CHAPTER XVIIISenator Killam was against the bill tooth and nail,—and he was against Rutledge. He obtained the floor and began to speak in a desultory but picturesque fashion in ridicule of some of the junior Senator's new-fangled heresies almost before Rutledge had caught his breath, and his vitriolic opening stayed the steps of many who in courtesy would have gone over to Rutledge's seat to felicitate him upon his maiden effort. Mr. Killam presented his felicitations openly and with such a mixture of sarcasm, irony and some seeming admiration that his colleague was puzzled. When Mr. Killam talked his dearest enemy would stop to listen. Rutledge, tired and blown, leaned back in his chair to hear him thunder.As he sank back into a comfortable pose he caught sight for the first time of Lola DeVale and Elise Phillips in the gallery. They had heard his speech from start to finish,—and were differently affected by it. Lola was more impressed with the Senator's manner than by his words."Senator Rutledge verily believes all that he says against the negroes," she had commented; "but surely they are not so black as he paints them. Papa says that it is impossible for a Southern man to judge the negro fairly."Elise did not reply. She was filled with revulsion amounting almost to nausea, and her temper was on edge. As her father's daughter, the personal element was unbearably irritating to her. She resented the entire situation and discussion. She had not known what was under consideration, nor who was to speak, and she would have left the gallery if she had not felt that it would be beating a retreat. She also had a desire to see whether Evans had the impudence to say what he thought right in her face.In her stay in the South she had seen a very disreputable class of negroes, and under the spell of Rutledge's words her antipathies were over-excited to such a degree that she was faint with disgust. On the other hand she was full of barely suppressed anger. Rutledge smiled a salutation to the young women; and though Elise was looking straight at him she did not join Lola in her gracious acknowledgment."Don't you see Mr. Rutledge, Elise? He waits for your smile like a dog for a bone.""I wish that man were dead," Elise declared.Lola raised her eyebrows and scanned the profile of her friend for some moments, and there came into her mind an idea that appeared to be worth some thinking over....If Senator Rutledge was distasteful to her, Elise had little cause to complain of him: for seldom had any of the scores of young fellows who followed in her train the good fortune of a minute's talk with her alone; and Rutledge, oppressed by the result of their last meeting at Senator DeVale's, unsatisfied with the empty nothings which passed for conversation in the brief glimpses he had of her at formal gatherings, and chilled by the coldness of her manner which had been oh, so different in that halcyon summer when he had lost his heart to her, was well content to stand further and further away from her in the crowd that was always about her, and to worship in spirit the real Elise Phillips unfettered by convention and unaffected by untoward incident. He took what comfort he could from the fact that as yet no favoured one appeared among Elise's admirers, and that among the sons of fortune, army officers, attachés, and all that sort who aspired to make life interesting for the President's eldest daughter it seemed none could flatter himself he was preferred above another.As for those who exhibited the liveliest interest in Elise, gossip gave that distinction to two. One evening at a reception at Secretary Mackenzie's Senator Rutledge was talking to Lola DeVale when Elise passed, accompanied by a stalwart young fellow whom Rutledge had never seen."Who is Sir Monocle?" he asked."Where?" asked Lola."Miss Phillips' escort.""Oh. He has no monocle.""I know. But he should have. He looks it. Who is he?""Captain George St. Lawrence Howard, second son of the Earl of Duddeston. He was taking a look at America, but an introduction to Elise seems to have persuaded him to limit his observations to Washington City.""Sensible fellow," commented Rutledge."Yes," said Lola, "and a very likable fellow. He won his captaincy with Younghusband in the Thibetan campaign before he was twenty; and the fact that an invalid brother is all that stands between him and the earldom doesn't make him any the less interesting.""Titles are talismanic—whether military or other. With two, he ought to be fairly irresistible.""Yes, and besides that he has plenty of money and leisure to make love with a thorough care for detail.""With all those and a manifest supremely good taste," said Rutledge, "I would back him for a winner.""You are forgetting Senatorial courtesy!""How now?""Senator Richland.""What of him?""He also is in the running.""Richland? I hadn't heard.""Yes; and remember that his fortune is ten times that of the Earl of Duddeston, and his brains are of the same grade as his bank account."Rutledge was interested. He had a thorough respect for Richland's ability."He is nearly twice Elise's age," Lola continued, "and Senatorial dignity will not permit a display of violent enthusiasm. But Senator Richland has acquired the habit of winning, and he is young enough and abundantly able to make the game interesting both for Elise and for any rivals. He is young indeed for his honours, has the ear of the people, and is a politician of rare acumen. His followers predict for him nothing less than the Presidency itself when his time is ripe. What more could a girl wish? Don't lay all your salary on the Englishman—you might lose."* * * * *Lola DeVale had not misread Senator Richland's purposes. He was seriously in the running. Elise was the first woman he had ever thought of marrying. She seemed to him to fit perfectly into all the plans which his ambition had made for the future. He had met her at Mr. Phillips' inauguration, and after thinking over her charms during the summer vacation had come back to Washington in December fully determined to wage a vigorous campaign for her hand.Of the other men who were rash enough to dream of Elise it is needless and would be tiresome to go into detail. They were more or less interested, enamoured or devoted: but the Senator and Captain Howard were too fast company for them, and they are of interest only as a numerous field which made the running more or less difficult for the leaders.Evans Rutledge willingly would have entered the lists against Richland or the Englishman—against anybody—if Elise had been ordinarily civil to him; but he had been in such evident disfavour since the Smith knock-down that he deemed himself one of "the gallery" at this game of hearts. Elise when indeed she had time to think of it, felt that she had dealt with him ungenerously if not unjustly, but that only made his presence less grateful to her.The unreasonableness of Elise's attitude toward Rutledge and Rutledge's behaviour whenever she saw him near Elise, mildly stirred the womanly curiosity of Lola DeVale to the point of investigation. She found Elise averse to the slightest discussion of Senator Rutledge or of anything connected with him. Baffled there, she turned with more determination and softer skill to the man. He will never know how he came upon terms of such friendliness and sympathy with Miss DeVale. Soon doubtless he would have confided the story of his love to her. But events came about differently.A score of young people were at Senator DeVale's country-place one evening in May. Elise had met Evans with something of her old-time friendliness and he was in an uncertain state of happiness."Now don't make an ass of yourself because the Lady Beautiful is in a mood to be gracious," he solemnly admonished his heart. "Sir Monocle may just have proposed and been accepted."The thought was as bracing as a cold shower and gave him a vigorous grip on his rebellious affections. Then he danced with her—on the wide, dimly lighted veranda—a slow, lotus-land waltz, just coming back in vogue after more than a decade of galloping two-steps.He took another grip on himself. He must not think of the woman in his arms. Luckily the old-fashioned dance was diverting: while the movement was intoxicating it was reminiscent. He remembered his first waltz—the Carolina hill-town—the moonlight, the smell of the roses—the plump little girl in the white dress, with the red, red sash, and the cheeks as red, with the black eyes and the blacker hair, with the indefinable sensuous physical perfume of Woman, and the very Spirit of the Dance,—she who—yes, she who married the station-agent and was now such a motherly person. He began a speech that would have been cynical. Elise stopped him."Don't talk," she said. "Let's dream."Tumult! Riot! What's the use to hold one's pulses steady when the Lady Beautiful herself incites revolt!"Let's dream." His heart-strings were set a-tremble by the vibrant richness of her voice, which seemed to have caught the dreaminess and rhythm and resonance of the violins that drew them on. And—"Don't talk." No: he would not profane the enchantment of that waltz with words; and yet surely My Lady Beautiful were heartless indeed not to catch the messages of love which, pure of the alloy of breath and speech, his every pulse-beat sent unfettered to her heart.He held her for a moment after the violins had ceased, and the spell of the slow-swinging waltz was still upon them both—when a quick jerk of the fiddles in the ever rollicking two-step brought Sir Monocle to Elise's side. Evans resigned her with a bow and, without so much as a "thank you," went out on the lawn to commune with his heart.How long that two-step continued, he, seated in a retired nook, did not know. Sometime after it was finished he saw Elise and the Englishman walk down the winding path that led from the front door to the roadside. They stood talking together a minute perhaps till Captain Howard boarded a passing car city-bound. Rutledge noted with a twinge of jealousy the cordial good-bye the girl gave the man, but even at that distance and through the uncertain light he thought he saw—and, queer to say, resented—a certain formality in Captain Howard's adieus to the woman.He watched her through the trees as she came slowly back up the hill following the turns of the smooth hard walk as it wound through darkness and half lights from the broad gateway to the house. She moved along, a white shadow, slowly at first, and Evans imagined that she was in some such mood as possessed him. Then she started suddenly and ran at a stone stairway which mounted a terrace. She tripped, stumbled and fell against the granite steps.Rutledge was flying to her before she was fairly prone. He spoke to her and tried to help her up. She made no answer, and her hand and arm were limp."Elise!" he said, with fear in his voice. Still no answer.He took her in his arms and made directly up the hill for the front door."Elise," he whispered fearfully again. "Oh, my heart, speak to me!"Her cheek was against his shoulder. He buried his face in her hair, as he prayerfully kissed the snow-white part visible even in that darkness. Her head dropped limply back, and a sigh came from her lips so close to his. Still she answered not his call. He loved her very much and—he kissed her again, softly, where the long lashes lay upon her cheek, and—"Elise!" he murmured appealingly. She turned her face feebly away from him, like a child restless in sleep.He had not delayed his climb to the house."Here!" he cried. "Get Dr. Sheldon quick! Miss Phillips is dangerously hurt!"There were excited screams among the women and a stir among the men as he carried his burden across the piazza and into the wide hall. There in the full light he saw—Miss Elise Phillips talking quietly to Donald MacLane. He almost let fall the woman in his arms. He looked again at her face. She was Lola DeVale.Dr. Sheldon and Lola's mother fortunately were at hand. At their direction Rutledge carried the young woman up the stairs and laid her on a couch in her sitting-room. She opened her eyes and smiled languidly at him as he put her down.Elise and all the other young people knew of Rutledge's mistake as to Lola's identity, but Elise could not understand why he blushed so furiously as he gave her an account of the mishap.* * * * *At her nexttête-à-têtewith Rutledge Lola gave him her very sincerest thanks and—laughed at him till he was uncomfortable. Finally she said: "You are a very gallant but a very mercenary knight, Mr. Rutledge." Rutledge was hopelessly confused.Lola continued, mischief in her eyes: "Alas! the spirit of commercialism has pervaded even Southern Chivalry, and forlorn maidens must pay as they go." Rutledge was plainly resentful."Now I am very unselfish, Mr. Rutledge, and—I wish ithadbeen Elise." Her mischief dissolved in a confiding smile, full of sympathy,—and Rutledge was very humble.Lola DeVale's sympathy was warm and irresistible, and before he was aware he was telling her of his love for Elise in a way to set her interest a-tingle."Why don't you tell her of it?" asked Lola. "Tell her that it just overwhelms all earlier loves.""Earlier loves? I never loved any other woman," Rutledge answered."Oh, of course not." Lola could scarcely repress a smile at the thought that a man always swears only his last passion is genuine."But tell her—tell her!" she repeated."I have told her.""When?""Three years ago.""Plainly? or with artistic indirectness?""Plainly."Lola looked at him incredulously, but saw that he was telling the truth."The sly thing!" she exclaimed under her breath. "But tell heragain! I declare if I were a man and loved Elise—and I would love none else—I'd tell her so every time I saw her.""Oh I'll not love another—no fear of that," Evans replied half lightly; "but as for telling her again, self-respect will not—""Self-respect—fudge! If I loved a girl I'd tell her so a hundred times—and marry her too—in spite of everything.""Perhaps so," Evans commented skeptically.Lola was shooting in the dark, but her warm heart would not let her leave the matter at rest. Both because of her desire, being happily in love herself, to see the love affairs of her friends go smoothly, and because of the riddle it presented to her, she approached Elise again in order to straighten out the tangled skein for everybody's satisfaction. She thought to match her wits against Elise's and proceeded with more caution."By the way, Elise," she said, apropos of nothing at all, "I think you were right about Senator Rutledge's being very much in love with that young woman you told me about."Elise exhibited a perfect indifference and said nothing."I asked him about her, after becoming duly confidential and sympathetic, of course, and he confirmed your statement. He still loves the girl—oh, you ought to hear him tell of it. 'He will never love another till he's dead, dead, dead,'—or words to that effect: but he will not tell her—"Elise was listening with a polite but languid interest."—again. He thinks his self-respect forbids; butIthink—""Did he say that? To you?" Elise demanded."Yes; when I asked h—""Well now, once and for all, Lola, I tell you I despise that man, and never must you mention his name to me again!""But Elise, I think he—""Stop, Lola! I'll not hear another word!""But let me tell you, Elise. He—""No! Stopnow! Not another word if you care for my friendship. I'll never speak to you again if you speak of him to me!"Elise's anger was at white heat, and she looked and spoke like her father. Lola was frightened at her manner, but made another brave attempt to set matters straight, which was met by such a blaze of personal resentment in Elise's eyes that she gave up in abject defeat—though she did pluck up courage to fire a parting shot."Very well, my dear," she said, as if dismissing the subject.... "I have something of yours I must give you before I go. There—take it," and she kissed the expectant Elise warmly on the lips as she added: "Senator Rutledge gave it to me by mistake as he carried me up the hill the other night."CHAPTER XIXLily Porter finally became conscious that she was the special attraction for a stranger who regularly every other Sunday evening sat in a forward pew and listened to her singing with attentive interest, but who showed little or no care for any of the service beside. Several months had gone by before she noticed him and his faithful attention to herself. When she did realize his presence she was conscious that he had been paying her this tribute for a long time. She observed him quietly and satisfied herself that he came only to see or to hear her. He did not force himself upon her vision, but none the less did she understand that she was the chief object of his respectful consideration.The preacher's manner and style of thought did not appeal to Hayward, while Lily Porter's face and voice did. He always sat where he could look at her in the choir-loft, for he argued that as he went only to see her he would see as much of her as possible. His face was mobile and easily read, and as he was good to look upon and so evidently appreciative of her efforts the girl came ere long to sing with an eye to his approval and admiration—to sing for him and to him. This interested her for a time, but she was piqued at length for that he seemed content to admire at a distance and made no effort to come nearer to her.One evening, unexpectedly to them both, a negro prominent among his race because of his position as Registrar for the District, John K. Brown, with whom Hayward had picked up a mutually agreeable though casual acquaintance, introduced him to the singer in the aisle of the church."Miss Lily, I want to introduce my friend Mr. John Hayward, who goes into extravagances about your singing—as he very properly should."Hayward was overjoyed at his good fortune. To be presented as John Brown's friend was a passport to the best negro society in Washington. He was as much pleased to know that Brown regarded him so favourably as he was delighted to meet the young woman. As he walked with her to the door she presented him to her mother, a bright mulatto woman about fifty or more, who did the grand dame to the best of her ability: which was indeed perfect as to manner but was betrayed the moment she tried to do too many things with the English language.When he had opportunity Hayward was profuse in his thanks to Brown, and told him volubly of his love for music. Finding a sympathetic listener, he was led on to an impulsive story of the social longings and lackings in his life. Brown, more than ever impressed with the young fellow's intelligence and worthiness, was at some pains thereafter to look after him and set him going in a congenial social current.With Brown's approval and his own gifts and graces it was not remarkable that Hayward won his way to social popularity as fast as his confining duties would permit. He began to see much of Lily Porter and was consistent in his devotion to her despite the fact that the habit of his college days of being attracted by each new and pretty face still measurably clung to him. His information and accomplishments were of a sort superior to that of any of the young women he met, and none made a serious impression on his heart. Lily Porter was more nearly his equal in education and general cultivation of mind and manner, and was really the most attractive to him; but his harmless vanity could not forego the admiration of the others, and he gave some little time to small conquests. He did homage to Lily by his evident admiration of her talents and comeliness and by his unconcealed pleasure in her friendship. At the same time he met her petty tyrannies and autocratic demands with an unmoved indifference.He had become very well acquainted with Lily and had called on her several times before Henry Porter knew that his daughter was receiving the footman whom he had snubbed some months before."Lily, who was that young man that called on you last night?""Mr. Hayward.""Umhuh, I thought he was the same fellow. You'll have to drop him. I don't want you to be receivin' no footman in this house. We must draw the line somewhere.""He's no footman, papa. He's one of Mr. Brown's friends. Mr. Brown introduced him to me himself. I think he is connected with Mr. Brown's office.""No such thing. Hayward's footman at the White House—told me so hisself 'bout a year ago, and I saw him on the President's carriage no longer'n yesterday. Nice lie he's told you 'bout bein' in Brown's office.""Oh, he didn't say so, papa. I supposed so because Mr. Brown said he was his friend and has introduced him to all the nice people. Surely you can't object to one of Mr. Brown's friends. Everybody likes Mr. Hayward and he is received everywhere.""Everybody likes him, do they? Well you see to it you don't like him any too much. I can't kick him out if Brown stands for him, but you make it your business to let him down easy. Have you seen Bob Shaw lately?""He was here last night when Mr. Hayward came," answered Lily; and she seemed to be amused at something."Well, what's funny 'bout that?"Lily knew that she must not tell her father what she was laughing at. She created a diversion."Mr. Shaw is so backward, and so—dark.""Dark! He's jus' a good hones' black,—so'm I—all African and proud of it. Mebbe I'm too dark to suit yuh. Bob Shaw is not backward, miss. He's got the bes' law practice of all the niggers in the Distric', and he'll be leader of the whole crowd in a few years. He's the bes' one in the bunch of these fellers who tag after you and you better take him. My money and his brains and pull with the party 'd make a great combernation."Lily did not commit herself. She was accustomed to her father's blunt method of indicating his wishes. She liked Shaw well enough, but old Henry's awkward interference and zeal did the lawyer's cause no good. Shaw was below the ordinary in the matter of good looks, and in his love for Lily was too submissive to her whims. He had not Hayward's easy manner, nor his assurance—for the footman was not at all abashed by Henry Porter's money nor his daughter's gentle arrogance. It is needless to say the girl preferred the serving-man to the lawyer.After the first flush of interest in Lily and her songs had subsided Hayward made love to the pampered belle warmly or indifferently as the mood was upon him. He noted that, taking her charms in detail, they were alluring without exception; and such moments of reflective analysis were always followed by a more determined pursuit of her. Yet the careless moods came. However, he always delighted in and could be extravagant in praising her singing, even when the personal attraction was the weakest, and the general effect on the woman was a continuous tattoo of love-taps at the door of her heart.The negro magnate's favourite, Shaw, clearly was being outdistanced, and the outraged father stamped and threatened and commanded: but to no purpose. When Hayward discovered the bitterness of the old man's opposition he chuckled."Here's where I get even," he said; and became more assiduous in his attentions to Lily and more aggressive in his methods."Your father does not appear to hold much love for me," he told Lily one evening after she had sung him into an affectionate frame of mind and the conversation had drifted along to the confidential and personal stage."Did I ever tell you what he did with my first request for an introduction to you?""No. What?""He stamped the feathers off of it," said Hayward, and laughingly told her the details."Papa thinks—everybody—should be a lawyer, or a politician with a pull," Lily commented complainingly.The temptation to vindicate his dignity was too much for Hayward."I was not always a footman and do not intend always to be a footman; and yet, footman as I am, if your father values a pull with the President, perhaps, if he knew—oh, well, he might think better of me.""Oh, you have a pull? How interesting. Do tell me about it. I have read so much about pulls that I am dying to know what one is like. How do you work it? I believe you work a pull, don't you? Or do you pull the—""I haven't pulled mine yet. I'm waiting," said Hayward. "But it will work when the time comes.""And when will the time come? Tell me. I'm so anxious to see the wheels go round in a genuine political machine. How many Southern delegates can you influence in the next national convention? That's the mainspring, isn't it?""I'm no politician or vote vender. I've never had the pleasure of influencing my own vote yet, and won't as long as I live in the District.""What! Without politics or votes, and yet you have a pull?""It is a personal matter entirely," Hayward answered carelessly, as if personal friendships with Presidents were very ordinary affairs for him. Lily Porter was a mite skeptical, but she hoped he spoke the truth, for it would more than confirm her estimate of him and would be such an effective counter to her father's nagging opposition."Oh, isn't that interesting! Tell me all about it!""Really I cannot. I have never told that, even to my mother. There is only one other person who knows of it. It is my one secret, and my life—that is, my future—depends largely upon it. There's too much at stake.""Would you fear to trust your life—your future—in my hands?" asked the woman softly. "I could be a very good and a very faithful friend."The lure in her voice was irresistible."I would trust my soul with you," he answered, and with the spoken faith the trust was perfected in his heart. "Listen."He told her all about himself, of his name and his history, of his life and his hopes. He was modest in his recital of the creditable things he had done; but when he had told her of his claim upon the President's gratitude and the purpose toward which he would use it, and began to talk of his ambition and his dreams, his heart was fired by its own fervour, and before the very warmth of his own eloquence all obstacles and difficulties faded as mists before the sun, and he felt that he needed only to put forth his hands to grasp his heart's desires.The girl was touched with his fire. She listened with ready sympathy to the beginning of his story, heard with quickening pulses of his rescue of Colonel Phillips, and in the telling of his hopes was caught in the current of his transporting fervency and carried along with him to realize the vision of his martial career."And that is the picture of your life! It is—it will be—glorious!" She rose in her enthusiasm. "Oh, that a woman might—""Glorious—yes," the man said; "and till to-night it had seemed perfect to me. But I have been blind to its greatest lack. You have made me conscious of it." Hayward stood up and moved toward the girl, who wavered uncertainly between reserve and complaisance."I would paint another figure into that picture, Lily—the figure of a woman." He put his hands out toward her, and her coldness was melting when—"Lily," said her father from the hall, "what did you do with the evenin' paper? I want to read Mr. Shaw's speech before the convention this mornin'. Mr. Brown told me that it is the greates' speech that's been made yet."Henry Porter came into the parlour in time to catch a glimpse of confusion and unusual attitude in his daughter and Hayward. He thought best to mount guard, and decided to talk Hayward into flight. He began with a panegyric on Shaw. Hayward caught the hint and took his leave, pulling Lily to the front door by a chain of conversation."Now remember," he murmured tenderly, "you hold my secret; and must keep it sacredly.""Have no fear of me. Watch your other confidante," Lily whispered, her manner full as his of tenderness."Oh, she is—""Shaw told 'em," began the persistent and suspicious parent, coming out of the parlour;—but the footman was gone down the steps.Hayward's mood changed in a twinkling and with a jolt. He walked a hundred paces thinking confusedly.The question slowly framed itself in his mind.... "Do I love Lily?"But he did not answer it.CHAPTER XXThe oncoming summer promised to be long and uneventful for Helen Phillips. Late in May her mother took her and her two little sisters to Stag Inlet, leaving a perspiring father to await the perverse pleasure of a stubborn Congress before beginning his vacation, and Elise to set out upon a round of visiting that would permit her to see very little of home during the hot months. To Mrs. Phillips the restfulness of "Hill-Top" was gratefully refreshing after her trying first winter in Washington. She gave herself over fully to its soothing quiet and arranged her daily programmes on the simplest lines.Hayward, because of his versatile abilities an indispensable part of the simple Hill-Top outfit, did not have an opportunity before leaving for Stag Inlet to see Lily Porter again. Nor indeed was he regretful on that account. He was in a state of indecision and wanted time to think. He heartily wished that he had not been so free with his confidences: yet could not justify this feeling when he sought a reason for it.After awhile he wrote Lily a letter which was a model of diplomacy—which said much and said nothing. It did not disappoint or displease her. She read between the lines an admirable modesty and restraint, complimentary to herself and true to the artistic instinct which, she had read somewhere, always saves a full confession for a personal interview. She took her own good time to answer it. She felt sure of the man's devotion, despite the fact that his other and unknown confidante was a woman other than his mother. The tenor of her reply was reserved, though not discouraging. Hayward's impatience was not excited by the delay, nor his interest quickened by the coy missive.* * * * *The first morning Helen was on the lake after coming to the Inlet her launch passed a small catboat commanded by Jimmie Radwine and flying a Yale pennant from her diminutive masthead. The crew, consisting of Captain Jimmie and another youngster, both younger than Helen, were yelling themselves dizzy."What's Jimmie Radwine saying, Helen?" asked Nell Stewart.Jimmie had no intention of leaving them uninformed. He had put his boat about, and come up alongside."Hello, Helen!" he shouted, "Harvard can't play ball! Quincy can't pitch! Tom got a home run and two two-baggers off him in four times up! Rah! rah! rah! YALE!"Helen was a famous Harvard partisan, and many a verbal tilt had she had with Jimmie, whose brother Tom was Yale's right-fielder, as to the comparative merits of the blue and the crimson in all things from scholarship to shot-putting."What was the score, Jimmie?" she asked him."Wasn't any score—for Harvard: all for Yale. Wow! Yale—Yale—Yale!" he yelled.Helen looked a dignified reproof of his unmannerly enthusiasm, but Jimmie's youth was proof against any such mild rebuke, and her irritation only kindled his joy. She nodded to Hayward for more speed, but as Jimmie was favoured by a stiff breeze they could not shake him off. He followed them for two miles or more up the lake, volunteering much information sandwiched between cheers for Eli, which, when he had delivered it fully and in detail, he began to repeat in order to impress it upon them. Hayward cheerfully would have bumped him with the launch.Having so thoroughly enjoyed the morning's sport, Captain Jimmie regularly afterward flew the blue pennant from his mast, and was ever on the alert to greet Helen with the Yale yell and further particulars.* * * * *Less than a month later the Harvard crew rowed rings around the Yale men at New London. Helen's cup was full. The next day she and Nell Stewart and Nancy Chester were sitting out on the lawn reading an account of the race when they saw Jimmie's catboat beating about the lake."Come, girls," exclaimed Helen, "we must carry the news to Jimmie!""Hayward, come here," she called to the footman, who was tinkering at a gasoline runabout a hundred yards from them. "Get the launch ready," she added when he came nearer, "we want to overtake Mr. Radwine's boat out there.""I guess Jimmie will haul down that blue flag now," said one of the girls when they had come to the boat-house."Hayward," said Helen, "run up to the house and tell mamma to give you the Harvard pennant that is in my room—and hurry!"Hayward needed no urging. Out of the chatter he had caught the news of Harvard's victory at the oars, and he was as full of excited pleasure as Helen herself. He hurried up the hill and, not finding Mrs. Phillips, rushed to his own quarters and turned out from his trunk the crimson pennant.Helen was too intent on the chase of Jimmie Radwine to notice that the short staff of the flag Hayward brought her, and the faded and wrinkled folds of the cloth, did not belong to the crimson emblem which was part of the decoration of her dressing-table. Jimmie, already informed of Yale's bitter defeat, surmised the purpose of the Phillips launch's coming, and tried to sail away and away: but he was relentlessly pursued and overtaken, and mercilessly repaid for all of his taunts of the last fortnight. As they came up with him Helen cried out to her friends:"Now, everybody give the Harvard yell!"The feminine chorus was shrill, but lacked volume."Again! and louder!" she commanded. "You too, Hayward!"That was the most grateful order Hayward had received since the 10th was sent into the charge at Valencia. He stood up to drive the deep-mouthed, long-drawn rah-rah-rah's from his lungs, and added a few kinks and wrinkles at the end in orthodox phrasing and intonation by way of trimming off the severely plain Harvard slogan. Helen looked at him in some surprise, and saw that he was oblivious to his situation and seemed bent on "rattling" the hostile blue skipper. He came to himself at last, and pulled himself together in some confusion to give attention solely to his duties in running the launch. Helen thought his behaviour unusual, and watched him covertly while the badgering of Jimmie Radwine was in progress.Jimmie was far from an easy mark, however, for by his unblushing impudence and boyish pretension to vast knowledge of facts and figures he time and again crowded Helen to her defences. Hayward could hardly keep his tongue when Jimmie presumed too much on the ignorance of the young women as to the athletic history of the blue and the crimson, and Helen could see that the negro was keeping quiet with difficulty. At one of Jimmie's most reckless statements, which overwhelmed Helen, Hayward, bending over the launch's little engine, shook his head in violent dissent."What is it, Hayward?" his mistress called to him."Beg pardon, Miss Helen, but he's—he's—misstating it!" Hayward answered with vigour."Then tell him of it!" Helen exclaimed impulsively."Pardon me, but you are altogether mistaken about that, Mr. Radwine," the negro sang out to Jimmie, shoving the launch up a little nearer the boat's windward quarter."What do you know about it?" Jimmie demanded scornfully."I know all about it," retorted Hayward with rising spirit; and he went into details in a way to take Jimmie's breath. Warming up, he did not desist on finishing the matter in dispute, but challenged others of Jimmie's audacious inaccuracies and proceeded to straighten them out. Jimmie demurred and replied more recklessly, and was soon in a rough and tumble discussion covering the whole field of college excellences. He found he was no match for Hayward either in information and enthusiasm or in assurance. Before the argument was half finished the footman was talking to him in a patronizing and fatherly way that pricked him like needles. He did not relish the idea of a controversy with, much less being routed by, this serving-man, especially in the presence of the young women. He wished the girls anywhere else so that he might smother the lackey with a sulphurous blast. But he had to stand to the losing game while Helen and her friends laughed at his defeat or waved the crimson flag and cheered the Harvard hits in a shrill treble. Helen indeed felt some compunctions for having brought about the situation but was enjoying Jimmie's discomfiture too much to end it.Hayward had forgotten he was a lackey, had forgotten he was a negro, had forgotten he was anything save a Harvard man proud of his college, proclaiming her fair record with love and joy, confident in himself as one of her sons.... "As a man thinketh. so is he." ... The occasion was trivial, but the transforming power of thought, its triumph over circumstance, was strikingly evidenced in the footman's face. Helen noted that his bearing had lost every trace of conventional or conscious servility, that he looked easily and confidentlya man, calling no man master.After harrying Captain Jimmie enough to pay off all old scores they gave him good-bye with a final yell for the crimson, and turned the launch for home. In the run back Helen had her first opportunity to notice the pennant. It was not hers."Hayward, whose flag is this?""Mine, Miss Helen. I could not find your mother quickly, and I brought that to save time."She looked from the flag to the negro. A nebulous idea floated through her mind, and she tried to fix it, but it was too elusive. She put Nell and Nancy off at their landings, and tried to grasp the intangible explanation that was hovering about her brain. It was characteristic of her to prefer working out her own answers to looking at them in the back of the book. Finally, however, she decided she did not have a full statement of the problem."When did you go to Harvard, Hayward?" she ventured."Class of 191-, Miss Helen.""191-. Then you did not finish. The battle of Valencia was—""No, Miss Helen, I did not finish: but I understand two others of my class who volunteered were passed on the spring term's work and graduated by a special resolution of the Overseers. I think I will apply for my diploma sometime—if I need it."Hayward spoke lightly, but his last words brought to Helen the same question which had occurred to her so often in the last year since she had discovered in him her father's rescuer. They only made the question more insistent.He was a Harvard man,—to Helen's mind a title of all excellence and dignity. That explained much. His intelligence, even his physical grace and soldierly courage, seemed to fit naturally into that character. But why a flunkey?—shirking higher duties and the honours that pertained to his degree, careless of the evidence of his scholarly merit, putting aside the rewards of his soldierly heroism."Do you care nothing for everything, Hayward?—except this flag? You seem to have valued it.""It is the one possession dearest to my heart," he answered in simple truth, and then showed the first faint trace of embarrassment she had ever seen him exhibit."Yes, you have loved the Harvard pennant but concealed your Harvard lineage. You champion Harvard's name enthusiastically against Jimmie Radwine's gibes, but you affect to be careless of Harvard's diploma. You carry the Harvard culture, and yet—you choose to be a footman."Hayward winced. Helen tempered the thrust by adding:"You do a soldier's work, but decline a soldier's honours. You aretoomodest. You overdo the part.""I hope yet to do something worthy of Harvard, Miss Helen. I am not without ambition, however much you may think it. Indeed I fear I have too much ambition."A Harvard man need set no limit to his ambition. Helen spoke with the wisdom and confidence of youth and loyalty.The launch was at the landing. The girl climbed out and up the steep stairs. At the top she bethought herself and turned about."Oh, here's your 'heart's dearest possession,'" she said with a laugh, and she pitched the little crimson flag down upon Hayward, who was making the boat fast.The man looked up to catch the flag as it fell, and memory in that instant worked the magic which brought the scene on Soldiers Field clearly before Helen's mind. She knew him in that moment. She gazed at him without speaking. She looked at the flag and then at him—once, and again. All the incidents of the driving finish of that ever memorable football game came back to her, bringing to her pulses an echoing tremor of its tense excitement and wild enthusiasm and her unstinted girlish admiration for the player who had saved his college, her Harvard, from black defeat.At last she remembered his words about the pennant which she had quoted to him a moment since. Her cheek flushed and she was in two minds whether to be offended or amused. Graham saw her look of surprised recognition, her glances at the pennant, and read the significance of her rising colour. He felt the presumption of his very presence, and, conscious and guilty, he looked abjectly out across the lake.The man's humility went far to mollify Helen's anger or levity; but she could not spare him entirely."So you prefer another name to your own," she said. "Why is that?""Oh, no, Miss Helen. I am not ashamed of my name. There's no reason why I should be. I—""Then why use another?""My name is John Hayward Graham. I am using my own, but not all of my own.""But why the masquerade? It doesn't look well. What have you done to be afraid of your full name?""Nothing, Miss Helen, I declare upon honour. I'll tell you the whole story. You have been kind to respect my wishes not to make known my services to your father, and I'll gladly tell you all about it. But I must go now, if you will excuse me? Mrs. Phillips ordered the carriage for five o'clock and it's nearly that time now.""I'll excuse you, Hayward," Helen answered, intending a dismissal of the subject as well as of the servant.
CHAPTER XVIII
Senator Killam was against the bill tooth and nail,—and he was against Rutledge. He obtained the floor and began to speak in a desultory but picturesque fashion in ridicule of some of the junior Senator's new-fangled heresies almost before Rutledge had caught his breath, and his vitriolic opening stayed the steps of many who in courtesy would have gone over to Rutledge's seat to felicitate him upon his maiden effort. Mr. Killam presented his felicitations openly and with such a mixture of sarcasm, irony and some seeming admiration that his colleague was puzzled. When Mr. Killam talked his dearest enemy would stop to listen. Rutledge, tired and blown, leaned back in his chair to hear him thunder.
As he sank back into a comfortable pose he caught sight for the first time of Lola DeVale and Elise Phillips in the gallery. They had heard his speech from start to finish,—and were differently affected by it. Lola was more impressed with the Senator's manner than by his words.
"Senator Rutledge verily believes all that he says against the negroes," she had commented; "but surely they are not so black as he paints them. Papa says that it is impossible for a Southern man to judge the negro fairly."
Elise did not reply. She was filled with revulsion amounting almost to nausea, and her temper was on edge. As her father's daughter, the personal element was unbearably irritating to her. She resented the entire situation and discussion. She had not known what was under consideration, nor who was to speak, and she would have left the gallery if she had not felt that it would be beating a retreat. She also had a desire to see whether Evans had the impudence to say what he thought right in her face.
In her stay in the South she had seen a very disreputable class of negroes, and under the spell of Rutledge's words her antipathies were over-excited to such a degree that she was faint with disgust. On the other hand she was full of barely suppressed anger. Rutledge smiled a salutation to the young women; and though Elise was looking straight at him she did not join Lola in her gracious acknowledgment.
"Don't you see Mr. Rutledge, Elise? He waits for your smile like a dog for a bone."
"I wish that man were dead," Elise declared.
Lola raised her eyebrows and scanned the profile of her friend for some moments, and there came into her mind an idea that appeared to be worth some thinking over....
If Senator Rutledge was distasteful to her, Elise had little cause to complain of him: for seldom had any of the scores of young fellows who followed in her train the good fortune of a minute's talk with her alone; and Rutledge, oppressed by the result of their last meeting at Senator DeVale's, unsatisfied with the empty nothings which passed for conversation in the brief glimpses he had of her at formal gatherings, and chilled by the coldness of her manner which had been oh, so different in that halcyon summer when he had lost his heart to her, was well content to stand further and further away from her in the crowd that was always about her, and to worship in spirit the real Elise Phillips unfettered by convention and unaffected by untoward incident. He took what comfort he could from the fact that as yet no favoured one appeared among Elise's admirers, and that among the sons of fortune, army officers, attachés, and all that sort who aspired to make life interesting for the President's eldest daughter it seemed none could flatter himself he was preferred above another.
As for those who exhibited the liveliest interest in Elise, gossip gave that distinction to two. One evening at a reception at Secretary Mackenzie's Senator Rutledge was talking to Lola DeVale when Elise passed, accompanied by a stalwart young fellow whom Rutledge had never seen.
"Who is Sir Monocle?" he asked.
"Where?" asked Lola.
"Miss Phillips' escort."
"Oh. He has no monocle."
"I know. But he should have. He looks it. Who is he?"
"Captain George St. Lawrence Howard, second son of the Earl of Duddeston. He was taking a look at America, but an introduction to Elise seems to have persuaded him to limit his observations to Washington City."
"Sensible fellow," commented Rutledge.
"Yes," said Lola, "and a very likable fellow. He won his captaincy with Younghusband in the Thibetan campaign before he was twenty; and the fact that an invalid brother is all that stands between him and the earldom doesn't make him any the less interesting."
"Titles are talismanic—whether military or other. With two, he ought to be fairly irresistible."
"Yes, and besides that he has plenty of money and leisure to make love with a thorough care for detail."
"With all those and a manifest supremely good taste," said Rutledge, "I would back him for a winner."
"You are forgetting Senatorial courtesy!"
"How now?"
"Senator Richland."
"What of him?"
"He also is in the running."
"Richland? I hadn't heard."
"Yes; and remember that his fortune is ten times that of the Earl of Duddeston, and his brains are of the same grade as his bank account."
Rutledge was interested. He had a thorough respect for Richland's ability.
"He is nearly twice Elise's age," Lola continued, "and Senatorial dignity will not permit a display of violent enthusiasm. But Senator Richland has acquired the habit of winning, and he is young enough and abundantly able to make the game interesting both for Elise and for any rivals. He is young indeed for his honours, has the ear of the people, and is a politician of rare acumen. His followers predict for him nothing less than the Presidency itself when his time is ripe. What more could a girl wish? Don't lay all your salary on the Englishman—you might lose."
* * * * *
Lola DeVale had not misread Senator Richland's purposes. He was seriously in the running. Elise was the first woman he had ever thought of marrying. She seemed to him to fit perfectly into all the plans which his ambition had made for the future. He had met her at Mr. Phillips' inauguration, and after thinking over her charms during the summer vacation had come back to Washington in December fully determined to wage a vigorous campaign for her hand.
Of the other men who were rash enough to dream of Elise it is needless and would be tiresome to go into detail. They were more or less interested, enamoured or devoted: but the Senator and Captain Howard were too fast company for them, and they are of interest only as a numerous field which made the running more or less difficult for the leaders.
Evans Rutledge willingly would have entered the lists against Richland or the Englishman—against anybody—if Elise had been ordinarily civil to him; but he had been in such evident disfavour since the Smith knock-down that he deemed himself one of "the gallery" at this game of hearts. Elise when indeed she had time to think of it, felt that she had dealt with him ungenerously if not unjustly, but that only made his presence less grateful to her.
The unreasonableness of Elise's attitude toward Rutledge and Rutledge's behaviour whenever she saw him near Elise, mildly stirred the womanly curiosity of Lola DeVale to the point of investigation. She found Elise averse to the slightest discussion of Senator Rutledge or of anything connected with him. Baffled there, she turned with more determination and softer skill to the man. He will never know how he came upon terms of such friendliness and sympathy with Miss DeVale. Soon doubtless he would have confided the story of his love to her. But events came about differently.
A score of young people were at Senator DeVale's country-place one evening in May. Elise had met Evans with something of her old-time friendliness and he was in an uncertain state of happiness.
"Now don't make an ass of yourself because the Lady Beautiful is in a mood to be gracious," he solemnly admonished his heart. "Sir Monocle may just have proposed and been accepted."
The thought was as bracing as a cold shower and gave him a vigorous grip on his rebellious affections. Then he danced with her—on the wide, dimly lighted veranda—a slow, lotus-land waltz, just coming back in vogue after more than a decade of galloping two-steps.
He took another grip on himself. He must not think of the woman in his arms. Luckily the old-fashioned dance was diverting: while the movement was intoxicating it was reminiscent. He remembered his first waltz—the Carolina hill-town—the moonlight, the smell of the roses—the plump little girl in the white dress, with the red, red sash, and the cheeks as red, with the black eyes and the blacker hair, with the indefinable sensuous physical perfume of Woman, and the very Spirit of the Dance,—she who—yes, she who married the station-agent and was now such a motherly person. He began a speech that would have been cynical. Elise stopped him.
"Don't talk," she said. "Let's dream."
Tumult! Riot! What's the use to hold one's pulses steady when the Lady Beautiful herself incites revolt!
"Let's dream." His heart-strings were set a-tremble by the vibrant richness of her voice, which seemed to have caught the dreaminess and rhythm and resonance of the violins that drew them on. And—
"Don't talk." No: he would not profane the enchantment of that waltz with words; and yet surely My Lady Beautiful were heartless indeed not to catch the messages of love which, pure of the alloy of breath and speech, his every pulse-beat sent unfettered to her heart.
He held her for a moment after the violins had ceased, and the spell of the slow-swinging waltz was still upon them both—when a quick jerk of the fiddles in the ever rollicking two-step brought Sir Monocle to Elise's side. Evans resigned her with a bow and, without so much as a "thank you," went out on the lawn to commune with his heart.
How long that two-step continued, he, seated in a retired nook, did not know. Sometime after it was finished he saw Elise and the Englishman walk down the winding path that led from the front door to the roadside. They stood talking together a minute perhaps till Captain Howard boarded a passing car city-bound. Rutledge noted with a twinge of jealousy the cordial good-bye the girl gave the man, but even at that distance and through the uncertain light he thought he saw—and, queer to say, resented—a certain formality in Captain Howard's adieus to the woman.
He watched her through the trees as she came slowly back up the hill following the turns of the smooth hard walk as it wound through darkness and half lights from the broad gateway to the house. She moved along, a white shadow, slowly at first, and Evans imagined that she was in some such mood as possessed him. Then she started suddenly and ran at a stone stairway which mounted a terrace. She tripped, stumbled and fell against the granite steps.
Rutledge was flying to her before she was fairly prone. He spoke to her and tried to help her up. She made no answer, and her hand and arm were limp.
"Elise!" he said, with fear in his voice. Still no answer.
He took her in his arms and made directly up the hill for the front door.
"Elise," he whispered fearfully again. "Oh, my heart, speak to me!"
Her cheek was against his shoulder. He buried his face in her hair, as he prayerfully kissed the snow-white part visible even in that darkness. Her head dropped limply back, and a sigh came from her lips so close to his. Still she answered not his call. He loved her very much and—he kissed her again, softly, where the long lashes lay upon her cheek, and—"Elise!" he murmured appealingly. She turned her face feebly away from him, like a child restless in sleep.
He had not delayed his climb to the house.
"Here!" he cried. "Get Dr. Sheldon quick! Miss Phillips is dangerously hurt!"
There were excited screams among the women and a stir among the men as he carried his burden across the piazza and into the wide hall. There in the full light he saw—Miss Elise Phillips talking quietly to Donald MacLane. He almost let fall the woman in his arms. He looked again at her face. She was Lola DeVale.
Dr. Sheldon and Lola's mother fortunately were at hand. At their direction Rutledge carried the young woman up the stairs and laid her on a couch in her sitting-room. She opened her eyes and smiled languidly at him as he put her down.
Elise and all the other young people knew of Rutledge's mistake as to Lola's identity, but Elise could not understand why he blushed so furiously as he gave her an account of the mishap.
* * * * *
At her nexttête-à-têtewith Rutledge Lola gave him her very sincerest thanks and—laughed at him till he was uncomfortable. Finally she said: "You are a very gallant but a very mercenary knight, Mr. Rutledge." Rutledge was hopelessly confused.
Lola continued, mischief in her eyes: "Alas! the spirit of commercialism has pervaded even Southern Chivalry, and forlorn maidens must pay as they go." Rutledge was plainly resentful.
"Now I am very unselfish, Mr. Rutledge, and—I wish ithadbeen Elise." Her mischief dissolved in a confiding smile, full of sympathy,—and Rutledge was very humble.
Lola DeVale's sympathy was warm and irresistible, and before he was aware he was telling her of his love for Elise in a way to set her interest a-tingle.
"Why don't you tell her of it?" asked Lola. "Tell her that it just overwhelms all earlier loves."
"Earlier loves? I never loved any other woman," Rutledge answered.
"Oh, of course not." Lola could scarcely repress a smile at the thought that a man always swears only his last passion is genuine.
"But tell her—tell her!" she repeated.
"I have told her."
"When?"
"Three years ago."
"Plainly? or with artistic indirectness?"
"Plainly."
Lola looked at him incredulously, but saw that he was telling the truth.
"The sly thing!" she exclaimed under her breath. "But tell heragain! I declare if I were a man and loved Elise—and I would love none else—I'd tell her so every time I saw her."
"Oh I'll not love another—no fear of that," Evans replied half lightly; "but as for telling her again, self-respect will not—"
"Self-respect—fudge! If I loved a girl I'd tell her so a hundred times—and marry her too—in spite of everything."
"Perhaps so," Evans commented skeptically.
Lola was shooting in the dark, but her warm heart would not let her leave the matter at rest. Both because of her desire, being happily in love herself, to see the love affairs of her friends go smoothly, and because of the riddle it presented to her, she approached Elise again in order to straighten out the tangled skein for everybody's satisfaction. She thought to match her wits against Elise's and proceeded with more caution.
"By the way, Elise," she said, apropos of nothing at all, "I think you were right about Senator Rutledge's being very much in love with that young woman you told me about."
Elise exhibited a perfect indifference and said nothing.
"I asked him about her, after becoming duly confidential and sympathetic, of course, and he confirmed your statement. He still loves the girl—oh, you ought to hear him tell of it. 'He will never love another till he's dead, dead, dead,'—or words to that effect: but he will not tell her—"
Elise was listening with a polite but languid interest.
"—again. He thinks his self-respect forbids; butIthink—"
"Did he say that? To you?" Elise demanded.
"Yes; when I asked h—"
"Well now, once and for all, Lola, I tell you I despise that man, and never must you mention his name to me again!"
"But Elise, I think he—"
"Stop, Lola! I'll not hear another word!"
"But let me tell you, Elise. He—"
"No! Stopnow! Not another word if you care for my friendship. I'll never speak to you again if you speak of him to me!"
Elise's anger was at white heat, and she looked and spoke like her father. Lola was frightened at her manner, but made another brave attempt to set matters straight, which was met by such a blaze of personal resentment in Elise's eyes that she gave up in abject defeat—though she did pluck up courage to fire a parting shot.
"Very well, my dear," she said, as if dismissing the subject.... "I have something of yours I must give you before I go. There—take it," and she kissed the expectant Elise warmly on the lips as she added: "Senator Rutledge gave it to me by mistake as he carried me up the hill the other night."
CHAPTER XIX
Lily Porter finally became conscious that she was the special attraction for a stranger who regularly every other Sunday evening sat in a forward pew and listened to her singing with attentive interest, but who showed little or no care for any of the service beside. Several months had gone by before she noticed him and his faithful attention to herself. When she did realize his presence she was conscious that he had been paying her this tribute for a long time. She observed him quietly and satisfied herself that he came only to see or to hear her. He did not force himself upon her vision, but none the less did she understand that she was the chief object of his respectful consideration.
The preacher's manner and style of thought did not appeal to Hayward, while Lily Porter's face and voice did. He always sat where he could look at her in the choir-loft, for he argued that as he went only to see her he would see as much of her as possible. His face was mobile and easily read, and as he was good to look upon and so evidently appreciative of her efforts the girl came ere long to sing with an eye to his approval and admiration—to sing for him and to him. This interested her for a time, but she was piqued at length for that he seemed content to admire at a distance and made no effort to come nearer to her.
One evening, unexpectedly to them both, a negro prominent among his race because of his position as Registrar for the District, John K. Brown, with whom Hayward had picked up a mutually agreeable though casual acquaintance, introduced him to the singer in the aisle of the church.
"Miss Lily, I want to introduce my friend Mr. John Hayward, who goes into extravagances about your singing—as he very properly should."
Hayward was overjoyed at his good fortune. To be presented as John Brown's friend was a passport to the best negro society in Washington. He was as much pleased to know that Brown regarded him so favourably as he was delighted to meet the young woman. As he walked with her to the door she presented him to her mother, a bright mulatto woman about fifty or more, who did the grand dame to the best of her ability: which was indeed perfect as to manner but was betrayed the moment she tried to do too many things with the English language.
When he had opportunity Hayward was profuse in his thanks to Brown, and told him volubly of his love for music. Finding a sympathetic listener, he was led on to an impulsive story of the social longings and lackings in his life. Brown, more than ever impressed with the young fellow's intelligence and worthiness, was at some pains thereafter to look after him and set him going in a congenial social current.
With Brown's approval and his own gifts and graces it was not remarkable that Hayward won his way to social popularity as fast as his confining duties would permit. He began to see much of Lily Porter and was consistent in his devotion to her despite the fact that the habit of his college days of being attracted by each new and pretty face still measurably clung to him. His information and accomplishments were of a sort superior to that of any of the young women he met, and none made a serious impression on his heart. Lily Porter was more nearly his equal in education and general cultivation of mind and manner, and was really the most attractive to him; but his harmless vanity could not forego the admiration of the others, and he gave some little time to small conquests. He did homage to Lily by his evident admiration of her talents and comeliness and by his unconcealed pleasure in her friendship. At the same time he met her petty tyrannies and autocratic demands with an unmoved indifference.
He had become very well acquainted with Lily and had called on her several times before Henry Porter knew that his daughter was receiving the footman whom he had snubbed some months before.
"Lily, who was that young man that called on you last night?"
"Mr. Hayward."
"Umhuh, I thought he was the same fellow. You'll have to drop him. I don't want you to be receivin' no footman in this house. We must draw the line somewhere."
"He's no footman, papa. He's one of Mr. Brown's friends. Mr. Brown introduced him to me himself. I think he is connected with Mr. Brown's office."
"No such thing. Hayward's footman at the White House—told me so hisself 'bout a year ago, and I saw him on the President's carriage no longer'n yesterday. Nice lie he's told you 'bout bein' in Brown's office."
"Oh, he didn't say so, papa. I supposed so because Mr. Brown said he was his friend and has introduced him to all the nice people. Surely you can't object to one of Mr. Brown's friends. Everybody likes Mr. Hayward and he is received everywhere."
"Everybody likes him, do they? Well you see to it you don't like him any too much. I can't kick him out if Brown stands for him, but you make it your business to let him down easy. Have you seen Bob Shaw lately?"
"He was here last night when Mr. Hayward came," answered Lily; and she seemed to be amused at something.
"Well, what's funny 'bout that?"
Lily knew that she must not tell her father what she was laughing at. She created a diversion.
"Mr. Shaw is so backward, and so—dark."
"Dark! He's jus' a good hones' black,—so'm I—all African and proud of it. Mebbe I'm too dark to suit yuh. Bob Shaw is not backward, miss. He's got the bes' law practice of all the niggers in the Distric', and he'll be leader of the whole crowd in a few years. He's the bes' one in the bunch of these fellers who tag after you and you better take him. My money and his brains and pull with the party 'd make a great combernation."
Lily did not commit herself. She was accustomed to her father's blunt method of indicating his wishes. She liked Shaw well enough, but old Henry's awkward interference and zeal did the lawyer's cause no good. Shaw was below the ordinary in the matter of good looks, and in his love for Lily was too submissive to her whims. He had not Hayward's easy manner, nor his assurance—for the footman was not at all abashed by Henry Porter's money nor his daughter's gentle arrogance. It is needless to say the girl preferred the serving-man to the lawyer.
After the first flush of interest in Lily and her songs had subsided Hayward made love to the pampered belle warmly or indifferently as the mood was upon him. He noted that, taking her charms in detail, they were alluring without exception; and such moments of reflective analysis were always followed by a more determined pursuit of her. Yet the careless moods came. However, he always delighted in and could be extravagant in praising her singing, even when the personal attraction was the weakest, and the general effect on the woman was a continuous tattoo of love-taps at the door of her heart.
The negro magnate's favourite, Shaw, clearly was being outdistanced, and the outraged father stamped and threatened and commanded: but to no purpose. When Hayward discovered the bitterness of the old man's opposition he chuckled.
"Here's where I get even," he said; and became more assiduous in his attentions to Lily and more aggressive in his methods.
"Your father does not appear to hold much love for me," he told Lily one evening after she had sung him into an affectionate frame of mind and the conversation had drifted along to the confidential and personal stage.
"Did I ever tell you what he did with my first request for an introduction to you?"
"No. What?"
"He stamped the feathers off of it," said Hayward, and laughingly told her the details.
"Papa thinks—everybody—should be a lawyer, or a politician with a pull," Lily commented complainingly.
The temptation to vindicate his dignity was too much for Hayward.
"I was not always a footman and do not intend always to be a footman; and yet, footman as I am, if your father values a pull with the President, perhaps, if he knew—oh, well, he might think better of me."
"Oh, you have a pull? How interesting. Do tell me about it. I have read so much about pulls that I am dying to know what one is like. How do you work it? I believe you work a pull, don't you? Or do you pull the—"
"I haven't pulled mine yet. I'm waiting," said Hayward. "But it will work when the time comes."
"And when will the time come? Tell me. I'm so anxious to see the wheels go round in a genuine political machine. How many Southern delegates can you influence in the next national convention? That's the mainspring, isn't it?"
"I'm no politician or vote vender. I've never had the pleasure of influencing my own vote yet, and won't as long as I live in the District."
"What! Without politics or votes, and yet you have a pull?"
"It is a personal matter entirely," Hayward answered carelessly, as if personal friendships with Presidents were very ordinary affairs for him. Lily Porter was a mite skeptical, but she hoped he spoke the truth, for it would more than confirm her estimate of him and would be such an effective counter to her father's nagging opposition.
"Oh, isn't that interesting! Tell me all about it!"
"Really I cannot. I have never told that, even to my mother. There is only one other person who knows of it. It is my one secret, and my life—that is, my future—depends largely upon it. There's too much at stake."
"Would you fear to trust your life—your future—in my hands?" asked the woman softly. "I could be a very good and a very faithful friend."
The lure in her voice was irresistible.
"I would trust my soul with you," he answered, and with the spoken faith the trust was perfected in his heart. "Listen."
He told her all about himself, of his name and his history, of his life and his hopes. He was modest in his recital of the creditable things he had done; but when he had told her of his claim upon the President's gratitude and the purpose toward which he would use it, and began to talk of his ambition and his dreams, his heart was fired by its own fervour, and before the very warmth of his own eloquence all obstacles and difficulties faded as mists before the sun, and he felt that he needed only to put forth his hands to grasp his heart's desires.
The girl was touched with his fire. She listened with ready sympathy to the beginning of his story, heard with quickening pulses of his rescue of Colonel Phillips, and in the telling of his hopes was caught in the current of his transporting fervency and carried along with him to realize the vision of his martial career.
"And that is the picture of your life! It is—it will be—glorious!" She rose in her enthusiasm. "Oh, that a woman might—"
"Glorious—yes," the man said; "and till to-night it had seemed perfect to me. But I have been blind to its greatest lack. You have made me conscious of it." Hayward stood up and moved toward the girl, who wavered uncertainly between reserve and complaisance.
"I would paint another figure into that picture, Lily—the figure of a woman." He put his hands out toward her, and her coldness was melting when—"Lily," said her father from the hall, "what did you do with the evenin' paper? I want to read Mr. Shaw's speech before the convention this mornin'. Mr. Brown told me that it is the greates' speech that's been made yet."
Henry Porter came into the parlour in time to catch a glimpse of confusion and unusual attitude in his daughter and Hayward. He thought best to mount guard, and decided to talk Hayward into flight. He began with a panegyric on Shaw. Hayward caught the hint and took his leave, pulling Lily to the front door by a chain of conversation.
"Now remember," he murmured tenderly, "you hold my secret; and must keep it sacredly."
"Have no fear of me. Watch your other confidante," Lily whispered, her manner full as his of tenderness.
"Oh, she is—"
"Shaw told 'em," began the persistent and suspicious parent, coming out of the parlour;—but the footman was gone down the steps.
Hayward's mood changed in a twinkling and with a jolt. He walked a hundred paces thinking confusedly.
The question slowly framed itself in his mind.... "Do I love Lily?"
But he did not answer it.
CHAPTER XX
The oncoming summer promised to be long and uneventful for Helen Phillips. Late in May her mother took her and her two little sisters to Stag Inlet, leaving a perspiring father to await the perverse pleasure of a stubborn Congress before beginning his vacation, and Elise to set out upon a round of visiting that would permit her to see very little of home during the hot months. To Mrs. Phillips the restfulness of "Hill-Top" was gratefully refreshing after her trying first winter in Washington. She gave herself over fully to its soothing quiet and arranged her daily programmes on the simplest lines.
Hayward, because of his versatile abilities an indispensable part of the simple Hill-Top outfit, did not have an opportunity before leaving for Stag Inlet to see Lily Porter again. Nor indeed was he regretful on that account. He was in a state of indecision and wanted time to think. He heartily wished that he had not been so free with his confidences: yet could not justify this feeling when he sought a reason for it.
After awhile he wrote Lily a letter which was a model of diplomacy—which said much and said nothing. It did not disappoint or displease her. She read between the lines an admirable modesty and restraint, complimentary to herself and true to the artistic instinct which, she had read somewhere, always saves a full confession for a personal interview. She took her own good time to answer it. She felt sure of the man's devotion, despite the fact that his other and unknown confidante was a woman other than his mother. The tenor of her reply was reserved, though not discouraging. Hayward's impatience was not excited by the delay, nor his interest quickened by the coy missive.
* * * * *
The first morning Helen was on the lake after coming to the Inlet her launch passed a small catboat commanded by Jimmie Radwine and flying a Yale pennant from her diminutive masthead. The crew, consisting of Captain Jimmie and another youngster, both younger than Helen, were yelling themselves dizzy.
"What's Jimmie Radwine saying, Helen?" asked Nell Stewart.
Jimmie had no intention of leaving them uninformed. He had put his boat about, and come up alongside.
"Hello, Helen!" he shouted, "Harvard can't play ball! Quincy can't pitch! Tom got a home run and two two-baggers off him in four times up! Rah! rah! rah! YALE!"
Helen was a famous Harvard partisan, and many a verbal tilt had she had with Jimmie, whose brother Tom was Yale's right-fielder, as to the comparative merits of the blue and the crimson in all things from scholarship to shot-putting.
"What was the score, Jimmie?" she asked him.
"Wasn't any score—for Harvard: all for Yale. Wow! Yale—Yale—Yale!" he yelled.
Helen looked a dignified reproof of his unmannerly enthusiasm, but Jimmie's youth was proof against any such mild rebuke, and her irritation only kindled his joy. She nodded to Hayward for more speed, but as Jimmie was favoured by a stiff breeze they could not shake him off. He followed them for two miles or more up the lake, volunteering much information sandwiched between cheers for Eli, which, when he had delivered it fully and in detail, he began to repeat in order to impress it upon them. Hayward cheerfully would have bumped him with the launch.
Having so thoroughly enjoyed the morning's sport, Captain Jimmie regularly afterward flew the blue pennant from his mast, and was ever on the alert to greet Helen with the Yale yell and further particulars.
* * * * *
Less than a month later the Harvard crew rowed rings around the Yale men at New London. Helen's cup was full. The next day she and Nell Stewart and Nancy Chester were sitting out on the lawn reading an account of the race when they saw Jimmie's catboat beating about the lake.
"Come, girls," exclaimed Helen, "we must carry the news to Jimmie!"
"Hayward, come here," she called to the footman, who was tinkering at a gasoline runabout a hundred yards from them. "Get the launch ready," she added when he came nearer, "we want to overtake Mr. Radwine's boat out there."
"I guess Jimmie will haul down that blue flag now," said one of the girls when they had come to the boat-house.
"Hayward," said Helen, "run up to the house and tell mamma to give you the Harvard pennant that is in my room—and hurry!"
Hayward needed no urging. Out of the chatter he had caught the news of Harvard's victory at the oars, and he was as full of excited pleasure as Helen herself. He hurried up the hill and, not finding Mrs. Phillips, rushed to his own quarters and turned out from his trunk the crimson pennant.
Helen was too intent on the chase of Jimmie Radwine to notice that the short staff of the flag Hayward brought her, and the faded and wrinkled folds of the cloth, did not belong to the crimson emblem which was part of the decoration of her dressing-table. Jimmie, already informed of Yale's bitter defeat, surmised the purpose of the Phillips launch's coming, and tried to sail away and away: but he was relentlessly pursued and overtaken, and mercilessly repaid for all of his taunts of the last fortnight. As they came up with him Helen cried out to her friends:
"Now, everybody give the Harvard yell!"
The feminine chorus was shrill, but lacked volume.
"Again! and louder!" she commanded. "You too, Hayward!"
That was the most grateful order Hayward had received since the 10th was sent into the charge at Valencia. He stood up to drive the deep-mouthed, long-drawn rah-rah-rah's from his lungs, and added a few kinks and wrinkles at the end in orthodox phrasing and intonation by way of trimming off the severely plain Harvard slogan. Helen looked at him in some surprise, and saw that he was oblivious to his situation and seemed bent on "rattling" the hostile blue skipper. He came to himself at last, and pulled himself together in some confusion to give attention solely to his duties in running the launch. Helen thought his behaviour unusual, and watched him covertly while the badgering of Jimmie Radwine was in progress.
Jimmie was far from an easy mark, however, for by his unblushing impudence and boyish pretension to vast knowledge of facts and figures he time and again crowded Helen to her defences. Hayward could hardly keep his tongue when Jimmie presumed too much on the ignorance of the young women as to the athletic history of the blue and the crimson, and Helen could see that the negro was keeping quiet with difficulty. At one of Jimmie's most reckless statements, which overwhelmed Helen, Hayward, bending over the launch's little engine, shook his head in violent dissent.
"What is it, Hayward?" his mistress called to him.
"Beg pardon, Miss Helen, but he's—he's—misstating it!" Hayward answered with vigour.
"Then tell him of it!" Helen exclaimed impulsively.
"Pardon me, but you are altogether mistaken about that, Mr. Radwine," the negro sang out to Jimmie, shoving the launch up a little nearer the boat's windward quarter.
"What do you know about it?" Jimmie demanded scornfully.
"I know all about it," retorted Hayward with rising spirit; and he went into details in a way to take Jimmie's breath. Warming up, he did not desist on finishing the matter in dispute, but challenged others of Jimmie's audacious inaccuracies and proceeded to straighten them out. Jimmie demurred and replied more recklessly, and was soon in a rough and tumble discussion covering the whole field of college excellences. He found he was no match for Hayward either in information and enthusiasm or in assurance. Before the argument was half finished the footman was talking to him in a patronizing and fatherly way that pricked him like needles. He did not relish the idea of a controversy with, much less being routed by, this serving-man, especially in the presence of the young women. He wished the girls anywhere else so that he might smother the lackey with a sulphurous blast. But he had to stand to the losing game while Helen and her friends laughed at his defeat or waved the crimson flag and cheered the Harvard hits in a shrill treble. Helen indeed felt some compunctions for having brought about the situation but was enjoying Jimmie's discomfiture too much to end it.
Hayward had forgotten he was a lackey, had forgotten he was a negro, had forgotten he was anything save a Harvard man proud of his college, proclaiming her fair record with love and joy, confident in himself as one of her sons.... "As a man thinketh. so is he." ... The occasion was trivial, but the transforming power of thought, its triumph over circumstance, was strikingly evidenced in the footman's face. Helen noted that his bearing had lost every trace of conventional or conscious servility, that he looked easily and confidentlya man, calling no man master.
After harrying Captain Jimmie enough to pay off all old scores they gave him good-bye with a final yell for the crimson, and turned the launch for home. In the run back Helen had her first opportunity to notice the pennant. It was not hers.
"Hayward, whose flag is this?"
"Mine, Miss Helen. I could not find your mother quickly, and I brought that to save time."
She looked from the flag to the negro. A nebulous idea floated through her mind, and she tried to fix it, but it was too elusive. She put Nell and Nancy off at their landings, and tried to grasp the intangible explanation that was hovering about her brain. It was characteristic of her to prefer working out her own answers to looking at them in the back of the book. Finally, however, she decided she did not have a full statement of the problem.
"When did you go to Harvard, Hayward?" she ventured.
"Class of 191-, Miss Helen."
"191-. Then you did not finish. The battle of Valencia was—"
"No, Miss Helen, I did not finish: but I understand two others of my class who volunteered were passed on the spring term's work and graduated by a special resolution of the Overseers. I think I will apply for my diploma sometime—if I need it."
Hayward spoke lightly, but his last words brought to Helen the same question which had occurred to her so often in the last year since she had discovered in him her father's rescuer. They only made the question more insistent.
He was a Harvard man,—to Helen's mind a title of all excellence and dignity. That explained much. His intelligence, even his physical grace and soldierly courage, seemed to fit naturally into that character. But why a flunkey?—shirking higher duties and the honours that pertained to his degree, careless of the evidence of his scholarly merit, putting aside the rewards of his soldierly heroism.
"Do you care nothing for everything, Hayward?—except this flag? You seem to have valued it."
"It is the one possession dearest to my heart," he answered in simple truth, and then showed the first faint trace of embarrassment she had ever seen him exhibit.
"Yes, you have loved the Harvard pennant but concealed your Harvard lineage. You champion Harvard's name enthusiastically against Jimmie Radwine's gibes, but you affect to be careless of Harvard's diploma. You carry the Harvard culture, and yet—you choose to be a footman."
Hayward winced. Helen tempered the thrust by adding:
"You do a soldier's work, but decline a soldier's honours. You aretoomodest. You overdo the part."
"I hope yet to do something worthy of Harvard, Miss Helen. I am not without ambition, however much you may think it. Indeed I fear I have too much ambition."
A Harvard man need set no limit to his ambition. Helen spoke with the wisdom and confidence of youth and loyalty.
The launch was at the landing. The girl climbed out and up the steep stairs. At the top she bethought herself and turned about.
"Oh, here's your 'heart's dearest possession,'" she said with a laugh, and she pitched the little crimson flag down upon Hayward, who was making the boat fast.
The man looked up to catch the flag as it fell, and memory in that instant worked the magic which brought the scene on Soldiers Field clearly before Helen's mind. She knew him in that moment. She gazed at him without speaking. She looked at the flag and then at him—once, and again. All the incidents of the driving finish of that ever memorable football game came back to her, bringing to her pulses an echoing tremor of its tense excitement and wild enthusiasm and her unstinted girlish admiration for the player who had saved his college, her Harvard, from black defeat.
At last she remembered his words about the pennant which she had quoted to him a moment since. Her cheek flushed and she was in two minds whether to be offended or amused. Graham saw her look of surprised recognition, her glances at the pennant, and read the significance of her rising colour. He felt the presumption of his very presence, and, conscious and guilty, he looked abjectly out across the lake.
The man's humility went far to mollify Helen's anger or levity; but she could not spare him entirely.
"So you prefer another name to your own," she said. "Why is that?"
"Oh, no, Miss Helen. I am not ashamed of my name. There's no reason why I should be. I—"
"Then why use another?"
"My name is John Hayward Graham. I am using my own, but not all of my own."
"But why the masquerade? It doesn't look well. What have you done to be afraid of your full name?"
"Nothing, Miss Helen, I declare upon honour. I'll tell you the whole story. You have been kind to respect my wishes not to make known my services to your father, and I'll gladly tell you all about it. But I must go now, if you will excuse me? Mrs. Phillips ordered the carriage for five o'clock and it's nearly that time now."
"I'll excuse you, Hayward," Helen answered, intending a dismissal of the subject as well as of the servant.