Betty had invited Senator Burleigh to dinner on Saturday, that he might
feel free to call elsewhere on Sunday. At four o'clock, when Mrs.
Madison had retired for her nap, she commanded Jack Emory to take
Harriet for a long walk and a long ride on the cable cars, and to stop
for Sally Carter. No one else was likely to call, and she retired to
her boudoir, a three-cornered room in an angle between the parlor and
library, to await Senator North.
The boudoir was a room that any man might look forward to after a hard
day on Capitol Hill. Its easychairs were very soft and deep, its rugs
were rosy and delicate, and the walls and windows and doors were hung
with one of those old French silk stuffs with a design of royal
conventionality and uniformly old rose in colour. All of Betty's own
books were there, her piano, several handsome pieces of carved oak, and
a unique collection of ivory. Betty had banished the former girlish
simplicity of this room a few days after her introduction to the
Montgomery house. She had imagined herself greeting Senator North in it
many times, and had received no other man within its now sacred walls.
She wore a white cloth gown today and a blue ribbon in her hair. There
was also a touch of blue at the neck, to make her throat look the
whiter. Otherwise, the long closely fitting gown was without ornament
as far down as the hem, which was lightly embroidered in white. She
looked tall and lithe, but her figure was round, and did not sway like
a reed that a strong wind would beat to the ground, as Harriet's did.
Although that possible descendant of African kings possessed the black
splendour of eyes and hair and a marble regularity of feature, Betty
was the more beautiful woman of the two; for her colour filled and
warmed the eye, she seemed typical of womanhood in its highest
development, and she was a chosen receptacle of enchantment. Moreover,
she was more modern and original, and as healthy as had been the
fashion for the past generation, Harriet looked like an old Roman coin
come to life, with a blight on her soul and little blood in her thin
body. It was not in Betty's nature to fear any woman, much less to
experience petty jealousy, but it was not without satisfaction she
reflected that she and Harriet would hardly attract the same sort of
man. Jack was doing his duty nobly, and he liked vivacious women who
amused him, poor soul! As for Senator Burleigh, he had said politely
that she was handsome but looked delicate, and then unquestionably
dismissed her from his mind. He and Betty had talked politics on the
previous evening until Mrs. Madison had slipped off to bed an hour
earlier than usual.
Betty dismissed them all from her mind and glanced at the clock. It was
half-past four. She thrust the poker between the glowing logs, and the
flames leaped and sent a quivering glow through the charming room.
Betty leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, almost holding her
breath that she might hear the advancing step of the butler the sooner.
In what seemed to her exactly thirty minutes she looked at the clock
again. It was twenty-five minutes to five. She nestled down, assuring
herself that nobody could be expected to come on the moment, but this
time she did not close her eyes; she watched the clock.
And the joy imperceptibly died out of her; the hands travelled
inexorably round to ten minutes to five; she remembered that she had
not seen Senator North since Wednesday, and that in four days a busy
legislator might easily forget the existence of every woman he knew,
except perhaps of the woman he loved. Within her seemed to rise a tide
of bitter memories, the memories of all those women who had sat and
waited through dreary hours for man's uncertain coming. She shivered
and drew close to the fire and covered her face with her hands. Her
heart ached for the helpless misery of her sex.
But she sprang suddenly to her feet. The butler was coming down the
hall. A moment later he had ushered in Senator North, and Betty forgot
the misery of the world, forgot it so completely that there was no
violent reaction; she was merely what she had been at half-past four,
full of pleasurable excitement held down and watched over by the
instinct of caution.
"I must apologize humbly for being late," he said, "but on Sunday I
always sit with my wife until she falls asleep, and to-day she was
nearly an hour later than usual. What a room to come into out of a
biting wind! Thank heaven I was able to get here."
Betty thought of the sister and cousin she had turned out into the
cruel afternoon, and then looked at Senator North deep in the chair
where she had so often imagined him, and forgot their existence. This
was her hour--her first, at least--and visions of pneumonia and
possible consumption should not mar it. She sat opposite him in a
straight dark high-backed chair, and she was quite aware that she made
a delightful picture.
"Well?" he asked. "What of your visit and its consequences?"
Betty told the story; and her description of the dilapidated parsonage
at the head of the miserable village, the group of silent women about
the coffin in the dark room, and her interview with her melancholy
relative was as dramatic as she had felt at the time.
"I thought I was running from a nightmare when I left the house," she
concluded, smiling at him as if to demonstrate that it had left no
shadow in her brain; "but now we both feel better. She wants a gown of
many colours, and this morning she roused the house at five o'clock
singing camp-meeting hymns. But I think she is quick and observant, and
will soon cease to be in any danger of betraying herself. But she is a
great responsibility, and I really felt old this morning."
Senator North laughed. "I hope she won't give you any real trouble. If
she does, I shall feel more than half responsible. But otherwise she
will be an interesting study for you. She is nearly all white; how much
of racial lying, and slothfulness, barbarism, and general incapacity
that black vein of hers contains will give you food for thought, for
she certainly will reveal herself in the course of a year."
"You must admit that a nature like that is a great responsibility."
"Yes, but she alone can work through all the contradictions to the
light, and she will do it naturally, under pressure of new experiences,
within and without. Don't suggest even the word 'problem' to her, and
don't look upon her as one, yourself. You have put her in the right
conditions. Leave her alone and Time will do the rest. His work is
indubious; never forget that. Are you going to marry Burleigh?" he
added abruptly.
She answered vehemently, "No! No!" "I thought not. I know you very
little, so far, but I was willing to deny the report."
"I often wonder why I don't fall in love with him. He really has every
quality I admire. But much as I like him I should not mind if I knew I
never should see him again. I have thought a good deal about it and I
should like to understand it."
She looked at him coaxingly, and he smiled, for he understood women
very well; but he gave her the explanation she desired.
"The reason is simple enough. The admired qualities, even when they are
the component parts of a personality of one who more or less resembles
a cherished ideal, never yet inspired love. Love is the result of two
responsive sparks coming within each other's range of action. Their
owners may be in certain ways unfitted for one another, but the
responsive sparks, rising Nature only knows out of what combination of
elements, fly straight, and Reason sulks. To put it in another way:
Love is merely the intuitive faculty recognizing in another being the
power to give its own lord happiness. It is a faculty that is very
active in some people," he added with a laugh, "and when it is
overworked it often goes wrong, like any other machinery. That is the
reason why men who have loved many women make a mistake in marrying;
the intuitive faculty is both dulled and coarsened by that time. They
are still susceptible to charm, and that is about all."
"Have you loved many women?" asked Betty, without preamble.
He stood up and turned his back to the fire. Betty noted again how
squarely he planted himself on his feet. "A few," he said bluntly. "Not
many. I have not overworked my intuitive faculty, if that is what you
mean. I was not thinking of myself when I spoke."
He stared down at her for a few moments, during which it seemed to
Betty that the air vibrated between them. Her breath began to shorten,
and she dropped her eyes, lest their depths reveal the spark which was
active enough in her.
"Will you play for me?" he asked. "I lost a little girl a few years ago
who played well, although she was only sixteen. I have disliked the
piano ever since, but I should like to hear you play."
She played to him for an hour, with tenderness, passion, and
brilliancy. A gift had been cultivated by the best masters and hours of
patient study.
When he thanked her and rose to go and she put her hand in his, her
face expressed all the bright earnestness of genuine friendship; there
was not a sparkle of coquetry in her eyes.
"Will you come in often on your way home when you are tired and would
like to forget bills and things, and let me play to you? I won't
talk--you must get so tired of voices!--and the practice will do me
good."
"Of course I will come. The pleasantest thing in life is a charming
woman's face at the close of a busy day. Good-bye."
When he had gone, Betty got into the depths of a chair and covered her
eyes with her hand. For the first time she knew out of her own
experience that love means a greater want than the satisfaction of the
eye and mind. She would have given anything but her inherited ideals of
right and wrong if he had come back and taken her in his arms and
kissed her; and she loved him with adoration that he did not, that in
all probability he never would, that although he had the great passions
which stimulate all great brains, the inflexible honour which his State
had rewarded and never questioned for thirty-five years must make short
work of struggles with the ordinary temptations of man.
As soon as a man awakens a woman's passions she begins to idealize him
and there is no limit to the virtues he will be made to carry. But let
a man be endowed by Nature with every noble and elevated attribute she
has in her power to bestow, if he lacks sensuality a woman will see him
in the clear cold light of reason. Betty Madison, having something of
the intuitive faculty, in addition to that knowledge of man which any
girl of twenty-seven who has had much love offered her must possess,
made fewer mistakes even in the thick of a throbbing brain than most
women make; the great danger she did not foresee until time had
accustomed her somewhat to the wonder of being able to love at last,
and Reason had resumed her place in a singularly clear and logical mind.