VERNON was glad enough of a breath of the evening air, and they went
down the steps to the sidewalk. Along the curbstone many men had placed
chairs and in these cool and quiet eddies of the brawling stream of
politics they joked and laughed peacefully. Sixth Street stretched away
dark and inviting. Vernon and Cowley turned southward and strolled along
companionably. The air was delicious after the blaze of the hotel; the
black shade of a moonless night was restful; their cigars were fragrant.
"I've just got hold of a story," began Cowley, after they had enjoyed
the night for a moment in silence. "I've just got hold of a story--" he
spoke, of course, as always, from the detached standpoint of a newspaper
man, "which you ought to know."
"What is it?" asked Vernon.
"Porter and Braidwood are against your resolution." Cowley spoke these
names in a tone that told how futile any opposition would be. "And
Wright and his fellows are against it, too," he added.
"Nonsense," said Vernon.
"Well, you'll see," replied Cowley.
"But they told me--"
"Oh, well, that's all right. They've changed in the last day or two."
"Why?"
"Well, they say it's risky from a party standpoint. They think they
already have all the load they want to carry in the fall campaign.
Besides, they--"
"What?"
"They say there's no demand for such a radical step, and so see no
reason for taking it."
"No demand for it?"
"No, on the contrary," Cowley halted an instant and in his palm
sheltered a lighted match for his extinguished cigar. "On the contrary,
there's a lot of people against it."
"Since when?"
"They've been getting letters in the last few days--they've just been
pouring in on 'em--and they're from women, too."
"From women!"
"Yes, from women; the first ladies in the land." Cowley spoke with a
sneer.
Vernon laughed.
"All right," said Cowley in the careless tone of one who has discharged
a duty. "Wait till you see Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop land in here
to-morrow."
"Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop!" Vernon stopped still in the middle of the
sidewalk and turned in surprise and fear to Cowley. Cowley enjoyed the
little sensation he had produced.
"Yes, she's coming down on the Alton to-night. And she's bringing some
of her crowd with her. The women's clubs are all stirred up about the
matter."
Vernon was silent for a moment, then he wheeled suddenly, and said:
"Well, I'm much obliged to you, Cowley, but I'd better be getting back
to the hotel."
"It may not be serious after all," Cowley said with tardy reassurance,
"but there's danger, and I thought I'd let you know. I'm sending a
pretty good story in to-night about it; they'll cover the Chicago end
from the office."
"But they were all for it," Vernon muttered.
"Oh, well, you know they never took the thing very seriously. Of course
they passed it in the House just to line up old man Ames for the
apportionment bill. They didn't think it would amount to anything."
"Yes, I know--but Maria Burley Greene--"
"Well, she's a pretty woman; that's all."
"You bet she is," said Vernon, "and she'll be down here again to-morrow,
too."
"Will she?" said Cowley eagerly, with his strange smile.
"Yes--but, look here, Charlie!" Vernon exclaimed, "don't you go mixing
me up with her, now, understand?"
"Oh, I understand," said Cowley, and he laughed significantly.
When Vernon reached the hotel he set to work in earnest. He tramped
about half the night, until he had seen every senator who could be
found. He noted a change in them; if he did not find them hostile he
found many of them shy and reluctant. But when he went to his room he
had enough promises to allay his fears and to restore, in a measure, his
confidence, and he fell asleep thinking of Maria Greene, happy in the
thought that she would be there with her charms to offset the social
influence of Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop.
X
VERNON went down to breakfast the next morning wearing the new summer
clothes his tailor had sent to him from Chicago the day before. He had a
flower in his buttonhole; a red rose, indeed, showing his colors for the
final triumphant day.
The rotunda of the hotel, swept of the litter of the night before, was
clean and cool, and the morning air of a perfect day came in
refreshingly at the open doors. The farmer members, confirmed in the
habit of early rising, were already sauntering aimlessly about, but
otherwise statesmen still slumbered, tired out by their labors of the
night before.
Vernon, in the nervous excitement which arouses one at the dawn of any
day that is to be big with events, had risen earlier than was his wont.
He hastened into the dining-room, and there, at the first table his eye
alighted on, sat Maria Burley Greene. She saw him at once, for she faced
the door, and she greeted him with a brilliant smile. With springing
step he rushed toward her, both hands extended in his eagerness. She
half rose to take them; their greeting silenced the early breakfasters
for an instant. Then he sat down opposite her and leaned over with a
radiant face as near to her as might be, considering the width of
table-cloth and the breakfast things between.
"And so you're here at last!" he exclaimed.
His eyes quickly took in her toilet; remarkably fresh it was, though it
had been made on the Springfield sleeper. It gave none of those
evidences of being but the late flowering of a toilet that had been made
the night before, as do the toilets of some ladies under similar
circumstances. She wore this morning a suit of brown, tailored
faultlessly to every flat seam, and a little turban to match it. Beside
her plate lay her veil, her gloves, and a brass tagged key. And her
face, clear and rosy in its rich beauty, was good to look upon. The
waiter had just brought her strawberries.
"Send John to me," said Vernon to the waiter. "I'll take my breakfast
here. May I?" He lifted his eyes to Miss Greene's.
"Surely," said she, "we'll have much to discuss."
"And so you're here again at last," repeated Vernon, as if he had not
already made the same observation. He laid, this time, perhaps a little
more stress on the "at last." She must have noted that fact, for she
blushed, red as the strawberries she began to turn over with a
critically poised fork.
"And did you come down alone?" Vernon went on.
"No, not exactly," said Miss Greene. "Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, and, I
believe, several--"
"Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop!"
"I think," said Miss Greene, "that she sits somewhere behind." There was
a twinkle in the eyes she lifted for an instant from her berries.
Vernon scanned the dining-room. There was Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, in
all her--and yes, beside her, sheltered snugly under her all-protecting
wing, was Amelia Ansley! They were at a long table, Mrs. Overman
Hodge-Lathrop at the head, and with them half a dozen women, severe, and
most aggressively respectable. They sat--all of them--erect, pecking at
their food with a distrust that was not so much a material caution as a
spiritual evidence of their superiority to most of the things with which
they were thrust in contact every day. Their hats scarcely trembled,
such was the immense propriety of their attitudes; they did not bend at
all, even to the cream.
Vernon, who was taking all this in at a glance, saw that Mrs. Overman
Hodge-Lathrop was severer than he had ever imagined it possible for
women to be--even such a woman as she. He would not have been surprised
had he suddenly been told that her name had acquired another hyphen;
certainly her dignity had been rehyphenated. There she sat, with her
broad shoulders and ample bust, her arms jeopardizing the sleeves of her
jacket.
It was the most impressive breakfast table he had ever seen. It might
have given him a vision of the future, when he should have secured for
women all their civil and political rights, and the nation had
progressed to female lieutenant-generals, who would be forced at times
to dine in public with their staffs. But he had no such vision, of
course; the very spiritual aversion of those women to such a thought
would have prevented it, occultly.
In point of fact, his regard in an instant had ceased to be general and
had become specific, having Amelia for its objective. She sat on the
right of her commander, a rather timid aide; and she seemed spiritually
to snuggle more closely under her protecting shadow with each passing
moment. She seemed to be half frightened, and had the look of a little
girl who is about to cry. Her gray figure, with its hat of violets above
her dark hair, was, on the instant, half pathetic to Vernon. She sat
facing him, her face downcast.
There was no conversation at that table; it was to be seen at a glance
indeed that among those ladies there would be need for none, all things
having been prearranged for them. Vernon noted that Amelia seemed to him
more dainty, more fragile than she had ever been before, and his heart
surged out toward her. Then she raised her eyes slowly, and held him,
until from their depths she stabbed with one swift glance, a glance full
of all accusation, indictment and reproach. The stab went to his heart
with a pain that made him exclaim. Then perceiving that the complicating
moments were flying, he rose hastily, and with half an apology to Miss
Greene, he rushed across the dining-room.