The next few weeks were not agreeable ones to Richard Amory. There was
too much feverish anxiety and uncertainty in them. He had not yet
acquired the coolness and hardihood of experience, and he felt their
lack in himself. He had a great deal at stake, more than at the outset
it had seemed possible he could have under any circumstances. He began
to realize, with no little discomfort, that he had run heavier risks
than he had intended to allow himself to be led into running. When they
rose before him in their full magnitude, as they did occasionally when
affairs assumed an unencouraging aspect, he wished his enthusiasm had
been less great. It could not be said that he had reached remorse for,
or actual repentance of, his indiscretions; he had simply reached a
point when discouragement led him to feel that he might be called upon
to repent by misfortune. Up to this time it had been his habit to drive
up to the Capitol in his _coupé_, to appear in the galleries, to saunter
through the lobby, and to flit in and out of committee-rooms with
something of the air of an amateur rather enjoying himself; he had made
himself popular; his gayety, his magnetic manner, his readiness to be
all things to all men had smoothed his pathway for him, while his
unprofessional air had given him an appearance of harmlessness.
"He's a first-rate kind of fellow to have on the ground when a thing of
this sort is going on," one of the smaller satellites once remarked.
"Nobody's afraid of being seen with him. There's an immense deal in
that. There are fellows who come here who can half ruin a man with
position by recognizing him on the street. Regular old hands they are,
working around here for years, making an honest living out of their
native land. Every one knows them and what they are up to. Now, this one
is different, and that wife of his"--
"What has she been doing?" flung in Planefield, who was present. "What
has she got to do with it?"
He said it with savage uneasiness. He was full of restive jealousy and
distrust in these days.
"I was only going to say that she is known in society," he remarked,
"and she is the kind the most particular of those fellows don't object
to calling on."
But, as matters took form and a more critical point was neared; as the
newspapers began to express themselves on the subject of the Westoria
lands scheme, and prophesy its failure or success; as it became the
subject of editorials applauding the public-spiritedness of those most
prominent in it, or of paragraphs denouncing the corrupt and
self-seeking tendency of the times; as the mental temperature of certain
individuals became a matter of vital importance, and the degree of
cordiality of a greeting an affair of elation or despair,--Richard felt
that his air of being an amateur was becoming a thing of the past. He
was too anxious to keep it up well; he did not sleep at night, and began
to look fagged, and it required an effort to appear at ease.
"Confound it!" he said to Planefield, "how can one be at ease with a man
when his yes or no may be success or destruction to you? It makes him of
too much consequence. A fellow finds himself trying to please, and it
spoils his manner. I never knew what it was to feel a human being of any
particular consequence before."
"You have been lucky," commented Planefield, not too tolerantly.
"I have been lucky," Richard answered; "but I'm not lucky now, and I
shall be deucedly unlucky if that bill doesn't pass. The fact is, there
are times when I half wish I hadn't meddled with it."
"The mistake _you_ made," said Planefield, with stolid ill-humor, "was
in letting Mrs. Amory go away. Now is the time you need her most.
There's no denying that there are some things women can do better than
men; and when a man has a wife as clever as yours, and as much of a
social success, he's blundering when he doesn't call on her for
assistance. One or two of her little dinners would be the very things
just now for the final smoothing down of one or two rough ones who
haven't opinions unless you provide them with them. She'd provide them
with them fast enough. They'd only have one opinion when she'd done with
them, if she was in one of the moods I've seen her in sometimes. Look
how she carried Bowman and Pell off their feet the night she gave them
the description of that row in the House. And Hargis, of North Carolina,
swears by her; he's a simple, domesticated fellow, and was homesick the
night I brought him here, and she found it out,--Heaven knows how,--and
talked to him about his wife and children until he said he felt as if
he'd seen them. He told me so with tears in his eyes. It is that kind of
thing we want now."
"Well," said Richard, nervously, "it isn't at our disposal. I don't mind
telling you that she was rather out of humor with the aspect of affairs
before she went away, and I had one interview with her which showed me
it would be the safest plan to let her go."
"Out of humor!" said Planefield. "She has been a good deal out of humor
lately, it seems to me. Not that it's any business of mine; but it's
rather a pity, considering circumstances."
Richard colored, walked a few steps, put his hands in his pockets, and
took them out again. Among the chief sources of anxious trouble to him
had been that of late he had found his companion rather difficult to get
along with. He had been irritable, and even a trifle overbearing, and
had at times exhibited an indifference to results truly embarrassing to
contemplate, in view of the crisis at hand. When he intrenched himself
behind a certain heavy stubbornness, in which he was specially strong,
Richard felt himself helpless. The big body, the florid face, the
doggedly unresponsive eye, were too much to combat against. When he was
ill-humored Richard knew that he endeavored to conciliate him; but when
this mood held possession he could only feel alarm and ask himself if it
could be possible that, after all, the man might be brutal and false
enough to fail him. There were times when he sat and looked at him
unwillingly, fascinated by the likeness he found in him to the man who
had sent poor Westor to his doom. Naturally, the old story had been
revived of late, and he heard new versions of it and more minute
descriptions of the chief actors, and it was not difficult for an
overwrought imagination to discover in the two men some similarity of
personal characteristics. Just at this moment there rose within him a
memory of a point of resemblance between the pair which would have been
extremely embarrassing to him if he had permitted it to assume the
disagreeable form of an actual fact. It was the resemblance between the
influences which had moved them. In both cases it had been a woman,--in
this case it was his own wife, and if he had not been too greatly
harassed he would have appreciated the indelicacy of the situation. He
was not an unrefined person in theory, and his sensitiveness would have
caused him to revolt at the grossness of such a position if he had not
had so much at stake and been so overborne by his associates. His
mistakes and vices were always the result of circumstance and
enthusiasm, and he hurried past them with averted eyes, and refused to
concede to them any substantiality. There is nothing more certain than
that he had never allowed himself to believe that he had found Bertha of
practical use in rendering Planefield docile and attracting less
important luminaries. Bertha had been very charming and amiable, that
was all; she was always so; it was her habit to please people,--her
nature, in fact,--and she had only done what she always did. As a mental
statement of the case, nothing could be more simple than this, and he
was moved to private disgust by his companion's aggressive clumsiness,
which seemed to complicate matters and confront him with more crude
suggestions.
"I am afraid she would not enjoy your way of putting it," he said.
Planefield shut his teeth on his cigar and looked out of the window.
That was his sole response, and was a form of bullying he enjoyed.
"We must remember that--that she does not realize everything," continued
Richard, uneasily; "and she has not regarded the matter from any serious
stand-point. It is my impression," he added, with a sudden sense of
growing irritation, "that she wouldn't have anything to do with it if
she thought it was a matter of gain or loss!"
Planefield made no movement. He was convinced that this was a lie, and
his look out of the window was his reply to it.
Richard put his hands into his pockets again and turned about, irritated
and helpless.
"You must have seen yourself how unpractical she is," he exclaimed. "She
is a mere child in business matters. Any one could deceive her."
He stopped and flushed without any apparent reason. He found himself
looking out of the window too, with a feeling of most unpleasant
confusion. He was obliged to shake it off before he spoke again, and
when he did so it was with an air of beginning with a fresh subject.
"After all," he said, "everything does not depend upon influence of that
sort. There are other things to be considered. Have you seen Blundel?"
"You can't expect a man like Blundel," said Planefield, "to be easy to
manage. Blundel is the possessor of a moral character, and when a man
has capital like that--and Blundel's sharpness into the bargain--he is
not going to trifle with it. He's going to hang on to it until it
reaches its highest market value, and then decide which way he will
invest it."
Richard dropped into a seat by the table. He felt his forehead growing
damp.
"But if we are not sure of Blundel?" he exclaimed.
"Well, we are not sure of Blundel," was the answer. "What we have to
hope is that he isn't sure of himself. The one thing you can't be sure
of is a moral character. Impeccability is rare, and it is never easy for
an outsider to hit on its exact value. It varies, and you have to run
risks with it. Blundel's is expensive."
"There has been a great deal of money used," hesitated Richard; "a great
deal."
Planefield resorted to the window again. It had not been his money that
had been used. He had sufficient intellect to reap advantages where they
were to be reaped, and to avoid indiscreet adventures.
"You had better go and see Blundel yourself," he said, after a pause. "I
have had a talk with him, and made as alluring a statement of the case
as I could, with the proper degree of caution, and he has had time to
put the matter in the scales with his impeccability and see which weighs
the heavier, and if they can't be made to balance. He will try to
balance them, but if he can't--You must settle what is to be done
between you. I have done my best."
"By Jove!" exclaimed Richard, virtuously, "what corruption!"
It was an ingenuous ejaculation, but he was not collected enough to
appreciate the native candor of it himself at the moment. He felt that
he was being hardly treated, and that the most sacred trusts of a great
nation were in hands likely to betray them at far too high a figure. The
remark amounted to an outburst of patriotism.
"Have they _all_ their price?" he cried.
Planefield turned his head slowly and glanced at him over his shoulder.
"No," he said; "if they had, you'd find it easier. There's your
difficulty. If they were all to be bought, or none of them were to be
sold, you'd see your way."
It did not seem to Richard that his way was very clear at the present
moment. At every step of late he had found new obstacles in his path and
new burdens on his shoulders. People had so many interests and so many
limitations, and the limitations were always related to the interests.
He began to resolve that it was a very sordid and business-like world in
which human lot was cast, and to realize that the tendency of humanity
was to coarse prejudice in favor of itself.
"Then I had better see Blundel at once," he said, with feverish
impatience.
"You haven't any time to lose," was Planefield's cool response. "And you
will need all the wit you can carry with you. You are not going to offer
_him_ inducements, you know; you are only going to prove to him that his
chance to do something for his country lies before him in the direction
of the Westoria lands. After that"--
"After that," repeated Richard, anxiously.
"Do what you think safest and most practicable."
As the well-appointed equipage drew up under the archway before the
lower entrance to the north wing of the Capitol, a group of men who
stood near the door-way regarded it with interest. They did so because
three of them were strangers and sight-seers, and the fourth, who was a
well-seasoned Washingtonian, had called their attention to it.
"There," he said, with an experienced air, "there is one of them this
moment. It is beginning to be regarded as a fact that he is mixed up
with one of the biggest jobs the country has ever known. He is up to his
ears in this Westoria business, it's believed, though he professes to be
nothing more than a sort of interested looker-on and a friend of the
prime movers. He's a gentleman, you see, with a position in society, and
a pretty wife, who is a favorite, and the pretty wife entertains his
friends; and when a man is in an uncertain frame of mind the husband
invites him to dinner, and the pretty wife interests herself in
him,--she knows how to do it, they say,--and he goes away a wiser and a
better man, and more likely to see his way to making himself agreeable.
Nothing professional about it, don't you see? All quite proper and
natural. No lobbying about that, you know; but it helps a bill through
wonderfully. I tell you there's no knowing what goes on in these tip-top
parlors about here."
He said it with modest pride and exultation, and his companions were
delighted. They represented the average American, with all his ingenuous
eagerness for the dramatic exposure of crime in his fellow-man. They had
existed joyously for years in the belief that Washington was the seat of
corruption, bribery, and fraud; that it was populated chiefly with
brilliant female lobbyists and depraved officials, who carried their
privileges to market and bartered and sold them with a guileless candor,
whose temerity was only to be equalled by its brazen cheerfulness of
spirit. They were, probably, not in the least aware of their mental
attitude toward their nation's government; but they revelled in it none
the less, and would have felt a keen pang of disappointment if they had
been suddenly confronted with the fact that there was actually an
element of most unpicturesque honesty in the House and a flavor of
shameless impeccability in the Senate. They had heard delightful stories
of "jobs" and "schemes," and had hoped to hear more. When they had been
taken to the visitors' gallery, they had exhibited an earnest anxiety to
be shown the members connected with the last investigation, and had
received with private rapture all anecdotes connected with the ruling
political scandal. They decided that the country was in a bad way, and
felt a glow of honest pride in its standing up at all in its present
condition of rottenness. Their ardor had been a little dampened by an
incautious statement made by their friend and guide, to the effect that
the subject of the investigation seemed likely to clear himself of the
charges made against him, and the appearance of Richard Amory, with his
personal attractions, his neat equipage, and his air of belonging to the
great world, was something of a boon to them. They wished his wife had
been with him; they had only seen one female lobbyist as yet, and she
had been merely a cheap, flashy woman, with thin, rouged cheeks and
sharp, eager eyes.
"Looks rather anxious, doesn't he?" one asked the other, as Amory went
by. He certainly looked anxious as he passed them; but once inside the
building he made an effort to assume something of his usual air of gay
good cheer. It would not do to present himself with other than a
fearless front. So he walked with a firm and buoyant tread through the
great vaulted corridors and up the marble stairways, exchanging a
salutation with one passer-by and a word of greeting with another.
He found Senator Blundel in his committee-room, sitting at the
green-covered table, looking over some papers. He was a short, stout
man, with a blunt-featured face, grayish hair, which had a tendency to
stand on end, and small, shrewd eyes. When he had been in the House, his
rising to his feet had generally been the signal for his fellow-members
to bestir themselves and turn to listen, as it was his habit to display
a sharp humor, of a rough-and-ready sort. Richard had always felt this
humor coarse, and, having but little confidence in Blundel's possessing
any other qualification for his position, regarded it as rather trying
that circumstances should have combined to render his sentiments of such
importance in the present crisis. Looking at the thick-set figure and
ordinary face he felt that Planefield had been right, and that Bertha
might have done much with him, principally because he presented himself
as one of the obstacles whose opinions should be formed for them all
the more on account of their obstinacy when once biassed in a wrong
direction.
But there was no suggestion of these convictions in his manner when he
spoke. It was very graceful and ready, and his strong points of
good-breeding and mental agility stood him in good stead. The man before
him, whose early social advantages had not been great, was not too dull
to feel the influence of the first quality, and find himself placed at a
secretly acknowledged disadvantage by it. After he had heard his name
his small, sharp eyes fixed themselves on his visitor's handsome
countenance, with an expression not easy to read.
"It is not necessary for me to make a new statement of our case," said
Richard, easily. "I won't fatigue you and occupy your time by repeating
what you have already heard stated in the clearest possible manner by
Senator Planefield."
Blundel thrust his hands into his pockets and nodded.
"Yes," he responded. "I saw Planefield, and he said a good deal about
it."
"Which, of course, you have reflected upon?" said Richard.
"Well, yes. I've thought it over--along with other things."
"I trust favorably," Richard suggested.
Blundel stretched his legs a little and pushed his hands further down
into his pockets.
"Now, what would you call favorably?" he inquired.
"Oh," replied Richard, with a self-possessed promptness, "favorably to
the connecting branch."
It was rather a fine stroke, this airy candor, but he had studied it
beforehand thoroughly and calculated its effect. It surprised Blundel
into looking up at him quickly.
"You would, eh?" he said; "let us hear why."
"Because," Richard stated, "that would make it favorable to us."
Blundel was beguiled into a somewhat uneasy laugh.
"Well," he remarked, "you're frank enough."
Richard fixed upon him an open, appreciative glance.
"And why not?" he answered. "There is our strong point,--that we can
afford to be frank. We have nothing to conceal. We have something to
gain, of course--who has not?--but it is to be gained legitimately--so
there is no necessity for our concealing that. The case is simplicity
itself. Here are the two railroads. See,"--and he laid two strips of
paper side by side upon the table. "A connecting branch is needed. If it
runs through this way," making a line with his finger, "it makes certain
valuable lands immeasurably more valuable. There is no practical
objection to its taking this direction instead of that,--in either case
it runs through the government reservations,--the road will be built;
somebody's property will be benefited,--why not that of my clients?"
Blundel looked at the strips of paper, and his little eyes twinkled
mysteriously.
"By George!" he said, "that isn't the way such things are generally put.
What you ought to do is to prove that nobody is to be benefited, and
that you are working for the good of the government."
Richard laughed.
"Oh," he said, "I am an amateur, and I should be of no use whatever to
my clients if they had anything to hide or any special reason to fear
failure. We have opposition to contend with, of course. The southern
line is naturally against us, as it wants the connecting branch to run
in the opposite direction; but, if it has no stronger claim than we
have, the struggle is equal. They are open to the objection of being
benefited by the subsidies, too. It is scarcely ground enough for
refusing your vote, that some one will be benefited by it. The people is
the government in America, and the government the people, and the
interest of both are too indissolubly connected to admit of being
easily separated on public measures. As I said, I am an amateur, but I
am a man of the world. My basis is a natural, human one. I desire to
attain an object, and, though the government will be benefited, I am
obliged so confess I am arguing for my object more than for the
government."
This was said with more delightful, airy frankness than ever. But
concealed beneath this genial openness was a desperate anxiety to
discover what his companion was thinking of, and if the effect of his
stroke was what he had hoped it would be. He knew that frankness so
complete was a novelty, and he trusted that his bearing had placed him
out of the list of ordinary applicants for favor. His private
conviction, to which he did not choose to allow himself to refer
mentally with any degree of openness, was that, if the man was honest,
honesty so bold and simple must disarm him; and, if he was not,
ingenuousness so reckless must offer him inducements. But it was not
easy to arrive at once at any decision as to the tenor of Blundel's
thoughts. He had listened, and it being his habit to see the humor of
things, he had grinned a little at the humor he saw in this situation,
which was perhaps not a bad omen, though he showed no disposition to
commit himself on the spot.
"Makes a good story," he said; "pretty big scheme, isn't it?"
"Not a small one," answered Richard, freely. "That is one of its
merits."
"The subsidies won't have to be small ones," said Blundel. "That isn't
one of its merits. Now, let us hear your inducements."
Richard checked himself on the very verge of a start, realizing
instantaneously the folly of his first flashing thought.
"The inducements you can offer to the government," added Blundel. "You
haven't gone into a thing of this sort without feeling you have some on
hand."
Of course there were inducements, and Richard had them at his fingers'
ends, and was very fluent and eloquent in his statement of them. In
fact, when once fairly launched upon the subject, he was somewhat
surprised to find how many powerful reasons there were for its being to
the interest of the nation that the land grants should be made to the
road which ran through the Westoria lands and opened up their resources.
His argument became so brilliant, as he proceeded, that he was moved by
their sincerity himself, and gained impetus through his confidence in
them. He really felt that he was swayed by a generous desire to benefit
his country, and enjoyed his conviction of his own honesty with a
refinement which, for the moment, lost sight of all less agreeable
features of the proceeding. All his fine points came out under the glow
of his enthusiasm,--his grace of speech and manner; his picturesque
habit of thought, which gave color and vividness to all he said,--his
personal attractiveness itself.
Blundel bestirred himself to sit up and look at him with renewed
interest. He liked a good talker; he was a good talker himself. His mind
was of a practical business stamp, and he was good at a knock-down blow
in argument, or at a joke or jibe which felled a man like a meat-axe;
but he had nothing like this, and he felt something like envy of all
this swiftness and readiness and polish.
When he finished, Richard felt that he must have impressed him; that it
was impossible that it should be otherwise, even though there were no
special external signs of Blundel being greatly affected. He had thrust
his hands into his pockets as before, and his hair stood on end as
obstinately.
"Well," he said, succinctly, "it _is_ a good story, and it's a big
scheme."
"And you?"--said Richard. "We are sure of your"--
Blundel took a hand out of his pocket and ran it over his upright hair,
as if in a futile attempt at sweeping it down.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. "I'll see you day after
to-morrow."
"But"--exclaimed Richard, secretly aghast.
Blundel ran over his hair again and returned his hand to his pocket.
"Oh, yes," he answered. "I know all about that. You don't want to lose
time, and you want to feel sure; but, you see, I want to feel sure, too.
As I said, it's a big business; it's too big a business to assume the
responsibility of all at once. _I'm_ not going to run any risks. I don't
say you want me to run any; but, you know, you are an amateur, and there
may be risks you don't realize. I'll see you again."
In his character of amateur it was impossible for Richard to be
importunate, but his temptations to commit the indiscretion were strong.
A hundred things might happen in the course of two days; delay was more
dangerous than anything else. The worst of it all was that he had really
gained no reliable knowledge of the man himself and how it would be best
to approach him. He had seen him throughout the interview just as he had
seen him before it. Whether or not his sharpness was cunning and his
bluntness a defence he had not been able to decide.
"At any rate, he is cautious," he thought. "_How_ cautious it is for us
to find out."
When he left him Richard was in a fever of disappointment and
perplexity, which, to his ease and pleasure-loving nature, was torment.
"Confound it all!" he said. "Confound the thing from beginning to end!
It will have to pay well to pay for this."
He had other work before him, other efforts to make, and after he had
made them he returned to his carriage fatigued and overwrought. He had
walked through the great corridors, from wing to wing, in pursuit of
men who seemed to elude him like will-o'-the-wisps; he had been driven
to standing among motley groups, who sent in cards which did not always
intercede for them; he had had interviews with men who were outwardly
suave and pliable, with men who were ill-mannered and impatient, with
men who were obstinate and distrustful, and with men who were too much
occupied with their own affairs to be other than openly indifferent; if
he had met with a shade of encouragement at one point, he had found it
amply balanced by discouragement at the next; he had seen himself
regarded as an applicant for favor, and a person to be disposed of as
speedily as possible, and, when his work was at an end, his physical
condition was one of exhaustion, and his mental attitude marked chiefly
by disgust and weariness of spirit.
This being the state of affairs he made a call upon Miss Varien, who
always exhilarated and entertained him.
He found her in her bower, and was received with the unvarying tact
which characterized her manner upon all occasions. He poured forth his
woes, as far as they could be told, and was very picturesque about them
as he reclined in the easiest of easy-chairs.
"It is my opinion that nothing can be done without money," he said,
"which is disgraceful!"
"It is, indeed," acknowledged Miss Varien, with a gleam of beautiful
little teeth.
She had lived in Washington with her exceptional father and entirely
satisfactory mother from her earliest infancy, and had gained from
observation--at which she was brilliant, as at all else--a fund of
valuable information. She had seen many things, and had not seen them in
vain. It may be even suspected that Richard, in his character of
amateur, was aware of this. There was a suggestion of watchfulness in
his glance at her.
"Things ought to be better or worse to simplify the system," she said.
"That is in effect what I heard said this morning," answered Richard.
"I am sorry it is not entirely new," she returned. "Was it suggested,
also, that since we cannot have incorruptibility we might alter our
moral standards and remove corruption by making all transactions mere
matters of business? If there was no longer any penalty attached to the
sale and barter of public privileges, such sale and barter would cease
to be dishonor and crime. We should be better if we were infinitely
worse. The theory may appear bold at first blush,--no, not at first
blush, for blushes are to be done away with,--at first sight, I will say
in preference; it may appear bold, but after much reflection I have
decided that it is the only practicable one."
"It is undoubtedly brilliant," replied Richard; "but, as you say, it
would simplify matters wonderfully. I should not be at such a loss to
know what Senator Blundel will do, for instance, and my appetite for
luncheon would be better."
"It might possibly be worse," suggested Miss Varien.
Richard glanced at her quickly.
"That is a remark which evidently has a foundation," he said. "I wish
you would tell me what prompted it."
"I am not sure it was very discreet," was the reply. "My personal
knowledge of Senator Blundel prompted it."
"You know him very well," said Richard, with some eagerness.
"I should not venture to say I knew any one very well," she said, in the
captivating voice which gave to all her words such value and
suggestiveness. "I know him as I know many other men like him. I was
born a politician, and existence without my politics would be an arid
desert to me. I have talked to him and read his speeches, and followed
him in his career for some time. I have even asked questions about him,
and, consequently, I know something of his methods. I _think_--you see,
I only say I think--I know what he will do."
"In Heaven's name, what is it?" demanded Richard.
She unfurled her fan and smiled over it with the delightful gleam of
little white teeth.
"He will take his time," she answered. "He is slow, and prides himself
on being sure. Your bill will not be acted upon; it will be set aside to
lie over until the next session of Congress."
Richard felt as if he changed color, but he bore himself with outward
discretion.
"You have some ulterior motive," he said. "Having invited me to remain
to luncheon, you seek to render me incapable of doing myself justice.
You saw in my eye the wolfish hunger which is the result of interviews
with the savage senator and the pitiless member of Congress. Now I see
the value of your theory. If it were in practice, I could win Blundel
over with gold. What is your opinion of his conscience as it stands?"
It was said with admirable lightness and answered in a like strain, but
he had never been more anxiously on the alert than he was as he watched
Miss Varien's vivacious and subtly expressive face.
"I have not reached it yet," she said. "And consciences are of such
different make and material; I have not decided whether his is made of
interest or honesty. He is a mixture of shrewdness and crudeness which
is very baffling; just when you are arguing from the shrewdness the
crudeness displays itself, and _vice versá_. But, as I said, I _think_
your bill will not be acted upon."
And then they went into luncheon, and, as he ate his lobster-salad and
made himself agreeable beyond measure, Richard wondered, with an inward
tremor, if she could be right.