Betty, after several long and restless nights, decided that she was not
equal to the ordeal of sitting down patiently in Washington awaiting
the rare and flying visits of Senator North. If she could place herself
quite beyond the possibility of seeing him before the first of June,
she could get through the intervening months with a respectable amount
of endurance, but not otherwise. Hers was not the nature of the patient
watcher, the humble applicant for crumbs. She might put up with slices
where she could not get the whole loaf, but her head lifted itself at
the notion of crumbs. Her heart had not yet begun to ache. She
determined that it should not until it was in far more desperate
straits than now. When Lady Mary Montgomery, who was tired and wanted a
long rest before December, invited her to go to California, she
accepted at once; and, a week after the adjournment of Congress, went
through the formality of obtaining her mother's consent. "Well," said
Mrs. Madison, philosophically, "I have lost you for three months at a
time before, and I suppose I can stand it again. I think you need a
change. You've been nervous lately, and you're thinner than you were.
As long as you don't marry I can resign myself quite gracefully to
these little partings."
"You're a dear, Mollyanthus. I only wish you were going with me, but
I'll keep a journal for you and post it every night. I am glad you do
not dislike Harriet. Of course if you did I should not go, for it is
too soon to turn her adrift."
"She is inoffensive enough, poor soul, and so deep in her books that I
should not know she was in the house if she didn't come to the table."
"Make Jack take her to the theatre once a week. She has promised me
that she will go for a walk every day with Sally."
"Sally says she is convinced Harriet is a Roman empress reborn, and may
astonish Washington at any moment," said Mrs. Madison, anxiously. "Do
you believe in reincarnation?"
"I don't believe or disbelieve anything I don't understand. We none of
us can even guess what is latent in Harriet--for the matter of that I
don't know what is latent in myself. I can only suspect. I don't think
Harriet will ever go very deep into herself; she has not imagination
enough. If circumstances are not too unfavourable, she may slip through
life happy and respected, in spite of her tragic appearance: she is so
slothful by nature, so much more susceptible to good influences than to
bad. All of us possess every good and bad instinct in the whole book of
human nature, but few of us have imagination enough to find it out. And
the less we know of ourselves the better."
"Betty, you certainly do need a change. You looked tragic yourself as
you said that; and if you became tragic it would mean something. I'm
afraid your conscience is tormenting you about Mr. Burleigh, and
perhaps I did not do right in asking him to come to the Adirondacks;
but probably he would have come to the hotel, anyhow; and if I did have
to lose you--"
"You'll never get rid of me." And she went to her room to consult with
Leontine.