It was Saturday morning. Betty arose at four, brewed herself a cup of
coffee over a spirit lamp, and ate several biscuit with it. She hoped
Senator North would take the same precaution. Healthy animals when
hungry cannot take much interest in each other.
She dressed herself in airy white with a blue ribbon in her hair. There
was no necessity for a hat at that hour in the morning, but she took a
white organdie one down to the boat and put it under a seat, lest she
be late in returning and the sun freckling.
It was faintly dawn as she pulled out into the middle of the lake and
rowed toward its northern end. Even the trailing thickets on the
water's edge looked black, and the dark forest rising on every side
seemed to whisper of old deeds of war and heroism, the bravery and the
treachery of Indian tribes, the mortal jealousies of French and
English. Every inch of ground about her was historical. These forests
had resounded for years with the ugly sounds of battle, and more than
once with the shrieks of women and children. To-day the woodpecker
tapped, the bluejay cried in those depths unaffrighted; the singing of
a mountain stream, the roar of a distant waterfall alone lifted a
louder voice to the eternal whisper of the pines. The forest looked
calmly down upon this flower of a civilization which no man in its
first experience of man would have ventured to forecast, skimming the
water to keep tryst with one whose ancestors had hewn a rougher
wilderness than this down to a market-place that their inheritor might
win the higher honours of the great Republic to come.
But Betty was not thinking of the honours he had won. She was wondering
if by so much as a glance he would betray that he cared a little for
her. Or did he care? In her thought he had been as full of love as
herself. But reality was waiting for her there in the forest,--reality
after three months of uninterrupted imaginings. Perhaps he merely found
her agreeable and amusing. But the idea did not start a tear. The
uncertainty of his affections and the certainty that she was about to
see him again were alike thrilling and gladdening. Pleasurable
excitement possessed her, and her hands would have trembled but for
their tight grip on the oars.
He stood watching her as she rowed toward him, and she was sure that
she made a charming picture out on that great dark lake below the
pines. The forest rose almost straight behind him, but she knew the
winding paths which made ascent easy, and many a dry leafy platform
where one might sit. A hundred times she had imagined herself in that
forest with him; its dim vast solitude had become almost his permanent
setting in her fancy. But as the boat grazed the shore, she said
hurriedly,--
"Get in and let us float about. I am sure it is cold in there. I am so
glad to see you again." As her hands were occupied, he took the seat in
the stern at once, and she pulled out a few yards, then crossed her
oars.
"You see, I have obeyed orders," he said, smiling. "Fortunately, I am
an early riser, particularly in the country."
"I thought the change would do you good. It must be hot in Washington."
"It is frightful."
He looked as well as usual, however, and his thin grey clothes became
his spare though thickset figure. He was smiling humorously into
Betty's eyes, but his own were impenetrable. They might harbour the
delight of a lover at a precious opportunity, or the amusement of a man
of the world. But there was no doubt that he was glad to see her and
that he appreciated the picture she made.
"I hope I never may see you in anything but white again," he said. "You
are a gracious vision to conjure up on stifling afternoons in the
Senate."
Betty did not want to talk about herself. "Tell me the news," she said.
"How is that Tariff Bill going?"
"A story has just leaked out that a stormy scene occurred in the Ways
and Means Committee Room between our friend Montgomery and two members
of the Committee whose names I won't mention. He openly accused them of
accepting bribes from certain Trusts. It even is reported that they
came to blows, but that is probably an exaggeration. We have had our
sensation also. One of our fire-eaters accused--at the top of his
voice--the entire Senate of bribery and corruption. He is new and will
think better of us in time. Meanwhile he would amuse us if such things
did not affect the dignity of the Senate with the outside world.
Unfortunately we are obliged to accept whomsoever the people select to
represent them, and can only possess our souls in patience till time
and the Senate tone the raw ones down."
"Is he representative, that man? And those hysterical members of the
House, whose speeches make me wonder if humour is really a national
quality?"
"They are only too representative, unfortunately, but they are more
hysterical than the average because they have the opportunity their
constituents lack, of shouting in public. The House is America let
loose. When a former private citizen belonging to the party out of
power gets on his feet in it, he develops a species of hysteria for
which there is no parallel in history. He seems to think that the
louder he shouts and the more bad rhetoric he uses, the less will his
party feel the stings of defeat. Some of them tone down and become
conscientious and admirable legislators, but these are the few of
natural largeness of mind. Party spirit, a magnificent thing at its
best, warps and withers the little brain in the party out of power. But
politics are out of place in this wilderness. There should be redskins
and bows and arrows on all sides of us. I used to revel in Cooper's
yarns, but I suppose you never have read them."