AT THE CAPITOL.
"Alone she sat--alone! that worn-out word,
So idly spoken and so coldly heard;
Yet all that poets sing and grief hath known,
Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word--alone!"
--THE NEW TIMON.
"How changed since last her speaking eye
Glanced gladness round the glittering room;
Where high-born men were proud to wait,
And beauty watched to imitate."
--BYRON.
It was a crisp, cold, sunny morning toward the last of January, and
all the world--at least, all the Washington world--was packed in the
Senate galleries at the capitol, the occasion being the speech of one
of the master minds of the Senate on a very important subject that was
just then agitating the country North and South. But we have nothing
to do with this brilliant speech. We will leave the gentlemen in the
Reporters' Gallery to report it in irreproachable short-hand. For
ourselves we are looking for friends of ours who have eddied thither
with the crowd, and are occupying seats on the east side, where they
command a good view of the Senate floor. There they are--Mrs. Conway
in black silk, bonnet to match, gold eye-glasses, and the yellowest
and costliest of real lace shading throat and wrists--an out-and-out
aristocrat from the tip of her streaming ostrich plume to her small
kid boot. Near her sits Lulu Clendenon, the brilliant center of many
admiring eyes. The little Norfolk beauty has become a noted belle under
the chaperonage of Mrs. Conway, and to-day she looks rarely beautiful
in her brown silk dress, with soft facings and trimmings of seal-brown
velvet, her soft brown furs, and a sash of fringed scarlet silk at
her throat, confining the soft lace frill. Her great velvet-brown
eyes hold two restless stars, her round cheeks are dashed with fitful
scarlet, all her nut-brown hair is arranged on the top of her head in
a mass of lustrous braids, and one long heavy ringlet floats over her
sloping shoulder. The daintiest little hat of seal-brown velvet, with
the scarlet wing of a bird fluttering one side crowns the small head,
whose stately poise is grace itself. Bruce Conway, languid, handsome,
elegant, in attendance on the little beauty, is the envy of half the
Washington fops.
They sit dutifully still and listen to the learned harangue from the
Senator on the floor below, admire his tropes, follow his gestures,
wonder how much longer he is going to continue, until Bruce, who has
come there every day that week, and listened to "that sort of thing"
till he wearies of it all, loses his interest in the subject, and
allows his appreciative glance to wander over the galleries at the
beaming faces of the "fair."
"Lots of pretty girls here," he whispers to Lulu.
"Yes," she murmurs back, then stifling a pretty yawn. "What a long
speech this is! Don't you think so?" bending one ear to him and the
other to the speaker.
"Awfully slow," he answers, glancing at his watch. "Oh! I say, did I
tell you, Brownie, or did you know that Winans is expected to reply to
this speech?"
"No. Is he?" she asks, eagerly.
"Yes; and the other is winding up his peroration now, I think. Ah!
there he sits down, and there is my lordly Winans rising now--how
kingly he looks!" says Bruce, in honest admiration of the man who is
his enemy.
Lulu settled herself for strict attention, as did every one else, a
low hum of admiration echoed through the galleries, and then silence
fell as the musical, resonant voice of Paul Winans filled the grand
old Senate Chamber, weakening the strong points of his opponent in the
political field with clear practical reasoning, handling his subject
skillfuly and well, keen shafts of wit and sarcasm flashing from his
lips, his dark eyes burning with inspiration, his whole frame expanding
with the fiery eloquence that carried his audience along with him on
its sparkling tide. He had never spoken so ably and brilliantly before,
and low murmured praises echoed on all sides from the audience and the
members, and pencils flew fast in the Reporters' Gallery.
Lulu sat still and speechless, charmed with the eloquence of the
speaker, her eyes shining, her full red lips apart. At some argument
more telling than the rest, something that appealed forcibly to her
clear mind, she turned instinctively to seek sympathy in the eyes of
Bruce Conway, only to discover, with dismay, that he was not looking
at her nor the speaker. His face was strangely white, his eyes were
looking across at the opposite gallery at some one--a pretty girl Lulu
judged from the expression of rapt interest he wore. Silently her
glance followed his, roving over the sea of faces till it found the
focus of his, and this is what she saw:
Near to, and on the right of the Reporters' Gallery, a lady leaning
forward against the railing, her dark, passionately mournful eyes
following Paul Winans with deep, absorbing interest. All the faces of
fair women around her paled into insignificance as Lulu looked at that
pale, clear profile, as classically chiseled, as "faultily faultless,"
as if cut in white marble by some master-hand; the vivid line of the
crimson lips, the black, arched brows so clearly defined against the
pure forehead, the ripple of pale-gold hair that, escaping its jeweled
comb at the back, flowed in a cascade of brightness over the black
velvet dress, that fitted so closely and perfectly to the full yet
delicate figure as to reveal the perfection of gracefulness to the
watcher. A tiny mask vail of black lace that she wore had been pushed
unconsciously back over the top of her little black velvet hat, and so
she sat in her pure, melancholy loveliness before the eyes of the girl
who interpreted Bruce Conway's look aright, and knew before she asked a
word that this could be no other than the being she had so long wished
to gaze upon--the fair, forsaken wife, the beautiful and determined
recluse--Grace Winans.
She touched his arm with an effort, her heart throbbing wildly, her
breath coming in a sort of gasp.
"Will you tell me the earthly name of the divinity who absorbs your
flattering notice?"
He started violently and looked round like one waking from a dream. Her
voice in its tones was much like her brother's, and she had used almost
his very words at Ocean View when he first saw Grace. No effort of his
will could subdue his voice into its ordinary firmness, as he answered:
"Oh, that is the Hon. Mrs. Paul Winans."
And Lulu answered, with an unconscious sigh:
"I could not have imagined any one so perfectly lovely."
"Grace here--is it possible?" commented Mrs. Conway, lifting her
eye-glass to stare across at the young wife. "Well, really, I wonder
what has happened, and why she is here, and where she is staying? I
must find out and call."
In which laudable desire she continued to gaze across, trying to catch
the young lady's eye; but Mrs. Winans had neither eyes nor ears for any
one but her husband. Her whole soul was intent on him, and when the
speech came to an end she remained in the same rapt, eager position
until, just as he was resuming his seat amid the prolonged applause,
one of those strange psychological impressions that inform one of the
intense gaze of another caused him to look up, and his dark eyes, still
blazing with eloquent excitement, met the deep, impassioned gaze of her
violet orbs, swimming in unshed tears; he sank into his seat as if shot.
As for her, she started up, horrified at having betrayed her presence,
and was trying to get out of the thronged gallery when a sudden request
to have the galleries cleared while the Senate went into executive
session set all the crowd on their feet and moving toward the doors.
Mingling with them and quite unaccustomed to visiting the capitol
unaccompanied, Grace found herself suddenly alone, and quite lost in a
maze of corridors far away from the moving throng of people. Perplexed
and frightened at she knew not what, she hurried on, only losing
herself more effectually, seeing no outer door to the vast, wandering
building, and, strangely enough, meeting no one of whom to learn the
way out, until as she desperately turned into yet another long corridor
she stumbled against a gentleman coming in the opposite direction.
Looking up she met the surprised eyes of Bruce Conway, and remembering
only that she wanted to get out of that place, that she was in trouble,
and that he had been her friend, her white detaining hand caught
nervously at his coat-sleeve.
"Oh, Mr. Conway," she almost sobbed, "I have lost my way and cannot get
out of the capitol; will you set me right?"
Before a word had passed his lips, while she yet stood with her dark,
uplifted, appealing eyes burning in Conway's soul, a quick, ringing
step came along the corridor, and Paul Winans stood beside them,
towering over both in his kingly height and beauty.
And the untamed devil of a jealous nature rose in his eyes and shone
out upon the two.
"Great God!" he breathed, in tones of concentrated passion, "Grace
Winans, are you as false as this?"
The small hand fell nervelessly from Conway's coat-sleeve and
transferred itself to her husband's arm, her eyes lifted proudly,
gravely to his.
"I am not false," she answered, in a ringing voice; "you know that I am
not, Paul."
"Am I to disbelieve my eyes?" he questioned, in fiery tones. "I saw you
in the gallery--here in Washington, without my knowledge or consent--I
go to seek you and place you under proper protection, and find you--you
_my_ wife--clinging to this man's arm, your eyes uplifted in such
graceful adoration as would make your fortune on the tragic stage--and
yet you are not _false_! It would seem that Mr. Conway has not suffered
enough at my hands already."
The latent nobility in Bruce Conway's nature passed over the taunt
unnoticed in his solicitude for the young creature who stood trembling
between them, beloved by each, rendered so fatally unhappy by both.
"Senator Winans," he said, coldly, but earnestly and remarkably for one
of his wavering nature, "there is no need for this scene. I encountered
your wife in a purely accidental manner only this moment. She could
not find her way out, and requested me to show her the entrance. She
was frightened and alarmed, and had you not come up as you did, I
should have complied with her wish, placed her in her carriage, and
left her. I could not do less for any lady who needed my momentary
protection. This is all for which you have to upbraid Mrs. Winans,
whom, pardon me, you have injured enough already."
Senator Winans passed over the concluding home thrust, and bowed coldly
but disbelievingly. He turned to his wife, still burning with resentful
anger, but the words he would have spoken faltered on his lips as he
looked at her.
She had removed her hand from his arm, and fallen back a pace or two
from him, her slender figure thrown back, the trailing folds of her
rich black velvet robe sweeping far behind her on the marble floor. Her
small hands hung helpless at her sides, her fair face looked stony in a
fixed despair that seemed as changeless as the expression on the marble
face of the statue that stood in a niche near by.
Poor child! Her heart was aching with its unmerited humiliation. Here
stood the man who had won her young heart in earlier days, only to
cast it aside as a worthless toy, a mute witness of the same thing
re-enacted by another, and that other one who had promised to love,
cherish, and protect her through all the storms of life. To her proud,
sensitive soul it was like the bitterness of death to stand there as
she stood between these two men.
"Well, madam, I am waiting to hear what you have to say for yourself,"
her husband said, coldly.
She whirled toward him, a sudden contempt burning under her black
lashes, her voice cool, clear, decisive.
"This: that I do not choose to stand here and bandy words with you,
Senator Winans, exposed to the comment of any chance passer-by.
Whatever more on the subject you can have to say to me I will hear at
my private parlor at Willard's Hotel this evening between eight and
nine o'clock, if you will do me the honor to call. At present, if one
of you gentlemen will take me to my carriage, which is in waiting, I
will put an end to this scene."
She looked quite indifferently from one to the other, feeling all her
latent pride rise hotly to the surface, as neither stirred for an
instant. Then her lawful master drew her hand through his arm, with
the cold deference he might have accorded a stranger. She bowed to Mr.
Conway, and was led away and placed in the carriage that awaited her,
without a word on either side.
And Bruce went back to his aunt and Lulu, whom he had left talking with
some friends in the rotunda. He said nothing to them, however, of the
scene that had just occurred.
But the fact of Mrs. Winans' presence at the capitol was very well
known by this time. Some of her "dear five hundred" friends had seen
her when the little mask vail had been unconsciously thrown back in her
eager excitement, and those who had not seen her were told by those
who had. Many eyes curiously followed the hero of that long past love
affair, whose shadow still brooded so pitilessly over Grace Winans'
life, as he moved away by the side of the brown-eyed belle to whom
society reported him as _affianced_.
"What next?" he queried, smiling down into the slightly thoughtful face.
"I don't know--that is--I believe Mrs. Conway spoke of the Art Gallery
next," she answered, listlessly.
"After luncheon, though. We go to the hotel first for lunch,"
interposed Mrs. Conway, briskly, who not being young, nor in love, was
blessed with a good appetite. "After that the Art Gallery, and there is
that masquerade ball, you know, to-night."
"As if our daily life were not masquerade enough," he thinks, with
smothered bitterness, as he attends them down the terraced walks to the
park, thence to the avenue, for they decide on walking to the hotel,
Lulu having a penchant for promenading the avenue on sunny days like
this when all the city is doing likewise.
"For I like to look at people's faces," she naively explains to the
young man, "and build up little romances from the materials culled
thereby."
"Ah, a youthful student of human nature! Can you read faces?" he
retorts, brusquely.
"Sometimes, I fancy, but very imperfectly," she says, flushing a
little under his keen gaze, as she walks on, her silken skirts sweeping
the avenue, in the perfection of grace.
"Read mine, then," he answers, half jestingly, half curious as to her
boasted power, as they fall a little behind the elder lady.
"I cannot," she answers, "I would not attempt it."
"Nay," he insists, "fair seeress, read me even one expression that has
crossed my tell-tale face to-day--come, I want to test your power."
"Well," she answers, half-reluctantly, "once to-day in the gallery,
there was a look on your face--flitting and momentary, though--that
reminded me of this line which I have somewhere read:
"'Despair that spurns atonement's power.'"
"Was I right?" looking away from him half-sorry that she had said it,
and fearful of wounding him.
And "silence gave consent."