Thorndyke. “You will have to excuse my afternoon clothes, of course,
since you have asked me to stay.”
“Certainly. And out of consideration for your feelings, I shall make
only a demi-toilette.”
Presently they were seated at a small round table, and Scipio was
serving a dainty little dinner. How young they felt! There was no
débutante or fledgling youth present to remind them that Time had
meddled with their hair and complexions, no elderly persons to
claim them as pertaining to middle age. Thorndyke had rarely been
more exhilarated in his life. There might be a morrow; nothing was
changed by these stray hours of happiness, but still they were hours
of happiness. As for Constance, she was radiant with pleasure, and
was at no pains to conceal it. Thorndyke, it is true, always found
misery and disappointment waiting for him at his lodgings whenever he
returned from Constance’s house; but they could not frighten off those
occasional sweet hours which bloomed like snowdrops in a barren and
frosted field.
One of the first visits that Constance paid was to Annette Crane.
As Thorndyke had seen anxiety written all over Crane’s personality,
so Constance saw that Annette was not wholly at ease. But she was
unaffectedly glad to see Constance, and soon returned the visit. Crane
did not accompany her. He was beginning to feel a species of resentment
toward Constance. Why, although he had told her of the comforting and
sustaining power she had for him, had she chosen to treat him exactly
as she treated all other men, except the few whom she chose to favour
outrageously? Why, when she showed him any consideration, was Annette
the obvious cause? Self-love was beginning to do for Crane what
conscience had failed to do--emancipate him from his admiration for a
woman other than his wife.
A day or two after reaching Washington, Crane had left a card for
Senator Bicknell. When Senator Bicknell returned the visit, Crane,
luckily, was not at home, and the Senator paid his call on Annette and
enjoyed it very much. He had said to her at leaving:
“Remember, Mrs. Crane, you promised to dine with me many times in
Washington, so that I may repeat, as far as possible, that pleasant day
at Circleville.”
“I am prepared to fulfil my promise,” replied Annette, smiling, “but I
hope you will give me a better dinner than I gave you.”
“More kickshaws, perhaps, but nothing better. My dear lady, you must
remember the difference between a _gourmand_ and a _gourmet_. One,
the _gourmand_, is a crude product, and would prefer _my_ cook. The
_gourmet_, who is a critic by profession, would certainly prefer yours.”
It was arranged that Annette and Crane should dine with the Senator to
meet a large party the next week. If Crane should be found to have an
engagement, Annette was to notify the Senator.
But he had made none. When he returned from the House that, evening, at
six o’clock, Annette told him of the Senator’s visit and invitation,
and, as ever since the summer, as soon as Senator Bicknell’s name was
mentioned, a look of guilt and shame came upon Crane’s expressive and
mobile face. There was, however, no ground for declining, and, besides,
had he not agreed to keep on the best possible terms with Senator
Bicknell until--until the time came to betray him? And as he would be
obliged to meet Senator Bicknell socially many times in the two years
he would be plotting against him, Crane had no object in avoiding him
now; but in meeting him, Crane had the grace to suffer pain.
On the night of the dinner, Annette, arrayed in her white crêpe,
was among the prettiest women present. It was a very large dinner,
extremely magnificent, and made up of important persons, but Annette
Crane was by no means unobserved or unadmired. Crane was forced to see
that. She was placed near to Senator Bicknell, and he paid her a degree
of kind attention which would have been flattering to any woman.
When the dinner was over, and the gentlemen were about joining the
ladies in the superb Louis Seize drawing-room, Senator Bicknell
whispered to Crane as they passed from the Louis Quatorze dining-room,
“Remain half an hour after the others leave.”
Crane started--had the Senator heard anything? He reassured himself by
remembering that the Senator would not attack him, an invited guest,
and in the presence of his wife. But the thought of a private interview
with Senator Bicknell on any subject was disquieting to Crane.
When the last carriage had driven off, and only Crane and Annette
remained, Senator Bicknell said:
“Come into my den; and, as I propose to take Mrs. Crane into my
confidence, on account of the extraordinary political capacity she
manifested at my visit to Circleville, I shall ask her to let us smoke
while I unfold a scheme to you.”
The den was a small, luxurious room, in the Louis Quinze style, and fit
to harbour Madame Pompadour herself. It was shaded by opalescent lamps,
Turkish rugs covered the parquet floor, and pictures and bric-à-brac
worthy of a palace were to be found there. Some people thought that the
Senator’s den was one of the causes of the weakening of his political
power. Many rural legislators reckoned his “fixin’s” as wicked, and
were only reconciled by hearing of the prices paid by the Senator for
Percheron horses and Jersey heifers. The Senator did not care a rap
for either Percherons or Jerseys, and scarcely knew a Percheron horse
from a Jersey cow, but it was a concession to the rural statesmen, and
he wisely reckoned these bucolic luxuries in his political expenses.
Seated before a fire of aromatic wood, Senator Bicknell, offering a
choice cigar to Crane, and taking one himself, began to unfold his
scheme. Annette, her white gown brought into high relief by a ruby lamp
swinging overhead, sat silent and listened. She did not, apparently,
watch her husband’s face, but she knew every expression which passed
over it, and could have interpreted it, as well as every tone of his
voice.
“To come to the point,” said the Senator, blandly, “I am one of a
number of gentlemen interested in a deal of about two million acres
of land in Texas. We have had an offer to sell our holdings and we
have determined to accept. Part of the purchase-money is to be paid in
cash, and there is also a transfer of property contemplated for about
a million of dollars. Our attorneys are in Chicago, but meanwhile we
want a man to go down to Texas once in a while and see how things are
coming on, and attend to some matters of detail which I will state
later on. The whole matter will hardly be settled under a year. We
propose to pay a fee of ten thousand dollars and a small commission. I
should say there was something like twenty thousand dollars in it for
the right man. Several, of course, have been suggested, but you know,
Mr. Crane, I am like John Adams was about New England men--there never
was an office existing or created during John Adams’s time that he
hadn’t a constituent ready for it. So, when the necessity for a man for
this work became evident, I suggested I had a constituent, likewise a
colleague, in the lower House, who could manage the job if he would,
and mentioned your name.”
Twenty thousand dollars! It seemed to Crane an enormous sum. Then he
heard Senator Bicknell’s voice continuing:
“It would oblige you to take a trip to Texas during the Christmas
recess, and you would have to spend two or three months down there next
summer, but I am persuaded we shall reach an early adjournment, so it
would not necessarily interfere with you in any way. Besides, it might
be useful to you in other ways, and it would be decidedly useful to
me. It would show the people in the State that you and I are working
well together in harness, and God knows I need some assurances of the
sort to be given! That scoundrel, Governor Sanders, has been knifing me
right and left all over the State, and I look for trouble both at the
convention next summer and when I am up for re-election a year and a
half from now.”
Crane remained silent a minute or two and grew pale. Senator Bicknell
thought he was a little overcome at what was really a very magnificent
offer to a man in his situation in life.
Annette, who had taken in, with perfect intelligence, all Senator
Bicknell was saying, kept her eyes away from her husband. If he were in
league with Governor Sanders----
Crane was not only overcome, he was overwhelmed. The thought came
crashing through his brain, “This is the man I am secretly trying to
destroy.” Every word the Senator uttered seemed to have the force
of a thousand voices. “That scoundrel, Sanders.” Yes, Sanders was
a scoundrel, but he had never pretended to be a friend of Senator
Bicknell’s, nor was he indebted to the Senator for anything. Their
warfare had been open and above-board, while his--oh, God! Crane could
have cried aloud in his torture when he recalled the league with hell
into which he had entered. His head was reeling, he heard the Senator’s
voice afar off; the ruby light falling upon Annette, in her shining
white gown, seemed to be a hundred miles away. Yet, with a calm voice,
and with only a slight tremor of his hands, Crane answered:
“I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have made me a very
splendid proposition; twenty thousand dollars to a rural Congressman is
a great deal of money, and as for the confidence you show in me, I feel
it more than I can express.”
He was conscious that he was displaying wonderful nerve; when he
began to speak he scarcely knew whether he could get through with a
single sentence, but he had spoken with tolerable ease and composure.
Of course, he must appear as if he would accept; he could not on the
spur of the moment devise any plausible refusal; he must have time
to think; but it was utterly impossible that he should consider the
matter for a moment. He was not yet bad enough for that. If only he
had remained honest! For nothing brings home a man’s evil-doing to him
more than when he sees the result in a concrete form. His wrong-doing
comes out of the regions of mind and morals, and becomes a tangible and
visible thing, like an incarnate devil. He realises his sin when he
receives the wages of sin.
Annette listened to every note in Crane’s voice, and heard there
falseness. He was not happy, not grateful for the offer. But she, at
least, thanked Senator Bicknell from the bottom of her heart for his
kind wish to benefit them. When he finished speaking she leaned toward
him and laid her hand on his, while her eyes glowed with a lambent
light.
“I thank you--I thank you, not only for my husband and myself, but for
our little children. It means an education for them--many things their
father and I have longed that we might give them when they are older,
but feared we could not.”
Senator Bicknell raised her hand to his lips and kissed it gallantly.
“My dear lady,” he said, “I am glad to oblige your husband, and I
believe he will render a full equivalent for whatever he makes out
of this transaction. And I have frankly told him that I think our
co-operation in business will be a good thing for me politically. But
the day I spent at your house, the kind hospitality to your husband’s
friend, the sweetness of your home, the excellent behaviour of your
children, quickened very much the interest I felt in Mr. Crane, and
it was a factor in my effort to serve him. Come now, Crane,” said the
Senator, tapping him on the shoulder, “all I ask is that when I am
up for re-election, if you choose to contest the election with me,
you will please leave Mrs. Crane at home. If ever she enters into the
campaign, I am lost.”
“She will enter the campaign, but it will be for you,” replied Annette.
Crane then pulled himself together, and again expressed his
appreciation of Senator Bicknell’s kindness, and asked when they could
meet to go into details of the affair--a meeting at which Crane was
determined to decline the benefits offered him.
“Oh, some day next week. I’ll let you know when I hear from Chicago,”
replied the Senator, and after a little more desultory talk the Cranes
rose to go.
“I took the liberty of sending your carriage away, and my chauffeur
will take you home,” said the Senator, mindful of attentions to a
pretty and pleasing woman.
In a little while Annette and Crane were seated in the Senator’s
automobile, and rushing through the frosty December night toward home.
_Chapter Thirteen_
WAR AND PEACE
Crane remained perfectly silent. He did not speak a word from the time
they left Senator Bicknell’s house until they reached home. Annette
said nothing to him. The conviction was deepening in her mind that
her husband had secretly behaved ill to Senator Bicknell. Crane had
revealed unconsciously that night many things which Senator Bicknell
had not understood, but which Annette understood only too well. The
slight agitation and discomposure which Crane had shown was not the
mere shock of a grateful surprise. Annette detected that every word
Crane had uttered to Senator Bicknell was false; that his apparent
acceptance of the offer was false. The money was much--much to her; the
loss of it, after it had been held up to her gaze, would be much; but
the loss of Crane’s integrity--ah, could that but be preserved, she
would go out and dig for him and for her children! She would slave,
she would starve, she would do anything that any woman ever did, that
she might feel her children were the children of an honest man. She
remembered there was such a thing as heredity, and she trembled at the
thought that, if Crane were really a scoundrel, as Senator Bicknell
had said Governor Sanders was, her little black-eyed Roger might be a
scoundrel, too, before he died. These thoughts, surging through her
mind, kept her silent.
Crane felt her silence to be ominous as she felt his to be. As he sat
dumb, by her side, his agitation increased instead of diminishing. On
what possible ground could he excuse to Annette, as well as Senator
Bicknell, his declination of such an offer? But he could not accept
it--he was not yet a thorough villain. Had he been a free agent, he
would have preferred the splendid vista of power and preferment opened
to him by his deal with Sanders to more money even than what was
offered him; but he was not a free agent. He had promised Sanders, and
if his nerve failed him he would be ruined by Sanders politically, and
perhaps personally as well. True, Sanders did not have a line of his
writing--such agreements as theirs are not put on paper--nor had he, so
far, borrowed a dollar from Sanders, although he expected to do so the
first of the year when his notes fell due.
While he was thinking these thoughts, he found himself before the
door of the great caravanserai where they lived, and presently he was
sitting in their little drawing-room alone at last, and face to face
with the strange circumstances which had befallen him. He sat in a
great arm-chair drawn up to the embers of the fire. On the table at his
elbow a light was burning. He heard Annette go into the children’s room
and remain five minutes--she always said a little prayer above their
cribs every night before she slept--then she went into her own room.
She turned on the light by her dressing-table, and sat down to take
off her few simple ornaments and the ribbon-bow in her hair. The face
that met her gaze in the mirror looked so strange that it frightened
her. Yes, like Crane himself, she had been surprised at her own
self-control. But she knew as well as she knew she was alive that
Crane, in some way, had betrayed Senator Bicknell, the man who, after
honestly admitting that Crane could serve him, was yet animated by a
sincere wish to benefit Crane; who had given Crane his first political
start in life, and had treated him with unvarying kindness ever since.
The more she thought over what had happened that evening, the more
acute became her fear and her pain. She stopped in her employment,
and, leaning upon her arms, sat motionless for a long time. Suddenly,
the distant chiming of a clock told her it was midnight. She roused
herself, and then, following an influence stronger than herself, went
into the next room, where Crane had been going through his agony alone.
As she approached him, he raised a pale and conscience-stricken face to
hers, but it was quite calm. He had fought the battle out, and there
was no longer a conflict within him.
“Yes,” he said, as if continuing out aloud a consecutive train of
thought, “I should be very grateful to you--I _am_ grateful to you. No
doubt, Senator Bicknell was influenced very much in what he did by the
admiration and respect he has for you. But it only makes it the harder
for me.”
“There should be no question of gratitude between you and me,” replied
Annette, coming closer to him.
“There is much--much. I have not realised until within the last few
months how much I really owe you--but why do I say months? I might say
the last few hours--the last few minutes--and I have also realised how
much more I might have owed you, for I am beginning to think that few
women are as well adapted as you are for the wife of a man like me. Not
all women would have borne with poverty and seclusion as you have done.”
A deep blush suffused Annette’s face. The poverty and seclusion had
been in a way forced upon her by him, but, being a woman of invincible
discretion, she did not put her resentment into sarcastic words, or
words at all. She stood by him silently, and, seeing that Crane was
striving to speak, awaited his words gently, laying her free hand on
his shoulder.
At last it came--a full confession--made in broken words and phrases,
but of which Annette understood every word.
“I could have stood anything but his kindness,” said Crane, with a
pale face of woe. “That unnerved me completely. I made up my mind I
could not accept the money, and then it occurred to me that you had a
right to be consulted, and immediately I felt a conviction as loud as
a clap of thunder, as penetrating as lightning, that you would never
in the world let me accept that money. Ah, Annette, what a thing it is
to have an upright wife! To feel that however weak and wavering a man
may be, that half of his soul, of his heart, of his possessions, the
half owner of his children, stands like a rock for truth and honesty!
Thorndyke was saying something to me the other day about a man being
upright instead of being made to be upright. I tell you, there are many
men who can be made good or bad--and I am one of them--by their wives.
Many a poor wretch to-day is a rascal who might have led an honest and
respected life if but he had had a high-minded wife like you. It is you
who have saved me, and what a miserable return have I made you for all
you have done for me!”
“What you have just said repays me for all, because, you know, I have
always loved you--better than you cared to know, or than I cared to
show during the last few years,” Annette answered, in a calm voice.
Crane rose and opened his arms to her. It was the sweetest moment of
their lives. Shameful and dishonourable as Crane’s course had been,
here was one person who loved him, believed in him, and, oh, wonder of
love and faith, still honoured and trusted him!
After their first rapture of love and forgiveness, action occurred to
Annette’s practical mind.
“Well, then,” she said, as if a course of conduct had at once been
revealed to her, “you must at once withdraw from your agreement with
Governor Sanders. Of course, he will do everything he can to defeat
you----”
“And he will.”
“And we shall have to go back to Circleville and begin life over again.
But I am sure you can do well at your profession, and, remember, there
is as much chance for an ambitious man in law as in politics.”
“Yes, but you can’t imagine how the life gets hold of one. It seems
like death to me to leave Congress--and when I was steadily rising,
too--and to be driven out ignominiously by a creature like Sanders! But
I must do it; you would not let me do otherwise.”
“Yes; I would not let you do otherwise. Then you must go to Senator
Bicknell and tell him all.”
“Do you think I should? Do you think I _could_?”
“Oh, yes. He must know it some time. He must know why you decline
this scheme he has arranged to benefit you. You must go to him early
to-morrow morning.”
Crane looked at his watch.
“It is half-past twelve--he always sits up until two or three o’clock
in the morning.”
“Then go now.”
“He will think my repentance a mere emotion--he will believe that my
character was shown in my agreement with Sanders.”
“No matter.”
“Yes, no matter.”
Annette gave him his coat and hat and gloves. He turned to kiss her,
and instinctively he removed his hat with a respect that approached
reverence. This pretty pebble which he had so lightly regarded had
proved to be a jewel of great price.
Two hours later Crane re-entered the house and went softly to his own
rooms. As he noiselessly opened the door of the drawing-room he saw
that Annette had fallen asleep in the great chair in which she had
found him. She had thrown a fur cape around her bare neck and arms, but
it had slipped partly away, leaving her white throat exposed. There
were traces of tears upon her cheeks, but her face, though mournful,
was placid--and how young she looked! It seemed impossible that she
should be the mother of two children as old as Roger and Elizabeth.
As Crane approached her quietly, she stirred, opened her eyes, and sat
up, in full possession of her wits. Crane drew a chair up and took both
her hands in his.
“I haven’t felt so at ease in my mind since the day last summer that I
first met Governor Sanders. I have repented and confessed.”
“That is good,” said Annette, in a clear voice.
“I found Senator Bicknell just where I had left him, in his den; I
told him the whole story--how I had yielded, because I was poor and
ambitious, where a better man would have resisted. I told him there was
no fear of my falling away this time; that you would not let me; and
if I had kept you with me, and had taken you more into my confidence,
I believe I should never have entered into this damnable bargain with
Sanders. The Senator was staggered at first. I don’t believe the
slightest idea of my being disloyal to him had entered his head, but as
soon as he recovered from the first shock he behaved nobly. I told him
that I had not written a line to Sanders, he had not loaned me a penny,
although I had expected to call upon him the first of January. Then
Senator Bicknell said:
“‘So, you have not committed any overt act against me?’
“‘No,’ I said, ‘but chiefly because the time was not ripe.’
“‘You have, so far, only agreed to betray me?’
“I said yes, but that was crime enough. He reflected a while, and then
he held out his hand and said:
“‘Let bygones be bygones. Sanders will make you pay for this, and that
will be punishment enough. But I am ready and willing to believe that,
no matter how much you might have agreed to knife me, when the time
came you wouldn’t have done it. At the first moment we meet in private,
at the first hint of kindness on my part, your resolution to do me
wrong melts away. That must count.’
“‘And something else,’ I said. ‘Of course, I can’t accept the benefit
you thought to confer on me. That would invalidate all.’
“‘What does your wife say to this?’ he said. ‘You remember the offer
was made in her presence. Or does she know that you wish to refuse it?’
“‘My wife would not let me take it if I wished to,’ I replied. ‘She is
a much more high-minded person than I am or ever can be.’
“‘She must indeed be high-minded,’ he said, ‘and you are right in
saying that to accept it would invalidate everything. I am of the
opinion that your wife has seen clearly in this instance. But’--here
he took a turn or two up and down the floor--‘I don’t think it would
invalidate my promoting your candidacy before the Legislature in
January. It seems to me now to be the best thing for both of us. The
fight with Sanders has got to come, and the sooner the better, so that
the field can be cleared for my own fight a year and a half from now.
Yes, it is decidedly best. You may recall I indicated last spring that
I would support your senatorial aspirations in certain contingencies.
These contingencies have come to pass. I doubt if we can save the State
to the party without joining forces now.’