VI
In the drawing-room Douglas Briggs found Stone standing disconsolate in a corner. The Boss was plainly out of his element. The politicians who stood near him either had no personal acquaintance with him or belonged to the opposition party. One of these, indeed, the white-haired Senator from Virginia, had recently made a bitter attack on him in a magazine article. It was the first attack that had persuaded Stone to break silence under censure, and the bitterness of his reply showed how deeply he had been hurt. He seemed now to be ostentatiously unconscious of his enemy’s presence; but when the host appeared his face assumed a look of intense relief.
“I’ve been looking all over the place for you,” said Briggs, fibbing, as he often did, to cover a momentary embarrassment. The presence of Jim Stone in his house on so conspicuous an occasion, had caused him considerable perturbation.He knew, however, that the Boss had come out of personal friendliness and as a mark of special favor.
Stone had no small-talk, and stood in silence waiting for Briggs to make a statement that might lead up to a discussion of their mutual interests.
“Have you seen my wife?” Briggs asked, glancing vaguely about the room, though he knew perfectly well she had gone back to the conservatory with West. A few moments before Helen had mentioned that Stone had shaken hands with her, without, however, entering into conversation.
“Yes, I saw her when I came in,” the Boss replied, indifferently. The animated scene in which he found himself evidently annoyed him.
“Suppose we walk out on the balcony,” said Briggs, desperately. Stone nodded, and they slowly made their way through the crowd, Stone without speaking and looking straight ahead, and Briggs exchanging a few smiling words with those of his guests whom he could remember by name. At his wife’s parties he frequently sustained long conversations with people whom he could not remember to have seen before, but whom he impressed by his interest and friendliness. It was this faculty of being agreeable thatmade enthusiastic young girls say of him: “When he is talking with you, you feel that you’re the only person in the world he cares anything about.”
His natural keenness and his long experience with men of Stone’s type made it plain to Briggs that the Boss had in mind something that he wished to discuss. He decided to give Stone an opening.
“I see by the papers to-night that you’re leaving town to-morrow.”
“Yes; I shall take the noon train,” Stone replied, dropping into a seat where he could look down the wide avenue. The air was warm and heavy, and the electric light fell in soft showers through the foliage of the trees. Hansom cabs and coupés were passing along the asphalt pavement. Around the canopy leading across the sidewalk to the front door the group of unwearied curiosity-seekers watched the departing guests. Stone observed these details as if they had no interest for him. He had the curious eyes of the man who seems to be always looking within.
“I must be getting over to New York myself pretty soon,” Briggs remarked, tentatively.
“You’ll find some people there who’ll be glad tosee you.” For the first time in their talk Stone showed interest. “The boys would like to talk over a few matters with you. They don’t like the way things are going lately.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Briggs, quietly.
“They think you’re going back on ’em.”
For a moment they listened to the clatter of the horses’ hoofs in the street. Then Briggs asked: “What has given them that impression?”
“Well, they say you’re getting too high and mighty for ’em. You ain’t looking out for their interests. They say you’ve been making altogether too many concessions to the kid-glove fellows.” Now that Stone had escaped from the drawing-room he was limbering up, getting back his usual confidence and his air of authority.
“I don’t believe I quite know just what they mean by that,” Briggs said, with a laugh.
“Oh, I guess you do,” Stone went on, easily. “That is, you will,” he explained, suddenly realizing that he was a guest talking to his host, “if you take a little time to think it over. I knew what they meant, and I’d been thinking pretty much the same things myself. The only trouble with you, Briggs, is, you’re too easy. You don’tseem to remember that we’re not in politics for our health. Those fellows think we ought to do all our work for glory. They’ve got plenty of money themselves, and they believe we ought to get along without any.”
“I suppose there’s some truth in that,” Briggs acknowledged.
“But don’t you let them fool you,” Stone went on. “They’re in the game for what they can make, just as you and I are. Bah, I know ’em. When they want anything from me they come and fawn and lick my boots, just as the dirtiest of my heelers do. Then, when they find I won’t budge, they call me a thief and a scoundrel. I’ve observed, though, that in spite of being the most abused man in the country I manage to run things pretty much as I choose. Now you take warning by me. I can see plain enough that you are getting farther and farther away from the party. If you don’t look out you’ll find yourself high and dry. If you lost your grip on the machine, d’you suppose the kid-glove crowd would have any use for you? Not a bit of it.”
Briggs kept silence for a moment. In the presence of this man he felt curiously helpless. Whatever might be said against Stone as a public influence,there was no doubt that he was a man of force and self-confidence.
“Still,” Briggs said at last, “I’ve got to stand by my convictions,Mr.Stone.”
“Oh, keep your convictions! But don’t let them make you forget you’re here in Washington because your party sent you here. Now, if you do what your party wants you’ll be all right. If you pull off your renomination next Fall you’ll have to do something for the boys. They won’t have any more shilly-shallying. I know that, because I’ve heard them say so.”
Briggs smiled grimly. “Well, sir, I must say I appreciate your frankness.”
Now that Stone had delivered his warning, the significance of which he knew Briggs would fully appreciate, his manner softened. “I say these things to you because I like you. You’re a credit to the machine. You’ve done mighty well here for a young man. Only don’t forget that it was the machine that made you. That’s the point. Well, it’s about time for me to be going. You’ve got a fine place here. By Jove! I envy you myself.”
Douglas Briggs did not stir. He was thinking hard. The loss of his renomination in the Autumnhad not occurred to him even as a possibility. He had believed that, with Stone’s support, he was firmly established in New York.
“It’s very early yet,Mr.Stone,” he remarked, absently, following his guest back into the house.