"It is always indiscreet not to enjoy one's self," she said.
And then there was silence for a moment, while she looked at him again.
Suddenly she broke into a laugh,—a laugh almost hard in its tone. He glanced up to see what it meant.
"Do you want to know what makes me laugh?" she said. "I am thinking how like all this is the old-fashioned tragedy, where all thedramatis personæare disposed of in the last act. We go over one by one, don't we? Soon there will be no one left to tell the tale. Even Colonel Tredennis and Richard show signsof their approaching doom. And you—some one has shown you your dagger, I think, and you know you cannot escape it."
"I am the ghost," he answered; "the ghost who was disposed of before the tragedy began, and whose business it is to haunt the earth, and remind the rest of you that once I had blood in my veins too."
He broke off suddenly and left his seat. The expression of his face had altogether changed.
"We always talk in this strain," he exclaimed. "We are always jeering! Is there anything on earth, any suffering or human feeling, we could treat seriously? If there is, for God's sake let us speak of it just for one hour."
She fixed her eyes on him, and there was a sad little smile in their depths.
"Yes, you have seen your dagger," she said. "You have seen it. Poor Larry! Poor Larry!"
She turned away and sat down, clasping her hands on her knee, and he saw that suddenly her lashes were wet, and thought that it was very like her that, though she had no tears for herself, she had them for him.
"Don't be afraid that I will ask you any questions," she said. "I won't. You never asked me any. Perhaps words would not do you any good."
"Nothing would do me any good just now," he answered. "Let it go at that. It mayn't be as bad as it seems just for the moment—such things seldom are. If it gets really worse, I suppose I shall find myself coming to you some day to make my plaint; but it's very good in you to look at me like that. And I was a fool to fancy I wanted to be serious. I don't, on the whole."
"No, you were not a fool," she said. "There is no reason whyyoushould not be what you want. Laurence," with something like sudden determination in her tone, "there is something I want to say to you."
"What is it?" he asked.
"I have got into a bad habit lately," she said,—"a bad habit of thinking. When I lie awake at night"—
"Do you lie awake at night?" he interrupted.
She turned her face a little away, as if she did not wish to meet his inquiring gaze.
"Yes," she answered, after a pause. "I suppose it is because of this—habit. I can't help it; but it doesn't matter."
"Oh," he exclaimed, "it does matter! You can't stand it."
"Is there anything people 'cannot stand'?" she said. "If there is, I should like to try it."
"You may well look as you do," he said.
"Yes, I may well," she answered. "And it is the result of the evil practice of thinking. When once you begin, it is not easy to stop. And I think you have begun."
"I shall endeavor to get over it," he replied.
"No," she said, "don't!"
She rose from her seat and stood up before him, trembling, and with two large tears falling upon her cheeks.
"Larry," she said, "that is what I wanted to say—that is what I have been thinking of. I shall not say it well, because we have laughed at each other so long that it is not easy to speak of anything seriously; but I must try. See! I am tired of laughing. I have come to the time when there seems to be nothing left but tears—and there is no help; but you are different, and if you are tired too, and if there is anything you want, even if you could not be sure of having it, it would be better to be trying to earn it, and to be worthy of it."
He rested his forehead on his hands, and kept his eyes fixed on the carpet.
"That is a very exalted way of looking at things," he said, in a low voice. "I am afraid I am not equal to it."
"In the long nights, when I have lain awake and thought so," she went on, "I have seemed to find out that—there were things worth altering all one's life for. I did not want to believe in them at first, but now it is different with me. I could not say so to any one but you—and perhaps not to you to-morrow or the day after—and you will hear me laugh and jeer many a time again. That is my fate; but it need not be yours. Your life is your own. If mine were my own—oh, if mine were my own!" She checked the passionate exclamation with an effort. "When one's life belongs to one's self," she added, "one can do almost anything with it!"
"I have not found it so," he replied.
"You have never tried it," she said. "One does not think of these things until the day comes when there is a reason—a reason for everything—for pain and gladness, for hope and despair, for the longing to be better and the struggle against being worse. Oh, how can one give up when there is such a reason, and one's life is in one's own hands! I am saying it very badly, Larry, I know that. Agnes Sylvestre could say it better, though she could not mean it more."
"She would not take the trouble to say it at all," he said.
Bertha drew back a pace with an involuntary movement. The repressed ring of bitterness in the words had said a great deal.
"Is it—?" she exclaimed, involuntarily, as she had moved, and then stopped. "I said I would not ask questions," she added, and clasped her hands behind her back, standing quite still, in an attitude curiously expressive of agitation and suspense.
"What!" he said; "have I told you? I was afraid I should. Yes, it is Mrs. Sylvestre who has disturbed me; it is Mrs. Sylvestre who has stirred the calm of ages."
She was silent a second, and when she spoke her eyes looked very large and bright.
"I suppose," she said, slowly, "that it is very womanish in me,—that I almost wish it had been some one else."
"Why?" he asked.
"Youallhave been moved by Mrs. Sylvestre," she replied, more slowly than before,—"allof you."
"How many of us are there?" he inquired.
"Colonel Tredennis has been moved, too," she said. "Not long before you came in he paid me a brief visit. He does not come often now, and his visits are usually for Janey, and not for me. I displeased him the night he went with me to the reception of the Secretary of State, and he has not been able to resign himself to seeing me often; but this evening he came in, and we talked of Mrs. Sylvestre. He had been calling upon her, and her perfections were fresh in his memory. He finds her beautiful and generous and sincere; she is not frivolous or capricious. I think that was what I gathered from the few remarks he made. I asked him questions; you see, I wanted to know. And she has this advantage,—she has all the virtues which the rest of us have not."
"You are very hard on Tredennis sometimes," he said, answering in this vague way the look on her face which he knew needed answer.
"Sometimes," she said; "sometimes he is hard on me."
"He has not been easy onmeto-day," he returned.
"Poor Larry!" she said again. "Poor Larry!"
He smiled a little.
"You see what chance I should be likely to have against such a rival," he said. "I wonder if it ought to be a consolation to me to reflect that my position is such that it cannot be affected by rivals. If I had the field to myself I should stand exactly where I do at this moment. It saves me from the risk of suffering, don't you see? I know my place too well to allow myself to reach that point. I am uncomfortable onlybecause circumstances have placed it before me in a strong light, and I don't like to look at it."
"What is your place?" she asked.
"It is in the Treasury," he replied. "The salary is not large. I am slightly in debt—to my tailor and hosier, who are, however, patient, because they think I am to be relied on through this administration."
"I wish I knew what to say to you!" she exclaimed. "I wish I knew!"
"I wish you did," he answered. "You have said all you could. I wish I believed what you say. It would be more dignified than to be simply out of humor with one's self, and resentful."
"Larry," she said, gently, "I believe you are something more."
"No! no! Nothing more!" he exclaimed. "Nothing more, for Heaven's sake!" And he made a quick gesture, as if he was intolerant of the thought, and would like to move it away. So they said no more on this subject, and began soon after to talk about Richard.
"What did you mean," Arbuthnot asked, "by saying that Richard showed signs of his approaching doom? Isn't he in good spirits?"
"It seems incredible," she answered, "that Richard should not be in good spirits; but it has actually seemed to me lately that he was not. The Westoria lands appear to have worried him."
"The Westoria lands," he repeated, slowly.
"He has interested himself in them too much," she said. "Things don't go as easily as he imagined they would, and it annoys him. To-day"—
"What happened to-day?" Laurence asked, as she stopped.
"It was not very much," she said; "but it was unlike him. He was a little angry."
"With whom?"
"With me, I think. Lately I have thought I would like to go abroad, and I have spoken of it to him onceor twice, and he has rather put it off; and to-day I wanted to speak of it again, and it seemed the wrong time, somehow, and he was a trifle irritable about it. He has not always been quite himself this winter, but he has never been irritable with me. That isn't like him, you know."
"No, it isn't like him," was Laurence's comment.
Afterward, when he was going away, he asked her a question:
"Do you wish very much to go abroad?" he said.
"Yes," she answered.
"You think the change would do you good?"
"Change often does one good," she replied. "I should like to try it."
"I should like to try it myself," he said. "Go, if you can, though no one will miss you more than I shall."
And, having said it, he took his departure.
But Bertha did not go abroad, and the season reached its height and its wane, and, though Miss Jessup began to refer occasionally to the much-to-be regretted delicacy of the charming Mrs. Amory's health, there seemed but little alteration in her mode of life.
"I will confide to you," she said to Colonel Tredennis, "that I have set up this effective little air of extreme delicacy as I might set up a carriage,—if I needed one. It is one of my luxuries. Do you remember Lord Farintosh's tooth, which always ached when he was invited out to dinner and did not want to go,—the tooth which Ethel Newcome said nothing would induce him to part with? My indisposition is like that. I refuse to become convalescent. Don't prescribe for me, I beg of you."
It was true, as she had said, that the colonel presented himself at the house less often than had been his wont, and that his visits were more frequently for Janey than for herself. "You will never hold out your hand to me when I shall not be ready to take it," he had said; but she did not hold out her hand, and there was nothing that he could do, and if he went to her he must find himself confronted with things he could not bear to see, and so he told himself that, until he was needed, it was best that he should stay away, or go only now and then.
But he always knew what she was doing. The morning papers told him that she was involved in the old, unceasing round of excitement,—announcing that she was among the afternoon callers; that she received at home; that she dined, lunched, danced,appeared at charitable entertainments, and was seen at the theatre. It became his habit to turn unconsciously to the society column before he read anything else, though he certainly found himself none the happier for its perusal.
But, though he saw Bertha less frequently, he did not forget Richard. At this time he managed to see him rather often, and took some pains to renew the bloom of their first acquaintance, which had, perhaps, shown itself a little on the wane, as Richard's friendships usually did in course of time. And, perhaps, this waning having set in, Richard was not at first invariably so enthusiastically glad to see the large military figure present itself in his office. He had reasons of his own for not always feeling entirely at ease before his whilom favorite. As he had remarked to Planefield, Philip Tredennis was not a malleable fellow. He had unflinching habits of truth, and remorseless ideas of what a man's integrity should be, and would not be likely to look with lenient or half-seeing eyes upon any palterings with falsehood and dishonor, however colored or disguised. And he did not always appear at the most convenient moment; there were occasions, indeed, when his unexpected entrance had put an end to business conferences of a very interesting and slightly exciting nature. These conferences had, it is true, some connection with the matter of the Westoria lands, and the colonel had lately developed an interest in the project in question which he had not shown at the outset. He had even begun to ask questions about it, and shown a desire to inform himself as to the methods most likely to be employed in manipulating the great scheme. He amassed, in one way and another, a large capital of information concerning subsidies and land grants, and exhibited remarkable intelligence in his mental investment of it. Indeed, there were times when he awakened in Richard a rather uneasy sense of admiration by the clearness of his insight and the practical readiness of his views.
"He has always been given to digging into things," Amory said to Planefield, after one of their interviews. "That is his habit of mind, and he has a steady business capacity you don't expect to find."
"What is he digging into this thing for?" Planefield asked. "He will be digging up something, one of these days, that we are not particularly anxious to have dug up. I am not overfond of the fellow myself. I never was."
Richard laughed a trifle uneasily.
"Oh, he's well enough," he said; "though I'll admit he has been a little in the way once or twice."
It is quite possible that the colonel himself had not been entirely unaware of this latter fact, though he had exhibited no signs of his knowledge, either in his countenance or bearing; indeed, it would be difficult, for one so easily swayed by every passing interest as Richard Amory was, to have long resisted his manly courtesy and good nature. Men always found him an agreeable companion, and he made the most of his powers on the occasions which threw him, or in which he threw himself, in Amory's way. Even Planefield admitted reluctantly, once or twice, that the fellow had plenty in him. It was not long before Richard succumbed to his personal influence with pleasurable indolence. It would have cost him too much effort to combat against it; and, besides this, it was rather agreeable to count among one's friends and supporters a man strong enough to depend on and desirable enough to be proud of. There had been times during the last few months when there would have been a sense of relief in the feeling that there was within reach a stronger nature than his own,—one on whose strength he knew he could rely. As their intimacy appeared to establish itself, if he did not openly confide in Tredennis, he more than once approached the borders of a confidence in his moments of depression. That he had such moments had become plain. He did not even look so bright as he had looked;something of his care-free, joyous air had deserted him, and now and then there were to be seen faint lines on his forehead.
"There is a great deal of responsibility to be borne in a matter like this," he said to Tredennis, "and it wears on a man." To which he added, a few seconds later, with a delightfully unconscious mixture of petulance and protest: "Confound it! why can't things as well turn out right as wrong?"
"Have things been turning out wrong?" the colonel ventured.
Richard put his elbows on the table before him, and rested his forehead on his hands a second.
"Well, yes," he admitted; "several things, and just at the wrong time, too. There seems a kind of fate in it,—as if when one thing began the rest must follow."
The colonel began to bite one end of his long mustache reflectively as he looked at the young man's knitted brow.
"There is one thing you must understand at the outset," he said, at length. "When I can be made useful—supposing such a thing were possible—I am here."
Richard glanced up at him quickly. He looked a little haggard for the moment.
"What a steady, reliable fellow you are!" he said. "Yes, I should be sure of you if—if the worst came to the worst."
The colonel bit the ends of his mustache all the way home, and more than one passer-by on the avenue was aroused to wonder what the subject of his reflections might be, he strode along with so absorbed an air, and frowned so fiercely.
"I should like to know what the worst is," he was saying to himself. "I should like to know what that means."
It was perhaps his desire to know what it meant which led him to cultivate Richard more faithfully still, to join him on the street, to make agreeable bachelor dinnersfor him, to carry him off to the theatres, and, in a quiet way, to learn something of what he was doing each day. It was, in fact, a delicate diplomatic position the colonel occupied in these days, and it cannot be said that he greatly enjoyed it or liked himself in it. He was too honest by nature to find pleasure in diplomacy, and what he did for another he would never have done for himself. For the sake of the woman who rewarded his generosity and care with frivolous coldness and slight, he had undertaken a task whose weight lay heavily upon him. Since his first suspicions of her danger had been aroused he had been upon the alert continually, and had seen many things to which the more indifferent or less practical were blind. As Richard had casually remarked, he was possessed of a strong business sense and faculty of which he was not usually suspected, and he had seen signs in the air which he felt boded no good for Richard Amory or those who relied on his discretion in business affairs. That the professor had innocently relied upon it when he gave his daughter into his hands he had finally learned; that Bertha never gave other than a transient thought—more than half a jest—to money matters he knew. Her good fortune it had been to be trammelled neither by the weight of money nor the want of it,—a truly enviable condition, which had, not unnaturally, engendered in her a confidence at once unquestioning and somewhat perilous. Tredennis had recalled more than once of late a little scene he had taken part in on one occasion of her signing a legal document Richard had brought to her.
"Shall I sign it here?" she had said, with exaggerated seriousness, "or shall I sign it there? What would happen to me if I wrote on the wrong line? Could not Laurence sign it for me in his government hand, and give it an air of distinction? Suppose my hand trembled and I made a blot? I am not obliged to read it, am I?"
"I think I should insist that she read it," the colonel had said to Richard, with some abruptness.
Bertha had looked up and smiled.
"Shallyou insist that I read it?" she said; "I know what it says. It says 'whereas' and 'moreover' and 'in accordance' with 'said agreement' and 'in consideration of.' Those are the prevailing sentiments, and I am either the 'party of the first part' or the 'party of the second part'; and if it was written in Sanskrit, it would be far clearer to my benighted mind than it is in its present lucid form. But I will read it if you prefer it, even though delirium should supervene."
It was never pleasant to Colonel Tredennis to remember this trivial episode, and the memory of it became a special burden to him as time progressed and he saw more of Amory's methods and tendencies. But it was scarcely for him to go to her, and tell her that her husband was not as practical a business man as he should be; that he was visionary and too easily allured by glitter and speciousness. He could not warn her against him and reveal to her the faults and follies she seemed not to have discovered. But he could revive something of Richard's first fancy for him, and make himself in a measure necessary to him, and perhaps gain an influence over him which might be used to good purpose. Possibly, despite his modesty, he had a half-conscious knowledge of the power of his own strong will and nature over weaker ones, and was resolved that this weak one should be moved by them, if the thing were possible.
Nor was this all. There were other duties he undertook, for reasons best known to himself. He became less of a recluse socially, and presented himself more frequently in the fashionable world. He was no fonder of gayety than he had been before, but he faced it with patience and courage. He went to great parties, and made himself generally useful. He talked to matrons who showed a fancy for his company, and was the best and most respectful of listeners; he was courteous and attentive to both chaperones and their charges, and by quietly persistent good conductwon additional laurels upon each occasion of his social appearance. Those who had been wont to stand somewhat in awe of him, finding nothing to fear on more intimate acquaintance, added themselves to the list of his admirers. Before the season was over he had made many a stanch friend among matronly leaders of fashion, whose word was law. If such a thing could be spoken of a person of habits so grave, it might have been said that he danced attendance upon these ladies, but, though such a phrase would seem unfitting, it may certainly be remarked that he walked attendance on them, and sought their favor and did their bidding with a silent faithfulness wonderful to behold. He accepted their invitations and attended their receptions; he escorted them to their carriages, found their wraps, and carried their light burdens with an imperturbable demeanor.
"What!" said Bertha, one night, when she had seen him in attendance on the wife of the Secretary of State, whose liking for him was at once strong and warm; "what! is it Colonel Tredennis who curries the favor of the rich and great? It has seemed so lately. Is there any little thing in foreign missions you desire, or do you think of an Assistant-Secretaryship?"
"There is some dissatisfaction expressed with regard to the Minister to the Court of St. James," was his reply. "It is possible that he will be recalled. In that case may I hope to command your influence?"
But, many a time as he carried his shawls, or made his grave bow over the hand of a stately dowager, a half-sad smile crossed his face as he thought of the true reason for his efforts, and realized with a generous pang the depth of his unselfish perfidy. They were all kind to him, and he was grateful for their favors; but he would rather have been in his room at work, or trying to read, or marching up and down, thinking, in his solitude. Janey entertained him with far more success than the prettiestdébutanteof the season could hope toattain, though there was nodébutanteamong them who did not think well of him and admire him not a little. But the reason which brought him upon this brightly lighted stage of action? Well, there was only one reason for everything now, he knew full well; for his being sadder than usual, or a shade less heavy of heart; for his wearing a darker face or a brighter one; for his interest in society, or his lack of interest in it; for his listening anxiously and being upon the alert. The reason was Bertha. When he heard her name mentioned he waited in silent anxiety for what followed; when he did not hear it he felt ill at ease, lest it had been avoided from some special cause.
"What she will not do for herself," he said, "I must try to do for her. If I make friends and win their good opinions I may use their influence in the future, if the worst should come to the worst, and she should need to be upheld. It is women who sustain women or condemn them. God forbid that she should ever lack their protection!"
And so he worked to earn the power to call upon this protection, if it should be required, and performed his part with such steadfastness of purpose that he made a place for himself such as few men are fortunate enough to make.
There was one friendship he made in these days, which he felt would not be likely to fade out or diminish in value. It was a friendship for a woman almost old enough to have been his mother,—a woman who had seen the world and knew it well, and yet had not lost her faith or charitable kindness of heart. It was the lady whom Bertha had seen him attending when she had asked him what object he had in view,—the wife of the Secretary of State, whose first friendly feeling for him had become a most sincere and earnest regard, for which he was profoundly grateful.
"A man to whom such a woman is kind must be grateful," he had said, in speaking of her to AgnesSylvestre. "A woman who is good and generous, who is keen, yet merciful, whose judgment is ripe, and whose heart is warm, who has the discernment of maturity and the gentleness of youth,—it is an honor to know her and be favored by her. One is better every time one is thrown with her, and leaves her presence with a stronger belief in all good things."
It had, perhaps, been this lady's affection for Professor Herrick which had, at the outset, directed her attention to his favorite; but, an acquaintance once established, there had been no need of any other impetus than she received from her own feminine kindliness, quickness of perception, and sympathy. The interest he awakened in most feminine minds he had at once awakened in her own.
"He looks," she said to herself, "as if he had a story, and hardly knew the depth of its meaning himself."
But, though she was dexterous enough at drawing deductions, and heard much of the small talk of society, she heard no story. He was at once soldier and scholar; he was kind, brave, and generous; men spoke well of him, and women liked him; his past and present entitled him to respect and admiration; but there was no story mentioned in any discussion of him. He seemed to have lived a life singularly uneventful, so far as emotional experiences were concerned.
"Nevertheless," she used to say, when she gave a few moments to sympathetic musing upon him, "nevertheless"—
She observed his good behavior, notwithstanding he did not enjoy himself greatly in society. He was attentive to his duties without being absorbed in them, and, when temporarily unoccupied, wore a rather weary and abstracted look.
"It is something like the look," she once remarked inwardly, "somethinglike the look I have seen in the eyes of that bright and baffling little Mrs. Amory, whoseems at times to be obliged to recall herself from somewhere."
She had not been the leader of this world of hers without seeing many things and learning many lessons; and, as she had stood giving her greeting to the passing multitude week after week, she had gained a wonderful amount of experience and knowledge of her kind. She had seen so many weary faces, so many eager ones, so many stamped with care and disappointment; bright eyes had passed before her which one season had saddened; she had heard gay voices change and soft ones grow hard; she had read of ambitions frustrated and hopes denied, and once or twice had seen with a pang that somewhere a heart had been broken.
Naturally, in thus looking on, she had given some attention to Bertha Amory, and had not been blind to the subtle changes through which she had passed. She thought she could date the period of these changes. She remembered the reception at which she had first noted that the girlish face had begun to assume a maturer look, and the girlish vivacity had altered its tones. This had happened the year after the marriage, and then Jack had been born, and when society saw the young mother again the change in her seemed almost startling. She looked worn and pale, and showed but little interest in the whirl about her. It was as if suddenly fatigue had overtaken her, and she had neither the energy nor the desire to rally from it. But, before the end of the season she had altered again, and had a touch of too brilliant color, and was gayer than ever.
"Rather persistently gay," said the older woman. "That is it, I think."
Lately there had been a greater change still and a more baffling one, and there had appeared upon the scene an element so new and strange as to set all ordinary conjecture at naught. The first breath of rumor which had wafted the story of Planefield's infatuation and the Westoria schemes had been met with generousdispleasure and disbelief; but, as time went on, it had begun to be more difficult to make an effort against discussion which grew with each day and gathered material as it passed from one to another. The most trivial circumstance assumed the proportions of proof when viewed in the light of the general too vivacious interest. When Senator Planefield entered a room people instantly cast about in search of Mrs. Amory, and reposed entire confidence in the immediately popular theory that, but for the presence of the one, the absence of the other would have been a foregone conclusion. If they met each other with any degree of vivacity the fact was commented upon in significant asides; if Bertha's manner was cold or quiet it was supposed to form a portion of her deep-laid plan for the entire subjugation of her victim. It had, indeed, come to this at last, and Tredennis' friend looked on and listened bewildered to find herself shaken in her first disbelief by an aspect of affairs too serious to be regarded with indifference. By the time the season drew toward its close the rumor, which had at first been accepted only by rumor-lovers and epicures in scandal, had found its way into places where opinion had weight, and decision was a more serious matter. In one or two quiet establishments there was private debating of various rather troublesome questions, in which debates Mrs. Amory's name was frequently mentioned. Affairs as unfortunate as the one under discussion had been known to occur before, and it was not impossible that they might occur again; it was impossible to be blind to them; it was impossible to ignore or treat them lightly, and certainly something was due to society from those who held its reins in their hands for the time being.
"It is too great leniency which makes such things possible," some one remarked. "To a woman with a hitherto unspotted reputation and in an entirely respectable position they should be impossible."
It was on the very evening that this remark was madethat Bertha expressed a rather curious opinion to Laurence Arbuthnot.
"It is dawning upon me," she said, "that I am not quite so popular as I used to be, and I am wondering why."
"What suggested the idea?" Laurence inquired.
"I scarcely know," she replied, a little languidly, "and I don't care so much as I ought. People don't talk to me in so animated a manner as they used to—or I fancy they don't. I am not very animated myself, perhaps. There is a great deal in that. I know I am deteriorating conversationally. What I say hasn't the right ring exactly, and I suppose people detect the false note, and don't like it. I don't wonder at it. Oh, there is no denying that I am not so much overpraised and noticed as I used to be!"
And then she sat silent for some time and appeared to be reflecting, and Laurence watched her with a dawning sense of anxiety he would have been reluctant to admit the existence of even to himself.
A few days after this she told Richard that she wished to begin to make her arrangements for going away for the summer.
"What, so early!" he exclaimed, with an air of some slight discontent. "It has been quite cool so far."
"I remained too late last year," she answered; "and I want to make up for lost time."
They were at dinner, and he turned his wineglass about restlessly on the table-cloth.
"Are you getting tired of Washington?" he asked. "You seem to be."
"I am a little tired of everything just now," she said; "even"—with a ghost of a laugh—"of the Westoria lands and Senator Planefield."
He turned his wineglass about again.
"Oh," he said, his voice going beyond the borders of petulance, "it is plain enough to see that you have taken an unreasonable dislike to Planefield!"
"He is too large and florid, and absorbs too much of one's attention," she replied, coldly.
"He does not always seem to absorb a great deal of yours," Richard responded, knitting his delicate dark brows. "You treated him cavalierly enough last night, when he brought you the roses."
"I am tired of his roses!" she exclaimed, with sudden passion. "They are too big, and red, and heavy. They cost too much money. They fill all the air about me. They weight me down, and I never seem to be rid of them. I won't have any more! Let him give them to some one else!" And she threw her bunch of grapes on her plate, and dropped her forehead on her hands with a childish gesture of fatigue and despair.
Richard knit his brows again. He regarded her with a feeling very nearly approaching nervous dread. This would not do, it was plain.
"What is the matter with you?" he said. "What has happened? It isn't likeyouto be unreasonable, Bertha."
She made an effort to recover herself, and partly succeeded. She lifted her face and spoke quite gently and deprecatingly.
"No," she said. "I don't think it is; so you will be all the readier to overlook it, and allow it to me as a luxury. The fact is, Richard, I am not growing any stronger, and"—
"Do you know," he interrupted, "I don't understand that. You used to be strong enough."
"One has to be very strong to be strongenough," she replied, "and I seem to have fallen a little short of the mark."
"But it has been going on rather a long time, hasn't it?" he inquired. "Didn't it begin last winter?"
"Yes," she answered, in a low voice, "itbeganthen."
"Well, you see, that is rather long for a thing of that sort to go on without any special reason."
"It has seemed so to me," she responded, without any change of tone.
"Haven't you a pretty good appetite?" he inquired.
She raised her eyes suddenly, and then dropped them again. He had not observed what a dozen other people had seen.
"No," she answered.
"Don't you sleep well?"
"No."
"Are you thinner? Well, yes," giving her a glance of inspection. "You are thinner. Oh! come, now, this won't do at all!"
"I am willing to offer any form of apology you like," she said.
"You must get well," he answered; "that is all."And he rose from his seat, went to the mantel for a cigarette, and returned to her side, patting her shoulder encouragingly. "You would not be tired of Planefield if you were well. You would like him well enough."
The change which settled on her face was one which had crossed it many a time without his taking note of it. Possibly the edge of susceptibilities so fine and keen as his is more easily dulled than that of sensitiveness less exquisite. She arose herself.
"That offers me an inducement to recover," she said. "I will begin immediately—to-day—this moment. Let me light your cigarette for you."
After it was done they sauntered into the library together and stood for a moment looking out of the window.
"Do you know," she said at length, laying her hand on his sleeve, "I think even you are not quite yourself. Are you an invalid, too?"
"I," he said. "Why do you think so?"
"For a very good reason," she answered. "For the best of reasons. Two or three times lately you have been a trifle out of humor. Are you aware of it? Such, you see, is the disadvantage of being habitually amiable. The slightest variation of your usually angelic demeanor lays you open to the suspicion of bodily ailment. Just now, for instance, at table, when I spoke to you about going away, you were a little—not to put too fine a point upon it—cross."
"Was I?"
Her touch upon his sleeve was very soft and kind, and her face had a gentle, playful appeal on it.
"You really were," she returned. "Just a little—and so was I. It was more a matter of voice and manner, of course; but we didn't appear to our greatest advantage, I am afraid. And we have never done things like that, you know, and it would be rather bad to begin now, wouldn't it?"
"It certainly would," he replied. "And it is very nice in you to care about it."
"It would not be nice in me not to care," she said. "Just for a moment, you know, it actually sounded quite—quite married. It seemed as if we were on the verge of agreeing to differ about—Senator Planefield."
"We won't do it again," he said. "We will agree to make the best of him."
She hesitated a second.
"I will try not to make the worst," she returned. "There is always a best, I suppose. And so long as you are here to take care of me, I need not—need not be uncomfortable."
"About what?" he asked.
She hesitated again, and a shade of new color touched her cheek.
"I don't think I am over-fastidious," she said, "but he has a way I don't like. He is too fulsome. He admires me too much. He pays me too many compliments. I wish he would not do it."
"Oh! come, now," he said, gayly, "thatisprejudice! It is worse than all the rest. I never heard you complain of your admirers before, or of their compliments."
She hesitated a moment again. It was not the first time she had encountered this light and graceful obstinacy, and found it more difficult to cope with than words apparently more serious.
"I have never had an admirer of exactly that quality before," she said.
"Oh," he said, airily, "don't argue from the ground that it is a bad quality!"
"Has it never struck you," she suggested, "that there is something of the same quality, whether it is good, bad, or indifferent, in all the persons who are connected with the Westoria lands? I have felt once or twice lately, when I have looked around the parlors, as if I must have suddenly emigrated, the atmospherewas so different. They have actually rather crowded out the rest—those men."
It was his turn to pause now, and he did so, looking out of the window, evidently ill at ease, and hesitant for the moment.
"My dear child," he said, at length, "there may be truth in what you say; but—I may as well be frank with you—the thing is necessary."
"Richard," she said, quickly, prompted to the question by a sudden, vague thought, "what haveyouto do with the Westoria lands? Why do you care so much about them?"
"I have everything to do with them—and nothing," he answered. "The legal business connected with them, and likely to result from the success of the scheme, will be the making of me, that is all. I haven't been an immense success so far, you know, and it will make me an immense success and a man of property. Upon my word, a nice little lobbyistyouare, to look frightened at the mere shadow of a plot!"
"I am not a lobbyist," she exclaimed. "I never wanted to be one. That was only a part of the nonsense I have talked all my life. I have talked too much nonsense. I wish—I wish I had been different!"
"Don't allow your repentance to be too deep," he remarked, dryly. "You won't be able to get over it."
"It's too late for repentance; but I shall not be guilty of that particular kind of folly again. It was folly—and it was bad taste"—
"As I had not observed it, you might have been content to let it rest," he interrupted.
She checked herself in the reply she was about to make, clasping her hands helplessly.
"O Richard!" she said; "we are beginning again!"
"So we are," he responded, coolly; "we seem to have a tendency in that direction."
"And it always happens," she said, "when I speak of Senator Planefield, or of going away."
"You have fallen into the habit of wanting to go away lately," he answered. "You wanted to go to Europe"—
"I want to go still," she interposed, "very much."
"And I wish you to remain here," he returned, petulantly. "What's the use of a man's having a wife at the other side of the globe?"
She withdrew a pace and leaned against the side of the window, letting her eyes rest upon him with a little, bitter smile. For the moment she had less care of herself and of him than she had ever had before.
"Ah!" she said, "then you keep me here because you love me?"
"Bertha!" he exclaimed.
Even his equable triviality found a disturbing element in the situation.
"Richard," she said, "go and finish your cigarette out of doors. It will be better for both of us. This has gone far enough."
"It has gone too far," he answered, nervously. "It is deucedly uncomfortable, and it isn't our way to be uncomfortable. Can't we make it smooth again? Of course we can. It would not be like you to be implacable. I am afraid I was a trifle irritable. The fact is, I have had a great deal of business anxiety lately,—one or two investments have turned out poorly,—and it has weighed on my mind. If the money were mine, you know; but it is yours"—
"I have never wished you to feel the difference," she said.
"No," he replied. "Nothing could have been nicer than your way about it. You might have made me very uncomfortable, if you had been a hard, business-like creature; but, instead of that, you have been charming."
"I am glad of that," she said, and she smiled gently as he put his arm about her, and kissed her cheek.
"You have a right to your caprices," he said. "Goto your summer haunts of vice and fashion, if you wish to, and I will follow you as soon as I can; but we won't say any more about Europe, just at present, will we? Perhaps next year."
And he kissed her again.
"Perhaps next year or the year after," she repeated, with a queer little smile. "And—and we will take Senator Planefield with us."
"No," he answered, "we will leave him at home to invest the millions derived from the Westoria lands."
And he went out with a laugh on his lips.
A week later Colonel Tredennis heard from Richard that Bertha and the children were going away.
"When?" asked the colonel. "That seems rather sudden. I saw Janey two days ago, and did not understand that the time was set for their departure."
"It is rather sudden," said Richard. "The fact is, they leave Washington this morning. I should be with them now if it were not for a business engagement."
The next few weeks were not agreeable ones to Richard Amory. There was too much feverish anxiety and uncertainty in them. He had not yet acquired the coolness and hardihood of experience, and he felt their lack in himself. He had a great deal at stake, more than at the outset it had seemed possible he could have under any circumstances. He began to realize, with no little discomfort, that he had run heavier risks than he had intended to allow himself to be led into running. When they rose before him in their full magnitude, as they did occasionally when affairs assumed an unencouraging aspect, he wished his enthusiasm had been less great. It could not be said that he had reached remorse for, or actual repentance of, his indiscretions; he had simply reached a point when discouragement led him to feel that he might be called upon to repent by misfortune. Up to this time it had been his habit to drive up to the Capitol in hiscoupé, to appear in the galleries, to saunter through the lobby, and to flit in and out of committee-rooms with something of the air of an amateur rather enjoying himself; he had made himself popular; his gayety, his magnetic manner, his readiness to be all things to all men had smoothed his pathway for him, while his unprofessional air had given him an appearance of harmlessness.
"He's a first-rate kind of fellow to have on the ground when a thing of this sort is going on," one of the smaller satellites once remarked. "Nobody's afraid of being seen with him. There's an immense deal in that. There are fellows who come here who can half ruin a man with position by recognizing him on the street. Regular old hands they are, working around here for years, makingan honest living out of their native land. Every one knows them and what they are up to. Now, this one is different, and that wife of his"—
"What has she been doing?" flung in Planefield, who was present. "What has she got to do with it?"
He said it with savage uneasiness. He was full of restive jealousy and distrust in these days.
"I was only going to say that she is known in society," he remarked, "and she is the kind the most particular of those fellows don't object to calling on."
But, as matters took form and a more critical point was neared; as the newspapers began to express themselves on the subject of the Westoria lands scheme, and prophesy its failure or success; as it became the subject of editorials applauding the public-spiritedness of those most prominent in it, or of paragraphs denouncing the corrupt and self-seeking tendency of the times; as the mental temperature of certain individuals became a matter of vital importance, and the degree of cordiality of a greeting an affair of elation or despair,—Richard felt that his air of being an amateur was becoming a thing of the past. He was too anxious to keep it up well; he did not sleep at night, and began to look fagged, and it required an effort to appear at ease.
"Confound it!" he said to Planefield, "how can one be at ease with a man when his yes or no may be success or destruction to you? It makes him of too much consequence. A fellow finds himself trying to please, and it spoils his manner. I never knew what it was to feel a human being of any particular consequence before."
"You have been lucky," commented Planefield, not too tolerantly.
"I have been lucky," Richard answered; "but I'm not lucky now, and I shall be deucedly unlucky if that bill doesn't pass. The fact is, there are times when I half wish I hadn't meddled with it."
"The mistakeyoumade," said Planefield, with stolid ill-humor, "was in letting Mrs. Amory go away. Nowis the time you need her most. There's no denying that there are some things women can do better than men; and when a man has a wife as clever as yours, and as much of a social success, he's blundering when he doesn't call on her for assistance. One or two of her little dinners would be the very things just now for the final smoothing down of one or two rough ones who haven't opinions unless you provide them with them. She'd provide them with them fast enough. They'd only have one opinion when she'd done with them, if she was in one of the moods I've seen her in sometimes. Look how she carried Bowman and Pell off their feet the night she gave them the description of that row in the House. And Hargis, of North Carolina, swears by her; he's a simple, domesticated fellow, and was homesick the night I brought him here, and she found it out,—Heaven knows how,—and talked to him about his wife and children until he said he felt as if he'd seen them. He told me so with tears in his eyes. It is that kind of thing we want now."
"Well," said Richard, nervously, "it isn't at our disposal. I don't mind telling you that she was rather out of humor with the aspect of affairs before she went away, and I had one interview with her which showed me it would be the safest plan to let her go."
"Out of humor!" said Planefield. "She has been a good deal out of humor lately, it seems to me. Not that it's any business of mine; but it's rather a pity, considering circumstances."
Richard colored, walked a few steps, put his hands in his pockets, and took them out again. Among the chief sources of anxious trouble to him had been that of late he had found his companion rather difficult to get along with. He had been irritable, and even a trifle overbearing, and had at times exhibited an indifference to results truly embarrassing to contemplate, in view of the crisis at hand. When he intrenched himself behind a certain heavy stubbornness, in which he was speciallystrong, Richard felt himself helpless. The big body, the florid face, the doggedly unresponsive eye, were too much to combat against. When he was ill-humored Richard knew that he endeavored to conciliate him; but when this mood held possession he could only feel alarm and ask himself if it could be possible that, after all, the man might be brutal and false enough to fail him. There were times when he sat and looked at him unwillingly, fascinated by the likeness he found in him to the man who had sent poor Westor to his doom. Naturally, the old story had been revived of late, and he heard new versions of it and more minute descriptions of the chief actors, and it was not difficult for an overwrought imagination to discover in the two men some similarity of personal characteristics. Just at this moment there rose within him a memory of a point of resemblance between the pair which would have been extremely embarrassing to him if he had permitted it to assume the disagreeable form of an actual fact. It was the resemblance between the influences which had moved them. In both cases it had been a woman,—in this case it was his own wife, and if he had not been too greatly harassed he would have appreciated the indelicacy of the situation. He was not an unrefined person in theory, and his sensitiveness would have caused him to revolt at the grossness of such a position if he had not had so much at stake and been so overborne by his associates. His mistakes and vices were always the result of circumstance and enthusiasm, and he hurried past them with averted eyes, and refused to concede to them any substantiality. There is nothing more certain than that he had never allowed himself to believe that he had found Bertha of practical use in rendering Planefield docile and attracting less important luminaries. Bertha had been very charming and amiable, that was all; she was always so; it was her habit to please people,—her nature, in fact,—and she had only done what she always did. As a mental statementof the case, nothing could be more simple than this, and he was moved to private disgust by his companion's aggressive clumsiness, which seemed to complicate matters and confront him with more crude suggestions.
"I am afraid she would not enjoy your way of putting it," he said.
Planefield shut his teeth on his cigar and looked out of the window. That was his sole response, and was a form of bullying he enjoyed.
"We must remember that—that she does not realize everything," continued Richard, uneasily; "and she has not regarded the matter from any serious stand-point. It is my impression," he added, with a sudden sense of growing irritation, "that she wouldn't have anything to do with it if she thought it was a matter of gain or loss!"
Planefield made no movement. He was convinced that this was a lie, and his look out of the window was his reply to it.
Richard put his hands into his pockets again and turned about, irritated and helpless.
"You must have seen yourself how unpractical she is," he exclaimed. "She is a mere child in business matters. Any one could deceive her."
He stopped and flushed without any apparent reason. He found himself looking out of the window too, with a feeling of most unpleasant confusion. He was obliged to shake it off before he spoke again, and when he did so it was with an air of beginning with a fresh subject.
"After all," he said, "everything does not depend upon influence of that sort. There are other things to be considered. Have you seen Blundel?"
"You can't expect a man like Blundel," said Planefield, "to be easy to manage. Blundel is the possessor of a moral character, and when a man has capital like that—and Blundel's sharpness into the bargain—he is not going to trifle with it. He's going to hang on to ituntil it reaches its highest market value, and then decide which way he will invest it."
Richard dropped into a seat by the table. He felt his forehead growing damp.
"But if we are not sure of Blundel?" he exclaimed.
"Well, we are not sure of Blundel," was the answer. "What we have to hope is that he isn't sure of himself. The one thing you can't be sure of is a moral character. Impeccability is rare, and it is never easy for an outsider to hit on its exact value. It varies, and you have to run risks with it. Blundel's is expensive."
"There has been a great deal of money used," hesitated Richard; "a great deal."
Planefield resorted to the window again. It had not been his money that had been used. He had sufficient intellect to reap advantages where they were to be reaped, and to avoid indiscreet adventures.
"You had better go and see Blundel yourself," he said, after a pause. "I have had a talk with him, and made as alluring a statement of the case as I could, with the proper degree of caution, and he has had time to put the matter in the scales with his impeccability and see which weighs the heavier, and if they can't be made to balance. He will try to balance them, but if he can't—You must settle what is to be done between you. I have done my best."
"By Jove!" exclaimed Richard, virtuously, "what corruption!"
It was an ingenuous ejaculation, but he was not collected enough to appreciate the native candor of it himself at the moment. He felt that he was being hardly treated, and that the most sacred trusts of a great nation were in hands likely to betray them at far too high a figure. The remark amounted to an outburst of patriotism.
"Have theyalltheir price?" he cried.
Planefield turned his head slowly and glanced at him over his shoulder.
"No," he said; "if they had, you'd find it easier. There's your difficulty. If they were all to be bought, or none of them were to be sold, you'd see your way."
It did not seem to Richard that his way was very clear at the present moment. At every step of late he had found new obstacles in his path and new burdens on his shoulders. People had so many interests and so many limitations, and the limitations were always related to the interests. He began to resolve that it was a very sordid and business-like world in which human lot was cast, and to realize that the tendency of humanity was to coarse prejudice in favor of itself.
"Then I had better see Blundel at once," he said, with feverish impatience.
"You haven't any time to lose," was Planefield's cool response. "And you will need all the wit you can carry with you. You are not going to offerhiminducements, you know; you are only going to prove to him that his chance to do something for his country lies before him in the direction of the Westoria lands. After that"—
"After that," repeated Richard, anxiously.
"Do what you think safest and most practicable."
As the well-appointed equipage drew up under the archway before the lower entrance to the north wing of the Capitol, a group of men who stood near the door-way regarded it with interest. They did so because three of them were strangers and sight-seers, and the fourth, who was a well-seasoned Washingtonian, had called their attention to it.
"There," he said, with an experienced air, "there is one of them this moment. It is beginning to be regarded as a fact that he is mixed up with one of the biggest jobs the country has ever known. He is up to his ears in this Westoria business, it's believed, though he professes to be nothing more than a sort of interested looker-on and a friend of the prime movers. He's a gentleman, you see, with a position in society, and apretty wife, who is a favorite, and the pretty wife entertains his friends; and when a man is in an uncertain frame of mind the husband invites him to dinner, and the pretty wife interests herself in him,—she knows how to do it, they say,—and he goes away a wiser and a better man, and more likely to see his way to making himself agreeable. Nothing professional about it, don't you see? All quite proper and natural. No lobbying about that, you know; but it helps a bill through wonderfully. I tell you there's no knowing what goes on in these tip-top parlors about here."
He said it with modest pride and exultation, and his companions were delighted. They represented the average American, with all his ingenuous eagerness for the dramatic exposure of crime in his fellow-man. They had existed joyously for years in the belief that Washington was the seat of corruption, bribery, and fraud; that it was populated chiefly with brilliant female lobbyists and depraved officials, who carried their privileges to market and bartered and sold them with a guileless candor, whose temerity was only to be equalled by its brazen cheerfulness of spirit. They were, probably, not in the least aware of their mental attitude toward their nation's government; but they revelled in it none the less, and would have felt a keen pang of disappointment if they had been suddenly confronted with the fact that there was actually an element of most unpicturesque honesty in the House and a flavor of shameless impeccability in the Senate. They had heard delightful stories of "jobs" and "schemes," and had hoped to hear more. When they had been taken to the visitors' gallery, they had exhibited an earnest anxiety to be shown the members connected with the last investigation, and had received with private rapture all anecdotes connected with the ruling political scandal. They decided that the country was in a bad way, and felt a glow of honest pride in its standing up at all in its present condition of rottenness. Their ardor had been a littledampened by an incautious statement made by their friend and guide, to the effect that the subject of the investigation seemed likely to clear himself of the charges made against him, and the appearance of Richard Amory, with his personal attractions, his neat equipage, and his air of belonging to the great world, was something of a boon to them. They wished his wife had been with him; they had only seen one female lobbyist as yet, and she had been merely a cheap, flashy woman, with thin, rouged cheeks and sharp, eager eyes.
"Looks rather anxious, doesn't he?" one asked the other, as Amory went by. He certainly looked anxious as he passed them; but once inside the building he made an effort to assume something of his usual air of gay good cheer. It would not do to present himself with other than a fearless front. So he walked with a firm and buoyant tread through the great vaulted corridors and up the marble stairways, exchanging a salutation with one passer-by and a word of greeting with another.
He found Senator Blundel in his committee-room, sitting at the green-covered table, looking over some papers. He was a short, stout man, with a blunt-featured face, grayish hair, which had a tendency to stand on end, and small, shrewd eyes. When he had been in the House, his rising to his feet had generally been the signal for his fellow-members to bestir themselves and turn to listen, as it was his habit to display a sharp humor, of a rough-and-ready sort. Richard had always felt this humor coarse, and, having but little confidence in Blundel's possessing any other qualification for his position, regarded it as rather trying that circumstances should have combined to render his sentiments of such importance in the present crisis. Looking at the thick-set figure and ordinary face he felt that Planefield had been right, and that Bertha might have done much with him, principally because he presented himself as one of the obstacles whose opinions shouldbe formed for them all the more on account of their obstinacy when once biassed in a wrong direction.
But there was no suggestion of these convictions in his manner when he spoke. It was very graceful and ready, and his strong points of good-breeding and mental agility stood him in good stead. The man before him, whose early social advantages had not been great, was not too dull to feel the influence of the first quality, and find himself placed at a secretly acknowledged disadvantage by it. After he had heard his name his small, sharp eyes fixed themselves on his visitor's handsome countenance, with an expression not easy to read.
"It is not necessary for me to make a new statement of our case," said Richard, easily. "I won't fatigue you and occupy your time by repeating what you have already heard stated in the clearest possible manner by Senator Planefield."
Blundel thrust his hands into his pockets and nodded.
"Yes," he responded. "I saw Planefield, and he said a good deal about it."
"Which, of course, you have reflected upon?" said Richard.
"Well, yes. I've thought it over—along with other things."
"I trust favorably," Richard suggested.
Blundel stretched his legs a little and pushed his hands further down into his pockets.
"Now, what would you call favorably?" he inquired.
"Oh," replied Richard, with a self-possessed promptness, "favorably to the connecting branch."
It was rather a fine stroke, this airy candor, but he had studied it beforehand thoroughly and calculated its effect. It surprised Blundel into looking up at him quickly.
"You would, eh?" he said; "let us hear why."
"Because," Richard stated, "that would make it favorable to us."
Blundel was beguiled into a somewhat uneasy laugh.
"Well," he remarked, "you're frank enough."
Richard fixed upon him an open, appreciative glance.
"And why not?" he answered. "There is our strong point,—that we can afford to be frank. We have nothing to conceal. We have something to gain, of course—who has not?—but it is to be gained legitimately—so there is no necessity for our concealing that. The case is simplicity itself. Here are the two railroads. See,"—and he laid two strips of paper side by side upon the table. "A connecting branch is needed. If it runs through this way," making a line with his finger, "it makes certain valuable lands immeasurably more valuable. There is no practical objection to its taking this direction instead of that,—in either case it runs through the government reservations,—the road will be built; somebody's property will be benefited,—why not that of my clients?"
Blundel looked at the strips of paper, and his little eyes twinkled mysteriously.
"By George!" he said, "that isn't the way such things are generally put. What you ought to do is to prove that nobody is to be benefited, and that you are working for the good of the government."
Richard laughed.
"Oh," he said, "I am an amateur, and I should be of no use whatever to my clients if they had anything to hide or any special reason to fear failure. We have opposition to contend with, of course. The southern line is naturally against us, as it wants the connecting branch to run in the opposite direction; but, if it has no stronger claim than we have, the struggle is equal. They are open to the objection of being benefited by the subsidies, too. It is scarcely ground enough for refusing your vote, that some one will be benefited by it. The people is the government in America, and the government the people, and the interest of both are too indissolubly connected to admit of being easilyseparated on public measures. As I said, I am an amateur, but I am a man of the world. My basis is a natural, human one. I desire to attain an object, and, though the government will be benefited, I am obliged so confess I am arguing for my object more than for the government."
This was said with more delightful, airy frankness than ever. But concealed beneath this genial openness was a desperate anxiety to discover what his companion was thinking of, and if the effect of his stroke was what he had hoped it would be. He knew that frankness so complete was a novelty, and he trusted that his bearing had placed him out of the list of ordinary applicants for favor. His private conviction, to which he did not choose to allow himself to refer mentally with any degree of openness, was that, if the man was honest, honesty so bold and simple must disarm him; and, if he was not, ingenuousness so reckless must offer him inducements. But it was not easy to arrive at once at any decision as to the tenor of Blundel's thoughts. He had listened, and it being his habit to see the humor of things, he had grinned a little at the humor he saw in this situation, which was perhaps not a bad omen, though he showed no disposition to commit himself on the spot.
"Makes a good story," he said; "pretty big scheme, isn't it?"
"Not a small one," answered Richard, freely. "That is one of its merits."
"The subsidies won't have to be small ones," said Blundel. "That isn't one of its merits. Now, let us hear your inducements."
Richard checked himself on the very verge of a start, realizing instantaneously the folly of his first flashing thought.