Betty returned home much elated with the success of her visit. She
heard the voice of her cousin Jack Emory in the parlor and went at once
to her room to dress. The voice sounded solemn, and so did her
mother's; they doubtless were sitting in conference upon her. She
selected her evening gown with some care; her cousin was an old story,
but he was a very attractive man, and coquetry would hold its own in
her, become she never so intellectual.
Jack Emory had been her undeclared lover since his middle teens.
Somewhere in the same immature interval, just after her first return
from Europe, she had imagined herself passionately in love with him.
But she had a large fortune left her by her maternal grandfather,
besides a hundred thousand her father had died too soon to spend, and
Jack was the son of a Virginian who had been a Rebel to his death,
haughtily refusing to have his disabilities removed, and threatening to
shoot any negro in his employ who dared to go to the ballot box. He had
left his son but a few thousands out of his large inheritance, and
adjured him on his death bed to hold no office under the Federal
government and to shoot a Yankee rather than shake his hand. Jack
inherited his father's prejudices without his violent temper. He had a
contemptuous dislike for the North, a loathing for politics, and
adistaste for everybody outside his own diminishing class. Love for
Betty Madison had driven him West in the hope of retrieving his
fortunes, but he was essentially a gentleman and a scholar; the
hustling quality was not in him, and he returned South after two years
of unpleasant endeavour and started a small produce farm adjoining an
old house on the outskirts of Washington, left him by his mother. Here
he lived with his books, and made enough money to support himself
decently. He never had asked Betty to marry him, although he knew that
his aunt would champion his cause. During the period of Betty's maiden
passion his pride had caused her as much suffering as her youth and
buoyant nature would permit; but as the years slipped by she felt
inclined to personify that pride and burn a candle beneath it. Even
before her mind had awakened, the energy and strength of her character
had cured her of love for a man as supine as Jack Emory. He was
charming and well read, all that she could desire in a brother, but as
a husband he would be intolerable. As his love cooled she liked him
better still, particularly as his loyalty would not permit him to
acknowledge even to himself that he could change; but its passing left
him with fewer clouds on a rather melancholy spirit, a readier tongue,
and a complete recovery from the habits of sighing and of leaving the
house abruptly.
Betty's maid dressed her in a bright blue taffeta, softened with much
white lace, and she went slowly down to the hall, rustling her skirts
that Emory might hear and come out for a word before dinner if he
liked. It was a relief to be able to coquet with him without fearing
that he would go home and shoot himself; and it helped him to sustain
the pleasant fiction that he still was in love with her.
He came out at once and raised her hand to his lips, murmuring a
compliment as his grandfather might have done. He was only thirty-two,
but his face was sallow and lined from trouble and fever. Otherwise he
was very handsome, with his golden head and intellectual blue eyes, his
haughty profile and tall figure, listlessly carried as it was. In spite
of the fact that he took pride in dressing well, he always looked a
little old-fashioned. When with Betty, invariably as smart as Paris and
New York could make her, he almost appeared as if wearing his father's
old clothes. His Southern accent and intonation were nearly as broad as
a negro's. Betty had almost lost hers; she retained just enough to
enrich and individualize without a touch of provincialism. She belonged
to that small class of Americans whose ear-mark is the absence of all
Americanisms.
Mr. Emory looked perturbed.
"There is something I should like to say," he remarked hesitatingly.
"There is yet a quarter of an hour before dinner. I think this old hall
with its portraits of your grandmothers is a good place to say it in--"
"Molly has pressed you into service, I see. Let us have it out, by all
means. Please straighten your necktie before you begin. You cannot
possibly be impressive while it looks as if it were standing on one
leg."
"Please be serious, Betty dear. I am indeed most disturbed. It surely
cannot be that you meant what you told your mother this morning,--that
you intended to change the whole current of your life in such an
unprecedented manner."
"Great heavens! One would think I was about to go on the stage or enter
a convent."
"I would rather you did either than soil your mind with the politics of
this country. I say nothing about there being no statesmen;--there is
not an honest man in politics the length and breadth of the Union. The
country is a sink of corruption, as far as politics are concerned.
Every Congressman buys his seat or is put in as the agent of some
disgraceful trust or syndicate or railroad corporation."
Betty drew her eyelids together in a fashion that robbed her eyes of
their coquetry and fire and made them look unpleasantly judicial.
"Exactly how much do you know about American politics?" she asked
coldly. "I have known you all my life and I never heard you mention
them before--"
"I never have considered them a fit subject for you to listen to--"
"I have been in your library a great many times and I do not recall a
copy of the Congressional Record. You have said often that you despise
the newspapers and only read the telegrams; that the only paper you
read through is the London _Times_. So, I repeat, what do you know
about the American politics of to-day?"
"What I have told you."
"Where did you learn it? Do you ever go to the Senate or the House?"
"God forbid! But I am a man, and those things are in the atmosphere; a
man's brain accumulates naturally all widely diffused impressions. I've
been a great deal in the smoking-cars of railroad-trains, and spent two
years in a Western State where a man who had taken a fortune out of a
mine made no bones of buying a seat in the Senate from the Legislature,
nor the Legislature about selling it. It was the most abominable
transaction I ever came close to, and had as much to do with my leaving
the place as anything else."
"And you mean to say that you judge all the old States of the country
by a newly settled community of adventurers out West?"
"New York and Pennsylvania are notorious."
"There are bad boys in every school. What I want to know is--can you
assert on your knowledge that all the Southern and New England States
are corrupt and send only small politicians to Washington? This is a
more serious charge than Molly's assertion that they all use
toothpicks."
"I repeat that I do not believe there is an honest man in that Capitol."
"Do you know this? Have you investigated the life of every man in the
Senate and the House?" "What a good district attorney you would make!"
"You are talking a lot of copybook platitudes with which you have
allowed your mind to stagnate. But you must convince me, for if what
you say is true I shall have nothing to do with politics. Let us begin
with Senator North. How and when did he buy his seat, and what Trust
does he represent?"
"Oh, I never have heard anything against North. He is too big a gun in
Washington--"
"You will admit then that _he_ is not corrupt--"
"I don't doubt he has his own methods--"
"I don't care three cents about your suppositions. I want facts. How
about Senator Maxwell?"
"He has been in Congress since before I was born. One never hears him
discussed."
"And his Puritanical State has heaped every honour on him that it can
think of. Tell me the biography of Senator Ward--all that is too awful
to be printed in the Congressional Directory--"
"He is from one of those dreadful North-western States and bound to be
corrupt," cried Emory, triumphantly. He wished desperately that he had
waited and got up his case. He spoke from sincere conviction. "There
may be a rag of decency left in the older States, but the West is
positively fetid. I give you my word I am speaking the truth, Betty
dear, and in your own interest. If I have no more details to give you,
it is because I promised my father on his death-bed that I would have
nothing to do with politics, and I have kept my word to the extent of
reading as little about them as possible. But I can assure you that I
know as much about them as anybody not in the accursed business. It is
in the air--" "There are so many things in the air that they get mixed
up. Your whole argument is based on air. Now, _mon ami_, you turn to
to-morrow and study up the record of every man in that Senate, as well
as the legislative methods of his State. When you know all about it, I
shall be delighted to be instructed. But I don't want any more air. Now
come in to dinner, and if you allude to the subject before Molly, I'll
leave the table."
He bowed over her hand again with his old-fashioned courtesy. "When you
issue a command I am bound to obey," he said, "and although you have
set me an unpleasant, an obnoxious task, I certainly shall accomplish
that also to the best of my ability. You belong to this old house,
Betty, to this old set; I love to think of you as the last rose on the
old Southern tree, and you shall not be blighted if I can help it."
Betty tapped him lightly with her fan.
"I belong to the whole country, my dear boy; I am no old cabbage rose
on a half-dead bush, but the same vegetable under a new name,--the
American Beauty Rose. Do you see the parable? And I've a great many
thorns on my long stem. Remember that also."
V
Betty, in accordance with a time-honoured habit, was the last to arrive
at the dinner-party on the following evening. She had arranged her
heavy large-waved hair low on her neck, and the pale green velvet of
her gown lifted its dull mahogany hue and the deep Southern whiteness
of her skin. She did not take a beautiful picture, for her features had
the national irregularity, but she seldom entered a room that several
men did not turn and stare at her. She carried herself with the air of
one used to commanding the homage of men, her lovely colouring was
always enhanced by dress, and she radiated magnetism. It was such an
alive, warm, buoyant personality that men turned to her as naturally as
children do to the maternal woman; even when they did not love her they
liked to be near her, for she recalled some vague ideal. She knew her
power perfectly, and after one or two memorable lessons had put from
her the temptation to give it active exercise. It should be the
instrument of unqualified happiness when her hour came; meanwhile she
cultivated an impersonal attitude which baffled men unable to propose
and tempered the wind to those that could.
During the few moments in the drawing-room she could gather only a
collective impression of the men who stared at her to-night. There was
a general suggestion of weight, in the sculptor's sense, and repose
combined with alertness, and they stood very squarely on their feet.
Betty had only had time to single out one long beard dependent from a
visage otherwise shorn, and to observe further that some of the women
were charmingly dressed, while others wore light silk afternoon frocks,
when dinner was announced.
Her partner was evidently one of the younger Senators, one of those
juvenile enthusiasts of forty-five who beat their breasts for some
years upon the Senate's impassive front. He was extremely good-looking,
with a fair strong impatient face, trimmed with a moustache only, and a
well-built figure full of nervous energy. He had less repose than most
of the men about him, but he suggested the same solidity. He might fail
or go wrong, but not because there was any room in his mind for shams.
His name was Burleigh, but what his section was, Betty, as they
exchanged amenities and admired the lavish display of flowers, could
not determine; he had no accent whatever, and although his voice was
deep and sonorous, it had not the peculiar richness of the South. His
gray eyes smiled as they met hers, and his manners were charming; but
Betty, accustomed to grasp the salient points of character in a first
interview, fancied that he could be overbearing and truculent.
"Are they going to talk politics to-night?" she asked, when the
platitudes had run their course.
"I hope not. I've had enough of politics, all day."
"Oh, I hoped you would," said Betty, in a deeply disappointed tone.
He looked amused.
"Why?" he asked.
"Oh, I am so interested. That sounds very vague, but I am. When Lady
Mary told me she was dining members of the two Committees, I thought it
was to talk politics, and--and--settle it amicably or something." Betty
could look infantile when she chose, and was always ready to cover real
ignorance with an exaggerated assumption which inspired doubt.
"We have the excessive pleasure of discussing the bill in Senator
North's comfortable Committee room for several hours every few days,
and we usually are amiable. We are merely dining out to-night in each
other's good company. Still, I guess your desire will be more or less
gratified. Second nature is strong, and one or two will probably get
down to it about the middle of dinner."
"You are from New England," exclaimed Betty, triumphantly. "I have been
waiting for you to say 'I reckon' or 'I guess.'"
"I was born and educated in Maine, but I went west to practise law as
soon as I knew enough, and I am Senator from one of the Middle Western
States."
"Ah!" Betty gave him a swift side glance. He looked anything but
"corrupt," and that truculent note in his voice did not indicate
subservience to party bosses. She determined to write to Jack Emory in
the morning and command him to look up Senator Burleigh's record at
once.
"I suppose all the Senators here to-night are the--big ones?"
"Oh, no; North and Ward are the only two on this Committee belonging to
the very first rank. The other four here are in that group that is
pressing close upon their heels; and myself, who am a new member: I've
been here four years only. Would you mind telling me who you are? Of
course American women don't take much interest in politics, but--do you
know as little as you pretend?"
"I wish I knew more; but I've been abroad for the last two years, and
my mother prefers rattlesnakes to politics. Which is Senator North?"
"He is at the head of the table with Lady Mary, but that rosebush is in
the way; you cannot see him."
"And which is Senator Ward?" "Over there by Mrs. Shattuc,--the woman in
ivory-white and heliotrope."
Betty flashed him a glance of renewed interest. "You like women," she
exclaimed. "And you must be married, or have sisters."
"I like women and I am not married, nor have I any sisters. I
particularly like woman's dress. If you'll pardon me, that combination
of pale green and white lace and soft stuff is the most stunning thing
I've seen for a long while."
"Law, politics, and woman's dress! How hard you must have worked!"
"Our strong natural inclinations help us so much!" He gave her an
amused glance, and his manner was a trifle patronizing, as of a
prominent man used to the admiration of pretty girls. It was evident
that he knew nothing of her and her long line of conquests.
"Senator Ward looks half asleep," she remarked abruptly.
"He usually does until dinner is two-thirds over. He is Chairman of one
Committee and serving on two others; and all have important bills
before them at present. So he is tired."
"He doesn't look corrupt."
"Corrupt? Who? Ward? Who on earth ever said he was corrupt?"
"Well, I heard his State was."
"'Corruption' is the father of more platitudes than any word in the
American language. There are corrupt men in his State, no doubt, and
one of the Trusts with which we are ridden at present tried to buy its
Legislature and put their man in. But Ward won his fight without the
expenditure of a dollar beyond paying for the band and a few courtesies
of that sort. His State is proud of him both as a statesman and a
scholar, and he is likely to stay in the Senate until he drops in his
tracks."
"Then he comes here with the intention of remaining for life? I think
you should all do that."
"You are quite right. When a man achieves the honour of being elected
honestly to the United States Senate,--it is the highest honour in the
Republic,--he should feel that he is dedicating himself to the service
of the country, and should have so arranged his affairs that he can
stay there for life."
Betty's eyes kindled with approval. "Oh, I am glad," she said, "I am
glad."
"Glad of what, may I ask?"
"Oh--" And then she impulsively told him something of her history, of
her determination to take up politics as her ruling interest, and of
the opposition of her mother and cousin. Senator Burleigh listened with
deep attention, and if he was amused he was too gallant to betray the
fact, now that she had honoured him with her confidence.
"Well," he said, "that is very interesting, very. And you are quite
right. You'll do yourself good and us good. Mind you stand to your
guns. Would you mind telling me your name? Lady Mary never thinks a
mere name worth mentioning."
"Madison--Elizabeth Madison. I had almost forgotten the Elizabeth. I
have always been called Betty."
"Ah!" he said, "ah!" He turned and regarded her with a deeper interest.
"Have you heard of me?" she asked irresistibly. "Who has not?" he said
gallantly. "And although you are a great deal younger than I,--I am
forty-four,--my father, who was in Congress before me, was a great
friend of your father's. He wears a watch to this day that Mr. Madison
gave him. He always expressed regret that he never met your mother, but
she seemed to have an unconquerable aversion to politics."
"And they met at Chamberlin's!" exclaimed Betty, with a delighted
laugh. "It will be the last straw--my having gone into dinner with the
son of one of papa's hated boon companions. My mother is a lovely
intelligent woman," she added hastily, "but she is intensely Southern
and conservative. Her great pride is that she never changes a standard
once established."
"Oh, that's a very safe quality in a woman. But of course you have a
right to establish your own, and I am glad it points in our direction.
And anything you want to know I'll be glad to tell you. Can't I take
you up to the Senate to-morrow and put you in our private gallery?
There ought to be some good debating, for North is going to attack an
important bill that is on the calendar."
"I will go; but let me meet you there. I must ask you to call in due
form first, as my poor mother must not have too many shocks. Will you
come a week from Sunday?--I am going to New York for a few days."
"I will, indeed. If I were unselfish, I should let you listen for a few
minutes, for they are all talking politics; not bills, however, but the
possibility of war with Spain. I don't think I shall, though. Tell me
what you want to know and I will begin our lessons right here." "Why
should we go to war with Spain?"
"Oh dear! Oh dear! Where have you been? There is a small island off the
coast of Florida called Cuba. It has many natives, and they are
oppressed, tormented, tortured by Spain."
"I visited Cuba once. They are nothing but a lot of negroes and
frightfully dirty. Why should we go to war about them?"
"Only about one-third are negroes and there is a large brilliantly
educated and travelled upper class. And I see you need instruction in
more things than politics,--humanity, for instance. Forget that you are
a Southerner, divorce yourself from traditions, and try to imagine
several hundred thousand people--women and children,
principally--starving, hopeless, homeless, unspeakably wretched. Cannot
you feel for them?"
"Oh, yes! Yes!" Betty's quick sympathy sent the tears to her eyes, and
he looked at her with deepening admiration,--a fact the tears did not
prevent her from grasping. "And are we going to war in order to release
them?"
"Ah! I do not know. There is a war feeling growing in the country;
there is no doubt of that. But how high it will grow no one can tell.
The leading men in Congress are indifferent, and won't even listen to
recognizing the Cubans as belligerents. North will not discuss the
subject, and I doubt not is talking over the latest play with Lady Mary
at the present moment."
"And you? Do you want war?"
"I do!" His manner gave sudden rein to its inherent nervousness, and
his voice rang out for a moment as if he were angrily haranguing the
Senate. "Of course I want it. Every human instinct I have compels me to
want it, and I cannot understand the apathy and conservatism which
prevents our being at war at the present moment. We have posed as the
champions of liberty long enough; it is time we did something."
"Ah, this is the youthful enthusiasm of the Senate," thought Betty.
"And I have been accustomed to think of forty-five as quite elderly. I
feel a mere infant and shall not call myself an old maid till I'm
fifty." She smiled approvingly into the Senator's illuminated face, and
he plunged at once into details, including the entire history of
Spanish colonial misrule. The history was told in head-lines, so to
speak, but it was graphic and convincing. Betty nodded encouragingly
and asked an occasional intelligent question. She knew the history of
Spain as thoroughly as he did, but she would not have told him so for
the world. It is only the woman with a certain masculine fibre in her
brain who ever really understands men, and when these women have
coquetry also, they convince the sex born to admire that they are even
more feminine than their weaker sisters. When Senator Burleigh
finished, Betty thanked him so graciously and earnestly, with such
lively pleasure in her limpid hazel eyes, that he raised his glass
impulsively and touched it to hers.
"You must have a _salon_" he exclaimed. "We need one in Washington, and
it would do us incalculable good. Only you could accomplish it: you not
only have beauty and brains--and tact?--but you are so apart that you
can pick and choose without fear of giving offence. And you are not
_blas?_ of the subject like Congressmen's wives, nor has the wild rush
and wear and tear of official society chopped up your individuality
into a hundred little bits. It would be brutal to mention politics to a
woman in political life, and consequently we feel as if no one takes
any interest in us unless she has an axe to grind. But you are what we
all have been waiting for I feel sure of that! Let it be understood
that no mere politician, no man who bought his legislature or is under
suspicion in regard to any Trust, can enter your doors. Of course you
will have to study the whole question thoroughly; and mind, I am to be
your instructor-in-chief."
Betty laughed and thanked him, wondering how well he understood her. He
looked like a man who would waste no time on the study of woman's
subtleties: he knew what he wanted, and recognized the desired
qualities at once, but by a strong masculine instinct, not by analysis.
A few moments later the women went into the drawing-room, and the
conversation for the next half-hour was a languid babble of politics,
dress, New York, the lady of the White House, and the play. Betty
thought the women very nice, but less interesting than the men,
possibly because they were women. They certainly looked more
intelligent than the average one sat with during the trying half-hour
after dinner; but their conversation was fragmentary, and they oddly
suggested having left their personality at home and taken their shell
out to dinner. Betty also was interested to observe that their
composite expression was a curious mingling of fatigue, unselfishness,
and peremptoriness. "What does it mean?" she asked of Lady Mary, with
whom she stood apart for a moment.
"Oh, they are worked to death,--paying calls, entertaining, receiving
people on all sorts of business, and helping their husbands in various
ways. They have no time to be selfish,--rich or poor,--and they have
acquired the art of disposing of bores and detrimentals in short order.
Even their own sort they pass on much in the fashion of royalty. How do
you like Senator Burleigh?"
"I never learned so much in two hours in my life. My head feels like a
beehive."
"I never saw him quite so devoted."
"I thought you were occupied with Senator North."
"I was, but my eyes and ears understand each other. He wants to meet
you after dinner. He knows all about you."
"He has been pointed out to me, but in those days when I was only
interested in possible partners for the German. I do not recall him."
"That is he, the second one."
The men were entering the drawing-room. Betty was relieved that the
political beard was not on Senator North. He wore only a very short
moustache on his ugly powerful face.
He stood for a few moments talking to his host, and Betty, to whom the
political beard was immediately presented, gave him an occasional
glance of exploration while her companion was assuring her, with
neither a twang nor an accent, that he had long looked forward to the
pleasure of meeting the famous Miss Betty Madison. Senator Shattuc was
in his late fifties, but it was evident that the cares of Congress had
not smothered his appreciation of a pretty woman. He had a strong face
and an infantile complexion, and his beard sparkled with care. Senator
Ward, who was presented a few moments later, told her that he had
envied Burleigh throughout the long dinner. Betty decided that the
senatorial manner certainly was agreeable.
The two men fell into conversation with one another, and Betty turned
her attention to Senator North. He was standing alone for the moment,
glancing about the room. His attitude was one of absolute repose; he
did not look as if he ever had hurried or wasted his energies or lost
his self-control in his life. His face was impenetrable; his eyes,
black and piercing, were wholly without that limpidity which reveals
depths and changes of expression; his mouth was somewhat contemptuous,
and betrayed neither tenderness nor humour. If possible, he stood even
more squarely on his feet than the other men. He had the powerful
thick-set figure which invariably harbours strong passions.
"I don't know whether I like him or not," thought Betty. "I think I
don't--but perhaps I do. He might be made of New England rock, and he
looks as if the earth could swallow him before he'd yield an inch. But
I can feel his magnetism over here. Why have all these men so much
magnetism? Is that, too, senatorial?"
Senator North caught her eye at the moment, and turned at once to Lady
Mary. A moment later he had been presented to Betty and they stood
alone.
"I once mended your hoop for you, when you were a little girl, just in
front of your house; but I am afraid you have forgotten it." "Oh,--I
think I do remember it. Yes--I do." She evoked the incident out of the
mists of childish memories. "Was it you? I am afraid I was looking
harder at the hoop than at its mender. But--I recall--I thought how
kind you were."
And then he inquired for her mother, and spoke pleasantly of his own
and his wife's acquaintance with Mrs. Madison at Bar Harbor. Betty
wondered afterward why she had thought his face repellent. His eyes
defied investigation, but his mouth relaxed into a smile that was very
kind, and his voice had almost a caress in it. But at the moment she
was too eager to hear him express himself to receive a strong personal
impression, and while she was casting about in her mind for a leader,
she was obliged to give him her hand.
"Good-night," she said with a little pout, "I am so sorry."
"So am I," he said, smiling, and shaking her hand. "Good-night. I shall
look forward to meeting you again soon."
"Miss Madison, may I see you to your carriage?" asked Senator Burleigh.
"I have tried to get near you ever since dinner," he said
discontentedly, as they walked down the hall, "and now you are going.
But you will come to the Senate to-morrow? Come right up to the door of
the Senators' Gallery at precisely three o'clock and I will meet you
there."
A few moments later, Betty paused on her way to her own room and opened
her mother's door softly.
"Molly," she whispered.
"Well?" asked a severe voice.
"I went in to dinner with the son of one of papa's old Chamberlin
companions, and he was simply charming. So were all the others, and I
never met a man who could shake hands as well as Senator North. I had a
heavenly time."
Mrs. Madison groaned and turned her face to the wall.
"And there wasn't a toothpick, and I didn't hear a twang."
"Kindly allow me to go to sleep."