Carlyon's studied simplicity meant, and felt herself overdressed and
bedizened, but she gave no hint of her chagrin. As each guest arrived
Alicia March felt as if she were paying off the score between the
Carlyons and herself. Her position and prestige as Senator March's wife
must be obvious to the Carlyons. The last person to arrive was
Colegrove. He was certainly the handsomest man present, but by no means
the most distinguished, and could not have the place of honour on
Alicia's left hand. When Mrs. March took Sir Percy Carlyon's arm to go
in to dinner it was the first time she had so touched him since those
days on the frontier of Afghanistan. She gave him a look, half
mirthful, half menacing, but wholly triumphant, which Sir Percy
understood. His manner to her was rather an indifferent piece of
acting, but this was not observed by any one except Mrs. March and Lady
Carlyon.
The dinner was splendid--rather too splendid Alicia realised; her
tendency was somewhat to excess. The conversation was agreeable and
sparkling. Alicia was an accomplished hostess; without great brilliance
and _esprit_ herself, she knew how to bring out these qualities in
others, and Senator March shone in his own house. Colegrove, sitting on
the opposite side of the vast round table, saw nothing at first, except
the natural desire of an Englishwoman to do honour to her own Ambassador
and Ambassadress, but he noted the extreme simplicity of Lady Carlyon's
gown, and thought her the handsomer for it. Nevertheless it puzzled
him, but as soon as his eyes fell on his hostess a light dawned upon
him. There was some rivalry between these two women. With that first
thread to go on, he observed his hostess and her guests more closely.
When the ladies rose Mrs. March led the way into the picture gallery.
Lady Carlyon did not, as Mrs. March supposed she would, subtly avoid her
hostess. On the contrary, she remained close to Alicia, whom she asked
to tell her the names of the artists whose pictures were on the wall,
Lady Carlyon listening with smiling attention. Presently it dawned upon
Alicia March's mind that Lady Carlyon was making her exhibit her
possessions and give a list of them--it was Lady Carlyon now who had the
upper hand and not Alicia. Mrs. March, however, went around the gallery
with Lady Carlyon, and by that time the men appeared, and a few other
guests invited for the after-dinner music. Colegrove was now watching
with all his eyes. Senator March in his hearty, outspoken way, had
mentioned the friendship of General Talbott and Sir Percy Carlyon in
those early days on the Afghan frontier, and Colegrove knew that Alicia
had been with her father at that time. Sir Percy shied off from the
subject very obviously, and this was not lost on Colegrove. All of this
made Colegrove suspect that there had been an affair between Sir Percy
Carlyon and Mrs. March. He recollected that she had never mentioned Sir
Percy to him, although she had spoken freely of persons and events in
her life. He sat turning these things over in his mind with the
interest with which everything concerning Alicia awakened in him, at the
time he was listening to the great tenor whose every note was worth a
bank-note.
When the evening was over, and most of the guests had taken their
departure, Colegrove, going up to Mrs. March, said to her smilingly:
"You look quite superb to-night. Lady Carlyon evidently didn't wish to
be in the competition. When a woman wears a simple white gown and a
bunch of violets she means something by it."
Alicia smiled faintly.
"Perhaps Lady Carlyon thought the occasion not important enough for
jewels," she said.
"She won't find a more important occasion," replied Colegrove, laughing,
"not even at the White House, as that is purely perfunctory, you know,
when she goes in on the same footing as the Chinese Ambassador and the
Korean Minister. I am afraid Lady Carlyon is slightly unappreciative.
Good-night, and thank you for a charming evening."
After accepting the Marches' dinner invitation it was inevitable that
they should be placed upon the dinner list of the British Embassy, so
Lady Carlyon told Sir Percy, as they drove back through the January
night to the Embassy, and it must be done at once; for Senator March was
a man who could not be ignored either socially or politically, Lady
Carlyon reminded Sir Percy, urging him at the same time to be more
cordial to Senator March.
"I never saw a man I liked better than March," replied Sir Percy; "he
was the first friend I made in Washington, but I admit that it staggers
me to look at him in the light of Alicia Vernon's husband."
"I am afraid," answered Lady Carlyon, "that it will be observed in spite
of all that I can do to smooth things over."
"I don't think I could have managed it at all without you," replied Sir
Percy; "you are the better diplomatist of the two."
"Oh, you may always expect something great from Bardstown, Kentucky!"
replied Lady Carlyon, and was Lucy Armytage again, looking with sweet,
laughing eyes into her husband's sombre face.
Within a fortnight an invitation to dine at the British Embassy came for
Senator March and his wife, and it was accepted. It was not to be
supposed, however, that the Marches and the Carlyons had not met many
times during that fortnight. They moved in the same orbit and were
continually within sight of each other. Sir Percy, bearing in mind Lady
Carlyon's caution, was more cordial in his manner to Senator March. He
found no difficulty in being so, for the two men met, as they often did
in the society of men alone, at men's dinners, at the club, and like
places. Sir Percy, following the example of Lord Baudesert, was an
indefatigable student of American affairs, and Senator March was a mine
of information.
It was a source of some surprise to Senator March that there was nothing
like intimacy between the Carlyons and his wife and himself. He could
see that his wife and Sir Percy Carlyon did not stand to each other in
the relation of old friends, although they were old acquaintances. And
there was something guarded in the attitude of Lady Carlyon and Alicia
March towards each other. He would have liked very much to have renewed
his old friendship and even fondness for Lady Carlyon, but although she
met him with unvarying sweetness, she did not take up the thread of
intimacy which had existed between them from the days when she was a
school-girl and he was a senator. Senator March had lived long enough
to know that there are strange convolutions in personal relations,
especially between women. It soon became plain that Alicia March and
Lady Carlyon were not drawn together. Senator March's confidence in his
wife was such that he felt sure that her course was regulated by good
taste and good sense, and that was enough for him.
The dinner at the Embassy was brilliant, and Lady Carlyon did the
honours with extraordinary grace. This time she wore very handsome
jewels, although nothing to compare with those of Alicia March.
Senator March had intended to suggest to Alicia that she should invite
the Carlyons to spend the week-end at the country place where their
romance had culminated, but, seeing the futility of his plan, did not
mention it even to his wife. Meanwhile great affairs pressed upon him.
The big railways had been finally brought to bay and Senator March, as
chairman of the committee of investigation, had his hands full.
Colegrove was in town continuously and spent many days explaining the
inexplicable before the committee.
Senator March, listening, tabulating and making notes, began to have a
very high admiration for Colegrove's abilities and even a belief in the
man. Great corporations, Senator March knew, are not associations of
archangels for the benefit of the human race, but commercial
organisations, with an eye to profit. All of this was taken into
account by Senator March in judging Colegrove and his _confreres_. One
thing, however, was certain: Colegrove was the real man who was making
the fight. His colleagues showed great confidence in him, and it was
plain that he had organised, and was directing, the campaign. He had
contrived, however, to arouse the antagonism of certain members of the
committee; the investigation threatened to become a prosecution, and
Senator March found himself often in the position of defending, and
bespeaking a fair show for, Colegrove. The interest of the public in
the railway question was widespread and intense. The Presidential
election was less than a year off, and the party in power was relying
upon its treatment of two or three great questions, of which this was
one, to secure the next administration. In fact, politics entered so
largely into the railway question that many public men lost sight of
justice. Not so Senator March. He had no higher ambition than the
senatorship, and laughed when it was suggested that he should enter the
presidential race, but swore when he was asked to consider the
vice-presidency. He was entirely satisfied with his place as senator,
of which he was now serving his third term, and believed that he could
hold it as long as he desired it. He had, in short, reached that lofty
height--always a dangerous point in human affairs--when his life, his
surroundings, his career, everything satisfied him exactly. He had no
children, and that alone was a disappointment.
The thought that all his wishes and ambitions were satisfied came over
him one afternoon in March when he reached his own door. Alicia was
waiting for him in her splendid victoria, perfectly turned out in every
particular. She looked uncommonly handsome, and greeted him, as always,
with the greatest amiability. Senator March getting into the carriage,
they drove off toward the park. Alicia wore a particularly charming
white hat, and her husband told her so.
"I was afraid the hat was too young for me," she replied, smiling.
"Not at all," protested Senator March; "a charming woman is always
young. It is one of my greatest sources of happiness that you are not a
girl-wife who would drag me around to tea parties and balls, and not
have any respect for my years."
"Have you had a hard day's work?" asked Alicia.
"Very. So much so that I have not been able to glance at the afternoon
papers. If you will excuse me, I will look at the headlines."
By that time they had reached the beautiful wooded park, where, fifteen
minutes from the fashionable quarter of Washington, one can be in the
heart of the woods. The afternoon was balmy and the scent of the spring
was in the air; all the earth was brown and green, and on the southern
slopes of the hillsides little leaves were coming out shyly; already the
blue birds and robins were riotous with song, and between the
interlacing tree-tops, full of brown buds, the sky shone blue with the
blueness of spring. The stream, swollen by the melting snows, rushed
and swirled, and the little waterfalls laughed and danced madly in the
golden sunlight. The park was full of smart carriages, automobiles and
men and girls on horseback.
Senator March, taking the newspaper out of his pocket, adjusted his
glasses and began to read. Alicia March lay back in her corner of the
carriage, seeing neither her husband nor the beauty and glory of earth
and sky around her. It was the old story, she knew not where to turn
for money, and the sum she had spent and what she had to show for it
bewildered her. Colegrove, for the third or fourth time, had demanded
copies of certain letters and documents, and Alicia knew that no money
would be forthcoming until she had secured them. Colegrove had not
become in the least insolent in his manner; on the contrary, Alicia saw,
with the eye of experience, that he was becoming more ingratiating. She
even suspected that Colegrove was after another kind of stake, and more
delicate plunder than legislation favourable to railways. She felt a
singular and growing dislike to deceiving her husband. It was new to
her, and was a part of that strange dislocation and unreality of life
that she should have scruples. Formerly she had not known what scruples
meant and had no fears whatever, but now she was troubled with both
scruples and fears, which bewildered and tormented her. If she ceased
to hold any communication with Colegrove it meant a revelation of her
debts, her duns, and complications to her husband, and if she continued
upon the path in which she had entered a precipice lay before her.
Alicia March and her husband sat silent for half-an-hour as the
thoroughbred horses, champing their bits, trotted slowly along the
wooded road. All at once Alicia glanced at her husband; his face had
turned an ashen grey, and his eyes, with a strange expression in them,
were fixed upon the newspaper before him and he was as motionless as a
dead man. Then as Alicia watched him with amazed and terrified eyes, he
glanced at her and silently laid the newspaper in her lap.
On the front page, with great headlines, was a double-leaded article of
several columns devoted to Colegrove. In it was laid bare Colegrove's
whole career, especially his management of the great railway interests
confided to him. As Senator March had seen long before, Colegrove had
gained a complete ascendancy over his associates, who followed his
leadership like so many schoolboys. Then came the most singular part of
all--the assertion that Colegrove had got advance information, which was
invaluable to him, through the wife of a certain public man, and
although Senator March's name was not mentioned, it was so plainly
indicated that it was impossible to mistake who was meant. Then came a
history of Colegrove's alleged transactions in stocks for the benefit of
the senator's wife, and many other particulars, which Alicia had
supposed were known only to herself and Colegrove. She read the article
through rapidly, to the accompaniment of the steady beat of the horse's
hoofs on the park road and the soft carolling of the woodland birds.
She felt herself growing benumbed like a person being paralysed by
inches; when she finished reading the article she made an effort to
speak, which seemed to cost her all her strength.
"Stop," she said to the footman, and then turning to her husband said:
"Let us walk a little way in the woods down by the water."
The carriage stopped and the footman jumped down and assisted Senator
March to alight, and Mrs. March followed him. The two walked together
into a path which led down to the water where there was a bench
concealed by some shrubbery. They both looked so pale, and Senator
March moved so heavily, that the footman exchanged looks with the
coachman and remarked, putting his finger on his nose:
"Something is up between 'em."
Down by the water Senator March dropped upon the bench and Alicia seated
herself beside him.
"It is a great blow," he said after a minute, "a very great blow. It is
the first aspersion cast upon me or any of my family during the thirty
years of my public life. It is easy enough to disprove it, but it is
humiliating and terrible that such things should be said of you and me,
my poor, innocent Alicia."
It was the very phrase which General Talbott had so often used in
Alicia's presence, and it always moved and touched her, but not as it
did now. With her father, Alicia had ever felt a sense of triumph that
she had saved him the knowledge of much that would have maddened him,
but with her husband she felt a strange impulse to confess all. She
was, however, not a woman to act on such impulses and she remained
silent, turning her head away. She could feel at first the pity in
Senator March's glance, and then by intuition she felt, rather than saw,
her husband's look change from pity to startled inquiry and then to
dreadful certainty. Presently he said, in a voice so stern that she
scarcely recognised it as his own:
"Tell me, is it true? If you will deny it, I will take your word
against that of the whole world."
It would have been so easy to say "No," and Alicia could have said it
readily enough to any person on earth except her husband, but something
seemed to rise within her to forbid the lie, and she remained silent:
she either could not or would not speak. All around them was the
silence of the woods, and they were themselves so still that a robin,
more daring than his fellows, hopped close by their feet and chirruped a
sweet little song. After a long pause Senator March repeated, in the
same voice:
"Will you not speak? Am I to believe--" He stopped, and Alicia longed
to speak, but as before no words came to her.
She rose as if to walk towards the carriage, but she swayed so that her
husband took her arm to support her. Then they went up the hill and,
entering the waiting carriage, were driven towards the city. Not a word
was spoken during the homeward drive. When they reached the asphalted
streets Senator March directed the coachman to drive to the smart hotel
where Colegrove had a splendid suite of rooms. Alicia's trembling heart
sank lower; she thought it a fearful blunder that Senator March's
carriage should be seen at Colegrove's hotel, but Senator March had
never in his life concealed anything, and he was too stunned to adopt
any of the small precautions of fear. When they reached the hotel he
alighted and said with somewhat of his usual composure to the footman:
"Mrs. March will drive home," and then, lifting his hat to Alicia, he
walked into the hotel.
Entering the lift, the Senator went straight to Colegrove's apartments.
He opened the door without knocking and turned into the study of the
suite, and there found Colegrove sitting at a large table, covered with
books and papers, with a couple of the greatest railways' lawyers in
America sitting with him. March bowed to them politely, and then,
without sitting down, said coldly to Colegrove:
"I must be allowed to interrupt these gentlemen for a few minutes while
I speak with you alone."
All three men had risen as Senator March entered; he was too important a
man to be received with other than the highest respect, nor did
Colegrove make the slightest objection to leading the way into the next
room. The light of battle was in his eye, and it was plain that he was
prepared to fight. After closing the door he said at once:
"You have, of course, seen the story in the afternoon newspapers? Much
of it, I need hardly say, is a batch of lies, a part of it we have no
reason to conceal, and the rest can be explained. There is no occasion
for anybody to fall into a panic."
"I didn't come here to discuss that with you," replied Senator March,
looking fixedly at Colegrove.
"You wish to know about your wife's transactions with me?" calmly asked
Colegrove, carrying the war into Africa according to his invariable
custom.
Senator March remained silent; he could not bring himself to put into
words what he had come to ask. Colegrove went back into the next room
and, returning in a minute, brought a tin box, which he opened. Out of
it he took every copy, every paper and letter which he had received from
Alicia March, and every note in which she acknowledged receiving money
from him. Then from a little book he read the statement of every dollar
he had ever paid Alicia March. The Senator, sitting at the table with
Colegrove, read every piece of writing in the tin box, then, gathering
them up in his hands, he put them carefully in his breast pocket.
Colegrove, watching him meanwhile, prepared to throw himself, with a
vigour acquired in his college days from a good boxing master, upon
Senator March if he attempted to leave the room without returning the
papers.
"To-morrow," said March without a tremor, "when the Senate is convened,
I shall acknowledge every charge against me. I shall also claim that
every penny which went out of your pocket to my wife was paid to me, and
I shall resign my seat in the Senate, telegraphing the Governor of the
State to-night."
"You are a madman!" cried Colegrove.
"It is the sanest act of my life," answered Senator March.
"There is but one thing to do," persisted Colegrove, "and that is to
deny everything and call for proof."
Senator March smiled slightly.
"I think, Mr. Colegrove, we have different standards. I see in your eye
that you mean to attack me in order to get these letters and documents.
Well, it would be of no use, because my confession and resignation will
not call for proof."
Colegrove, for once staggered and at a loss, allowed Senator March to
open the door into the next room, where the two lawyers stood talking in
low voices. The moment for using force was lost and, besides, the
Senator's promise of confession and resignation put so new a phase on
the case that Colegrove was bewildered.
*XI*
Senator March went downstairs and passed through the hotel lobby, where
everybody stared at him open-mouthed, and went out into the streets.
The sun lay low in the west, and the streets were full of people,
walking and driving. Many persons turned and looked at him, some with
pity, some with contempt, some with incredulity. In ten minutes he
reached his own door; as he entered it he said to the footman:
"Don't admit any one to-night," and passed upstairs.
He knocked at the door of his wife's boudoir, but receiving no answer,
entered the luxurious little room and found it empty, but through the
door leading into her bedroom he caught sight of Alicia walking up and
down the floor. She had not removed her hat or even her gloves, and was
nervously twisting the handle of her lace parasol as she walked
restlessly about the room. The bedroom, if possible, was more luxurious
than the boudoir. The red silk hangings, which had once belonged to the
Empress Eugenie, had been paid for, not by Senator March's money, as he
had imagined, but with money made by the alleged sale of stocks by
Colegrove. The mantel clock and candelabra, real Louis Quinze gems, had
come from the same source, as had the great silver-framed mirror on the
dressing-table which reflected Alicia's pale face.
Senator March entered the room without ceremony and took from his breast
pocket the packet of letters and documents in Alicia's handwriting, and
handed them to her silently. She took them in her trembling hands,
glanced at them and then gave them back to him. His face, although
perfectly composed, had the same strange greyness about it which she had
noticed as they sat together on the bank of the stream in the park. For
the first time in her life Alicia March felt a desire to throw wide the
doors of her soul and make a confession. She was frightened at the
impulse, and would have restrained it, but her will power, usually so
strong, was as feeble over this impulse as the hand of a child over a
maddened horse. So far she had not spoken a word since the moment, less
than an hour before, when the discovery had been made, but now she burst
forth:
"I don't know what to say--he invested some money for me," she began
breathlessly, and then went on, blundering, stammering and sobbing, to
tell him her transactions with Colegrove.
Her husband heard her incoherent story through, and when she stopped,
panting and wringing her hands, he remained silent for a few minutes.
Alicia turned her agonised face away from him, covering it with her
hands. Presently the Senator spoke in a quiet voice:
"Say not one word of this to any one. To-morrow I will acknowledge
everything, only saying that the money was paid to me instead of to you,
and that you are innocent. I shall resign my seat in the Senate--I am
telegraphing to-night to the Governor of the State to that effect. It
is much better for us not to meet again. I shall go to my ranch in the
Sierras. I gave you a deed to this house when we were married, you
remember, so it is yours, with everything in it, except my books, and I
will give you an income to support it and to supply every reasonable
wish you may have, but on one condition only."
Alicia was looking at him with wide, wild eyes.
"What is that condition?" she gasped.
"That you make no effort whatever to see or communicate with me again.
I shall leave this house to-morrow morning, never to re-enter it."
[Illustration: "'I shall leave this house to-morrow morning, never to
re-enter it'"]
He turned and went into his own study, closed and locked the door.
Alicia's mood of terror changed suddenly to one of fury. She had heard
of these people who had no understanding of the temptations that beset
the weaker ones. Her husband had decided everything as if she were a
child, or rather as if she had not existed; he had hardly listened to
her stumbling regrets, her sobbed-out confession. In one short hour it
seemed as if his love had turned to the bitterest hate. If he would but
have been reasonable something might have been done, but without one
moment's hesitation he was sacrificing himself and her, too. She threw
herself upon the bed, torn with fury and remorse and a multitude of
emotions, which she could neither control nor understand.