for the fire-lighted and flower-scented drawing-room, into which the
young negro butler ushered Thorndyke. The walls were of the delicate
pale green of the sea, the rug on the polished floor was of the green
of the moss. A wood fire danced and sang in a white-tiled fireplace,
and laughed at its reflection in the quaint mirrors about the room, and
glowed upon family portraits and miniatures on the walls. There were
many old-fashioned chairs and tables, and a deep, deep sofa drawn up to
the fire. By its side was a tea-table gleaming with antique silver.
Like most men, Thorndyke was highly susceptible to the environment of
women without being in the least able to analyse the feeling. It takes
a woman to dissect an emotion thoroughly. He became at once conscious
that this quaint, pretty, sparkling drawing-room was a home, and that
what was in it had no connection whatever with shops for antiques and
art-sale catalogues. He had often noticed with dislike the spurious
antiquity of many modern drawing-rooms, which are really museums, and
represent the desire of the new for the old. But Constance Maitland had
inherited the furnishings which made her drawing-room beautiful and
distinctive, and in process of use, especially by one family, chairs
and tables and tea-kettles acquire a semi-humanity which creates that
subtle and enduring thing called atmosphere. The portraits on the walls
gave an inhabited look to the room--it was never without company.
While Thorndyke was considering the curious fact that all the mere
money in the world could not create a drawing-room like Constance
Maitland’s, she herself entered the room with her slow, graceful step.
She wore a gown of a delicate gray colour, which trailed upon the
floor, and at her breast was a knot of pale yellow cowslips. A bowl of
the same old-fashioned flowers was on the tea-table.
Thorndyke had never been able to contemplate without agitation a
meeting with Constance Maitland. But, as on the two previous occasions,
so soon as he came face to face with her, nothing seemed easier,
sweeter, more natural than that they should meet. He placed a chair
for her, and they exchanged smilingly the commonplaces of meeting and
greeting. At once Thorndyke felt that delicious sense of comfort,
security, and well-being which some women can impart so exquisitely
in their own homes. The quiet, fire-lighted room seemed a paradise of
peace and rest, which was accentuated by the northeast storm without.
The surety that he would have the room, the fire, the sweet company of
Constance Maitland to himself made Thorndyke feel almost as if he had
a place there. And Constance, by not taking too much notice of him,
increased the dear illusion. She got into a spirited discussion with
the negro butler, who rejoiced in the good old-time name of Scipio, to
which Constance had added Africanus. Scipio had his notions of how tea
should be made, which were at variance with his mistress’s. After the
manner of his race, he proceeded to argue the point. Constance entered
with spirit into the controversy, and only settled it by informing
Scipio that where tea was concerned he was, and always would be, an
idiot, at which Scipio grinned in a superior manner. Thorndyke thought
Scipio in the right, and said so, as he drank a very good cup of tea
brewed by Constance.
“But I can never let Scipio believe for a moment that I am in the wrong
about anything,” replied Constance, with pensive determination. “You
dear, good Northern people never can be made to understand that with a
negro everything depends on the personal equation. He is not, and never
can be made, a human machine. He is a personality, and his usefulness
depends entirely on the recognition of that personality.”
“The commonly accepted idea of a servant is a human machine,” said
Thorndyke, willing to champion Scipio’s cause for the purpose of
having Constance Maitland’s soft eyes glow and sweet voice quicken in
discussion. In the old days at Como they had many hot wrangles over the
North and the South.
“Ah, if you had been served by human machines for eighteen years, as
I was, you would understand how I longed to see an honest, laughing
black face once more. My negro servants do much toward making this
house a home for me. You would laugh at the way we get on together.
When I am in an ill humour they must bear the brunt of it. I am a
terrible scold when I am cross. But when the servants are lazy and
neglectful, then I bear with them like an angel, and so we hit it off
comfortably together. Even Scipio Africanus, who is altogether idle
and irresponsible, becomes a hero when I am ill and a gentleman when I
am angry.”
“Another cup of tea, please.”
“Already? You will become a tea-drinker like Doctor Johnson. However,
my tea is so good that you are excused.”
The conversation went on fitfully, but to Thorndyke delightfully.
Like all women who truly know the world, Constance had a charming and
real simplicity about her. She made no effort to entertain him. She
talked to him and he replied or was silent according to his mood. Every
moment increased Thorndyke’s sense of exquisite comfort and quiet
enjoyment. He had reached the inevitable stage of life when amusements
are no longer warranted to amuse; when only a few things remained,
such as certain books and certain conversations, which were a surety
of pleasure. Nor had it been much in his way to enjoy those simple
pleasures which are found only in quiet and seclusion. It was as much a
feeling of gratitude as of enjoyment which made him say to Constance:
“I did not think there remained for me such an hour of rest and
refreshment as you have given me.”
Constance turned toward him, her eyes pensive but not sad. There was
something soothing in her very presence. She had known and suffered
much, and had led a life far from quiet, and now, in her maturity,
she had reached, it seemed to her, a haven of peace and quiet. She
had acquired a knowledge worth almost as much as youth itself--the
knowledge that never again could she suffer as she had once suffered.
And the meeting with Thorndyke had confirmed her in a belief which
had been her chief solace under the sorrows of her life of exile and
disappointment. She knew he loved her well. For some years of her
youth she had been haunted by the thought, cruel to her pride, that
Thorndyke, after all, had been only playing at love. But as time went
on, and she knew herself and others better, she had become convinced
that Thorndyke had truly loved her, and his leaving her was only what
any other man of honour, burdened with poverty, would have done. And he
had remembered and suffered, too. As this thought came into her mind
Thorndyke made some little remark that referred vaguely to their past,
something about a song from one of the Italian operas, those simple
love-stories told in lyrics which she had often sung in the old days. A
blush swept over Constance’s cheek, and after a little pause of silence
and hesitation she went to the piano and sang the quaint old song.
She had a pleasing, although not a brilliant, voice, and her singing
was full of sweetness and feeling, the only kind of singing which the
normal man really understands.
When she returned to her chair Thorndyke leaned toward her with
eyes which told her he loved her, although he did not utter a word.
Constance, in turn, resting her rounded chin on her hand, leaned toward
him with a heavenly smile upon her face--the smile a woman only bestows
on the man she loves. Even if he could never speak his love she was
conscious of it, and that was enough for her woman’s heart. Under the
spell of her eyes and smile Thorndyke felt himself losing his head--how
could he refrain from touching the soft white hand which hung so
temptingly near him!
“Mr. Crane,” announced Scipio Africanus, and Julian Crane walked in.
Every man receives a shock when he finds he has interrupted a
tête-à-tête, and Crane’s shock was augmented by finding that Thorndyke
was the victim in the present case. Thorndyke had not said a word about
going to see Miss Maitland, and Crane had meant to do a magnanimous
thing by taking him there! And while outside the door he had heard
Constance singing to the piano. She had never mentioned to him that she
had such an accomplishment.
Thorndyke behaved as men usually do under the circumstances. He spoke
to Crane curtly, assumed an injured air, and took his leave promptly,
as much as to say:
“It is impossible for me to stand this man a moment.”
Constance, womanlike, showed perfect composure and politeness, bade
Thorndyke good-bye with a smile, and then, by an effort, brought
herself to the contemplation of Julian Crane. She saw then that he
was very pale, and the hand which he rested on the back of a chair
was trembling. The first idea which occurred to her was that Crane
had heard bad news; but she could not understand why he should come
to her under the circumstances. Perhaps it was only nervousness, the
relaxation after great tension. With this in mind, she said pleasantly,
as they seated themselves:
“So you waked this morning and found yourself famous.”
“My speech appears to have been well received by the country,” replied
Crane, in a strained voice, after a pause.
“It is a pity Mrs. Crane was not present to enjoy your triumph,” she
said.
“Mrs. Crane does not care for politics,” replied Crane, still in a
strange voice.
“I cannot say that I am especially interested in politics,” replied
Constance, “but I am interested in contemporary history of all sorts.”
“And interested in your friends, Miss Maitland, when they are in public
life.”
“Extremely. I was at the House yesterday to hear you speak, and read
your speech over again this morning in the Congressional Record.”
“Which, no doubt, you received through Thorndyke,” Crane answered,
pointedly, after a moment.
Constance felt an inclination, as she often did, to get up and
leave the room when Crane was talking with her. He had no reserves
or restraints, and said just what was in his mind--a dangerous and
alarming practice. She controlled herself, however, and looked closer
at Crane. He was evidently deeply agitated, and Constance forbore the
rebuke that she was ready to speak. Like a true woman, to feel sorry
for a man was to forgive him everything. Suddenly Crane burst out:
“Have you heard the news? Senator Brand--our junior Senator--was run
over by a train at Baltimore this morning, and died within an hour.”
There is a way of announcing a death which shows that the speaker is
contemplating the dead man’s shoes with particular interest. Without
fully taking in what it meant to Crane and what he wished to convey,
Constance at once saw that in Senator Brand’s death lay some possible
great good for Crane. She remained silent a minute or two, her mind
involuntarily reconstructing the horror and pity of the dead man’s
taking off.
Crane rose and walked up and down the room, his face working.
“I have committed a great, a stupendous folly,” he said. “At the very
outset of my real career I may have ruined it. I couldn’t describe to
you what I have suffered this day--yet no one has suspected it. I felt
the necessity for sympathy, the necessity to tell my story to some one,
and I came to you. I know I have no right to do it--but it seems to me,
Constance, that ever since the day I first saw you, you have had some
strange power of sustaining and comforting me.”
As Crane spoke her name, Constance involuntarily rose and assumed an
air of offended dignity. But Crane’s distress was so real, his offence
so unconscious, that her indignation could not hold against him.
Without noticing her offended silence he came and sat down heavily in
the chair that Thorndyke had just vacated.
“You know,” he said, “in cases like this of Senator Brand’s death,
the Governor appoints a senator until the Legislature meets and can
elect, which will not be until the first of next January. Just as I
had heard the news about poor Brand at my hotel I ran into Sanders,
our Governor. I didn’t know he was in Washington. Sanders is a
brute--always thinking of himself first. He button-holed me, took me
into his bedroom, locked the door, and closed the transom. There were
three other men present--all of whom I would not wish to offend. One of
them has indorsed two unpaid notes for me. Sanders told me he had been
looking for me, and with these other fellows--practical politicians
every one of them--had already formulated a plan of campaign. The
Governor would appoint me to fill the vacancy until the Legislature
met in January and elected a senator for the short term, provided I
would give him a clear track then. In further recompense, he agreed
to support me for the long term--the election is only two years off.
Sanders has had the senatorial bee in his bonnet for a long time, but
the State organisation is not over-kindly to him, and Senator Bicknell
is a little bit afraid of him, and naturally wouldn’t encourage his
aspirations. And do you know, after an hour’s talk I allowed Sanders
and those three fellows to wheedle me into that arrangement--and, of
course, I can’t, in two years, supplant Senator Bicknell. Sanders is
a long-headed rascal, and he knew very well that I was under money
obligations to those men, and among them, aided and abetted by my own
folly, I was buncoed--yes, regularly buncoed.”
The rage and shame that possessed him seemed to overpower Crane for a
moment, and he covered his face with his hands. Then he dashed them
down and continued:
“Of course I could have made a good showing in the race in January,
and after my success of yesterday I believe I could have won. Senator
Bicknell is not by any means the czar in the State which he would wish
people to believe. But because Sanders dangled before my eyes the
bauble of the appointment to the Senate--a present mess of pottage--and
because I owed money I could not pay, I gave up the finest prospect of
success any man of my age has had for forty years!”
Crane struck the arm of his chair with his clinched fist. His furious
and sombre eyes showed the agony of his disappointment.
“As soon as it was done I knew my folly, and since then I have been
almost like a madman. I went to my room to recover myself before going
to the Capitol, and managed not to betray myself while I was there.
But I couldn’t stand the strain until adjournment; I had to come to
you.”
Constance sat looking at him; pity, annoyance, and a kind of disgust
struggled within her. This, then, was politics. Accomplished woman
of the world that she was, this natural and untutored man thoroughly
disconcerted her. If only she had not felt such pity for him! And while
she was contemplating the spectacle of these elemental passions of
hatred, disappointment, revenge, and self-seeking, Crane’s eyes, fixed
on her, lost some of their fury, and became more melancholy than angry,
and he continued, as if thinking aloud:
“Suddenly I felt the desire to see you. You would know how insane was
my folly, but you would not despise me for it. That’s the greatest
power in the world a woman has over a man: when he can show her all
his heart, and she will pity him without scorn or contempt. Ah, if
Fate had given me a wife like you, I could have reached the heights of
greatness!”
At those words Constance Maitland moved a little closer to him so that
she could bring him under the full effect of her large, clear gaze.
“I think,” she said, in a cool, soft voice, with a rebuke in it,
but without contempt, “that you are forgetting yourself strangely. I
have often noticed in you a want of reticence. You should begin now
to cultivate reticence. What you have just said has in it something
insulting to me as well as to your wife--a person you seem to have
forgotten. As for the political arrangement which you regret so
much, I can only say that it seems to me to have been cold-blooded
and unfeeling on both sides to a remarkable degree. You have spoken
plainly; I speak plainly.”
Constance leaned back quietly in her chair to watch the effect of what
she had said. She felt then a hundred years older than Crane, who
was older than she, and who knew both law and politics well, but was
a child in the science of knowing the world and the people in it--a
science in which Constance Maitland excelled. But even her rebuke had
a fascination for him. No other woman had ever rebuked him--his wife
least of all.
“Do you complain of me,” he said, “for telling you my weaknesses, my
misfortunes? Don’t you see that what you have just told me is proof of
all I have said? You see my faults, you tell me of them, you inspire
me with a desire to correct them. No other woman ever did so much for
me. Is it forbidden to any one to utter a regret?”
“Very often it is forbidden,” replied Constance, promptly. “Unavailing
regrets are among the most undignified things on earth. Is it possible
that you have lived past your fortieth birthday without getting rid
of that school-boy idea that our environment makes us--that a man
is made by his wife, or by any other human agent except himself? So
long as self-love is the master passion, so long will we heed our own
persuasions more than any one else’s.”
“I hardly think you understand how things are with me,” replied Crane,
his eyes again growing sombre. “Yesterday was an epoch-making day with
me. To-day, the first of the new epoch, I make a hideous mistake. It
unmans me; it unnerves me. Not often do two such catastrophes befall
a man together. I follow an impulse and come to you and you are angry
with me. Bah! How narrow and conventional are women, after all!
Nevertheless,” he kept on, rising to his feet and suddenly throwing
aside his dejection, “no man ever yet rose to greatness without making
vast mistakes and retrieving them. This moment the way of retrieving
my mistake has come to me. I will go to Sanders--no, I will write and
keep a certified copy of the letter--saying that I shall withdraw from
my engagements with him. I will refuse to accept the appointment as
Senator and will contest the election with him before the Legislature.
But--but--if only the man who indorsed my notes hadn’t been in the
combine!”
As suddenly as he had rallied, Crane again sank into dejection.
“You don’t know what it is to want money desperately--desperately, I
say,” he added.
“N-no,” replied Constance, slowly. “I think I know the want of
everything else almost which is necessary to happiness--except only the
want of money.”
“Then you have escaped hell itself, Miss Maitland. This American
Government, which you think so impeccable, is the most niggardly on the
face of the globe. With untold wealth, it pays the men who conduct its
affairs a miserable pittance--a bare living. How can a man give his
whole mind to great governmental and economic problems when nine out
of ten public men owe more than they can pay? I owe more than I can
pay, and I owe, besides, a host of obligations of all sorts which the
borrower of money, especially if he is a public man, cannot escape.”
Constance, at this, felt more real pity and sympathy for Crane than
she had yet felt. Women being in the main intensely practical, and
in their own singular way more material than men, the want of money
always appeals to them. And Constance had an income much greater than
her wants--that is, unless she happened to want an American husband.
Every other luxury was within her reach. This idea occurred to her
grotesquely enough at the moment. She said, after a moment’s pause:
“It seems to me that to make your disentanglement complete, you
should, if possible, pay your debt to the man that you say helped to
wheedle you into the arrangement. You might easily borrow the money;
it is probably not a large sum. If--if--perhaps Mr. Thorndyke--might
arrange----”
Crane instantly divined the generous thought in Constance Maitland’s
heart.
“No,” he said. “I know what you would do--through Thorndyke. But it
is not to be thought of. With all my shortcomings, I can’t think of
borrowing money from a woman. But your suggestion is admirable--the
payment of the money is necessary. It is not much.”
Crane named something under a thousand dollars--and then fell silent.
“Mr. Crane,” said Constance, after a while, “what advice do you think
your wife would give you as to that money?”
Crane smiled a little.
“Annette is a regular Spartan when it comes to practical matters. She
would advise me to give up my rooms at the expensive hotel and go into
the country near-by for the balance of the session.”
“Could any advice be more judicious?” asked Constance. “And is it any
disadvantage to a public man, who is known to be a poor man, to live
plainly?”
“By Heaven!” exclaimed Crane. “You are right! It would show those
fellows in the Legislature next January that I have clean hands. What
an admirable suggestion! And I can save at least enough to pay half
what I owe on that note before the end of the session!”
“You forget,” said Constance, gently, “that the suggestion really is
your wife’s. Perhaps, if you had listened to her oftener, you would
have found life easier. You are, perhaps, like many another man--he
marries a pretty little thing, and she remains to him a pretty little
thing. Meanwhile, she may have developed a capacity for affairs far
superior to his.”
Crane did not like the hint that perhaps Annette’s head for affairs was
better than his, but he had heard several home-truths that afternoon.
He rose to go, and his changed aspect confirmed his words when he said
earnestly to Constance:
“I came in here with shame and despair in my heart. I go away
enlightened and encouraged and comforted beyond words. You will at
least let me say that it is to you I owe it.”
“Good-bye,” replied Constance, cheerfully.
The feeling that another woman’s husband or lover can be enlightened,
encouraged, and comforted by her is a very awkward circumstance to a
woman of sense.
_Chapter Six_
DEVILS AND ANGELS FIGHT FOR THE SOULS OF MEN
Crane went back to his rooms, wrote his letter to Governor Sanders, and
awaited developments.
Nothing happened for more than a week concerning the senatorship.
Meanwhile, he gave up his expensive rooms, and with the assistance of a
note-broker managed to borrow enough money from Peter to pay Paul and
to relieve himself from present obligations to one of the gentlemen who
had so urgently invited him to commit political hari-kari. He secured
quiet quarters in one of the suburbs of Washington and found that he
was quite as comfortable as he had been at his high-priced hotel, at
about one-fourth the cost.
The May days that followed were cool and bright and soft, as May
days in Washington often are. The called session of Congress and the
necessary presence of so many officials and diplomats made the gay
town gayer than usual. The whole country was in a mood of exhilaration
and self-gratulation, which was vividly reflected at Washington.
There could be no doubt that Crane’s success was real and substantial,
and that he was already a person to be reckoned with.
Crane hugged himself with satisfaction when he reflected on his escape
from being interned in the Senate, forced to remain quiescent during
the time that he should have been most active, and finally enter the
senatorial contest, two years ahead, with a reputation which would
probably have dwindled as rapidly as it had developed. Instead of that
he was in the centre of movement and interest, and even if he could
not make a serious effort before the Legislature in January, he was
in a good strategic position for the senatorial election two years in
advance--and a great deal may happen in two years.