IX

Senator North started for Washington that afternoon. Betty did not see

him again. He did not write, but she hardly expected that he would. He

had remarked once that two-thirds of all the trouble in the world came

out of letters, and Betty, with Miss Trumbull in mind, was inclined to

agree with him. He would not return for a fortnight.

On Friday, very late, Senator Burleigh arrived. He was on the Finance

Committee, but had written that he should break his chains for this

brief holiday if he never had another. He had sent her two boxes of

flowers since her return, and had written her a large number of brief,

emphatic, but impersonal letters during her sojourn in California.

He looked big and breezy and triumphant as he entered the living-room,

and he sprinkled magnetism like a huge watering-pot. Betty knew by this

time that all men successful in American politics had this

qualification, and had come in contact with it so often since her

introduction to the Senate that it had ceased to have any effect on her

except when emanating from one man.

"Are you not frightfully tired?" she asked. "What a journey!"

"Anything, even a fourteen hours' train journey, is heaven after

Washington in hot weather. The asphalt pavements are reeking, and your

heels go in when you forget to walk on your toes--and stick. But it is

enchanting up here."

His eyes dwelt with frank delight on her fresh blue organdie. "Oh,

Washington does not exist," he exclaimed. "I thought constantly of you

when we were struggling over that Tariff Bill in Committee, and I

wanted to put all the fabrics you like on the free list, as a special

compliment to you."

"The unwritten history of a Committee Room! Law does not seem like law

at all when one knows the makers of it. But you must be starved. If you

will follow me blindly down the hall, I promise that you will really be

glad you came."

Miss Trumbull had attended personally to the supper, and he did it

justice, although he continued to talk to Betty and to let his eyes

express a more fervent admiration than had been their previous habit.

"There's no hope for me," thought Betty, when Emory had taken him to

his room. "He has made up his mind to propose during this visit. If I

can only stave it off till the last minute!"

As she went up the stair, she met Miss Trumbull, who was coming down.

"Your supper was very good," she said kindly. "Thank you for sitting

up."

That was enough for the housekeeper, who appeared to have conceived a

worship of the hand that had smitten her. It had seemed to Betty in the

last few days that she met her admiring eyes whichever way she turned.

Miss Trumbull put out her hand and fumbled at the lace on Miss

Madison's gown.

"Tell me," she drawled wheedlingly, "that's your beau, ain't it? I

guessed he was when those flowers come, and the minute I set eyes on

him, I said to myself, 'That's the gentleman for Miss Madison. My! but

you'll make a handsome couple."

"Oh!" exclaimed Betty. "Oh!" Then she laughed. The woman was too

ridiculous for further anger. "Good-night," she said, and went on to

her room.

X

Betty had organized a picnic for the following day, inviting several

acquaintances from the hotel; and they all drove to a favourite spot in

the forest. Mrs. Madison's maid had charge of many cushions, and

disposed her tiny mistress--who looked like a wood fairy in lilac

mull--comfortably on a bed of pine needles. Major Carter felt young

once more as he grilled steaks at a camp-fire, and Harriet enchanted

him with her rapt attention while his memory rioted in deeds of war.

Senator Burleigh had never appeared so well, Betty thought. There was

an out-of-door atmosphere about him at any time; no doubt he had been a

mighty wind in the Senate more than once during the stormy passage of

the Tariff Bill; but with all out-doors around him he looked nothing

less than a mountain king. His large well-knit frame, full of strength

and energy, was at its triumphant best in outing tweeds and Scotch

stockings; his fair handsome face was boyish, despite its almost fierce

determination, as he pranced about, intoxicated with the mountain air.

"If you ever had spent one summer in Washington, you would understand,"

he said to Betty. "This is where I'd like to spend the rest of my life.

I'd like to think I'd never see a city or the inside of a house again."

"Then you'd probably hew down the forest, which would be a loss to the

State: you would have to do something with your superfluous energy. And

what would you do with your brain? Mere reading, when your arm ached

from chopping, never would content you."

"No, that is the worst of civilization. It either produces discontented

savages like myself or goes too far and turns the whole body into

brain. I have managed to get a sort of steam-engine into my head which

gives me little rest and would wear out my body if I didn't happen to

have the constitution of a buffalo. But I doubt if I shall be what

North is, sixteen years hence. That man is the best example of

equilibrium I have ever seen. His mental activity is enormous, but his

control over himself is so absolute that he never wastes an ounce of

force. I've seen him look as fresh at the end of a long day of debate

as he was when he got on his feet. He never lets go of himself for a

moment."

That was the only time Betty heard Senator North's name mentioned

during Burleigh's visit, for the younger man was much more interested

in himself and the object of his holiday.

"I think if it hadn't been for this Extra Session I should have

followed you to California," he said abruptly. "I didn't know how much

I depended for my entire happiness upon my frequent visits to your

house until I came back after the short vacation and found you gone."

"It would have been jolly to have had you in California. But you must

feel that your time has not been thrown away. Are you satisfied with

the Tariff Bill?"

"I liked it fairly well as we re-wrote it, but I don't expect to care

much about it after it comes out of conference. But there are no

politics in the Adirondacks, and when a weary Senator is looking at a

woman in a pale green muslin--"

"You look anything but weary. I expect you will tramp over half the

Adirondacks before you go back. And I am sure you will eat one of those

beefsteaks. Come, they are ready."

But although she managed to seat him between Sally Carter and an

extremely pretty girl, he was at her side again the moment the gay

party began to split into couples.

"Will you come for a walk?" he asked. "I do want to roam about on the

old trails the Indians made, and to get away from these hideous emblems

of modern civilization--sailor hats. Thank heaven you don't wear a

sailor hat."

Betty shot a peremptory glance at Sally Carter, who nodded and started

to follow with a small dark attache who had pursued herself and her

million for five determined years. He was titled if not noble, a clever

operator of a small brain, and a high-priest of teas. He knew the

personnel of Washington Society so thoroughly that he never had been

known to waste a solitary moment on a portion-less girl, and he had

successfully cultivated every art that could commend him to the

imperious favourites of fortune. Betty Madison had disposed of him in

short order, but Miss Carter, although she refused him periodically,

allowed him to hang on, for he amused her and read her favourite

authors. They had not walked far when he seized the picturesque

opportunity to press his suit, and Miss Carter, while scolding him

soundly, forgot the rapid walkers in front.

Betty, as she tramped along beside the large swinging presence the

forest seemed to embrace as its own, wondered why she did not love him,

wondered if she should, had she never met the other man. Doubtless, for

he possessed all the attributes of the conquering hero, and she would

have excavated the ideals of her romantic girlhood, brushed and re-cut

their garments, and then deliberately set fire to her imagination. If

the responsive spark had held sullenly aloof, awaiting its time, she,

knowing nothing of its existence, would soon have ceased to remember

the half-conscious labours of the initial stage of her affections, and

doubtless would have married this fine specimen of American manhood,

and been happy enough. But the responsive spark had struck, and

illumined the deepest recesses of her heart in time to burn contempt

into any effort of her brain, now or hereafter. The question did assail

her--as Burleigh talked of his summer outings among the stupendous

mountains of his chosen State--could she turn to him in time were she

suddenly and permanently separated from the other? She shook her head

in resentment at the treasonable thought; but her brain had received

every advantage of the higher civilization for twenty-seven years, and

worked by itself. She was young and she had much to give; in

consequence, much to receive. She could find the highest with one man

only, for with him alone would her imagination do its final work. But

Nature is inexorable. She commands union; and as the years went by and

one memory grew dimmer--who knew? But the thought gave her a moment of

sadness so profound that she ceased to hear the voice of the man beside

her. She had had moments of deep insight before, and again she stared

down into the depths where so many women's agonized memories lie

buried. She suddenly felt a warm clasp round her hand, and for a second

responded to it gratefully, for hers had turned cold. Then she realized

that she was in the present, and withdrew her hand hurriedly.

"Forgive me," he said. "I simply couldn't help it. I could in

Washington, and I felt that I must wait. But up here--I want to marry

you. You know that, do you not?"

Betty glanced over her shoulder. There was to be no interruption. She

was mistress of herself at once.

"I cannot marry you," she said. "I almost wish I could, but I cannot."

He swung into the middle of the path and stood still, looking down upon

her squarely. There was nothing of the suppliant in his attitude. He

looked unconquerable.

"I did not expect to win you in a moment," he said. "I should not have

expected it if I had waited another year. I knew from the beginning

that it would be hard work, for if a woman does not love at once it

takes a long time to teach her what love is. I have tried to make you

like me, and I think I have succeeded. That is all I can hope for now.

You have been surfeited and satiated with admiration, and you regard

all men as having been born to burn incense before you. I love you for

that too. I should hate a woman who even had it in her to love a man

out of gratitude. You have your world at your feet, and I want mine at

my feet. You have won yours without effort, for you were born with the

crown and sceptre of fascination, I have to fight for mine. But the

same instinct is in us both, the same possibilities on different lines.

I am not making you the broken passionate appeal of the usual lover,

because so long as I know you do not love me I could not place myself

at the mercy of emotion--I have no thought of making a fool of myself.

But when I do win you--then--ah! that will be another matter."

She shook her head, but smiling, for she never had liked and admired

him more. She knew of what passion he was capable, and how absurd he

would have looked if lashed by it while her cool eyes looked on. His

self-control made him magnificent.

"I never shall marry," she said, and then laughed, in spite of herself,

at the world-old formula. Burleigh laughed also.

"There isn't time enough left before chaos comes again to argue with a

woman a question which means absolutely nothing. I am going to marry

you. I have accomplished everything big I have ever strived for. I

never have wanted to marry any other woman, and I want to marry you

more than I wanted to become a Senator of the United States. Nothing

could discourage me unless I thought you loved another man, but so far

as I can see there is no other suitor in the field. You appear to have

refused every proposing man in Washington. Is there any one on the

other side?" he asked anxiously.

"No one. I have no suitor beside yourself; but--"

"I don't understand that word, any more than I understand the word

'fail,'" he said in his rapid truculent tones. Then he added more

gently: "I am afraid you think I should be a tyrant, but no one would

tyrannize over you, for you are any man's equal, and he never would

forget it. I could not love a fool. I want a mate. And I should love

you so much that I never should cease atoning for my fractious and

other unpleasant qualities--"

"You have none! I cannot do less than tell you I think you are one of

the finest men this country has produced, and that I am as proud of you

as she will be--"

"Let me interrupt you before you say 'but.' That I have won so high an

opinion from you gives me the deepest possible gratification. But I

want much more than that. Let us go on with our walk. I'll say no more

at present."