THEY walked briskly down the sloping street under the railroad bridge
and then up the little hill whereon sits the Capitol of Illinois. They
could see the big flag high up on the dome standing out in the prairie
wind, and the little flags on the House wing and the Senate wing
whipping joyously, sprightly symbols of the sitting of both houses.
Now and then they heard cheers from the House wing, where the
legislative riot that ends a session was already beginning. They passed
into the dark and cool corridors of the State House, then up to the
third floor, where members and messenger-boys, correspondents and
page-boys, rushed always across from one house to the other, swinging
hurriedly around the brass railing of the rotunda. It seemed that the
tide of legislative life was just then setting in toward the Senate.
"Oh, Morley," whispered Amelia, forgetting his offense, and clinging
close to him, "I can't go in there, really I can't."
"Nonsense," said Vernon, "come on. I'll deliver you to Mrs.
Hodge-Lathrop in a minute; then you'll be perfectly safe. Besides, you
have your lobbying to do."
They reached the Senate entrance, and the doorkeeper, seeing a senator,
opened a way through the crowd for their passage. There was confusion
everywhere, the nervous and excited hum of voices from the floor, from
the vestibule, from the galleries, from all around. And just as they
stepped up to the raised floor whereon the desks of senators are placed,
the gavel fell, and stillness with it. They saw the lieutenant-governor
leaning over his desk, studying a slip of paper he held in his hand.
"On this question," he said, "the yeas are thirty and the nays are
seventeen; and two-thirds of the members-elect having failed to vote in
the affirmative, the resolution is lost."
Vernon stood transfixed. The whole thing was borne in upon him; he saw
Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, and the expression of calm and lofty
satisfaction that had settled on her face told him that it was the Ames
Amendment that had been lost. But some new thought seemed to strike her,
for when Senator Porter looked around with something like a smile of
congratulation, she beckoned him, and he hastened to her side.
"Move to reconsider and to lay on the table," she said, and with a look
of admiration he turned and made the motion. It was put, it was carried
of course, and the amendment was lost irrevocably.
"Well, that's attended to," said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop. "Ah,
Morley," she said calmly, "you here? And Amelia?"
"She's here," he said, "and I--I didn't get here on time!" The shame and
mortification on his face were pitiable, though they could not have
touched Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop's heart.
"And I didn't get here on time," he repeated ruefully.
"Why, my dear boy," said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, "I didn't intend
that you should."
He looked at her fiercely, angrily, a second.
"So that was the game, was it?" he said. He whirled, with another fierce
look, on Amelia.
"That was the game, yes, Morley," said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, "but
you needn't look at Amelia so--she was utterly innocent, the dear little
thing."
Amelia came up. She had seen Vernon's expression.
"What is it--what has happened?" she inquired.
"Well, I got here too late, that's all," said Vernon. "I was detained,
and Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop has just now kindly told me that she had arranged
that I should be. I'm ruined, that's all; I'm lost."
"No, Morley," said Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop, "you're saved. You're saved from
yourself." She still smiled at him sweetly. "You might have made, don't
you know, another one of your speeches."
Vernon bit his lip and walked away. He encountered Martin, but could
only look at him helplessly. Martin returned his look with one of
surprise.
"You here?" he said.
"Well, yes," replied Vernon. "At last--too late, it seems."
The surprise had not left Martin's face; to it was now added a
perplexity.
"If we'd known," said Martin; "but we thought, that is, we heard, that
you had ducked."
Vernon shook his head as with a pain that would not let him speak. He
was looking disconsolately across the chamber to where Miss Greene stood
talking with Bull Burns. As in a dream, he heard Mrs. Overman
Hodge-Lathrop exclaim:
"Ah, there is that Greene woman!"
Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop was lifting her gold glasses again. Vernon
was wondering how he was to face the Greene woman. But at Mrs. Overman
Hodge-Lathrop's words an idea came to him.
"I'll go bring her and introduce her," he said. He bolted away and went
toward her. She was cold and distant. Fortunately, Burns fled at his
approach.
"Can you forgive me?" he said. "I'll explain it all in an instant."
"And how?" she asked with a chill rise in her tone.
"Have you ever met Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop?" he asked significantly.
"No," she answered.
"Then permit me," he said. She went with him. Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop
had withdrawn her delegation to the rear of the chamber, and there
awaited Vernon's return.
"Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, permit me to present Miss Greene; Miss
Ansley, Miss Greene." And so on, in the order of relative rank, he
introduced her to the other ladies.
Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop extended her hand officially. Miss Greene
took it with a smile.
"I am very glad," she said, "to meet Mrs.--Mrs.--ah, pardon me, but what
was the name?"
"Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop," Vernon said.
"Ah, Mrs. Lathrop."
Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop seemed, to the eye, to swell.
"You have a charming little city here, Mrs. Lathrop. We poor Chicagoans
love to get down into the country once in a while, you know."
Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop reared back a little.
"No doubt," she stammered. "I have always found it so."
Miss Greene feigned surprise, and affected a look of perplexity. Vernon
withdrew a step, and with his chin in his hand looked on out of eyes
that gloated. The other women in the party exchanged glances of horror
and wrath. Mrs. Barbourton, for her part, seemed unable to endure it.
"Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop lives in Chicago," she interjected.
"Oh!" cried Miss Greene. "Is it possible? How very strange that one
could live in the city all one's life and yet not have heard!"
"Not so very strange, I fancy," said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop. "One's
circle is apt to be so far removed."
"Yes?" said Miss Greene, with that rising inflection. "Then you can not
have lived in Chicago long?"
"All my life," snapped Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop.
"So long as that!" said Miss Greene with eyes that stared incredibility.
Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop actually colored.
"You are enjoying your visit to Springfield, I trust? You have seen the
Lincoln Monument and the Homestead? How very interesting they must be!
And the Legislature offers novelty; don't you find it so?" She gathered
her skirts as if to withdraw. But Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop achieved a
smile.
"We have not enjoyed the pleasures of sight-seeing. On the contrary, we
came to appear before the Senate," she said.
Miss Greene surveyed her critically, with that look in which one woman
inspects another woman's attire. She then extended her critical scrutiny
to the dress of the others.
"To be sure!" she said, "I should have known."
The ladies again exchanged glances. Mrs. Barbourton plainly could not
bear that their position should be equivocal. She doubtless had her
little vainglorious wish to have their success known.
"Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop came down to appear in opposition to the
woman's-rights resolution!" She emphasized the word _woman_ as if she
would not for worlds have been a woman herself.
"Indeed!" exclaimed Miss Greene. "I am sure her appearance must have
been a very convincing argument." She gave her opponent another
searching glance. Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop was having difficulty in
getting her breath.
"We have been having a taste of lobbying, Miss Greene," she began,
"and--"
"How unpleasant!" said she.
"You know, possibly," said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, regaining
something of her position.
"Indeed I do," Miss Greene assented sweetly, "but where it is in the
line of one's profession, duty obscures the unpleasantness. One can not,
you know, always choose one's occupation. Good morning!"
And catching her skirts, with a smile and a bow she left.
The successful lobbyists stood in silence a moment, looked one to
another with wide and staring eyes. Then at last Mrs. Overman
Hodge-Lathrop spoke.
"Morley," she said, "I do wish you could learn to discriminate in your
introductions."