, that he might feel free to call elsewhere on Sunday. At four o'clock, when Mrs. Madison had retired for her nap, she commanded Jack Emory to take Harriet for a long walk and a long ride on the cable cars, and to stop for Sally Carter. No one else was likely to call, and she retired to her boudoir, a three-cornered room in an angle between the parlor and library, to await Senator North.
The boudoir was a room that any man might look forward to after a hard day on Capitol Hill. Its easychairs were very soft and deep, its rugs were rosy and delicate, and the walls and windows and doors were hung with one of those old French silk stuffs with a design of royal conventionality and uniformly old rose in colour. All of Betty's own books were there, her piano, several handsome pieces of carved oak, and a unique collection of ivory. Betty had banished the former girlish simplicity of this room a few days after her introduction to the Montgomery house. She had imagined herself greeting Senator North in it many times, and had received no other man within its now sacred walls.
She wore a white cloth gown today and a blue ribbon in her hair. There was also a touch of blue at the neck, to make her throat look the whiter. Otherwise, the long closely fitting gown was without ornament as far down as the hem, which was lightly embroidered in white. She looked tall and lithe, but her figure was round, and did not sway like a reed that a strong wind would beat to the ground, as Harriet's did. Although that possible descendant of African kings possessed the black splendour of eyes and hair and a marble regularity of feature, Betty was the more beautiful woman of the two; for her colour filled and warmed the eye, she seemed typical of womanhood in its highest development, and she was a chosen receptacle of enchantment. Moreover, she was more modern and original, and as healthy as had been the fashion for the past generation, Harriet looked like an old Roman coin come to life, with a blight on her soul and little blood in her thin body. It was not in Betty's nature to fear any woman, much less to experience petty jealousy, but it was not without satisfaction she reflected that she and Harriet would hardly attract the same sort of man. Jack was doing his duty nobly, and he liked vivacious women who amused him, poor soul! As for Senator Burleigh, he had said politely that she was handsome but looked delicate, and then unquestionably dismissed her from his mind. He and Betty had talked politics on the previous evening until Mrs. Madison had slipped off to bed an hour earlier than usual.
Betty dismissed them all from her mind and glanced at the clock. It was half-past four. She thrust the poker between the glowing logs, and the flames leaped and sent a quivering glow through the charming room. Betty leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, almost holding her breath that she might hear the advancing step of the butler the sooner. In what seemed to her exactly thirty minutes she looked at the clock again. It was twenty-five minutes to five. She nestled down, assuring herself that nobody could be expected to come on the moment, but this time she did not close her eyes; she watched the clock.
And the joy imperceptibly died out of her; the hands travelled inexorably round to ten minutes to five; she remembered that she had not seen Senator North since Wednesday, and that in four days a busy legislator might easily forget the existence of every woman he knew, except perhaps of the woman he loved. Within her seemed to rise a tide of bitter memories, the memories of all those women who had sat and waited through dreary hours for man's uncertain coming. She shivered and drew close to the fire and covered her face with her hands. Her heart ached for the helpless misery of her sex.
But she sprang suddenly to her feet. The butler was coming down the hall. A moment later he had ushered in Senator North, and Betty forgot the misery of the world, forgot it so completely that there was no violent reaction; she was merely what she had been at half-past four, full of pleasurable excitement held down and watched over by the instinct of caution.
"I must apologize humbly for being late," he said, "but on Sunday I always sit with my wife until she falls asleep, and to-day she was nearly an hour later than usual. What a room to come into out of a biting wind! Thank heaven I was able to get here."
Betty thought of the sister and cousin she had turned out into the cruel afternoon, and then looked at Senator North deep in the chair where she had so often imagined him, and forgot their existence. This was her hour—her first, at least—and visions of pneumonia and possible consumption should not mar it. She sat opposite him in a straight dark high-backed chair, and she was quite aware that she made a delightful picture.
"Well?" he asked. "What of your visit and its consequences?"
Betty told the story; and her description of the dilapidated parsonage at the head of the miserable village, the group of silent women about the coffin in the dark room, and her interview with her melancholy relative was as dramatic as she had felt at the time.
"I thought I was running from a nightmare when I left the house," she concluded, smiling at him as if to demonstrate that it had left no shadow in her brain; "but now we both feel better. She wants a gown of many colours, and this morning she roused the house at five o'clock singing camp-meeting hymns. But I think she is quick and observant, and will soon cease to be in any danger of betraying herself. But she is a great responsibility, and I really felt old this morning."
Senator North laughed. "I hope she won't give you any real trouble. If she does, I shall feel more than half responsible. But otherwise she will be an interesting study for you. She is nearly all white; how much of racial lying, and slothfulness, barbarism, and general incapacity that black vein of hers contains will give you food for thought, for she certainly will reveal herself in the course of a year."
"You must admit that a nature like that is a great responsibility."
"Yes, but she alone can work through all the contradictions to the light, and she will do it naturally, under pressure of new experiences, within and without. Don't suggest even the word 'problem' to her, and don't look upon her as one, yourself. You have put her in the right conditions. Leave her alone and Time will do the rest. His work is indubious; never forget that. Are you going to marry Burleigh?" he added abruptly.
She answered vehemently, "No! No!" "I thought not. I know you very little, so far, but I was willing to deny the report."
"I often wonder why I don't fall in love with him. He really has every quality I admire. But much as I like him I should not mind if I knew I never should see him again. I have thought a good deal about it and I should like to understand it."
She looked at him coaxingly, and he smiled, for he understood women very well; but he gave her the explanation she desired.
"The reason is simple enough. The admired qualities, even when they are the component parts of a personality of one who more or less resembles a cherished ideal, never yet inspired love. Love is the result of two responsive sparks coming within each other's range of action. Their owners may be in certain ways unfitted for one another, but the responsive sparks, rising Nature only knows out of what combination of elements, fly straight, and Reason sulks. To put it in another way: Love is merely the intuitive faculty recognizing in another being the power to give its own lord happiness. It is a faculty that is very active in some people," he added with a laugh, "and when it is overworked it often goes wrong, like any other machinery. That is the reason why men who have loved many women make a mistake in marrying; the intuitive faculty is both dulled and coarsened by that time. They are still susceptible to charm, and that is about all."
"Have you loved many women?" asked Betty, without preamble.
He stood up and turned his back to the fire. Betty noted again how squarely he planted himself on his feet. "A few," he said bluntly. "Not many. I have not overworked my intuitive faculty, if that is what you mean. I was not thinking of myself when I spoke."
He stared down at her for a few moments, during which it seemed to Betty that the air vibrated between them. Her breath began to shorten, and she dropped her eyes, lest their depths reveal the spark which was active enough in her.
"Will you play for me?" he asked. "I lost a little girl a few years ago who played well, although she was only sixteen. I have disliked the piano ever since, but I should like to hear you play."
She played to him for an hour, with tenderness, passion, and brilliancy. A gift had been cultivated by the best masters and hours of patient study.
When he thanked her and rose to go and she put her hand in his, her face expressed all the bright earnestness of genuine friendship; there was not a sparkle of coquetry in her eyes.
"Will you come in often on your way home when you are tired and would like to forget bills and things, and let me play to you? I won't talk—you must get so tired of voices!—and the practice will do me good."
"Of course I will come. The pleasantest thing in life is a charming woman's face at the close of a busy day. Good-bye."
When he had gone, Betty got into the depths of a chair and covered her eyes with her hand. For the first time she knew out of her own experience that love means a greater want than the satisfaction of the eye and mind. She would have given anything but her inherited ideals of right and wrong if he had come back and taken her in his arms and kissed her; and she loved him with adoration that he did not, that in all probability he never would, that although he had the great passions which stimulate all great brains, the inflexible honour which his State had rewarded and never questioned for thirty-five years must make short work of struggles with the ordinary temptations of man.
As soon as a man awakens a woman's passions she begins to idealize him and there is no limit to the virtues he will be made to carry. But let a man be endowed by Nature with every noble and elevated attribute she has in her power to bestow, if he lacks sensuality a woman will see him in the clear cold light of reason. Betty Madison, having something of the intuitive faculty, in addition to that knowledge of man which any girl of twenty-seven who has had much love offered her must possess, made fewer mistakes even in the thick of a throbbing brain than most women make; the great danger she did not foresee until time had accustomed her somewhat to the wonder of being able to love at last, and Reason had resumed her place in a singularly clear and logical mind.