Betty was determined that Saturday and Sunday should be her own, free
of care. She sent Emory to New York to talk over an investment with her
man of business, and she provided her mother with eight new novels. As
Harriet loved the novel only less than she loved the studies which
furnished her ambitious mind, Betty knew that she would read aloud all
day without complaint. Miss Trumbull, of whom she had seen little of
late, and who had looked sullen and haughty since Harriet with
untactful abruptness had placed her at arm's length, she requested to
superintend in person the cleaning of the lower rooms.
Her mind being at rest, she arose at four on the morning of Saturday.
She rowed across the lake this time and picked up Senator North about a
half-mile from the hotel. His hands were full of fishing-tackle.
"Will you take me fishing?" he said. "Can you give me the whole
morning? I hear there is better fishing in the lake above, and a
farmhouse where we can get breakfast. Do you know the way?"
She nodded, and he took the oars from her and rowed up the lake.
"My wife always sleeps until noon," he said. "We can have seven hours
if you will give them to me."
"Of course I'll give them to you. I may as well admit that I intended
to have them. I made an elaborate disposition of my household to that
end."
They were smiling at each other, and both looked happy and free of
desire for anything but seven long hours of pleasant companionship. The
morning, bright and full of sound, mated itself with the superficial
moods of man, and was not cast for love-making.
"Well, what have you been doing?" he asked. "I have had you in a
permanent and most refreshing vision, floating up and down this lake,
or flitting through the forest, in that white frock. I know that
Burleigh was here--"
"I did not wear white for him."
"Ah! He has looked very vague, not to say mooning, since his return. I
am thankful he is not seeing you exactly as I do. How is the lady of
the shadows?"
"Sally's Southern gorge rose so high, after she discovered the taint,
that she left precipitately. She couldn't sit at the table with even a
hidden drop of negro blood."
"You Southerners will solve the negro problem by inspiring the entire
race with an irresistible desire to cut its throat. If a tidal wave
would wash Ireland out of existence and the blacks in this country
would dispose of themselves, how happy we all should be! What else have
you been doing?"
"I have read the Congressional Record every day, and the _Federalist_
and State papers of Hamilton; to say nothing of the monographs in the
American Statesmen Series. Mr. Burleigh insisted that I must acquire
the national sense, and I have acquired it to such an extent that half
the time I don't know whether I am living in history or out of it. Even
the Record makes me feel impersonal, and as 'national' as Mr. Burleigh
could wish."
"Burleigh intends that his State shall be proud of you."
Betty flushed. "Don't prophesy, even in fun. I believe I am
superstitious. His idea is that politics are to become a sort of second
nature with me before I start my _salon_--Why do you smile cynically?
Don't you think I can have a _salon?_" "You might build up one in the
course of ten years if you devoted your whole mind to it and made no
mistakes; nothing is impossible. But for a long while you merely will
find yourself entertaining a lot of men who want to talk on any subject
but politics after they have turned their backs on Capitol Hill. They
will be extremely grateful if you will provide them with some lively
music, a reasonable amount of punch, and an unlimited number of pretty
and entertaining women. But don't expect them to invite you down the
winding ways of their brains to the cupboards where they have hung up
their great thoughts for the night. I do not even see them standing in
groups of three, their right hands thrust under their coat fronts,
gravely muttering at each other. I see them invariably doing their poor
best to make some pretty woman forget they could be bores if they were
not vigilant."
"The pretty women I shall ask will not think them bores. The thing to
do at first, of course, is to get them there."
"Oh, there will be no difficulty about that. Why do you want a _salon_?
Are you ambitious?"
Betty nodded. "Yes, I think I am. At first I only wanted a new
experience. Now that I have met so many men with careers, I want one
too. If I succeed, I shall be the most famous woman in America."
"You certainly would be. Very well, I will do all I can to help you. It
is possible, as I said. And you have many qualifications--"
"Ah!" Betty's face lit up. "If there is war with Spain, they will talk
of nothing else--Don't frown so at me. I'm sure I don't want a war if
you don't. Those are my politics. Here is the water lane between the
two lakes. I almost had forgotten it. I hope it isn't overgrown."
She spoke lightly, but more truly than she was wholly willing to admit.
Women see political questions, as they see all life, through the eyes
of some man. If he is not their lover, he is a public character for
whom they have a pleasing sentiment.
Senator North pulled into the long winding lane of water in a cleft of
the mountains. It was dark and chill here they were in the heart of the
forest; they had but to turn their heads to look straight into the long
vistas, heavy with silence and shadows.
He rowed for some moments without speaking. He felt their profound and
picturesque isolation, and had no desire to break the spell of it. She
recalled her wish that the Adirondacks would swing off into space, but
smiled: she was too happy in the mere presence of the man to wish for
anything more. He let his eyes meet hers and linger in their depths,
and when he smiled at the end of that long communion it was with
tenderness. But when he spoke he addressed himself to her mind alone.
"No, you must not wish for war with Spain. If we ever are placed in a
position where patriotism commands war, I shall be the last to oppose
it. If England had not behaved with her calm good sense at the time of
the Venezuela difficulty, but had taken our jingoes seriously and
returned their insults, we should have had no alternative but war,--the
serious and conservative of the country would have had to suffer from
the errors of its fools, as is often the case. But for this war there
would be no possible excuse. Spain at one time owned nearly two-thirds
of the earth's surface. She has lost every inch of it, except the
Peninsula and a few islands, by her cruelty and stupidity. Her manifest
destiny is to lose these islands in the same manner and for the same
reasons. And brutal and stupid as she is, we have no more right to
interfere in her domestic affairs than had Europe to interfere in ours
when we were torn by a struggle that had a far greater effect on the
progress of civilization than the trouble between dissatisfied
colonists and decadent Spaniards in this petty island. God only knows
how many intellects went out on those battlefields in the four years of
the Civil War, which, had they persisted and developed, would have
added to the legislative wisdom of this country. We knew what we were
losing, knew that the longer the struggle lasted the longer would our
growth as a nation be retarded, and the horrors of our battlefields
were quite as ghastly as anything set forth in the reports from Cuba.
And yet every thinking man among us, young and old, turned cold with
apprehension when we were threatened with a European interference which
would have dishonoured us. That Spain is behaving with wanton brutality
would not be to the point, even if the reports were not exaggerated,
which they are,--for the matter of that, the Cubans are equally brutal
when they find the opportunity. The point is that it is none of our
business. The Cubans have rebelled. They must take the consequences,
sustained by the certainty of success in the end. Moreover, we not only
are on friendly terms with Spain, we not only have no personal
grievance as a nation against her, but we are a great nation, she is a
weak one. We have no moral right, we a lusty young country, to
humiliate a proud and ancient kingdom, expose the weaknesses and
diseases of her old age to the unpitying eyes of the world. It would be
a despicable and a cowardly act, and it horrifies me to think that the
United States could be capable of it. For Spain I care nothing. The
sooner she dies of her own rottenness the better; but let her die a
natural death. My concern is for my own country. I don't want her to
violate those fundamental principles to whose adherence alone she can
hope to reach the highest pitch of development."
Betty smiled. "Mr. Burleigh says that Washington had a brain of ice,
and that his ideal of American prosperity was frozen within it. I
suppose he would say the same of you."
"I have not a brain of ice. I know that the only hope for this Republic
is to anchor itself to conservatism. The splits in the Democratic party
have generated enough policies to run several virile young nations on
the rocks. The Populist is so eager to help the farmer that he is
indifferent to national dishonour. The riff-raff in the House is
discouraging. The House ought to be a training-school for the Senate.
It is a forum for excitable amateurs. The New England Senators are
almost the only ones with a long--or any--record in the House."
"They are bright, most of those Representatives--even the woolly ones;
as quick as lightning."
"Oh, yes, they are bright," he said contemptuously. "The average
American is bright. If one prefixes no stronger adjective than that to
his name, he accomplishes very little in life. Don't think me a
pessimist," he added, smiling. "All over the country the Schools and
colleges are instilling the principles of conservatism and practical
politics on the old lines, and therein lies hope. I feel sure I shall
live to see the Republic safely past the dangers that threaten it now.
The war with Spain is the worst of these. No war finishes without
far-reaching results, and the conscience of a country, like the
conscience of a man, may be too severely tried. If we whip Spain--the
'if,' of course, is a euphemism--we not only shall be tempted to do
things that are unconstitutional, but we are more than liable to make a
laughing-stock of the Monroe doctrine. For reasons I am not going into
this beautiful summer morning, with fish waiting to be caught, we are
liable to be landed in foreign waters with all Europe as our enemy and
our second-rate statesmen at home pleading for a new
Constitution--which would mean a new United States and unimaginable and
interminable difficulties. Have I said enough to make you understand
why I think we owe a higher duty to a country that should and could be
greater than it is, than even to two hundred thousand Cubans whom we
should but starve the faster if we hemmed them in? Very well, if you
will kindly bait that hook I will see what I can get. The rest of the
world may sink, for all I care this morning."
They had entered another lake, smaller and even wilder in its
surroundings, for there was no sign of habitation.
"Few people know of this lake, I am told," said Senator North,
contentedly; "and we are unlikely to see a living soul for hours,
except while we are discovering that farmhouse. Are you hungry?"
"Yes, but catch a lot of fish before we go to the farmhouse--I know
where it is--for I detest bread and milk and eggs."
The fish were abundant, and he had filled his basket at the end of an
hour. Then they tied up their boat and went in search of the farmhouse.
It was a poor affair, but a good-natured woman fried their fish and
contributed potatoes they could eat. Betty was rattling on in her
gayest spirits, when her glance happened to light on a photograph in a
straw frame. She half rose to her feet, then sank back in her chair
with a frown of annoyance.
"What is it?" he asked anxiously.
"A photograph of my housekeeper, a woman who is all curiosity where her
brain ought to be."
"Well, it is only her photograph, not herself, and this woman does not
know my name. You are not to bother about anything this morning."
They went back to the lake. He caught another basket of fish, and then
they floated about idly, sometimes silent, sometimes talking in a
desultory way about many things that interested them both. Betty
wondered where he had found time to read and think so much on subjects
that belong to the literary wing of the brain and have nothing to do
with the vast subjects of politics and statesmanship, of which he was
so complete a master. She recalled what her mother had said about her
brain being her worst enemy when she fell in love. It certainly made
her love this man more profoundly and passionately, for her own was of
that high quality which demanded a greater to worship. And if she loved
the man it was because his whole virile magnetic being was the outward
and visible expression of the mind that informed it. It was almost noon
when they parted, pleased with themselves and with life. They agreed to
meet again on the following morning.