VII
MEANWHILE William Fox was plunged deeply into the vortex of a busy session. The holidays were over and Congress had settled down to its task; it was the short session year, and the bulk of the large supply bills were being pushed steadily through the House,—the routine of business being constantly interrupted by thefanfaronnadeof noisy members and the agitation of tariff revision which hung like a nightmare over the party in power, and was a delightful fetich for the minority to drag out of its hiding-place and dangle before the eyes of their opponents. Fox, who was a leader, besides being a great orator, was constantly employed in holding down his followers, stamping out any sparks of rebellion and silencing the enemy.
He was sharply conscious, too, of the tongues which were busily engaged in circulating rumors about him, for there was more than the proverbial mustard seed of truth in the story which Mrs. Allestree had heard. He had indeed been on thepoint of entering the Cabinet, but White’s double dealing and not his voluntary surrender had been the cause of the exchange. There had been an agreement between the two men who were both from the same state; White had been allowed to come to the Senate to serve out an unexpired term of two years under a pledge to keep out of Fox’s way in the matter of Cabinet changes. He had broken his word at every point and had succeeded in a shrewd manœuvre to prejudice the Administration against the more clever man, no difficult matter where jealousy of Fox already existed. Moreover White had the inevitable prestige of great wealth, powerful connections and an easy conscience.
Fox had known many of these things when White received his portfolio, but his later discoveries had placed him in a position where he no longer cared to be so frequent a guest in White’s house; to break bread with the man who had wilfully maligned him was an offence to his coldly scrupulous pride. Fox was careless of public opinion, fond of indulging his own whims and fancies, and easy in his tolerance of offenders against himself, but when a man transgressed the laws that he laid down in matters of personal honor and integrity he could be uncompromisinglysevere and contemptuous. Of late, therefore, Fox had absented himself from White’s table and from those evenings—famous among the favored few who obtained invitations—when Margaret entertained the brains and the talent of the capital. Literary men were always there, artists, musicians, scientists; it was said of Mrs. White that she would entertain a famous thief if he had wit. But there had been another and a more potent attraction for Fox; he had found the seclusion of Judge Temple’s library, the old judge’s slow and studious speech, the magnificent voice of Rose, more potent charms than the conversation and music of Margaret’ssalon. Having discovered the temperamental sympathy and ingenuous friendship in this young and beautiful girl, Fox had begun to pursue that interesting study of character which leads to but one result—whether it be tragic or happy.
At this stage, too, of the matter, Fox ignored the feelings and the possible claims of his less brilliant cousin; he was aware that Allestree loved Rose, but he considered it as an affair of little moment because he perceived clearly that Rose did not love him, that not even the most scrupulous adjuration on his own part could convert her indifference into a more tender feeling toward thepainter. At first he had entertained very little serious thought of the matter, but the charm of Rose’s personality, both spiritual and physical, had very soon begun to take hold of his imagination, and if he secretly compared her fresh, sweet immaturity with Margaret’s worldliness and finish it was to plunge the thought instantly into oblivion. The girl was so young, so fresh, so easily responsive to his wit and his eloquence, that it was like discovering a pure and beautiful flower in a hedge of thorns. Between his work, therefore, and his study of Rose he had managed to refuse more than one invitation to the Whites’, and his absence was beginning to be sharply observed.
There was a rumor that White had quarrelled with him about Margaret, that Margaret had herself openly dismissed him, that he was vexed at the loss of the Cabinet place; in short, the usual crop of idle ingenious stories which spring up in the height of a winter season, like a growth of noxious weeds, were in full bloom and strength.
Fox was watching the slow progress of an important bill through the lower House, and busily engaged at the same moment on the Naval Appropriation Bill in which White was intimately concerned, and which offered a wide scope for thesurmises of those who were watching the two men. It was an open question whether Fox intended to thwart the Secretary of the Navy or to support his effort to get a larger appropriation. Conscious of the scrutiny to which he was subjected, Fox worked on, with an enigmatical smile, and betrayed nothing of his thoughts or his position.
It was late one Thursday afternoon and he had been speaking on an important matter for more than an hour, endeavoring to close up a question which threatened to be of international significance, and, thoroughly fagged, he finally left the floor of the House amid a tremendous outburst of applause. As usual the galleries had been packed to hear him, and he managed to make his way out with many delays, stopped on all sides by members and personal friends, eager to congratulate him on another great speech.
Once out of the lobby, he was crossing the corridor on his way to a committee-room when he heard his name spoken, and turned, to see Margaret detach herself from a party of fashionables who had been in the Diplomatic Gallery, and come toward him. As they met he was immediately aware of the change in her that a few weeks of absence had made sharply apparent. She was extremely pale and her eyes seemed abnormallylarge and shining under the brim of her immense picture hat, her elaborate dress only accentuating the slightness of her figure. She held out her hand without smiling. “I want to speak to you,” she said, almost with an air of command, “where can we go?”
He turned, hesitating a moment as to some suitable spot, arrested by the thought that Margaret’s presence there or anywhere, alone with him, would be so much fuel to the fire.
But she solved the problem for him. “Come outside,” she said; “it’s heavenly on the terrace, the sun is setting. Besides, I can’t breathe here in these corridors—heavens, where do they get their tobacco?”
“Not where you buy your Egyptians,” Fox laughed.
She shrugged her shoulders. “The doctor says I mustn’t smoke any more,” she said, “but I shall.”
“The doctor?” Fox cast a startled glance at her white face; “what’s the matter, Margaret?”
“A cigarette heart, I suppose!” she replied laughing, and then as the smile died on her lips an expression of dull misery fell like a veil over her features.
They had crossed the Rotunda together andgone out by the same door where Allestree had waited months before. As they emerged upon the terrace they were enfolded in a radiant atmosphere, the sun was setting, and the whole western façade of the Capitol, the fluted columns of the loggia before the old library rooms, the long rows of shining windows, the magnificent arch of the dome, were bathed in the glowing light which seemed to flood the world. There was still a little snow on the sheltered slopes of the terrace and under the trees, but the promise of spring was in the air and in the deep blue of the sky above them. Margaret stopped abruptly and stood looking down at the panorama at their feet; absorbed in her own emotions, she did not immediately perceive the expression of her companion’s face; it was one of extreme reluctance, of reserve, almost of resentment. He had a man’s hatred of a scene, of being “talked about,” and he knew that such a circumstance as their tête-à-tête at such a time could scarcely escape unnoticed. He was annoyed and disturbed, but for once she was blind to those potent signs.
Keen as Margaret’s perceptions were, she shared with other women the passionate blindness to change in another when her own heart was clamoring to be satisfied; her vision was warpedby one aspect of it all; she remembered those moments, long past, of comradeship and sympathy and passion on his part; she remembered and she refused to believe that change was even possible.
The silence for a moment was almost oppressive, then she spoke without trusting herself to meet his eyes. “You have refused two invitations to dinner, and you have quite deserted my evenings and my Sundays,” she said in a low voice.
Slightly embarrassed he began some conventional excuse, but she lifted her hand with a peremptory little gesture. “I know—I quite understand,” she said; “Wicklow has behaved abominably but—am I to suffer, too?”
“My dear Margaret,” he replied, without too deep emotion, “such a possibility is absurd!”
She looked up, searching his face, and her smile was the shadow of itself, pale and suddenly controlled. “You do not mean to accept his hospitality again?” she said, with an effort.
He was deeply annoyed; why must she force this issue upon him? He was capable, at times, of extreme hardness toward others. To-day she was unfortunate enough to jar upon him, to recall too sharply White’s conduct. “I’m not prepared to say,” he replied with some impatience; “can’t weavoid the subject? Tell me of yourself, Margaret, you look tired and pale.”
She bit her lip, a sudden color refuting his charge. “I am very well,” she replied coldly; “I danced until two o’clock this morning; at eleven I received a delegation of Wicklow’s jackdaws; at two I lunched with Madame de Caillou—she is so diplomatic that she only discusses generalities and parrots; she has three—M. de Caillou not included; he belongs to the poodle class. At four I came here with Mrs. O’Neal and Lily Osborne; I give a dinner to-night and then go to the opera. It is much the same to-morrow. Have you a cigarette, William?”
He opened his case and she selected one and lit it; Fox was not smoking. “I presume that it will be in the newspapers to-morrow that I was seen with a cigarette on the terrace talking to the next President,” she remarked dryly; “I mean you to be the candidate,” she added, “Wicklow is playing for it but—” she laughed, blowing the cigarette smoke into rings before her face.
“He will probably be nominated,” Fox rejoined easily; “he has a large following; I shall like to see you in that rôle, Margaret.”
“To see me?” she shrugged her shoulders;“my dear William, do you happen to know what Lily Osborne is doing?”
He laughed. “Ask me something easier!”
Margaret stopped in her promenade and looked out over the city; it seemed to float in a golden mirage, all commonplaceness, all familiarity lost in the radiance of the western sky, against which, here and there, a cross-crowned spire thrust its slender, tapering height, or a campanile rose, dark and sharply pictured, above shining roofs. Far off the bells were ringing, sweetly and insistently, an evening chime.
“She is using Wicklow to attain her ends,” Margaret said, a little mocking smile on her pale face; “he is dull and infatuated. I am told she’s in Russian employ and there is information, plenty of it, in his reach. You mark my words, she’ll ruin him—he’ll never be a candidate.”
Fox frowned. “Pardon me,” he said abruptly; “I cannot listen.”
She tossed her cigarette over the terrace and watched it descend, a mere spark in the dusk below, where evening lay in purple shadows. “Forgive me,” she returned lightly, “I forgot—men are such conscientious creatures and I—I’m an unscrupulous wretch, but I’m not cruel, William!”
“Nor I!” he replied, with a slight change ofcolor, “but, Margaret, can’t you see how impossible—”
She laughed bitterly. “I’m very dull,” she remarked.
A shuddering recognition of some new, terrible barrier between them tore her heart. She held out her hand. “Good-by,” she said in a low voice, “I’m going to ask you to dine again—will you come?” her feverishly glowing eyes fixed themselves on his face.
Fox colored again, conscious that he must seem an ill-mannered brute. “Of course I’ll come,” he assented, vexed at himself and touched by the sudden sweetness of her manner.
But her smile was wan; she felt as if the universe moved beneath her feet; as yet the moment was delayed when her wounded heart would refuse to submit, and her whole passionate, sensuous nature rise up to battle for life and love.