victoria whirled by. In it sat Constance Maitland, her delicate mauve
draperies enveloping her, a black lace parasol shading her head, and a
filmy white veil over her face. By her side sat a little, withered old
lady in rusty black--one of the flotsam and jetsam of weary old people
who drift to Washington to die. It was one of Constance Maitland’s pet
charities to take these weary old people to drive, and in so doing
to wear her loveliest gowns, her most exquisite hats--a delicate
compliment unfailingly appreciated.
She did not see Thorndyke and the Cranes as they walked out of the
station--but both men saw her. Annette Crane had abundant confirmation
of her hypothesis about Thorndyke. His clear-cut, but rather plain,
features became almost handsome as he watched the passing vision
of the woman he loved. Of far more interest to Annette was Crane’s
countenance. It was full of expression, and he was totally untrained
in controlling it. There was in his eyes a strange and complex look,
which Annette interpreted instantly to mean, “You are the type of woman
I most admire and to whom I most aspire.” It struck her to the heart,
but, unlike Crane, she had acquired an admirable composure which made
her mistress of herself. She was glad, however, that Constance had not
seen her first, after two days of hard travel.
When the Cranes had reached the suburban villa where Crane lived,
a number of letters and despatches were awaiting him. Two or three
men, Hardeman among them, came out that evening to see him. From them
Annette found out the great struggle in which her husband was engaged.
He had scarcely mentioned it to her.
Not a word of inquiry or reproach from her followed. When Crane,
however, alluded to the great fight some days afterward, he was a
little staggered to find that Annette knew as much about it as anybody.
A study of the newspaper files at the National Library had enlightened
her.
Thorndyke did not see Constance for some days after his return; that
is to say, he did not show himself to her. But he resumed his nightly
prowl in her neighbourhood--a practice ridiculous or pathetic according
to the view one takes of an honourable and sensitive man, whose honour
stands between him and the love of his life. He did not dream that
Constance knew of it, but the fact was she had known of it from the
very beginning. It was this knowledge which made her somewhat sad dark
eyes grow bright, which brought out a delicate flush upon her cheeks,
and gave her step the airy spring of her first girlhood. It is the
glorious privilege of love to restore their lost youth to those who
love. Constance knew, by an unerring instinct, that Thorndyke, like
herself, treasured everything of their past--that past, so ethereal,
so innocent, so dreamlike, but to them eternal as the heavens. On
the first evening after Thorndyke’s return, when Constance, from her
balcony, half-hidden in towering palms, caught sight of the flame of
Thorndyke’s cigar as he strolled by in the murky night, she slipped
within the darkened drawing-room. The next moment Thorndyke heard her
playing softly some chords of the old, old songs--nay, even singing a
stanza or two. It filled his heart with a vehement hope that set his
pulses off like wild horses, into an ecstasy which lasted until he
got home to his old-fashioned bachelor quarters. What! Ask Constance
Maitland to give up her beautiful home, her carriages, her French gowns
for _that_! Thorndyke called himself a blankety-blank fool, with an
emphasis that bordered on blasphemy. Next day he was so dull that the
Honourable Mark Antony Hudgins charged him with having been jilted by
a certain tailor-made and Paris-enamelled widow whom Thorndyke paid
considerable attention to and cordially hated. That very afternoon,
though, he had his recompense, for, strolling through the beautiful
but unfashionable Smithsonian grounds, he met Constance Maitland
driving; and in response to a timid request on his part, she took him
in the victoria, and they had a delicious hour to themselves under the
great, overhanging elms and lindens. Few situations are more agreeable
than driving in a victoria with a charming woman on a sunny spring
afternoon through a secluded park. Something like it may be experienced
by sitting in a darkened theatre-box a little behind, and within touch
of a dainty ear, inhaling the odour of the flowers she wears upon her
breast, and watching, with her, the development of the old love-story
on the stage. But all pleasures have their seasons--and in the spring,
the victoria is more enticing than the theatre-box. And Constance was
so very, very kind to him that afternoon!
She showed a truly feminine curiosity about Annette Crane, whom
Thorndyke praised unstintedly, and when he asked Constance to call
on Mrs. Crane, Constance replied that she already intended to do so.
She asked about Crane’s political prospects, which Thorndyke assured
her were of the brightest, adding he had grave apprehensions that
the majority in the lower House would not, after all, make fools of
themselves as he ardently desired they should--which sentiment was
promptly rebuked by Constance, who, womanlike, never could be made to
really understand the game of politics. Then he asked her what she
had been doing in that week. She had been out to a suburban club to
a dinner given by Cathcart, at which information Thorndyke scowled.
Sir Mark le Poer was coming back to town for a few days, expressly,
so Constance believed, to see the Honourable Mark Antony Hudgins, of
Texas. The meeting of the Guild for Superannuated Governesses had taken
place at the house of the Secretary of State, Mrs. Hill-Smith in the
chair, and had been extremely amusing. It had been determined to give
an amateur concert in a fashionable hotel ball-room. This, as always,
had caused many heart-burnings and bickerings. The concert was to be
followed by a tea in the same ball-room. All of the prominent ladies of
the diplomatic corps had been asked to act as patronesses, and all had
agreed, but were not sure they could be present. Some ladies of great
wealth, who were even newer than the Baldwins, came rather aggressively
to the front. Mrs. Hill-Smith, with other scions of old families of
her date--1860--thought that no one whose family was not moderately
old--that is to say about 1870--should be among the directors and
patronesses. They did not speak this aloud, but there was a general
knowledge prevailing of the period when the various ladies had emerged
from having “help” to the stage of having servants--when they had
changed the two-o’clock dinner to the eight-o’clock function. Each of
these ladies knew all about the others, but hugged the delusion that
the others did not know about them, or thought, as Eleanor Baldwin did,
that they had come of a long line of belted earls, the Hogans included.
Mrs. Baldwin, handsomer, haughtier-looking, and more silent than usual,
listened to what was said. Constance Maitland--she alone, who fathomed
the nature of this misunderstood woman--said, in describing it to
Thorndyke, that she believed Mrs. Baldwin realised the nonsense of the
proceedings better than any one present. Constance’s eyes danced when
she told about the way in which her only suggestion was received--that
it would be impossible to find any parallel between the conditions
of governesses in England and the United States. This, however, was
ruthlessly brushed aside by a lady who was determined that her daughter
should sing a duet at the concert with a member of the Austrian Embassy
staff. For the first time Mrs. Baldwin’s voice was heard and in it
quiet advocacy of something sensible. This was when it was determined
to charge a stupendous price for the tickets.
“In that case,” she said, “it seems to me that we ought to have some
real music. It doesn’t seem quite right to charge the price asked to
hear good music, and then give a mere amateur performance.”
“But it is for charity!” screamed several ladies in chorus.
Then Constance, still with dancing eyes, told that great stress had
been laid upon the alleged opinions of various ladies of the diplomatic
corps, who had carefully refrained from expressing any opinions at all
and were not present to take care of themselves; and Constance had
landed a second bombshell in the camp by pleading ignorance of many
admirable things, owing to her ill-fortune in being educated chiefly in
Europe. This remark necessitated an immediate departure, in which she
was followed by Mrs. Baldwin. The two going out together, Mrs. Baldwin
had said diffidently to Constance:
“Miss Maitland--I--I think you are right in all you have said to-day.
I hope you’ll come to see me soon. I don’t seem to be afraid of
you--you’re genuine. You’re never pretending to anything. Good-bye.”
Mrs. Baldwin had not the gift of tongues, but, as Constance said, a
compliment from Mrs. Baldwin was of value, no matter how awkwardly it
was expressed.
A few afternoons later, Constance drove out to the Cranes’ suburban
villa, but Mrs. Crane was not at home. Constance was disappointed--her
curiosity to see Crane’s wife was unabated. Ten days afterward, on
a warm afternoon, Constance sat in her cool drawing-room, fresh in
its summer dress of linen covers, bead portières, and shaded by
awnings, waiting for her carriage. Mrs. Crane was announced. The first
impression which Constance got of Annette Crane was that she was
exquisitely dressed. Her gown was a delicate, pale-blue muslin, her
hat, a white straw, trimmed with white ribbons. Both gown and hat
were of her own creation, and the whole outfit had cost less than ten
dollars--but not the greatest man-milliner in Paris ever turned out
anything more becoming to Annette’s simple and natural beauty than she
herself had evolved from the “Emporium” at Circleville. The daintiness
and freshness of it was charming; and when, in moving, she accidentally
displayed a snowy, lace-edged petticoat, this daintiness and freshness
was emphasised.
Never in her life had Annette looked forward to a visit with the same
dislike as this one. Crane had at last spoken of Constance Maitland,
saying he meant to ask her to call. He was very guarded in all he said,
but Annette, as would any intelligent wife, saw that he was on his
guard, and that, in itself, told much. She said nothing; she was far
above the spites of petty jealousy. She no longer depreciated herself
in general, but she had been a little frightened by Thorndyke’s praises
of Constance Maitland’s intelligence and charm. And Annette had, by
clairvoyance, come very near to Crane’s real feeling for Constance. It
was not love--she had begun miserably to doubt whether he were really
capable of love--but it was a degree of admiration which could not
be agreeable to any wife, because it was plain that Constance was the
standard by which Crane measured women. Constance could at any moment
influence Crane; so Annette justly surmised. No woman of sense objects
to her husband’s simple admiration of another woman, but when it comes
to another woman being a factor in his life and his thoughts, a wife
must and should resent it.
So it was that Annette disliked the visit she had to pay, and yet was
careful not to postpone it. But by some magic of thought and feeling,
the instant she came face to face with Constance Maitland, Annette
Crane knew she had a friend. In a moment she was at ease. Like a woman
of the world in the best sense, Constance at once found something in
common to talk about, and the two sat, in the friendliest conversation
possible, each singularly pleased with the other.
Seeing Constance dressed to go out, and the victoria standing at the
door, Annette, after paying a short visit, rose to go, and with more
reluctance than she had thought possible.
“If you are returning home, perhaps you will allow me to drive you
out,” said Constance, affably, and Annette accepted without any demurs.
Seated together in the carriage, the conversation between the two
turned on Thorndyke. Annette expressed frankly the deep regard she
had for him, and described her efforts to keep the children from
annoying him, while Thorndyke, from simple tolerance of them at first,
had become an accomplished child-spoiler and destroyer of parental
discipline. Constance spoke of Thorndyke as frankly and without the
least embarrassment, but Annette, who had surmised very readily where
Constance stood in the regard of two men, one of them her own husband,
had little difficulty in settling to her own satisfaction that Miss
Maitland had a particular regard for Mr. Thorndyke.
After driving for three-quarters of an hour along a suburban road, they
came to the cottage where the Cranes had established their quarters. It
was near six o’clock, and Crane had returned early from the Capitol.
He was sitting on the veranda reading to Roger and Elizabeth when
Constance Maitland’s carriage drove up.
Since the meeting with his children and noting their perfectly
respectful, but perfectly evident, indifference toward him, Crane had
received a blow where he least expected it. He was surprised at the
degree to which it affected him. Their laughing eyes, suddenly growing
demure on his approach, haunted him amid the hurly-burly of debate,
and in long conferences on his political future. Impelled by all the
natural impulses, Crane determined to try and win his children’s
hearts; and as a beginning, he had come home early from the House that
day, bringing with him a book to read to them. The reading had been a
success, and in the midst of it Crane looked up and saw the victoria
approaching with his wife and Constance Maitland in it. He rose at
once and walked down the shady path to where the carriage stood. The
children, hand in hand, followed after, blowing kisses to their mother.
Crane was so possessed with the idea that Annette, as a native of
Circleville, must be far inferior to Constance, that he had a shock of
surprise when he saw the two women actually compared, and realised that
Annette was by no means cast into the shade. Constance was conscious of
this, but good-naturedly wished Annette to have the benefit of it.
Crane talked pleasantly with Constance for a few minutes, Annette still
sitting in the carriage. He was certainly remarkably handsome, as the
declining sun shone on his clear-cut, olive face, with the little rings
of dark-brown hair showing on his forehead. Constance thought the
Cranes the handsomest couple she had seen for a long time. The children
were introduced, behaved well, as American, and especially Western,
children seldom do--and then Constance said to Annette:
“I shall soon be closing my house for the season, but before doing so,
I hope to have you and Mr. Crane to dinner with me some evening.”
“We will come with pleasure,” replied Annette; and a date was arranged
for the following week.
Constance returned to town, thinking to herself what a fool Crane must
be not to be satisfied with such a wife as Annette.
_Chapter Nine_
CONCERNING THINGS NOT TO BE MENTIONED IN THE SOCIETY JOURNALS
The days went rapidly by for Crane, to whom they were full of events.
The House committed fewer follies than might have been expected, and
the management of the international crisis had put the country into
a thoroughly good humour with both the House and the Administration.
Crane gained steadily in consequence among the politicians, and it was
with difficulty he kept his head; but he kept it.
He did not relax his efforts to win his children’s hearts, and in the
effort he began to feel a strange jealousy of Thorndyke, who had won
them without any effort at all. Thorndyke had not only taken Roger
and Elizabeth to the Zoo on the first Sunday, but on the next he had
appeared, looking extremely sheepish, and had requested the pleasure
of their company to the Zoo again. The children were in paroxysms of
delight, and Annette laughed outright at Thorndyke, particularly when
he admitted that he had declined an invitation to a breakfast at the
Brentwood Baldwins on the ground of a previous engagement in order
to carry out this little trip to the Zoo. The trio went off together
in great spirits, and Crane and Annette were left alone. Through all
the laughing and joking with the children, Crane had sat silent and
sombre--they had not yet laughed and joked with him. Suddenly, he
proposed a walk to Annette. It was so long since such a thing had
occurred that he was embarrassed in giving the invitation, and she in
accepting it; but they walked together along the country lanes in the
quiet Sunday noon, and a shadow of the old confidence was restored
between them. But Crane was still fully convinced that Annette was
not cut out for the wife of a public man, and could not shine in
cosmopolitan society. He was soon to have an opportunity to judge of
her in this last particular.
Constance Maitland had set her mind to work upon that difficult and
interesting problem--the composition of a small dinner. More than
that, she meant it to be one at which Annette would be at her best.
The materials to form a good dinner abound in Washington, and Constance
Maitland knew it. As the smart set in Washington is composed largely
of persons who have made large fortunes in trade, and who have come
to Washington to enjoy these fortunes, Constance knew that from this
particular element she could not well draw the material for a really
sparkling dinner. The people in Europe know something after all,
and their dictum that an elegant and brilliant society cannot be
constructed out of retired merchants has not yet been disproved. Let
us be candid to ourselves. But in Washington the materials for a real
society exist outside of this element, and Constance Maitland had been
lucky enough to find it. Sir Mark le Poer was in town again, which
Constance reckoned as a special Providence. Like all Englishmen of
good position, Sir Mark was bored within an inch of his life by the
Anglo-American girl, who is an easily detected imitation. Constance,
having been a friend of Sir Mark’s for many years, and knowing him like
a book, spared him this infliction. She selected in the construction
of the party Mrs. Willoughby, an accomplished Washington woman, whose
family had social antecedents dating back to the days of Abigail
Adams. Mrs. Willoughby had been a distinguished hostess for twenty
years, until the influx of pork, whiskey, dry-goods, and the like
commodities had overwhelmed everything to the manner born. She took it
all good-naturedly, and got a great deal of amusement out of the status
quo. Then there was Mary Beekman, of New York, young, charming, and
rich, whose parents had owned a box at the New York Academy of Music,
but who were conspicuously out of it with the Metropolitan Opera set.
As Mrs. Willoughby remarked, when Constance mentioned the party she had
made up:
“What a very interesting collection of has-beens you have got together,
my dear.”
For the men, besides Crane and Sir Mark le Poer, Constance had secured
Thorndyke, an admirable dinner-man, and a courtly old Admiral--for she
was quite unlike the widow of a prominent shoe-dealer, who emigrated
to Washington and became violently fashionable, and who declared that
on her visiting list she “drew the line at the army and navy.” On the
evening of the dinner there was to be a belated reception at the White
House, in honour of an international commission which had just opened
its sittings in Washington, and it was arranged that the dinner should
be somewhat early, that the whole party, being invited to the White
House, might adjourn there.
The rest of the guests were assembled in Constance’s drawing-room
before the Cranes arrived. Crane himself always looked superbly
handsome in evening-clothes, and Annette’s appearance was scarcely
inferior in another way. As on her first meeting with Constance,
Annette gave the impression of being exquisitely gowned. A simple white
crêpe, cut low, showed off her beautiful arms and shoulders, and a few
moss rosebuds in their green leaves gave the needed touch of colour
to her costume. Simplicity is always the last form of elegance to be
attained, and Annette Crane had attained it.
Constance Maitland, too, was at her best, in a shimmering black gown,
like a starry night, and with her grandmother’s pearl necklace around
her white throat. Mrs. Willoughby, with resplendent black eyes and
snow-white hair, looked like one of Sir Peter Lely’s court of beauties,
and Mary Beekman was pretty enough to shine anywhere.
When they were seated around the table the men secretly congratulated
themselves on the looks of the women with whom they were to dine;
and Thorndyke voiced this opinion by quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes’s
suggestion that peas and potatoes could be warmed into an early
fruition by surrounding them with a ring of handsome women--such as
were then present--which caused the ladies all to beam on him.
Annette, seated between the Admiral and Sir Mark le Poer, with
Thorndyke’s kind eyes across the table to encourage her, and with
Constance Maitland’s fine gift as a hostess to sustain her, felt
perfectly at ease. Such was not the case with Crane himself. It was
the first time he had ever dined at Constance Maitland’s house, and he
yearned to distinguish himself. He wished the conversation would turn
on public affairs; he felt he could easily lay them all under a spell
then, forgetting that people don’t go out to dinner to be spellbound,
but to enjoy an idle hour, and to exchange those pleasant freedoms and
trifles which make up the sum of recreation.
The Admiral, a white-moustached, charming old man, who had hobnobbed
with princes, and was none the worse for it, began to compliment
Annette on her gown, after having previously called her “my dear.”
“Really,” he said, “that gown is a most stunning creation.”
Thorndyke chimed in here:
“Yes,” he said. “It makes Mrs. Crane look like a white narcissus
blooming in a bed of mignonette.”
No woman is ever disconcerted by compliments, and Annette was charmed
at the praises lavished on her--and particularly in Crane’s presence.
“I should say,” remarked Sir Mark le Poer, “with my feeble powers of
comparison, that Mrs. Crane’s gown reminds me of some of your delicious
American dishes, not all sauces and flavourings like our European
things, but fresh and new and exquisite. I know I have a grovelling
nature, but, ’pon my soul, is there anything more charming than a dish
of delicate soft crabs on a bed of parsley----”
“Oh, oh!” cried Constance. “How your soul must grovel! However, it’s
the highest compliment Sir Mark can pay you, Mrs. Crane, because I know
he has an unholy passion for soft crabs.”
“I will pay you the highest compliment of all,” said Mrs. Willoughby,
“I will ask you, who is your dressmaker?”
“I made this gown myself,” answered Annette, with a pretty smile.
Crane thought he should have gone through the floor into the cellar. He
had never in his life felt such a rage of shame. There was Constance
Maitland in a gown that shouted out its French nationality in every
line and fold. Mrs. Willoughby and Miss Beekman wore the smartest of
smart creations--probably not one of them had ever done a stitch of
sewing in their lives, while here was Annette announcing that she made
her own gown! The next thing he expected her to proclaim was that she
had just completed six suits of pajamas for him, all made with her own
hands and feet, on her own sewing-machine at Circleville.
Three persons at the table--Thorndyke, Constance, and Annette
herself--saw how annoyed Crane was at what he regarded as a very
damaging admission. Annette, however, was quite composed. She saw that
instead of making a mistake she had really made a hit, for she was
more complimented than ever upon her cleverness in making so beautiful
a gown. In truth, the sweet and natural way in which she owned to her
handiwork completed the charm of her simple and unaffected personality.
Mrs. Willoughby, turning despairingly to the other women, said:
“We are simply outclassed. Every man here thinks that all of us, like
Mrs. Crane, could make our own gowns if only we were clever enough.”
“I have always thought,” said Thorndyke, smiling, “that Napoleon’s idea
of the education of women was probably right--a plenty of religion and
needle-work. However, as I may get myself in trouble, I will say no
more.”