A FEW hours later William Fox presented himself at the home of the
new Cabinet minister. He was an intimate habitué of the house; a fact
which created no little comment in social and political circles, for
Fox and White were naturally almost antipodal personalities and had
often engaged in political controversies, which had inevitably ended
in White’s defeat at the hands of his daring and brilliant adversary.
But it was not their antipathies or their rivalries in politics which
aroused the gossip, of which Fox was vaguely and carelessly aware, but
the presupposed existence of an old sentimental relation between him
and White’s wife. However, gossip of all kinds troubled Fox but little,
and he followed his own inclinations with the indolent egoism of a man
who has been for many years the spoiled darling of fortune.
The house was one of the old landmarks of Washington, and the true
values of space and effect were consequently somewhat diminished by
low ceilings and small old-fashioned doors. As Fox entered he heard the
buzz of conversation in the distance, in more tongues than English, and
when the butler announced him he came upon a group of dinner guests
who were gathered around the immense fireplace at the end of the
ballroom--a huge addition to the original house especially designed
for the elaborate entertainments for which the host and hostess were
already famous--and the warm glow of the leaping fire increased the
effect and brilliance of the scene.
At his name his hostess detached herself from the group and tossing
her cigarette into the fire held out her hand in greeting. “You
inconsequent wretch!” she said, shaking an admonishing finger, “late
as usual--we expected you to dinner and M. de Caillou tells us that,
instead, you made a great speech! Pray, what became of you afterwards?”
“Total oblivion for the space of three hours,” replied Fox gaily; “I
come now to congratulate you! The next step will be the Presidency,
White,” he added, as he shook hands with his host.
“If I can keep you out of it,” retorted the secretary, dryly.
Fox laughed, acknowledging the intimate greetings of the other guests.
At a glance he saw that the gathering was as notable as usual, and
was secretly amused at White’s attitude which seemed to accept all
this as his own achievement, ignoring the influence of his wife. The
French ambassador was there, a Russian prince, an Austrian savant, an
Italian ex-diplomat, the chancellor of the British embassy, two other
Cabinet ministers, a literary celebrity, a Roman Catholic dignitary,
and a somewhat notorious French journalist and socialist who had
dipped his pen in gall during the controversy between France and the
Vatican. Margaret’s usual selections, Fox thought with a smile, and
noted that the only other woman was Mrs. Osborne, the former wife of an
American ambassador to Russia, whose divorce had created a sensation
as distinct and startling as her beauty, which was of that type which
somewhat openly advertises the additions of art. A woman, in fact, who
had given rise to so much “talk” that the old-fashioned wondered at
Margaret White’s complacence in receiving her and even admitting her
upon terms of intimacy at the house. But Margaret’s personality was as
problematical as it was charming. She stood now regarding Fox with a
slightly pensive expression in her gray eyes, which seemed unusually
large and bright because of the dark shadows beneath them, while her
small head was set on a slender white neck which supported it like the
stem of a flower. She was thin, but with a daintiness which eliminated
angles, and she possessed in a marked degree, as Allestree had said,
the talent for artistic costumes; her slight figure, which had the
grace and delicate suppleness of some fabled dryad, had the effect, at
the moment, of being marvellously enveloped in a clinging, shimmering
cloud of soft, gold-colored silk and embroidery out of which her white
shoulders rose suddenly; she was much décolletée, and, except for the
jewelled shoulder-straps, her slender but beautiful arms were bare.
She rested her hands on the high back of a chair, apparently listening
to all, but actually attentive only to that which immediately concerned
Fox and her husband, who were exchanging commonplaces with the purely
perfunctory manner of men who cordially detested each other at heart.
“White only pretends indifference,” said Louis Berkman, the literary
genius, who was one of the famous writers of the day; “actually he
is overjoyed at the exit of Wingfield; that is the very pith of the
matter, isn’t it, Mrs. White?”
Margaret shrugged her shoulders. “Why not?” she retorted; “what was it
Walpole said? ‘One tiger is charmed if another tiger loses his tail.’”
There was the general laugh at this, which always followed Margaret’s
careless and daring candor.
“It was certainly a case of ‘heads or tails’ with the President,” Louis
Berkman retorted, with the ease of political detachment in the midst of
the inner circle of officialdom; “we shall have a budget now which will
carry a billion dollar naval increase.”
“You’ve lived too long in England,” said Fox amusedly, “you don’t get
our terms, Berkman. But we shall insist on Mrs. White christening all
the new ships.”
“To be sure--I forgot that I was speaking to the money supply, Fox,” he
replied; “heaven help White if he gets into your clutches; I should as
soon expect mercy from an Iroquois Indian!”
“I don’t mind that from you,” laughed Fox,--“we expect anything from
the ‘outs,’--as long as you don’t write us up for the magazines!”
“The gods forbid!” said Berkman sharply, “I’m not ‘the man with the
muckrake;’ now if--” he turned his head and, catching a glimpse of the
French journalist engaged in an animated discussion with the Italian
ex-diplomat, who fairly bristled with suppressed anger, he bit his lip
to hide a smile.
One of the secretaries leaned forward to select a new cigarette from
the elaborate gold box on the table. “Berkman,” he remarked, “I read
that article of yours on the Duma with a great deal of interest, but
I got an impression that you lost sight of the main issues in your
passion for artistic effects.”
The author responded at once to this challenge with an eagerly
indignant denial, and Fox found himself again slightly detached from
the group and still standing beside his hostess. She had been taking
no part in the conversation and seemed to be in a dreamy mood which
ignored alike her environment and her social duties. There was always
something in Margaret’s aspect which differentiated her from other
people, a spiritual aloofness from the passing moment which could
fall upon her suddenly, even in her wildest and gayest moods, and
which always carried with it a mystical, uninterpreted suggestion of
some tragic destiny, which cast a long shadow before it across the
unthinking sybaritism of her life.
“It seems some time since I saw you last,” said Fox; “the House has
been very exacting lately and abominably dull. What have you been
doing with yourself?”
“Oh, learning to dance,” she replied, “I’m to be a Merry Andrew now,
you know, for the delectation of the dear public. Wicklow insists that
I must have public receptions; good heavens, what an endless bore!”
Fox smiled. “He takes it seriously then, I see! We must look higher, in
that case; you may as well study for the White House rôle at once.”
Margaret laughed derisively, glancing across at her husband who
was leaning over Mrs. Osborne’s chair with a quite apparent air
of absorption. “Look at them!” she mocked, her eyes gleaming with
malicious mischief; “see the pose; Lily Osborne is playing now for a
Madame d’Épinay; she discusses French literature and the philosophers.
Can you imagine Wicklow as Jean Jacques? I must get him a black cloak!”
Fox laughed involuntarily, but said nothing; Margaret’s free speech
sometimes offended his finer discrimination, and the notion of
criticizing White to White’s wife did not coincide with his masculine
code. “I heard that Mrs. Osborne won the cup at the fencing contest,”
he remarked, after a moment.
“She did; Wicklow gave it, you know,” Margaret smiled sarcastically.
Then she looked at him suddenly. “Where did you dine to-night?--with
Allestree?”
“No, at the club. I really didn’t understand that I was expected here.”
“I must have forgotten how to write notes, or I have too much else to
say to you. I’m going to let Bobby Allestree paint my portrait; you
know he’s been trying to do it for years.”
Fox smiled. “I admire Allestree’s work,” he said, “but there are
limitations; one can’t paint intangible sprites.”
“Do you mean to infer that I’m not human?” she retorted with a frown;
“wait and see how beautiful I shall be.”
“You don’t really want compliments from me, Margaret?”
She was silent a moment, then she lifted her softest glance to his
face, her own pensive again and slightly shadowed with thought. “No, I
don’t!” she said abruptly, “I don’t think I should believe in them--it
makes me shiver sometimes to even imagine what you must think of me!”
Fox hesitated how to reply; he was by no means a prudent man, but he
was instinctively aware of the dangers of her mood, and he had swiftly
entertained and rejected two or three answers which would have led
them into yet deeper intricacies, when they were happily interrupted
by the approach of the French ambassador, a gentleman who united with
great astuteness and diplomatic suavity a strong resemblance to an
intelligent and bewhiskered French poodle.
“We have heard so much of those dancing steps, Mrs. White; when shall
we have the pleasure of seeing them?” he asked, smilingly courteous and
attentive.
“Oh, now!--on the instant,” Margaret retorted, her mood changing like a
flash and her eyes sparkling a gay defiance; “there’s no time like the
present. William, are the musicians there?”
Fox looked across at the palm-screened alcove, and catching a glimpse
of a violin, assented. She clapped her hands. “Tell them to play me the
Spanish piece which they played on Tuesday,” she commanded.
At the first note there was a general cessation of conversation, and
every eye turned quickly toward her. She stood in the centre of the
room, her slender arms raised and her hands clasped behind her head, a
dreamy expression on her half lifted face, the shadowy masses of her
pale brown hair framing a white brow. Her eyes drooped, her whole
aspect seemed to change, like the chameleon’s, to become an embodiment
of the dreamily seductive strains which floated softly into space,
then, as the music quickened and developed, she began to sway slightly,
dancing down the long room alone, her clinging, shimmering skirts
trailing around her feet, flowing in and out, but never seeming to
arrest the wonderful rhythmic swing of her movements. With her, dancing
was an interpretation of music, an expression of some subtle mystery of
her nature, the very personification of an enchanting grace.
There was an almost breathless attention on the part of her guests,
and no one was conscious of the displeasure on White’s full flushed
face. No one but his wife; as she danced to and fro, weaving in the
fantasy of strange figures, her eyes rested occasionally on him, and
the mockery of her glance was a revelation to those who could read it.
It was but little observed, however, nor was she understood when, at
last, with a sudden swift movement she caught up her filmy draperies,
displaying two slender ankles and a pair of wonderfully shod feet, as
she executed a deliberate fandango which not a little amazed the more
sedate of her guests.
In answer, perhaps, to some secret signal of White’s, the music stopped
abruptly and with it Margaret’s astonishing performance. Quite unmoved,
and ignoring the interruption, or rather treating it as the natural
termination of her dance, she turned with a graceful swirl of gleaming
silks and received the rather effusive applause of her guests with
heightened color and flashing eyes.
Louis Berkman alone had lost all the bizarre effect of the finish, and
been absorbed in the dance. “A poem in motion, superb!” he exclaimed,
with such genuine enthusiasm that Margaret’s expression softened.
The French ambassador was still softly applauding. It appeared that
he had seen Bernhardt execute the same figures once; “but madame’s
performance was more exquisite, an interpretation, the very expression
of the music itself!”
“Naturally,” laughed Margaret maliciously, “I’m an American,
ambassador. Did you dream that even Bernhardt could excel one?”
“_Bien!_ I admire your patriotism, also,” he replied smiling.
“Oh, it’s only the screech of the eagle! Of course you are all
enthusiastic--all except you, William,” she added abruptly, whirling
around to confront Fox with a teasing glance, “you are mute; didn’t I
please you?”
He smiled. “You bewildered me; the sudden transitions are confusing.
Where did you learn the dance?”
She put her head on one side. “Last week--that’s all I shall ever tell
you!” she replied, “but I want Bobby Allestree to paint my portrait
dancing. Wicklow would prize it so highly,” and she laughed wickedly.
“Allestree is painting a portrait now, I think,” Fox said, to turn her
aside from a dangerous channel, “Miss Temple’s, I believe.”
Margaret’s eyes widened and she looked keenly at him, an indescribable
change in her face. “Rose--yes,” she said slowly, “have you seen it?”
He shook his head. “I saw her for the first time to-night.”
She made no immediate reply. M. de Caillou and Berkman had begun
to talk together, and the others were already engaged in animated
conversation; the controversy between the Italian and the Frenchman
having been resumed was rising in a staccato duet. Fox was abruptly
aware of a stir in the room beyond and surmised the arrival of evening
guests, but his hostess was apparently oblivious.
“She is supremely lovely at times,” she said quietly, after a moment,
“but--but not exactly a beauty. What do you think of her?”
Fox parried the question easily. “My dear Margaret, I only saw her for
a moment getting into her carriage.”
She gave him a searching glance and bit her lip. He thought he had
never seen her wear so entirely the air of a spoiled child; her flushed
cheeks, her slightly rumpled hair and the angry droop of her eyes, all
appealed for praise and resented criticism. “Allestree is painting her
on his knees,” she said, with a little bitter laugh; “he doesn’t regard
her as human; you will see that he will make me the imp to her angel,
he--”
“Margaret!” Mr. White was hurrying forward, with the ruffled manner of
an affronted host; “are you blind as well as deaf, my dear?” he asked
curtly, “here are your guests!”
She turned haughtily and looked over her shoulder, her smallest
attitude always seeming to defy him, while Fox had an uneasy feeling
that he was more acutely aware than usual to-night of the impossible
relations between the two. Meanwhile, the entrance to the long room was
already filling with the rapidly arriving throng which seemed, to the
casual observer, a mass of satin and jewels and lavishly exposed necks
and shoulders, with here and there a sprinkling of the black coats of
the men.
In spite of this influx, however, the young hostess stood a moment
longer looking at them with a glance of malicious amusement in her
drooping eyes, noting the whole effect of White’s large and rather
florid personality as he received the first enthusiastic advance,
responding genially to the murmur of congratulations. Then she turned
and swept across the wide intervening space, her small head thrown
proudly back, her whole grace of figure and dignity of pose--in
direct contradiction to her former wild gayety and audacity--at once
suggesting the _grande dame_ assuming her rightful and appropriate
place. But Fox found it impossible to as easily free himself from the
haunting sorrow of her beautiful haggard eyes. Sometimes she seemed
to him to be as fragile, as exquisite and as perishable as a bit of
delicately carved ivory. Yet he was forced to dismiss the analogy,
for ivory, no matter how marvellously carved in imitation of a living
creature, is inanimate, while she was the very personification of
unrest; it seemed rather that some wild and beautiful sprite must have
been enthralled into temporary captivity, and was wearing its way to
liberty through the exquisite clay which had been fashioned into human
shape for its mortal disguise, that the touch of inevitable sadness
which sometimes came upon her was the moment when the sprite relapsed
into the melancholia of prolonged captivity.