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diff --git a/old/67721-0.txt b/old/67721-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 188f0f5..0000000 --- a/old/67721-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6557 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Despotism and Democracy, by Molly -Elliott Seawell - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Despotism and Democracy - A Study in Washington Society and Politics - -Author: Molly Elliott Seawell - -Release Date: March 26, 2022 [eBook #67721] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESPOTISM AND DEMOCRACY *** - - - - - -DESPOTISM AND DEMOCRACY - - - - - DESPOTISM AND DEMOCRACY - - A STUDY IN WASHINGTON - SOCIETY AND POLITICS - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - McCLURE, PHILLIPS - AND COMPANY - MCMIII - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY - McCLURE, PHILLIPS AND CO. - - COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY CURTIS PUBLISHING CO. - - Published, June, 1903, R - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. MEN AND WOMEN 3 - - II. THE RISE OF A PREMIER AND SOMETHING ABOUT TWO HEARTS 30 - - III. DOWN AMONG THE CAPTAINS AND THE SHOUTING 48 - - IV. GOVERNMENT WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED 73 - - V. A RAPTUROUS HOUR WHICH WAS RUDELY INTERRUPTED 91 - - VI. DEVILS AND ANGELS FIGHT FOR THE SOULS OF MEN 112 - - VII. HOW VARIOUS PERSONS SPENT A MAY SUNDAY IN WASHINGTON 130 - - VIII. A NEW SENATOR--A RAILWAY JOURNEY--THE ROSE OF THE - FIELD AND THE ROSES OF THE GARDEN 148 - - IX. CONCERNING THINGS NOT TO BE MENTIONED IN THE - SOCIETY JOURNALS 172 - - X. THERE ARE MEN WHO CAN RESIST EVERYTHING EXCEPT TEMPTATION 203 - - XI. IN THE SWEET-DO-NOTHING OF THE SUMMER-TIME 229 - - XII. WHAT IS IT TO BE HONEST IN POLITICS AND TRUE IN LOVE? 256 - - XIII. WAR AND PEACE 283 - - - - -DESPOTISM AND DEMOCRACY - - - - -_Chapter One_ - -MEN AND WOMEN - - -Certain aspects of Washington, both outward and inward, are like Paris. -Especially is this true of the outward aspect on a wet night, when -the circles of yellow-flaring gas lamps are reflected in the shining -expanse of asphalt, when the keen-flashing electric lights blaze -upon the white façades of great buildings and the numerous groups -of statuary against a black background of shrubbery, and when some -convention or other brings crowds of people to swarm upon the usually -dull Washington streets. The Honourable Geoffrey Thorndyke, M.C., spoke -of this Parisian resemblance to his colleague, the Honourable Julian -Crane, M.C., as they sat together on a warm, rainy April night in the -bay-window of Thorndyke’s apartment. The rooms were lofty, wide, and -dark, according to the style of forty years ago, and overlooked one of -those circular parks in Washington which fashion seemed only to have -patronised briefly in order to desert permanently. But the rooms and -the situation suited Thorndyke perfectly, and he had spent there all of -the five terms of Congress which he had served. Thorndyke’s remaining -in that locality secretly surprised Crane, a man from the Middle West. -He himself had an apartment in a modish hotel, which cost him more -than he could afford and was not half so comfortable as Thorndyke’s. -But then Thorndyke was born to that which Crane was toilsomely -achieving--for this vigorous product of the Middle West was sent into -the world with enormous ambitions of all sorts, and not the least of -these was social ambition. And combined with this social ambition was -a primitive enjoyment of society such as the Indian gets out of his -pow-wows with unlimited tobacco and fire-water. Crane, although bred -on the prairie, cared nothing for fields and woods and the skies of -night and the skies of morning. Men, women, and their affairs alone -interested him. Thorndyke, on the contrary, although town-bred, cared -for the God-made things, and at that very moment was studying with -interest the great tulip-tree, dark and dank before his window. When -he made the remark about Washington having sometimes a look of Paris, -he added: - -“And I expected to be in Paris at this very moment but for this”--here -he interjected an impolite adjective--“extra session. However,” he -continued, good-humouredly, “I hardly expect you to agree with me, -considering your late streak of luck--or, rather, your well-deserved -promotion, as I shall call it on the floor of the House.” - -Crane acknowledged this with a smile and a request for another cigar, -if possible, not so bad as the last. He was tall and well made, and -had a head and face like the bust of the young Augustus in the Vatican -gallery. He was elaborately groomed, manicured and all, judging that -time spent on beauty like his was not thrown away. In contrast to this -classic beauty was Thorndyke--below, rather than above, the middle -height, with scanty hair and light-blue eyes, and who could not be -called handsome by the mother that bore him. But when women were about, -Geoffrey Thorndyke could always put the handsomest man in the room -behind the door. - -And he had a peculiarly soft and musical voice which made everything -he said sound pleasant, even when he proceeded to make uncomfortable -remarks about the late turn in national affairs which had sent Crane’s -political fortunes upward with a bound. - -“For my part,” he said, knocking the ash off his cigar, “I have lived -long enough and read enough to know that such a stupendous opportunity -as your party has now is generally fatal to that party before the next -Presidential election. See--in the middle of a Presidential term, you -carry the Congressional elections by a close shave. The new Congress -is not expected to meet for thirteen months afterward. The Brazilian -matter reaches an acute stage, and the President is forced to call an -extra session in April instead of the regular meeting in December. Of -course, the Brazilian matter will come out all right. Any party, at -any time, in any civilised country, is capable of managing a foreign -affair in which all the people think the same way. But when it comes -to domestic affairs--my dear fellow, when the President saw how -things were going and that he really could invite you to make fools -of yourselves for the next fourteen months before the Presidential -convention, it was beer and skittles to him.” - -Crane turned in his chair and sighed. The intricacies of national -politics, the wheels within wheels, the way of putting out a pawn to -be taken, puzzled and confused him. It had seemed to him the most -unmixed political good to him when his party had secured control of the -House at an international crisis. It could vote supplies with splendid -profusion, it could shout for the flag, it could claim the credit -for everything done, while the Senate and the Administration being -in opposition, very little real responsibility attached to anything -the House might leave undone. And when the man who was certain to be -the caucus nominee for Speaker had sent for Crane at one o’clock in -the morning and had offered him the chairmanship of the Committee on -Foreign Affairs to succeed Thorndyke, Crane had felt his cup of joy to -be overflowing. Everything was in his favour. Without the least doubt -about his powers, which were considerable, he had some diffidence on -the score of experience; but Thorndyke, who would be the ranking member -of the minority on the committee, would help him out, quietly and -generously. In the midst of his elation Crane remembered that Thorndyke -had not been wholly satisfied with the chairmanship of that great -committee--and Thorndyke had been suffered to exercise a degree of -power far greater than Crane felt would be permitted him for some time -to come. On most Congressional committees there are two or three men -who have come into the world booted and spurred, while the remainder -were born saddled and bridled. Thorndyke was one of those who got into -the saddle early, and yet, the saddle or the steed had not seemed to -suit his taste exactly. Crane spoke of this, and bluntly asked the -reason. - -“Because,” replied Thorndyke, coolly, “there was no more promotion for -me--and I was made to accept it, whether I wanted it or not. You see, -although the Constitution guarantees every State a republican form of -government, all the States don’t have it. Mine hasn’t, nor has yours. -My boss, however, is a good deal more astute than your boss. Mine never -lets any man have what he wants. Unluckily, when I was a Congressional -tenderfoot I wanted the earth and the fulness thereof, and I worked -for it as well as I knew how. When the next nominating convention was -held I was left out in the cold world. I waited two years. Then, being -still green, with all the courage of inexperience, I went to my boss. -I said to him that I wished to get back in public life, and to stay -there--and he said----” - -Thorndyke paused and blushed a little. - -“Out with it,” said Crane, encouragingly. - -“My boss has some extraordinary virtues--all real bosses have--among -them a very engaging frankness. He said, without beating about the -bush a moment, that it wasn’t his policy to promote men who might--who -might one day get a little too big for him. That was about what he -said. He told me if I would be satisfied with a seat in Congress and -the chairmanship of a good committee, I could have it as long as I kept -out of State politics, and didn’t make myself offensively prominent at -national conventions. Then he proceeded to advise me as Cardinal Wolsey -advised Thomas Cromwell. He charged me to fling away ambition, and -reminded me that by that sin the angels fell, and likewise a number of -very imprudent young politicians--I don’t use the word statesman any -more--all over the State. I squirmed, and the old fellow grinned and -told me if at any time I hankered after a foreign mission I could get -it. I thanked him and told him I had no fancy to be buried until I was -dead, and at last we compromised on his first proposition. I like the -life--God knows why. The salary is enough for me to live on and support -an invalid sister--all I have in the world. I have sense enough to see -that I am better off than if I gave a loose rein to my ambition and was -forever chasing rainbows. A man without fortune, who lives upon the -hopes of an office which will beggar him if he gets it----” - -“That’s it!” cried Crane, suddenly interrupting, his eyes lighting up -with anxiety. “That’s it, Thorndyke. I know all about it. I’ll tell you -the whole story--the story I never even told my wife----” - -There is something touching and appealing when a man lays bare his -wounds and bruises. Thorndyke, without saying a word, gave a look, a -slight movement of the head that brought out Crane’s story. He told it -readily enough--he had the mobile mouth and quick imagination of the -orator, and he was always eloquent when he was talking about himself. - -“You see, when I got the nomination to Congress it was that or -bankruptcy. For two months before the convention was held I’d walk the -floor half the night, and the other half I’d pretend to be asleep, to -keep my wife from breaking her heart with anxiety. Annette is a good -woman--too good for me. I had neglected my law practice for politics -until I had no practice left, and then I was transported to Congress -and Heaven and five thousand dollars a year. I determined to do two -things--cut a wide swath in Washington and save one-third of my salary.” - -“Great fool--you,” murmured Thorndyke, sympathetically. - -“But--I didn’t know what a wide swath was. I didn’t know anything -about it. I came to Washington and brought my wife and three children. -We went to a boarding-house on Eleventh Street--you called to see us -there.” - -“Yes. I remember thinking Mrs. Crane the prettiest, sweetest woman I -had seen that season.” - -This was true, for Annette Crane had the beauty of form, of colour, -of sweetness and gentleness to an extraordinary degree. She was no -Perdita--no one would have taken her for a princess stolen in infancy. -But not Ruth in the harvest-field was more natural, more sweetly -graceful than this lady from Circleville, somewhere in the Middle West. - -“Annette admired you tremendously,” continued Crane, in the easy tone -of a man who knows his wife is desperately in love with him, and -thinks her fully justified. “She said it was kind of you to call. -Like me, she thought we were going to do wonderful things--I believe -she used to pray that our hearts might not be hardened by our social -triumphs. Well, you know all about it. We were asked to the President’s -receptions, and my wife called on the Cabinet officers’ families, -and at the houses of the Senators and the Representatives from our -own State. We were asked to dinner at our junior Senator’s house. I -thought it would be grand. It was, in a way--the old man is pretty well -heeled--but it was exactly like one of those banquets a Chamber of -Commerce gives to a distinguished citizen. Annette was the prettiest -woman there, but she didn’t wear a low-necked gown like the other -women, and that embarrassed her. In the end she found out more things -than I did. She said to me before the season was over: - -“‘Julian, it’s not being rich that makes people in Washington. If -it were, we shouldn’t mind not being in it. But there are plenty of -people, like the Senator, who have the money and the wish to make a -stir socially--but they can’t, while a plenty of poor ones do. Look at -Mr. Thorndyke’--she hit upon you the first man--‘he’s asked everywhere, -and he says he is as poor as a church-mouse. No, Julian, to be as you -would wish to be here, needs not only the money we haven’t got, but -something else we haven’t got and can’t acquire, so let’s give it up. -Another winter I’ll stay in Circleville--it will be better for the -children, better for me, better for you’--for I own up to having been -deuced surly all that winter. So we adopted that plan, and Annette -has never been to Washington since. But--I’ll confess this, too--I -had from the beginning a fancy to see the inside of those houses -where the people live who make up this world of Washington. It wasn’t -merely idle curiosity. I was convinced, and I am so still, that the -number and variety of people in Washington must make these Washington -parlours--drawing-rooms, you call them--the most interesting of their -kind in the world. Well--I’ve got into some of them. It’s a good deal -easier for a man without his wife than a man with her; and Thorndyke, -I own up, I am bewitched. Oh, it’s not so much to you; you’ve known it -too long, and seen too much of it all over the world to know how it -strikes a man born and brought up until he is thirty-five years old in -Circleville. I swear when I get a dinner invitation I am like the girls -out our way, who will drive twenty miles in a sleigh to go to a dance. -The mere look of the table--the glass, the silver, the flowers--goes to -my head. The terrapin intoxicates me. Those quick, soft-moving servants -fascinate me. And the conversation! They let me talk all I want.” - -“You are a vastly entertaining fellow in your own mental bailiwick,” -interjected Thorndyke. - -“And the women! So unaffected--so unconscious of their clothes! And -such listeners! I have never been to a stupid dinner in Washington. -And the club--I never knew a man of leisure in my life until I came -to Washington. I daresay you think me a fool.” Crane paused, with a -feeling rare to him that he could not express half what was in him, but -Thorndyke’s knowledge supplied the rest. - -“No, I don’t. It is quite as you say, but you are taking it all too -seriously.” - -“Circleville,” murmured Crane. - -“Well, three-fourths of these people you so admire came from -Circlevilles. Forty years ago, how many of them, do you think, had a -servant to answer the door-bell? Just consider, my dear young friend, -that, except at the South, servants were unknown to a large proportion -of the American people until a short time ago. The parents of these -people you see here, with eighteen-horse-power automobiles, and with -crests upon their writing-paper, their carriages, their footmen’s -buttons, thought themselves in clover when they could afford a -maid-of-all-work. So far, they are merely at the imitative stage. Their -grandparents were pioneers and lived mostly in log cabins, and although -the three generations are divided by only fifty years, it is as if -æons of time existed between them! By Jove! It is one of the most -astounding things in American life!” - -“That’s so,” replied Crane. “It is said that one-half the world -doesn’t know how the other half lives, but in these United States -about nine-tenths of the society people have no more notion how their -grandparents lived than they have of life on Mars or Saturn. I went to -a wedding the other day. It was magnificent beyond words. The two young -people had been brought up in----” - -“Barbaric luxury,” Thorndyke interrupted. “It’s barbarous to bring -children up as those two were--I know whom you mean. The girl had her -own suite of rooms almost from her birth, her own maid, her own trap. -Even when there was an affectation of simplicity it cost enough to have -swamped her grandfather’s general store at Meekins’s Cross Roads, where -he laid the foundation of his fortune. When she came out in society it -simply meant more of everything. No daughter of the Cæsars was ever -more conscious of the gulf between her and the common people--I say -common people with the deepest respect for the term--than this girl -is conscious of the gulf between herself and the class to which her -grandparents belonged. The young man’s story was the same _da capo_, -except that he was given a boy’s luxuries instead of a girl’s. It -has been carefully concealed from them by their parents that their -grandparents swept, dusted, chopped wood, traded at country stores, and -did all those plain but useful and respectable things which made their -fortune. To hear them talk about ‘grandmamma’ and ‘grandpapa’ is the -very essence of simplicity.” - -“And yet those people constitute the most exclusive set in Washington,” -said Crane, angrily, as if thereby some wrong was inflicted on him. - -“Naturally,” replied Thorndyke. “Don’t you see that the first result -of their prosperity in their own community was to segregate them -from their less fortunate friends and neighbours? Don’t you see how -inevitably it came about that their children were separated from -their neighbours’ children? And in the end they were drawn from the -Circlevilles and the Meekins’s Cross Roads by sheer necessity? They -became fugitives, as it were, from their own class, and how natural it -was for them to be afraid of their own and every other class except -the recognised few, and to build up a wall around themselves and their -children.” - -“I wonder if you would dare to use that word class on the floor of the -House?” asked Crane. - -“I would dare to but I shouldn’t care to,” answered Thorndyke. “One -reason why I have so little to say on the floor of the House is because -it involves many explanations to men who know just as well what you -mean as you do, and agree with you thoroughly. But there’s Buncombe -County to be considered.” - -“At all events,” said Crane, returning to himself as a subject of -consideration, “this social side of life appeals to me powerfully--too -powerfully, I am afraid. I feel an odd sort of kinship with those -old ladies of seventy that I see going the rounds in Paris gowns and -high-heeled shoes, with their scanty white hair crimped and curled -within an inch of their lives. It’s serious business with them; and, -by George, it’s serious with me, too. Of course I am a blamed fool for -acknowledging so much.” - -“Not in the least. But you must know that it can only be a pastime with -you. There is Circleville, and Annette, and the babies----” - -Thorndyke saw Crane’s face grow a little pale, and he fell silent -for a minute or two, and while Thorndyke was watching the current of -his thought, as revealed by a singularly expressive and untrained -countenance, Crane burst out: - -“The best in the way of women I’ve seen yet is Constance Maitland--I -wonder why she never married. She’s nearer forty than thirty; that she -told me herself.” - -It was now Thorndyke’s turn to grow pale. Constance Maitland was -responsible to a great degree for most that had happened to him for the -last eighteen years, and in all that time he had not seen her once; but -the mere mention of her name was enough to agitate him; and she was in -Washington and he had not known it---- - -It was a minute or two before he recovered himself and began to pull -at the cigar in his mouth. Then he saw by Crane’s face that Constance -Maitland was something to him, too. Had the poor devil fallen in love -with her as he had with Washington dinners? Thorndyke was disgusted -with his friend, and showed it by saying, coldly: - -“I knew Miss Maitland well some years ago. She is very charming. But, -Crane, it’s bad manners to call ladies by their first names.” Thorndyke -used the old-fashioned word “ladies” where the moderns say “women.” - -Crane coloured furiously. He did not mind in the least being coached in -legislative affairs, but he winced at being taught manners. However, -he had the highest admiration for Thorndyke’s manners, so he replied, -carelessly: - -“I accept the amendment. As you say, Con--Miss Maitland is very -charming, and has been charming men for the past twenty years. Now, in -Circleville she would have been called an old maid ten years ago.” - -Yes, of course, she had always had a train of men after her, and -the fact that she remained unmarried showed either that she had -no heart--or--sometimes a wild thought had crossed Thorndyke’s -mind--suppose Constance Maitland still remembered him? This thought, -coming into his head, set his heart to pounding like a steam-engine -while Crane talked on. - -“That woman epitomises the charm of Washington life to me. First, she -is unlike any woman I ever saw before; that is in itself a charm. -Then, she has an environment; that, too, is new to me. I went to see -her four times last winter.” Then he mentioned where she lived. “Her -parlour--I mean drawing-room--was nothing compared with the others -I’d been in here, but it was distinctive. It wasn’t furnished from -bric-à-brac shops and art-sale catalogues. All the antiques came -from her own family--all the miniatures and portraits were her own -kinsfolk. And, after having lived in Europe for twenty years, as she -told me--because she doesn’t mind mentioning dates--and having seen -more of European society than one American woman in ten thousand, she -loves and admires her own country, and came back here to live the first -minute she was free. That struck me all of a heap, because, though -you wouldn’t judge so from my Fourth of July speeches at Circleville, -I should think that Europe would be something between Washington and -Paradise.” - -“You haven’t been there yet,” was Thorndyke’s response to this. And -then Crane proceeded to tell a story which Thorndyke knew by heart. - -“It seems, so I heard from other people, she was brought up by an old -crank of an aunt, who had married a Baron Somebody-or-other in Germany. -This old feminine party tried to make Constance marry some foreign -guy, and when she wouldn’t, the old lady, in a rage, made a will, -giving all she had to Constance on condition that she did not marry an -American. It was thought the old lady wasn’t exactly in earnest, but -unluckily she died the week after, and so the will stands--and that’s -why Con--Miss Maitland never married, I guess.” - -Just then a band came blaring down the street, followed by the usual -crowd of negroes, dancing, shouting, and grimacing along the sidewalk, -and looking weird in the high lights and black shadows of the night. -Crane, to whom the negroes had never ceased to be a raree show, got up -and went to the window, whistling the air the band played; meanwhile -Thorndyke lay back in his chair trying to get used to the knowledge -that Constance Maitland had been in Washington months and he had not -known it. There was a prologue to the story just told by Crane--and -Crane had no suspicion of this prologue. A young American of good -birth but slender fortune--himself, in fact--was the primary cause -of the old Baroness von Hesselt’s remarkable will. It was he whom the -old lady held responsible for Constance Maitland’s flat refusal to -marry the son of an imperial privy councillor with seven points to his -coronet. Oh, those days at the Villa Flora on Lake Como--those days -that come only in youth, when the whole world seems young! When, from -the terrace, Constance and himself watched the sunset trembling in the -blue lake and making another heaven there! And those starlit nights -when Constance and himself were in a boat alone together, and she sang -to her guitar for him, and he repeated verses from Childe Harold to -her! They were both young and singularly innocent, and were deeply in -love--of that Thorndyke could never doubt; and because they were young -and innocent and in love with each other the old Baroness thought them -the wickedest and most designing creatures on earth. She had spent -all her life in Europe, had frankly married for a title, and wished -Constance to do the same. The old Baron, a helpless invalid, was not -reckoned in the equation. - -The Baroness von Hesselt had acquired what many Americans who live -abroad acquire--a spite against her own country. This was accentuated -by the fact that she was a Southerner of the old régime, who hated -liberty, equality, and fraternity from the bottom of her heart, and -who instinctively realised her unfitness for America. She had also -forgotten a good deal about it, and thought a very effective way to -keep Constance from marrying Thorndyke or any other American was to cut -her off from a fortune in that event. The will was made, and the old -Baroness proclaimed it loudly for a week. At the end of that time the -gentleman on the pale horse unexpectedly summoned her. There was but -one thing for any man to do in Geoffrey Thorndyke’s circumstances, and -that was, to go far away from Constance Maitland. No definite words -or promises had passed between them, but unless eyes and tones of the -voice, and all sweet, unutterable things are liars, they were pledged -to one another. - -Thorndyke, being in those days a very human youngster, hoped that -Constance would send him a line--a word--and doubted not for a moment -that his love would make up to her for a fortune. But no line or -word ever came. As years went on Thorndyke reached the sad knowledge -that modern life requires something more than bread and cheese and -kisses, and felt a sense of relief that it had not been in his power to -take Constance Maitland’s fortune from her with only love to give in -return. But this knowledge did not make him content. On the contrary, -year by year had her memory become more poignant to him. It was that -which had made him throw himself with all his being and equipment into -public life. It was that which made him tender to all innocent, sweet -women like Annette Crane--innocent, sweet women brought back to him -something of his lost love. He knew she had never married, but all else -concerning her was a blank to him. He was consumed with a desire to ask -Crane something about her--all about her--but he had noted instantly -that in Crane’s eye and voice was a manner which revealed a dangerous -interest in Constance Maitland; and Thorndyke was held back and urged -forward to speak of her. - -The band passed on, the street once more grew quiet, and Crane returned -to his seat. Thorndyke smoked savagely to keep from mentioning -Constance Maitland’s name. Crane did likewise with the same motive, -but having less self-control than Thorndyke he could not but hark back -to the ticklish subject. - -“So you say you knew Miss Maitland?” - -“Yes. A long time ago.” - -“She’s very old-fashioned; enough so to stay out of society when she -is wearing mourning. She’s been in mourning for her uncle by marriage -ever since she’s been in Washington--six months. The exclusives don’t -stay in mourning more than six months for husbands, wives, or children. -Parents and aunts and uncles don’t count.” - -“The exclusives don’t have any aunts and uncles,” Thorndyke put in -shortly. “They have nieces and nephews who are presentable after they -have been washed and combed--but they can’t go back as far as uncles -and aunts.” - -“So they can’t. Their uncles and aunts are just like _my_ uncles -and aunts. Well, I gather that the old Baron for whom Miss Maitland -has worn mourning wasn’t a bad old party--better, perhaps, than his -American wife.” - -“He was,” said Thorndyke. - -Crane looked at him suspiciously and then kept on. - -“Miss Maitland is going out this spring. She says I’m quite right in -thinking there is a delightful society attainable here in Washington, -but she’s so pleased to be back in her own country that she praises -everything right and left. She doesn’t even mind the Dupont statue, -and won’t discuss the Pension building. To see her flow of spirits you -would think her the happiest woman in the world. Yet she told me once -that she wasn’t really happy.” - -“All women tell you that before you get through with them,” growled -Thorndyke. - -“Annette never has,” said Crane, rising and throwing away his cigar. -“Some time, if you wish to call on Miss Maitland, I’ll take you round.” - -Thorndyke restrained the temptation to brain Crane with the carafe -on the table by him, partly out of regard for himself, partly out of -regard to Crane, and partly from the fact that Crane was a much bigger -man than he was. But his colleague was evidently quite unconscious of -Thorndyke’s bloody inclinations, and thought himself the best fellow in -the world to be willing to give Thorndyke a view into the paradise of -Constance Maitland’s company. - -“And as for my streak of luck, as you call it, I intend to devote all -my powers to my work, so that no matter what other committee makes -a fool of itself, the Committee on Foreign Affairs won’t--at least -through its chairman,” Crane continued. - -“It’s easy enough to steer that committee when everything is peaceful,” -answered Thorndyke, meaning to take the new chairman down a peg. -“And it’s a great deal easier when we get into a continental mess as -we are now. Wait until you get on the Ways and Means, or Committee -on Elections, or Banking and Currency, if you want to have a little -Gehenna of your own on earth. Good-night.” - -Thorndyke sat up smoking until after two o’clock. His thoughts were not -concerned with Crane’s political future, nor with his own either, nor -with the continental mess. He was thinking about that dead-and-gone -time, and how far away it was; the moderns did not make love through -the medium of sentimental songs to the guitar and to stanzas from -Childe Harold. They preferred ragtime on the mandolin and the Rubáiyát -of Omar Khayyám; and they no longer seemed to fall in love in the -painful and whole-souled manner which had befallen him; and then he -wandered off into thinking how a man’s will could go so far and no -farther, and how he should feel when he saw Constance Maitland, as he -must eventually, and how she would look and speak. He concluded, before -he went to bed, that he had experienced that unlucky accident, the -breaking of heart, which would not mend, do what he could; for he was -one of those rare and unfortunate men who can love but once. - - - - -_Chapter Two_ - -THE RISE OF A PREMIER AND SOMETHING ABOUT TWO HEARTS - - -On the fifteenth of April Congress met for one of the most exciting -sessions in the history of the country. There was excitement both for -the members and for the public. Usually, when great economic questions -have to be disposed of, which rack the intelligence of the strongest -men in the House and Senate, which make and unmake Presidents and -policies, at which men work like slaves toiling at the oar, by night as -well as by day, and of which the harvest of death is grimly reckoned -beforehand, the people go on quietly, reading with calm indifference -the proceedings of Congress in the newspapers or skipping them because -of their dulness. When questions affecting the honour and prestige of -the country arise, the American people, justly described as “strong, -resolute, and ofttimes violent,” become deeply agitated, are swayed all -one way by the same mighty impulse, and force Congress to act as the -people wish. The Congress at these times is calm. There is nothing to -do but comply with the mandates of the people. One party is as willing -to vote supplies as another. All march together. The march would become -a wild storming party but for a few cool heads and obstructives, who -act as a brake, and keep the pace down to something reasonable and the -policies in the middle of the road. But the brake is powerless to stop -the march onward. - -At this session, though, there were to be things to agitate both -the people and the Congress. The question of peace or war had to be -decided; and if it were peace, as the cooler heads foresaw, it would be -peace on such stupendous terms of power and prestige to this country -that it might be impossible to deal sanely with the great economic -problems which were like the rumblings of an earthquake, and were -liable to produce vast convulsions. For the present, however, economic -questions were in the background, the Committee on Foreign Affairs was -the most prominent one in the House. - -It almost cured Crane of his infatuation for Washington society to -see how little it was impressed by the large events waiting to burst -from under the great white dome on the hill. Himself, in a fever heat -of suppressed excitement, he felt aggrieved that dinners still went -on unflaggingly, that the first long season of grand opera Washington -had ever known was about to begin, and claimed much attention. None of -these smart people seemed to care in the least that he was to present -the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in an unprecedentedly -short time--a report which might mean war or peace. He expressed his -sense of personal injury to Thorndyke as the two sat hard at work in -their committee-room one night a week after the meeting of Congress. - -They were quite alone, and it might be said that the report was theirs -alone. There were other strong men on the committee, but they had got -used to the autocratic rule of Thorndyke, and rather liked it. He -consulted them attentively, but he was always the man who acted. The -new chairman recognised this, and being ambitious to rule as Thorndyke -had ruled, he consulted his predecessor somewhat ostentatiously--at -which his colleagues smiled and let him alone. Crane had just -experienced an instance of Thorndyke’s goodwill, who was in the act -of saving his chairman from making a ridiculous blunder which would -have hindered his prospects very much as Oliver Goldsmith’s unlucky -red coat did for him with the Bishop. The Secretary of State, a very -long-headed person in a small way, had previously got the length of -the Honourable Julian Crane’s foot, as the vulgar express it. He had -asked Crane to play golf with him; he had invited the member from -Circleville to little dinners with him. The Secretary’s wife had -requested Crane as a great favour to assist her widowed daughter in -chaperoning a party of débutantes and college youths to the theatre, -and when a scurrilous journal had reflected grossly upon himself, a -married man, and the young widow, Crane was in secret hugely flattered. -To be linked, even remotely, in a scandal with the daughter of the -Secretary of State was a social rise--although he happened to know -that Cap’n Josh Slater, the father of the Secretary of State, had been -engaged in steam-boating on the Ohio River in the wild forties with -his own grandfather, Cap’n Ebenezer Crane. The Secretary’s father -had made money, and his daughters were replicas of Lady Clara Vere -de Vere. Of his sons, one, the present Secretary of State, had left -the banks of the Ohio never to return, and by a steady evolution had -passed from the Western Reserve College to Harvard, thence to Oxford -for a post-graduate course, to Berlin as attaché to the then Legation, -thence home to exercise a gift the politicians had found in him, viz., -the power to form a silk-stocking contingent in the party to offset -the silk stockings in the opposition. Being a man of some brains and -much perseverance, he had reached the most highly ornamental position -in the Government of the United States--the Secretaryship of State. He -maintained it with dignity. He had, of course, long since, abjured the -Methodist faith, in which he was reared, and was as uncompromising a -Churchman as his brother, the Episcopal Bishop--for such had been the -career of the steam-boat captain’s other son. Both had been brought up -in an auriferous atmosphere totally denied the descendants of Cap’n -Ebenezer Crane, who had lost his all in the steam-boat business, -and spent his last years keeping the Circleville tavern. Crane knew -all about this, one of his grandfather’s standing quarrels with Fate -being that Josh Slater, a durned fool, and a rascal besides, in Cap’n -Ebenezer’s opinion, had made so much, where a better man--that is, -himself--couldn’t make a living. But Crane knew better than to refer to -any of these matters before the Secretary, who was indeed only dimly -acquainted with his father’s profession. The Secretary, a polished, -scholarly man, was a very good imitation of a statesman. He liked -to be called the Premier, prided himself on his resemblance to Lord -Salisbury, and dressed the part to perfection. During Thorndyke’s -chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, when the present -international complication had been brewing, the Secretary had -been a good deal annoyed by being sent for to the Capitol on what -he considered flimsy pretexts. He determined when Crane succeeded -Thorndyke to make a bold stroke, and have the chairman come to him -occasionally, on the sly, as it were. To this end he had written -Crane a little note beginning, “My Dear Crane.” In it the Secretary -spoke pathetically of his lumbago, also of his age--sixty-one--and -would Crane, on the score of old friendship and the Secretary’s many -infirmities, come to see him at a certain hour at the Department, and -perhaps the necessity might be avoided of the Secretary taking a trip -in the changeable weather to the Capitol, which otherwise would be -inevitable. - -Crane showed this note with ill-concealed pride, and was about to fall -into the Secretary’s little trap through the telephone when Thorndyke -hastily interposed: - -“My dear fellow,” said he, grinning, “you had better wait until the -Secretary’s lumbago gets better, rather than inaugurate the policy of -running up to the State Department to see him, when it is his business -to come here to see you. The old fellow tried that game on me, but, in -return, I used to get the committee to invite him down here about once -a week to give his views on something or other for which we didn’t give -a tinker’s damn, as the Duke of Wellington used to say. But it cured -him. He stopped inviting me cordially and informally to come to the -State Department to see him.” - -Crane’s face flushed. - -“The d----d old sneak!” he yelled--and then dashed off a curt note to -the Secretary. Thorndyke promptly confiscated this note, and dictated -another, which was, if anything, more affectionate in tone than -the Secretary’s. Crane would wish, above all things, to oblige the -Secretary, but was himself under the weather, and so forth, and so -forth. - -“But I played golf with him at seven o’clock this morning!” cried -Crane, throwing down his pen. - -“So much the better,” replied Thorndyke. “You are returning his own -lie to him with interest. Go on--‘Possibly by to-morrow you may be -well enough to comply with the wish of the committee, and come to -the Capitol. In any event, before a formal request is made for your -attendance, your convenience will be consulted with regard to the hours -and the weather.’ And when you get him up here put him in the sweat-box -and give him all that’s coming to him--that’s the way to get on with -him.” - -“I see,” said Crane, light breaking upon him, “and when you had the old -fellow up here, and I thought you were so friendly and polite to him, -you were just ‘sweating’ him.” - -“That’s what I was doing. However, I reckon the present Secretary to be -the ideal man for the place. He is highly ornamental, perfectly honest, -and satisfied with the shadow of power. Occasionally he reaches out for -something in the way of etiquette or attention, as in the present case, -but when he doesn’t get it he subsides quietly. The State Department -has been steadily losing power and prestige from the foundation of the -government until now, when it is recognised as a mere clerical bureau -and a useful social adjunct to the Administration. Do you think if -Daniel Webster were alive to-day he would take the portfolio of State? -He would see the Administration at the demnition bow-wows first. Mr. -Blaine took it twice under compulsion, and was the most wretched and -restless man on earth while he had it. Both times he was so much too -big for the place that he became exceedingly dangerous, and had to be -forced out each time to save the Administration from total wreck. The -lesson has not been lost on succeeding Presidents, and there will be -no more Blaines and Websters in the State Department. The trouble -is, however, that foreign Chancelleries persist in taking the State -Department seriously. They can’t take in that you, as chairman of the -House Committee on Foreign Affairs, are of a good deal more consequence -at present than the Secretary of State. You can send for him, but -he can’t send for you. You can call for information from him and -practically force him to give it to you, but he can’t make you tell the -day of the week unless you want to.” - -Crane, who had signed and sealed his note while Thorndyke was speaking, -glowed with pleasure at the last words. But he returned to his -grievance about none of the smart set taking any particular interest in -what was going to happen on the morrow. - -“The diplomatic people are taking the deepest interest in it,” replied -Thorndyke, grimly, “and when this report is read to-morrow they will be -up against a fierce proposition.” Thorndyke was not above using slang -when in the company of men alone. - -They fell to work again at some last details, and it was not far from -midnight when they left the great white building on the hill. In spite -of the engrossing matters which had employed them, both men had been -haunted by the recollection of their conversation the night before, -about Constance Maitland--but neither had spoken her name. Thorndyke -said, as they came out on the deserted moonlit plaza: - -“It’s a pity Mrs. Crane can’t be here to listen to you speak to-morrow.” - -“Yes,” replied Crane, promptly. “But I have written her about it, and -I shall send her a despatch as soon as I get through to-morrow. By the -way, I sent Miss Maitland a ticket to the reserved gallery. I shall -probably see her at the French Embassy, where I am going to take a look -at the ball.” - -It was Crane’s first invitation to the French Embassy, and he was -slightly elated at it, and being unable to conceal anything, Thorndyke -saw his elation. His only reply to Crane’s important communication was, -“Good-night--here’s my car.” And he jumped aboard the trailer just -passing. - -When he reached his own door he turned away from it. The night was -growing more enchantingly lovely every hour. A great white April -moon was riding high in the heavens, and the soft freshness of the -spring night was in the air. Thorndyke made the beauty of the night an -excuse to himself for remaining out of doors. In truth, he had felt a -yearning, ever since Crane had first told him that Constance Maitland -was in Washington, to see her habitation--it was next to seeing her. -He struggled against it for an hour or two, walking away from the -street wherein she dwelt. He soon found himself in the poorer part of -Washington, a long way from the gay quarters; a part of narrow brick -or frame houses, cheap churches, and many small shops. He was reminded -of that saying, as old as Plato, who did not himself say it first: “In -all cities there are two cities--the city of the poor and the city of -the rich.” The city of the poor in Washington, however, is the least -disheartening of its sort in the world--for even the poorest house has -air and space and sunlight about it and green trees to shelter it. - -After having wandered about until he felt certain the West End was -asleep, Thorndyke yielded to the overmastering impulse and set out for -his goal at the other end of the town. He soon entered Massachusetts -Avenue--that long and beautiful avenue, shaded with double rows of -lindens, their pale green buds breaking out into their first delicate -leaf, the vista broken by open spaces with statues, and closing with -the rich foliage of Dupont Circle. All was quiet, silent, and more -and more brightly moonlit. No glaring gas lamps marred the light or -darkness of the perfect night--for in Washington when the moon shines -the gas lamps don’t shine. - -Thorndyke’s soul, dragging his unwilling feet, brought him to one of -the pretty side streets opening upon the splendid avenue. It was here -that Constance Maitland’s house was. - -Thorndyke believed--such is the folly of love--he would have known the -house even if Crane had not mentioned the number. But the number was -conclusive. It was an old-fashioned house, broad and low for a city -house. It had been the advance guard of fashion. There was a little -strip of garden and shrubbery at the side, where clipped cedars were -formally set, and three great lilac-bushes were hastening into a bloom -of purple splendour. The scent of the lilacs brought back the terrace -on Lake Como, where lilacs also grew, and where he and Constance had -spent those glowing and unforgotten hours--and by moonlight they had -often sung together the old duet from Don Pasquale, “Oh, April Night!” -Thorndyke, entranced and lost in visions, began to hum the old, old -air. What strange power of restoring the past have old songs and the -perfume of flowers long remembered! Thorndyke felt as in a dream; all -the intervening years melted away; it was once more Como, with its -moonlight, its flower-scents, its songs, its loves--and then he looked -up and saw Constance Maitland standing before him. - -She had just returned from the ball--the carriage from which she -had alighted was rolling off. As she met Thorndyke face to face -on the sidewalk she started slightly, and her long white mantle -slipped from her delicate bare shoulders to the ground. Her eyes met -Thorndyke’s--everything was in that gaze except surprise. When two -persons think of each other daily for many years, the strangeness is -not in their meeting but in their separation. They had seen each other -last on a moonlit night, and the sweet scent of lilacs was in the -air--and now, after eighteen years, it was so alike! - -The moonlight was merciful to them both. Neither saw all of Time’s -earmarks--Thorndyke saw none at all in Constance. Her girlish figure -was quite unchanged. Her pale yellow ball-gown, the pearls around her -throat, were youthfulness itself. She had never been remarkable for -beauty, but her face showed no lines, her silky black hair, simply -arranged, revealed none of the silver strands that were visible by -daylight. Thorndyke received a distinct shock at her youthfulness. It -was his lost Constance of the Villa Flora. - -She held her hand out to him without a word, and he clasped it. -In that clasp Constance realised that she had all and more of her -old power over him. Thorndyke could not have said a word at first -to save his life, but Constance, with equal feeling, had a woman’s -glibness, and could have plunged into commonplaces on the spot. But she -refrained, knowing that her silence was eloquent. She withdrew her hand -lingeringly. Then Thorndyke saw the white cloak lying on the ground. -He picked it up and held it wide for Constance, and when he enfolded -her in the cloak she was enfolded for one thrilling, perilous instant -in his arms. Another moment and she would be at his mercy. Constance, -knowing this, and suddenly remembering the maid waiting for her, and -possibly belated neighbours looking out of their windows, withdrew a -little. This restored Thorndyke’s vagrant senses, and after a moment or -two he said: - -“It does not seem--now--so long since we parted.” - -“It is very long; it is nearly eighteen years,” Constance replied. -Her voice was the sweet voice of the far South, for her young eyes -had first opened upon the blue waters of another lake than Como--Lake -Pontchartrain. In her speech there were continual traces of her -Louisiana birth--Thorndyke had ever thought her voice and her little -mannerisms of language among her greatest charms--and he was confirmed -in his belief at the first word she uttered. He said to her: - -“I did not know until yesterday that you were in Washington.” - -“I did not like to send you a card,” Constance replied. - -“You might have done so much.” - -“I do not know which of us is in the wrong,” she said--said it so -deliberately that it might convey a thousand meanings. “But if you are -waiting for me to ask you--come. Of course, I cannot ask you in now; if -we were as young as we once were, it would be quite dreadful for us to -be standing and talking as we are--but both being old enough to take -care of ourselves, we have our liberty.” - -Love and hate are closely allied, and often reason alike from the same -premises. As Thorndyke realised more and more that Constance Maitland -still had power to disturb him powerfully he resented her ease and -tranquillity--and aware of the lines in his face, conscious that he was -growing bald, he felt injured at her continuing youth. Evidently, the -recollections which had made him forswear love, forego wealth, and had -turned him into a Congressional drudge, had left no mark on her. He -took, at once, her hint to leave her, and said stiffly: - -“If you will give me your key----” - -Constance handed it to him; he went up the steps and opened the door. -The gaslight fell full upon her, and it was as if with every glance -they became more infatuated with each other and found it harder to part. - -“To-morrow,” said Thorndyke. - -“Yes; to-morrow,” Constance echoed, dreamily. - -Thorndyke banged the door to and literally ran down the street. - -When he came to himself, as it were, he was in his own room, smoking. -He kept on saying to himself, “To-morrow--to-morrow,” and then called -himself a fool--a purely academic proceeding, however, which never -really influences any issue between a man and his will. When at last he -went to bed the sky was opalescent with the coming dawn. - - - - -_Chapter Three_ - -DOWN AMONG THE CAPTAINS AND THE SHOUTING - - -After four hours of sleep Thorndyke waked with the uncomfortable -feeling which waits on excess in everything, especially excess in the -emotions after one is forty years of age. The tumults of youth are -killing after forty. - -He got through with his breakfast and his mail under the disadvantages -of seeing visions of Constance Maitland floating all about him--visions -of Constance offering to give up her fortune and live with him on -what he could save of his Congressional salary after supplying the -wants of his crippled sister, Elizabeth. And in case he should lose -the nomination at the hands of his boss, as he had once done, there -would be nothing at all for Constance or Elizabeth, either, nor for -himself that he could then foresee. What a strange infatuation was -Congressional life! It was almost as strange as the infatuation for a -woman forever barred from him--and by the worst luck in the world, he, -Geoffrey Thorndyke, was the victim of both! - -These unpleasant thoughts walked every step of the way with him to -the Capitol on that bright April morning. When he reached the great -white building, sitting majestically on the hill, he was one of a vast -multitude of people surging toward the south wing. It still lacked -half an hour of twelve, and the flag was not yet hoisted. Crowds were -disembarking from the street-cars, the plaza was black with carriages, -and over all was that tension of feeling which communicates itself to -thousands and tens of thousands of persons at once. Something was about -to happen that day in the House of Representatives. As Crane said, the -smart set cared nothing for it, but their majesties, the people, were -deeply interested in it, and had every reason to be, and assembled -in great crowds to see the first act. Thorndyke made his way to his -committee-room. No one was there except Crane. The gentleman from -Circleville was dressed for his first appearance as a star. Thorndyke, -being in rather a savage humour, thought he had never seen Crane so -over-dressed, so full of elation and vain simplicity, and, in short, -so nearly a fool. In this he did Crane great injustice, for Crane never -was, at any time, in the category of fools, although he often did -foolish things. - -He spoke to Thorndyke affably, although with a slight air of -superiority, holding in his hand the report of which Thorndyke had -supplied the most effective part--the close reasoning, the conclusive -logic, the historical precedents, and the invincible moderation. -Thorndyke might indeed have said of that report, as Cæsar said of -the Gallic wars, “All of this I saw--most of this I was.” And in the -debate that would follow, Thorndyke would be obliged to take care of -Crane--for Crane, although a powerful and attractive speaker, was -easily disconcerted when on his feet, and had a tendency to panic under -the enfilading fire of debate. Thorndyke was not an orator in the -popular sense, but when it came to having all his wits about him, to -defending his position, to bold incursions into the enemy’s territory, -he was not surpassed by any man in the House. As his colleagues said -of him, he always went documented, and carried concealed parliamentary -weapons about his person. - -By way of revenge, Thorndyke began to chaff his colleague on the -subject of his dress. Crane’s shirt-bosom snapped like giant crackers, -his cuffs rattled, his collar creaked. He was conscious of this, -and glowered darkly at Thorndyke’s jokes. Thorndyke’s clothes, in -contradistinction to Crane’s, were the clothes of a clothes-wearing -man. They were neither old nor new, neither out of the fashion nor -conspicuously in the fashion--they were, in short, the clothes of a man -whose father before him had worn clothes. - -Both men were in their seats, which were near together, when the -Speaker’s gavel fell. The galleries were packed, the corridors jammed. -In the diplomatic gallery every seat was occupied. The bright costumes -of the Orientals and the flower-decked spring hats of the ladies made -it gay. The gallery reserved for the President’s family and the Cabinet -families was also full. So great was the pressure that the motion was -at once made to admit ladies to the floor of the House. They came -fluttering in like a flock of pigeons, and soon filled all the space -back of the desks. They were not, in general, of the smart set, who, -as Crane complained, were like Gallio, and cared for none of these -things--but were chiefly of official families. - -As soon as the prayer and some routine business was over, the report -of the Committee on Foreign Affairs was called for. The calling of the -roll had been waived--it was easy enough to see that every member was -present who could get there, as well as many Senators. When the report -was handed to the reading-clerk there was a deep pause. Thorndyke -looked at Crane. He was very pale, but the veins in his neck were -pulsating strongly. He glanced up at the reserved gallery at the side, -and his face flushed deeply. Thorndyke followed his eye. It fell upon -Constance Maitland sitting in the front row. She was dressed in a rich -black toilette which contrasted strongly with the brilliant colours -around her. A delicate black tulle hat sat upon her graceful head, and -she fanned herself slowly with a large black fan. - -Her distinction of appearance was extreme, and she showed her perfect -knowledge of it by the simple but effective trick of wearing black -when there was a riot of colour around her. By means of a good figure -and perfect dressing this seduced the world into thinking her far -handsomer than she really was. Thorndyke recognised that when he saw -how much more attention she attracted than much younger and more -beautiful women. - -But then the silence was broken by the great, bell-like voice of the -reading-clerk reading the report. As the clerk proceeded, Thorndyke -perceived that the tone and manner of the report were making a strong -impression. The matter of it could not be wholly digested, but the -manner of presentation commanded attention. Nearly every one of the -three hundred and fifty members present saw Thorndyke’s fine Italian -hand in the business--but the crowd gazed in admiration at the tall -and handsome member from Circleville, who was reaping the glory of the -present occasion. The reading over, Crane arose, with a few notes in -his hand, prepared to defend the report. He was a born speaker, and -as soon as he began to talk he forgot his clothes and also made his -audience forget them, too. Thorndyke listened with enforced admiration. -Crane spoke lucidly, strongly, yet temperately--Thorndyke had taught -him the enormous power of moderation. Thorndyke, quite unobserved, -watched the faces of the European diplomats in the diplomatic gallery, -who were listening intently. One man, whom Thorndyke reckoned the -ablest diplomat among those representing Western Europe, stealthily -took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. An Ambassadress -dropped her card-case at his feet and he did not see it. Another, a -round, red-faced, sensible, guileless man, looked about him with a -frankly puzzled air, which said as plainly as words, “God bless my -soul--what are we to do about this?” The younger men unconsciously -assumed expressions of contempt, indifference, and displeasure. They -had every reason to be displeased at the turn international affairs -were taking--and there was no alternative but war. - -Thorndyke, being experienced in legislation, could very readily -estimate the effect on his colleagues of what Crane was saying. It was -tremendous. The vast hall was stilled, and the stillness grew intense. -By some communicable psychic force all knew that here was a great issue -met and disposed of for a hundred years to come. To the Americans -present it was a source of pride and of relief. The mellow, unchanging -sunlight that glowed softly through the iridescent glass roof of the -hall fell upon their faces, serious indeed, but steady and cheerful. -The Congress was back of that report, and the people were behind the -Congress. There was no hysteria among the Congress or the people, but a -fixed and resolute determination which was, in effect, the registering -of a decree of fate. - -Crane spoke for half an hour, his rich, full voice growing richer and -fuller, without becoming louder, as he proceeded. At the very end he -had allowed himself a little leeway, rightly judging that by that -time the audience would be wrought up to the pitch which would permit -what is called eloquence. When the last sentences, ringing with terse -Americanism, rolled out, the effect was magical. A great storm of -feeling had been evoked and had responded. The applause was long and -loud and deep and steady, like the breaking of ocean waves upon granite -rocks. Crane’s words had pierced the heart of every American present, -and a common impulse brought all of them to their feet. Even the -Speaker, not knowing what he was doing, rose from his chair, then sat -down again shamefacedly. None escaped the tumult outwardly except the -European occupants of the diplomatic gallery. They were ostentatiously -cool, and talked and laughed during the tempest of applause, while -secretly they were more agitated than any of the cheering multitude. -They had heard that which meant surrender to each and all of them. - -The Speaker’s gavel descended presently, and quiet was partially -restored. Crane was surrounded by members of both parties -congratulating him, and he received their praise with a modesty more -sincere than was generally believed. But to him had it been brought -home that the crisis was bigger than the man, and the people were -bigger than the crisis. Thorndyke, sitting near him, had shared in -the tempest of feeling, but a sickening disappointment possessed him -when he saw Crane’s personal triumph. In all of Thorndyke’s years -of labour Fate had never given him any such a chance as this. But -it was his years of labour which made Crane’s success possible. He -could imagine the turgid, strained spread-eagleism, the powerful but -ill-reasoned speech, which Crane, but for him, would have made. His -eyes, in his cold fit of chagrin, wandered toward the place where -Constance Maitland sat. A slender black figure, gracefully holding up -the train of the black gown, was just disappearing through the door. -Thorndyke’s impulse to follow Constance was accentuated by a strong -desire, if there should be any debate, to leave Crane to his fate, -but he soon found out that the whole matter would go over until the -next day, and by that time his better self would assert itself, and -he would do his part--not for Crane’s sake, but for the sake of that -overmastering sense of public duty which he cherished religiously and -never alluded to. So, finding himself free and superfluous, he left -the chamber, partly to avoid the sight of Crane’s triumph and partly -drawn by Constance Maitland. Before leaving, however, he went up like a -gentleman and congratulated Crane, who, moved by an honest and generous -impulse, expressed the utmost gratitude to him. - -Out in the spring sunshine that flooded the plaza and the parklike -gardens and blazed upon the golden dome of the fair white National -Library, visible beyond the fringe of great green trees, Thorndyke -looked about him for Constance Maitland. She was just stepping into a -smart little brougham with a good-looking pair of brown cobs, and drove -away toward the quiet, shady, beautiful but unfashionable part of the -town on the east. - -The carriage went slowly, and Thorndyke, pursuing it, saw it stop a few -blocks from the Capitol, by one of those parks large enough for one to -wander in and feel alone as if in the woods. Constance descended from -the carriage holding her skirts daintily, and walked into the park. -Thorndyke boldly followed her--she had said to-morrow--and this was -to-morrow. - -He came upon her in a few minutes in a little open space, shut in, -except for the pathway, by shrubbery on every side. The grass was full -of daisies which had just put on their little white shirts and yellow -caps, and a pair of robins hopped about with as much gayety and freedom -as if they were country robins instead of town robins. - -Constance was sitting on a rusty iron bench, a little in the shade. She -had taken off her gloves, and her hands, small and innocent of rings, -lay in her lap. She seemed to be day-dreaming, as if she were eighteen -instead of thirty-eight years of age. Thorndyke was pleased to see -that by the searching light of day she did not look nearly so young -as in the mysterious night. But she was not the less charming on that -account--she had simply reached the fulness of her development in mind, -in feeling, and even in beauty, such as hers was. - -As Thorndyke took off his hat and bowed to her he received a distinct -invitation, by means of her eyes and smile, to remain, so he seated -himself on the bench by her side. She began the conversation by saying: - -“I have just come from the House. It was very exciting. I do not see -how any one can call life in America dull. It is Europe which is -dull--it is stagnation compared with this, our country.” - -Thorndyke again noted, with delight, in her speech that slight trace -of her Creole blood which years had not changed. She said “do not” and -“can not” in place of “don’t” and “can’t;” she took extraordinary pains -to pronounce the _th_, and had a way of accenting last syllables in a -manner not recommended by the dictionaries. The result was piquant and -charming. Constance herself was quite unconscious of it, and Thorndyke -remembered that in the old days he could bring her to pique and pouts -at any time by asking her to pronounce certain words and phrases which -were a perpetual stumbling-block to her. He did not venture now to -laugh at her about this pretty idiosyncrasy, but gravely took up the -thread of conversation where she dropped it. - -“What did you think of Crane’s speech?” - -“It was quite extraordinary. But it was not like him. It seemed to me -us if he were making somebody else’s speech. Was it yours?” - -If Constance had searched the realms of thought to find out the words -that would most soothe and satisfy Thorndyke at that moment she could -not have found any better than those she uttered. Smarting under the -sense of having sown for another to reap, Thorndyke needed consolation. -He had the defects of his qualities, and along with his passionate -devotion to parliamentary life was the natural desire for popular -applause. But he had never had it. He fondly believed that had this -superb opportunity been awarded him he should have proved equal to it. -Had it but occurred two months earlier! He and not Crane would have -been enveloped in trailing clouds of glory. But Constance--Constance, -with her woman’s wit, had seen that some one else besides Crane -deserved the credit for that effort. He made no reply to her questions -beyond a slight smile, but he let it be seen that she had hit the -bull’s eye. - -“Mr. Crane tells me he knows you,” he said, presently. - -“Yes,” answered Constance. “He has been a few times to see me. Last -night I met him at the ball at the French Embassy. I danced with him.” - -“He owned up to me some time ago that he was taking dancing-lessons--at -forty-two, with a wife and children in Circleville. I fancy his -performance answers the description that Herodotus gives of the dancing -of Hippocleides--it is diverting to himself, but disgusting to others.” - -“On the contrary, he dances very well--when he is not trying to do his -best. Perhaps you are surprised that I should still care to dance--but -remember, pray, my mother was Creole French.” - -And to this Thorndyke made a speech which brought the blood into -Constance Maitland’s cheeks, knocking ten years off her age at once. - -“I remember everything,” he said. - -After a moment’s pause Constance, still with a heightened colour, -continued: - -“I have seen Mr. Crane several times this winter--not only in my own -house, but in others. Whenever I am with him I am consumed with pity -for him.” - -“He does not need your pity now,” said Thorndyke, grimly. “It is more -needed by his senior Senator, who is the fly-wheel of the political -machine in his State. The old gentleman, I know, is at this minute -walking the floor in his committee-room and gnashing his teeth over -Crane’s success. The senior Senator took Crane up, sent him to -Congress, and thought he had secured a really efficient understrapper. -I don’t think Crane will fill that place after to-day’s triumph, -and the senior Senator knows it, and has got to discover means, if -possible, to garrote Crane politically before the next Congressional -campaign.” - -“I see,” replied Constance, who was only interested in the subject -because she saw Thorndyke was. “Mr. Crane, by virtue of making your -speech, has got beyond the control of his master. By the way--I am -so ignorant of Congressional matters--how can I get the Congressional -Record sent me every day?” - -“You have already got it--by mentioning to me that you wished it. It is -one of my few privileges. I am glad to do at least that much for you.” - -Thorndyke heard himself saying these things without his own volition in -the least. If Constance Maitland were willing at this moment to give up -a fortune for poverty with him, would he accept the sacrifice? Never. -How could a woman of her mature age, nurtured in luxury, descend to -poverty--for poverty is the lot of every member of Congress who wishes -to live in something more than mere decency on his salary. And yet -Thorndyke, at every opportunity, had assured Constance Maitland of his -unforgetting, of his tender, recollections--in short, of his love. Nor -had she showed any unwillingness to listen. It is not a woman’s first -love for which she wrecks her life; it is her last love--that final -struggle for supremacy. There can be no more after that. Sappho, on the -great white rock of Mitylene, knew this and perished. - -Some thoughts like this came into Constance Maitland’s mind, and, -driving away her colour, restored to her the lately vanished years. -Silence fell between them for a while, until Constance roused herself, -and, affecting cheerfulness, said: - -“I shall study the Congressional Record with interest. Everything in -one’s own country is of interest after a long and painful exile.” - -“You should read Lord Bolingbroke’s defence of exile,” replied -Thomdyke, moving a little nearer to her, and resting his elbow on the -back of the bench so that he could look into her pensive, changing face. - -“And yet, I daresay, Lord Bolingbroke pined in his exile. Nobody -believed him when he said he did not mind. Mine, however, was complete. -My uncle, von Hesselt, who was an honourable man in his way, thought he -was carrying out my aunt’s wishes by keeping me wholly away from all -Americans and wholly with foreigners.” - -“But you could have left him after you were of age.” - -“Ah, you do not know! He was the most terrible sufferer you can -imagine, for fifteen years. And what was worse, he was surrounded by -people, his own relatives, who, I truly believe, would have shortened -his life if they could. He knew this, and feared it even more than was -reasonable. Once, my longing for my country grew such that it overcame -me, and I told my uncle I must, I must come to America. He pleaded with -me--imagine an old man, whose life was one long stretch of pain and -fear, pleading with you until he fell prone in a paroxysm of despair! -I, too, was in despair, and I promised him I would remain with him -during his life.--I hardly knew what I was saying--I was not twenty-one -at the time--but I knew well enough after it was said. I kept my word, -and I nursed him through his last illness and closed his eyes in death. -Then, as soon as all was over, I sailed for America. I feel now as if I -never wished to see Europe again.” - -“And did Baron von Hesselt realise the enormous sacrifice you made for -him?” - -“Yes--that is, partly.” - -“Your aunt certainly was most unjust to you,” said Thorndyke, coolly. -“I mean, that provision robbing you of all your fortune in case you -marry an American.” - -“Yes, very unjust,” replied Constance, with equal coolness, although -the flush returned to her cheeks. - -“And I--I was to blame for that,” cried Thorndyke, venturing farther -upon ticklish ground. - -“Not altogether,” replied Constance, maintaining the steadiness of her -voice. “My aunt hated our country; she could not forget the Civil War; -and she meant--poor soul, I forgive her now--that I should never return -to America permanently. It was a strange thing to do, but I must admit -my aunt to have been in some respects both a strange and a foolish -woman. Let us not speak of her again. I am back, and if I feel as I do -now I shall never live in Europe again. It is time for me to prepare to -grow old.” - -She said this with a wan little smile, and all at once thought with -terror of her age; there was but four or five years’ difference between -Thorndyke and herself, and that difference, at a certain point, becomes -transferred to the gentleman’s side of the ledger. Suddenly the spring -afternoon seemed to become melancholy and overcast. A sharp wind sprang -up from the near-by river; the world turned from gold to gray. At the -same moment Thorndyke and Constance rose and walked away from the spot -that had been only a little while ago so sweet and sunny. - -“Why is it,” asked Constance, as they followed the pathway leading out -of the park, “a spring morning is the merriest thing in life, and a -spring evening the saddest?” - -“Why should anything be sad to you, spring evenings or any other -times?” asked Thorndyke, quietly and with perfect sincerity. - -“Why should any one be sad at all? Because we are human, I suppose,” -was Constance’s answer to this. - -As they came out upon the streets, which were less deserted than usual, -Thorndyke looked toward the south wing of the Capitol. The flag was -fluttering down from its flag-staff. - -“The House has adjourned,” he said, “and some history has been made -to-day--likewise a great reputation for our friend Crane.” - -The brougham was driving up and down, and the coachman, perceiving the -graceful black figure on the sidewalk, drove toward them. Thorndyke -noted, with disgust, the elegance of the turnout--the two perfectly -matched cobs, the silver-mounted harness of Spanish leather, the -miniature brougham with “C. M.” in cipher on the panels--the whole -must have cost about half his yearly income. This, together with -Crane’s remarkable triumph, made him surly, and he said, stiffly, as he -assisted Constance into the brougham: - -“You gave me permission to call to-day.” - -“Yes, but I withdraw it. It is now nearly three o’clock. I have not had -my luncheon, I am tired, and I must rest this afternoon, and I go out -to dinner. To-morrow at five.” - -Her tone and manner discounted her words. It was as if she were saying: -“I must save something for to-morrow--I will not be a spendthrift of -my joys.” Thorndyke, finding nothing to discompose him in her words, -replied, in a very good humour: - -“It is always to-morrow--but to-morrow is better than not at all. -Good-bye.” - -The brougham rolled off, and Thorndyke stepped aboard a street-car -bound for the West End. - -At the Capitol plaza a great crowd got on, among them the two gentlemen -whom Thorndyke affectionately described as his boss and Crane’s boss. -The two men stood together on the platform outside. Both of them -revealed in their faces their mastery of men and affairs, for your -true boss is necessarily a very considerable man. Senator Standiford, -Thorndyke’s boss, had an iron jaw, which was emphasised by a low brow, -but his face was not without a touch of ideality. Senator Bicknell, -Crane’s boss, had likewise a determined face, but his forehead and -eyes betrayed the human weakness which made him like clever men as -his instruments. Both men were millionaires. Senator Standiford lived -in three rooms at a hotel, rode in street-cars, and gave liberally of -his money to campaign funds, charities, and his poor relations, but -was never known to part with an atom of his power if he could help it. -Senator Bicknell fared sumptuously every day, had a splendid house and -gorgeous carriages, only rode in the street-cars for a lark, and was -reported to be a skinflint in money matters, and somewhat foolishly -lavish in giving away his power. The two men exchanged some words -which Thorndyke, wedged inside as he was, could not but hear. Senator -Standiford was saying to his colleague: - -“S. M. & L. stock must be going down when _you_ ride in a street-car.” - -“I lost one of my coach-horses last night,” replied Senator Bicknell, -“and can’t use my carriage to-day.” - -“Misfortunes never come singly,” said Senator Standiford, -enigmatically, then adding, “I suppose it’s in order to congratulate -you on the success of your protégé, Crane, to-day?” - -Thorndyke could scarcely keep from laughing at the look of chagrin -which came over Senator Bicknell’s countenance at this. - -“Y-yes,” he answered, dubiously. - -“Don’t get in a panic,” kept on Senator Standiford, with rude good -humour; “I know how it is with those fellows. Crane thinks from this -day forth that you are a back number, an old fogy, and a dead cock in -the pit. He will go into what he considers a grooming process for the -next four years--oh, I know those fellows! He will kick up a lot of -dust in the gubernatorial convention, will make a great display of not -wanting the nomination, and will bide his time until your term expires. -Then he will find it is a grueling and not a grooming he has had, and -he will get a small bunch of votes, but I don’t think you need take the -fellow seriously just now.” - -At this last sentence Senator Bicknell’s face shone like the sun. It -shone the more when Senator Standiford kept on: - -“There’s no reason to fear a man who makes a good speech----” - -“I am in no fear of any one,” gravely replied Senator Bicknell, who -thought it essential to his dignity to say so much. - -“It’s the strong debater who is likely to become formidable. There’s -Thorndyke now--Crane has made the speech--largely Thorndyke’s--but he -is totally unequal to the running fire of debate. Thorndyke could do -him up inside of ten minutes. Luckily for him, the debate will not be -fierce, and Thorndyke will really conduct it.” - -“Mr. Thorndyke is a very able man,” said Senator Bicknell, as if -thinking aloud. - -“Yes, but totally without ambition,” replied Senator Standiford, -gravely, and Thorndyke, within the car, laughed silently. - -It was, however, no laughing matter, but Thorndyke, having chosen his -rôle for better or for worse, could only cleave to it, forsaking all -others. However, he would see Constance Maitland the next day at five -o’clock. There was balm in Gilead, or hasheesh in the pipe, he knew not -exactly which. - - - - -_Chapter Four_ - -GOVERNMENT WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED - - -Life is a battle and a march--especially public life. Thorndyke waked -the next morning prepared for both a battle and a march. A glance at -the morning newspapers showed that the country was entirely with the -Congress, and the people, having given their orders, would see to it -that these orders were promptly obeyed. The Continental press of Europe -with few exceptions barked furiously. The French newspapers alone -retained dignity and good sense, pointing out the inevitable trend of -events, and advised that, instead of abusing the United States, they -should be copied in that system which had made them great, not by war, -but by peace. The English newspapers were fair, but in some of them -bitterness was expressed at England being shouldered out of her place -as the greatest of the world-powers by the young giant of the West. -There was in all of them, however, a note of triumph, that this first -place had been lost only to an offshoot of the sturdy parent stock. -This sentiment is often ridiculed as a peculiarly absurd form of -national self-love, but there is, in reality, nothing ridiculous about -it. As long as self-love is a part of nations and individuals, so long -will each nation and each individual strive to share in the general -stock of glory, achievement, and success. - -In the American newspapers the man most prominent was Crane. He was -compared to Henry Clay, to Stephen A. Douglas, to any and every -American public man who had early in life made a meteoric rise in -Congress. He was represented as the embodiment of youth with the wisdom -of age. One newspaper reckoned him to be a political Chatterton, and -called him “the Wondrous Boy.” His beauty was lauded, his voice, his -delivery, the fit of his trousers; and one enthusiastic journal in -Indianapolis promptly nominated him for the Presidency. Thorndyke -searched the newspapers carefully, and did not find his own name once -mentioned. He reflected upon Horace Greely’s remark that fame is a -vapour. - -Disappointing as it was to him to feel that another had reaped his -harvest, it did not give him acute pain; for he had waked that morning -with the agreeable consciousness which comes occasionally to every -human being, that the world is more interesting to-day than it was -yesterday; that consciousness which illuminates the cold, gray stage of -life, and indicates that the lights are about to be turned up and the -play to begin. The kind tones of Constance Maitland’s voice were still -in Thorndyke’s ears, and the unmistakable look of interest in her soft -eyes had visited him in dreams. He was no nearer marrying her than he -had been at any time during the past eighteen years; the same obstacle -was there--a very large, real, terrifying, and obvious obstacle--but -there was also a sweet and comforting suspicion in his mind that -Constance, as well as himself, had cherished the idyl of their youth. -And then, by daylight, she did not look so preposterously girlish as -she had looked by moonlight and in ball-dress. This gave Thorndyke -considerable pleasure as he brushed the remnants of his hair into -positions where they would do the most good. Her apparent advantage of -him in the matter of youth and good looks had been disturbing to him -at first. She still had much of youth and great good looks, but yet, a -man with scanty hair and a grayish moustache would not look like an old -fool beside her, as he had feared. - -Thorndyke, according to his custom, walked to the Capitol. The morning, -like most spring mornings in Washington, was as beautiful as the -first morning in the garden of Eden. He chose unfrequented streets, -and, passing under the long green arcades, had only the trees for his -companionship on his walk. - -Instead of reaching the building by way of the plaza, Thorndyke -chose rather to ascend the long flights of steps leading upward from -terrace to terrace on the west front. It is a way little used, but -singularly beautiful, with its marble balustrades, its lush greenness -of shrubbery, and the noble view both of the building and the fair -white city embosomed in trees, spread out like a dream-city before -the eye. Half-way up Thorndyke saw Senator Standiford sitting on one -of the iron benches placed on the falls of the terrace. Thorndyke was -surprised to see him there, and it occurred to him at once that it was -a premeditated meeting on the Senator’s part. - -He was a tall, ugly old man with chin-whiskers, but his appearance was -redeemed by the power which spoke from his strongly marked face, and -by his punctilious, old-fashioned dress and extreme neatness. He wore -a silk hat made from a block he had used for thirty years. His coat, -gray and wide-skirted, seemed of the same vintage, and his spotless -collar of antique pattern, and his large black silk necktie might have -been worn by Daniel Webster himself. A big pair of gold spectacles and -a gold-headed cane completed a costume which was admirably harmonious, -and produced the effect of an old lady in 1903 with the side curls and -cap of 1853. - -The Senator had a newspaper spread out before him, but as Thorndyke -approached folded it up, pushed his gold spectacles up on his forehead, -and called out: - -“Hello! Have you read about the ‘Wondrous Boy’ this morning?” - -“I have,” replied Thorndyke, smiling pleasantly as he lifted his hat, -and in response to a silent invitation he seated himself on the bench -by Standiford’s side. - -“Great speech, that,” continued the Senator. “At first I was disposed -to give you the credit for all of it--but there’s something in that -fellow Crane. You couldn’t have coached him so well if he hadn’t been -capable of learning.” - -“You do me too much honour,” replied Thorndyke, laughing, but with -something like bitterness. - -Senator Standiford continued with a dry contortion of the lips which -was meant for a smile: - -“But you’ll see, my son, that your friend Crane won’t grow quite -so fast as he thinks he will. In our times public men require the -seasoning of experience before they amount to anything. There’ll be no -more Henry Clays elected to the House of Representatives before they -are thirty. The world was young, then, but we have matured rapidly. -It is true that we have relaxed the rule of the Senate a little, and -allow the new senators to speak in the Senate Chamber at a much earlier -period in their senatorial service than formerly. But speech-making is -a dangerous pastime. Much of the small success I have achieved”--here -Senator Standiford’s face assumed a peculiar expression of solemnity -which made him look like a deacon handing around the church plate--“I -lay to the fact that I never could make a speech in my life, and I -found it out at an early stage in my career. I’m a Presbyterian, as -you know, but in my town I’m classed as a heretic and an iconoclast, -because when they want to call a new preacher and to have him preach -a specimen sermon I always tell the elders, ‘Why do you want to judge -the fellow by the way he talks? It’s the poorest test in the world to -apply to a man. Find out what he can _do_.’ But they won’t listen to -me, of course, and the Fourth Presbyterian Church is perennially filled -by a human wind-bag, who snorts and puffs and blows dust about until -the congregation get tired of him and try another wind-bag. In Congress -wind-bags don’t last.” - -“All the same, I wish from the bottom of my heart that I had had -Crane’s chance yesterday and had used it as well,” replied Thorndyke. - -“If you had you would have given our junior Senator a bad quarter of an -hour,” replied Senator Standiford, gravely. - -Now, in common with all true Senatorial bosses, Standiford had seen -to it that his junior Senator was a man of straw, put in the place in -order that the boss might have two votes in the Senate. Never had the -junior Senator yet voted or acted in opposition to his master; but had -Thorndyke been the junior it would have been another story, and both -men knew it. This caused Thorndyke to remark, coolly: - -“He would have no reason to disturb himself--the ass! You have -been kind enough to give me to understand that I am ineligible for -promotion, not being made of putty, as our junior Senator is.” - -“Now, now!” remonstrated Senator Standiford, again assuming his air of -a seventeenth-century Puritan. “To hear you anybody would think that -our State organisation didn’t want every first-class man it can get! -We have the highest regard for your services, and we do what we can to -keep you in your present place because we see your usefulness there.” - -Senator Standiford punctiliously used the euphemism “we” just as he -gravely consulted all the pothouse politicians and heelers in “the -organisation,” but it did not materially affect the fact that he was -the whole proposition in his own State. - -Thorndyke looked full into the deep, calm eyes of the rugged old man -before him, and could not forbear laughing; but there was not the -glimmer of a twinkle in them. Presently the old man said, coolly: - -“Suppose I should tell you that I may retire at the end of my term, two -years from now?” - -“I should wish to believe anything you say, my dear Senator, but I am -afraid I couldn’t believe that.” - -“What a fellow you are! But let me tell you--mind, this is a confidence -between gentlemen--my retirement is not impossible. You know my -daughter, my little Letty----” - -As Senator Standiford spoke the name his face softened, and a passion -of parental love shone in his deep-set eyes. - -“She is a very remarkable girl, Mr. Thorndyke, very remarkable; and she -loves her old father better than he deserves. I have as good sons as -any man ever had--but that daughter left me by my dead wife is worth to -me everything else on God’s earth. The doctors have been frightening -her about me lately. They tell her I work too hard for my time of -life--that I ought to take a rest, and if I will do it I can add ten -years to my life. Now, you know, the State organisation will never let -me take a rest”--Senator Standiford said this quite seriously--“and -Letty as good as told me six months ago that if I should be re-elected -to the Senate”--the Senator uttered this “if” in a tone of the most -modest deprecation--“_if_ I should be re-elected for another term--as -she wishes me to be--then she wants me to resign. I don’t mind -admitting that if any other human being had said this to me except my -daughter Letty, I should have reckoned myself drunk or crazy to have -listened to it. But my daughter, as I mentioned to you, is a remarkable -girl. Besides, the child is not strong herself, and if she gets to -worrying about me--well, you can see, Mr. Thorndyke, how it is with me. -The world credits me with loving place and power above everything on -earth, but there is something dearer to me than the office of President -of the United States: it is my daughter. And the sweetness and the -tenderness of that child for her old father----” - -Here Senator Standiford took out a large red silk handkerchief and blew -a blast like the blast of Roncesvalles. - -Being an accomplished judge of men, Senator Standiford, while speaking, -had watched Thorndyke closely. Had he shown any undue elation over -the political prospects indicated by Senator Standiford’s possible -retirement, Thorndyke’s fortunes would have been ruined. But by the -lucky accident of having a good heart he said the most judicious thing -possible. - -“I don’t see any indications of overwork in you, Senator. At the same -time I know you do the work of ten men, and I also know the exercise of -power is so dear to you that, from the pound-master in your own town -up to the candidate for President, you give everything your personal -supervision. But as for Miss Standiford’s not being strong--why, I took -her in to dinner less than a month ago, and remarked on her freshness -and beauty. She looked the picture of health and ate more dinner than I -did.” - -“Did she?” asked the Senator, anxiously. “What did she eat?” - -Thorndyke did not feel in the least like laughing at Senator -Standiford’s inquiry, and answered, promptly: - -“Oh, everything. I remember chaffing her about her good appetite.” - -“Thank God! The doctors say if she can only eat and live out in the -fresh air and play golf and ride horseback she will be all right. -But, Thorndyke, I swear to you, I am as soft as milk about that girl. -If she goes out to golf I am unhappy for fear she will take cold. If -she rides I am in terror for fear some accident will happen to her. -Ah, Thorndyke, a man is no fit guardian for a girl like that--the -sweetest--the most affectionate----” - -Here Senator Standiford again blew his nose violently. - -“She has always been very sweet to me,” answered Thorndyke, “although I -believe she thinks me old enough to be her grandfather.” - -“She is a very remarkable girl, sir; that I say without the least -partiality,” replied Senator Standiford, earnestly. “She’s a little -wild, having no mother, poor child--but her heart, sir, is in the right -place. And the way she loves her old father is the most splendid, -touching, exquisite thing ever imagined!” - -Thorndyke listened attentively, deeply interested in the human side of -a man who had seemed to him to have a very small amount of the purely -human in him. The little story of Letty Standiford’s health and heart -and nature did not strike him as puerile--there was nothing puerile -about Silas Standiford, and his love for this child of his old age -was, in truth, a Titanic passion, strong enough, as he said, to make -him forego the chief object of his existence: power over other men. -Thorndyke really liked and pitied Letty Standiford, living her young -life without guidance, in a manner possible only in America and not -desirable anywhere for a young girl. He had not suspected the delicacy -of her constitution, and after Senator Standiford ceased speaking said: - -“I wish, Senator, you could persuade Miss Standiford to be a little -more prudent about her health. The night I dined out with her, when it -came time to go home she was about to pick up her skirts and run two -blocks to your hotel, in her satin slippers, with sleet coming down, -and the streets like glass--this, for a lark. I took her by the arm and -shoved her in a cab, got in myself, and took her home. I thought she -would box my ears before I got there, but I carried my point.” - -“She told me about it--she tells me everything; and I thank you for -taking care of the child. You may imagine what I suffer on her account.” - -Senator Standiford rose then, and, resting both hands on his -old-fashioned gold-headed stick, he looked full into Thorndyke’s face, -and said, slowly: - -“I hope we understand each other, Mr. Thorndyke. We think you a very -strong man, and strong men are liable to become dangerous. The State -organisation wishes you to remain where you are. But in the event -that I should be re-elected and should be forced to resign, I have no -hesitation in saying that unless something unforeseen happens you would -certainly have my personal good wishes toward getting you the party -nomination for Senator.” - -“I understand you perfectly, Senator,” replied Thorndyke, with equal -coolness, “and though I admit I think it a shameful state of affairs -that any organisation or any man should have the power to dispose of -any man’s political future, yet it is a fixed fact in our State and -can’t be helped for the present. So far as your personal kindness to -me goes I have the deepest sense of it, and the chances are, on the -strength of what you have just said, that I may one day be senator.” - -“And when you are you won’t be as much down on the State organisation -as you are now,” remarked Senator Standiford, beginning to climb the -marble steps. “You will probably be called a boss yourself.” - -“No, I shall not,” answered Thorndyke. “I shouldn’t have the heart to -put men through the mill as I have seen you and Senator Bicknell and a -few others do.” - -Senator Standiford professed to regard this as a pleasantry, and so -they entered the Capitol together. - -The day was the regular one for the meeting of the House Foreign -Affairs Committee, and there was a full attendance, every member -being prompt except the chairman. Ten minutes after the hour struck, -Crane entered. It was almost impossible for a man to have had the -personal triumph he had enjoyed the day before, without showing some -consciousness of it. Thorndyke had expected to see Crane crowing -like chanticleer. Instead, he was remarkably quiet and subdued. He -was greeted with the chaff which senators and representatives indulge -in after the manner of collegians. Several members addressed him as -the “Wondrous Boy,” and others, displaying copies of the Indianapolis -editorial, presented their claims to him for cabinet places and -embassies. One member--the Honourable Mark Antony Hudgins, a colleague -of Crane’s, who posed as a greenhorn and was really a wit--solemnly -engaged Thorndyke to write him a speech to deliver at the first -seasonable opportunity, but warned him not to make it too much like -the speech of the “Wondrous Boy.” Thorndyke laughed. He had taken no -part in the joking and chaffing. Crane’s face flushed. He did not like -to be reminded of Thorndyke’s share in his success, but he was too -considerable a man to deny it. - -The meeting was brief and devoted to routine matters. The debate would -begin directly after the morning hour, and it was supposed it would go -along smoothly. There was, it is true, an able and malevolent person -from Massachusetts who would be likely to stick a knife between the -joints of Crane’s armour, and two or three Southern members who would -be certain to discover an infringement of the Constitution of the -United States in something or other--but these were only the expected -rough spots in an otherwise smooth road. - -At two o’clock the debate began. Again were the galleries packed, -though not to the same degree as on the day before. When Crane rose to -defend the report he was loudly applauded. He was interrupted once or -twice by the able and malevolent representative from Massachusetts, who -never disappointed expectations in that particular. And there were some -sly allusions to the Indianapolis newspaper and the “Wondrous Boy.” -This bothered Crane obviously, who had a reasonable and wholesome fear -of ridicule. He had his share of a certain crude humour--God never -makes an American without putting humour of some sort into him--but -Crane’s was not the rapid-fire, give-and-take humour which counts in -debate. He was always afraid of committing some breach of taste and -decorum when he wished to raise a laugh. He remembered certain men -whose remarks had caused a tempest of mirth in the House, but those -same remarks seen in cold type next day had seriously damaged their -authors. It was here that Thorndyke came to Crane’s rescue. While he -sat glowering and fuming and hesitating, Thorndyke stood in the breach -with a good story, full of wit and pith. The House immediately went -into convulsions of laughter. The able and malevolent member from -Massachusetts in vain tried to bring the gentlemen back to a state of -seriousness and disgust with affairs generally. But the turn injected -by Thorndyke into the discussion put everybody into a good humour, the -debate went swimmingly, as it was foreseen, and when the adjournment -came it was plain that the report would be adopted substantially as it -came from the committee. - -Thorndyke watched the big clock over the main doorway, and precisely -at four left the chamber, and likewise left Crane to his fate, which, -however, proved to be easy enough. Thorndyke had other business on hand -then. - - - - -_Chapter Five_ - -A RAPTUROUS HOUR WHICH WAS RUDELY INTERRUPTED - - -When Thorndyke got out of doors the bright morning had changed into a -cold, determined downpour of rain. The gray mists hung over the city -at the foot of the hill, and the summit of the monument was obscured -by sullen driving clouds. Thorndyke’s spirits rose as he surveyed the -gloomy prospect. It was not much of an afternoon for visiting--he -should find Constance alone. - -He went to his rooms, dressed, and before five was at Constance -Maitland’s door. The afternoon had grown worse. A sad northeast wind -had been added to the rain; the lilac-bushes in the little lawn at the -side of the house drooped forlornly, and the dejected syringas looked -like young ladies caught out in the rain in their ball-gowns. - -The rain, the cold, and the wind outside was the best possible foil -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. - -The Secretary of State, however, was disappointed in Crane. He -proved to be quite as intractable as Thorndyke had been, and with -less excuse--for Thorndyke had never been asked to little dinners -at the Secretary’s house. The Secretary’s widowed daughter, Mrs. -Hill-Smith, the beautiful, well-gowned, soft-voiced granddaughter of -Cap’n Josh Slater, of Ohio River fame, murmured once or twice when -Crane was under discussion that he was “so very Western,” and assumed -a rather apologetic tone for having been seen at the play with him. -The Secretary himself, despairing of making the chairman of the House -Committee on Foreign Affairs a handy tool for the State Department, -returned to his legitimate business. This business consisted of -labouring and slaving, in conjunction with foreign chancelleries, to -make elaborate treaties, which the House and Senate treated as college -football teams treat the pigskin on hard-fought fields. The Secretary -felt peculiarly aggrieved over the Brazilian affair, in which the State -Department made a ridiculously small figure, in spite of innumerable -letters, memoranda, protocols, treaties, and what not. When the time -came for action the Congress had quietly taken the whole matter in -charge, and had not even censured the Secretary if it could not praise -him. Could he have been attacked and denounced, as Mr. Balfour and M. -Combes and Chancellor von Buelow, and the Prime Ministers of Europe -were, it would have been a consolation. But even this was cruelly -denied him. He had gone through all the strenuous forms of diplomacy -which meant something a hundred years ago, when there was neither cable -nor telegraph, and when diplomats were not merely clerks and auditors -of their respective foreign offices. The Secretary had practised all -the diplomatic expedients he knew. When he had not made up his mind -what to say to an ambassador, he had gone to bed with lumbago. When he -wished to impress one of the great Powers of Europe with the notion -that it had in him a Bismarck to deal with, he had lighted a cigar in -the presence of five full-fledged ambassadors. Remembering how eagerly -the world always waited for the speech of the Prime Minister of England -at the annual Lord Mayor’s banquet, the Secretary had spent a whole -month composing and revising his remarks at a great banquet in New York -on Decoration Day, and the reporters had got his speech all wrong, and -a disrespectful New York newspaper had made game of his trousers, had -compared them to Uncle Josh Whitcomb’s in “The Old Homestead,” and had -asked pertinently--or impertinently--where the Secretary had hired -them. In Congress he fared little better. The Senate had taken some -small notice of him. In the House he had been practically ignored, -except once when a member alluded to having “an interview with the -Secretary of State.” A member of his own party, the same Honourable -Mark Antony Hudgins, of Texas, who had guyed Crane, had sternly rebuked -his colleague for his phraseology, and declared that what he should -have said was “an audience with the Prime Minister”--and the House -laughed at the unseemly joke. The Secretary had in secret a low opinion -of the collective wisdom of Congress, and in this he was at one with -the whole diplomatic body in Washington. - -Crane, like everybody else, had really forgotten the Secretary in the -press of affairs. He was amazed at not receiving an answer to his -letter to Governor Sanders, and so told Thorndyke one night a few days -after their meeting at Constance Maitland’s house. Crane had a great -esteem for Thorndyke’s sincerity, which was justified, and Thorndyke, -in his heart, was forced to admire Crane’s force and to expect great -things of him. He did not entertain any doubt of Crane’s loyalty, but -he watched curiously the development of the character of a man exposed -to Crane’s peculiar temptations. That Crane had both good and bad -qualities in great vigour he saw easily enough, but he could not tell -which were the fundamentals. Crane was desperately poor, was foolishly -proud, was rash and vainglorious, and was destined to shine brilliantly -in the world of politics. What was to become of such a man? What -usually became of such men? It was with these thoughts that Thorndyke, -at his lodgings, on a warm May night, listened to Crane’s account of -what had happened to him in the last few days. - -He assured Crane that his conduct regarding Governor Sanders and the -senatorship seemed eminently sensible, after deducting the initial -folly of it. And his making his first serious attempt to save -money at the very time when it might be expected he would become -extravagant inclined Thorndyke to the belief that Crane was, after all, -fundamentally honest. - -Crane at that very moment suffered from a feeling of conscious guilt. -He had begun to practise more than the one virtue of economy. He was -practising several others, but all with a view to his own advantage. -One of them was that his wife should come on and visit him during the -remainder of the session. She had not been in Washington for five -years--not since that first unlucky venture in the Eleventh Street -boarding-house. - -He mentioned to Thorndyke his intention to send for his wife, and had -the grace to say that it was because he was lonely without her--and -in saying so he was conscious of uttering a colossal lie. But being -inexpert as a liar he did badly, and felt ashamed of doing badly even -in lying. - -Thorndyke, on whom Annette Crane’s simple and natural charm had made a -strong impression, was pleased at the thought that Crane would pay her -the compliment of having her with him and pleased at the thought of -seeing her again. - -“I shall be going West next week,” he said, “and if Mrs. Crane is ready -to come to Washington I shall be proud to escort her back.” - -“Thank you,” answered Crane, “it would be a kindness to me as well as -to Mrs. Crane. She is not an experienced traveller.” - -Both Thorndyke and Crane when they were together desired to keep -Constance Maitland out of their conversation, but by one of those -contradictory and involuntary impulses which cannot be accounted for, -her name always came up between them. This time it was by Crane’s -saying, after a while: - -“Have you seen Miss Maitland lately?” - -“I dined there night before last,” answered Thorndyke. - -Crane knew that Constance Maitland’s favourite form of entertaining -was at little dinners, which were perfection in the way of guests and -service. He had never been asked to one of them, and thought gloomily -that after Constance’s very plain speaking to him at their last -interview his chance of being invited was thin to attenuation. - -“Was that the night that fellow Hudgins from Texas dined there?” -asked Crane, who had not taken Constance’s sound advice to cultivate -reticence. - -“Yes, and I never saw a better dinner-man than Hudgins, nor was ever at -a more agreeable dinner.” - -“Bosh! Hudgins?” - -“Yes, Hudgins. The fellow has a quiet manner, a soft voice, and the -most delightful and archaic reverence for ‘the ladies,’ as he calls -them. It is like what history tells us of General Sam Houston. Hudgins -was a screaming success at the dinner.” - -Seeing that the account of Hudgins’s triumph gave Crane acute -discomfort, Thomdyke, lighting a fresh cigar, kept on remorselessly: - -“Miss Maitland wanted to ask some really representative man to meet -Sir Mark le Poer, a very agreeable and considerable Englishman, one -of the permanent under-secretaries in the British Foreign Office--it -seems he is a great friend of hers. He had been gorgeously entertained -by all the retired trades-people who are in the smart set here, but -complained that he hadn’t met any Americans--they _would_ ask all the -diplomats to meet him, fellows that bored him to death in Europe and -still more so here. It seems that Miss Maitland had heard that the -long, thin, soft-voiced Texan was delightful at dinner--so she asked -me to bring him to call, and the dinner invitation followed. Besides -Sir Mark and Hudgins and myself, there was Cathcart--a navy man--good -old New England family, four generations in the navy, travelled man -of the world, and flower of civilisation. But Hudgins was easily the -star of the occasion. There were three other women present besides Miss -Maitland, all of them charming women, who know the world and command -it; and the way they, as well as the Englishman and the naval officer, -fell in love with Hudgins and his soft Texas accent, and his stupendous -Texas yarns, and his way of looking at things--well, it was a show.” - -“Oh, come, Thorndyke--Hudgins!” - -“Yes, Hudgins, I tell you. When the time came for the ladies to leave -the table none of them wanted to go, and they said so. Then Hudgins -rose and said in that inimitable manner of his, which catches the women -every time, ‘If Miss Maitland would kindly permit it, I’d rather a -million times go into the parlour with her and the other ladies than -stay out here with these fellows. I can get the society of men and a -cigar any day, but it isn’t often that I can bask in the presence of -ladies like these present.’ And the presumptuous dog actually walked -off and left us in the lurch--and you can depend upon it, the women -liked him better than any of us.” - -“If women are won by compliments like that, any man can win their -favour,” said Crane, crossly. - -“My dear fellow, women know vastly more than we do. It wasn’t Hudgins’s -compliments in words that won the women--it was his giving up his -cigar and the extra glass of champagne and the society of men that -fetched ’em--it was the sincerity of the thing. When we went into the -drawing-room Hudgins was sitting on the piano-stool telling them some -sentimental story about his mother down in Texas when he started out -in life, with nothing but the clothes on his back and a six-shooter -in his pocket. The women were nearly in tears. As for the rest of us, -including Sir Mark le Poer, we simply weren’t in it with Hudgins. We -stayed until nearly midnight; then the men adjourned to the club, where -Hudgins kept us until three o’clock in the morning telling us more -yarns about Texas. Sir Mark would hardly let him out of sight, and -Hudgins has engaged to spend August with him in Scotland at a splendid -place he has near Inverness. That’s the way a man with great natural -gifts of entertaining and being entertained can get on, if he has a -chance.” - -Crane felt humiliated and disappointed. In all honesty, he could not -imagine why he, with his recognised talents, his extreme good looks, -his fondness for society, should have no such social triumphs as that -long, lean, lanky Texan. He had not grasped the truth that society is -a pure democracy, and until a man has abandoned all pretensions to -superiority he will not be acceptable in it. - -Just then, along the dusky street a carriage came rolling. At -Thorndyke’s door it stopped, a footman descended from the box and -assisted Senator Bicknell to alight. - -“The Senator has come hunting you up,” Thorndyke remarked to Crane. -“When a man is anxious enough to see you to come after you, it is -generally possible to make your own terms with him.” - -Crane’s backbone was considerably stiffened by this remark of -Thorndyke’s, and then Senator Bicknell walked in the room and greeted -Thorndyke and Crane affably. He made an elaborate apology for seeking -Crane, but said frankly he wished to discuss some matters of State -politics with him. - -Thorndyke at once rose to leave the room, but Crane, asking Senator -Bicknell if he had any objection to Thorndyke’s remaining and the -Senator feebly agreeing to it, Thorndyke sat down again to enjoy the -scrap. As it was not in his own party, he was a perfectly disinterested -listener. - -“Mr. Crane,” began Senator Bicknell, in a dulcet voice, “I hardly -think you realise what it means to our State organisation to introduce -discord into it at this time.” - -It was less than fourteen months before a national convention and the -rainbow of a Presidential nomination had arisen upon Senator Bicknell’s -political horizon. This had happened more than once, but the Senator -had never been able, heretofore, to catch the rainbow by the tail--yet, -hope springs eternal in the human breast. - -To this Crane replied, firmly: - -“I desire, Senator, to do everything I can to promote harmony in the -State organisation. It is Governor Sanders who is making trouble, and I -shall defend myself from him, and die in the last ditch, if necessary.” - -Crane was by nature a gladiator, and the prospect of a fight by no -means discomposed him. - -Senator Bicknell sighed. He had already on his hands nine bloody -fights in various parts of the State, and the prospect of a tenth -fight, of a triangular nature at that, with two such sluggers as Crane -and the Governor of the State, made the Senator’s head ache. He looked -sadly at Thorndyke and yearned after a knowledge of the secret by which -his friend, Senator Standiford, could get hold of a man like Thorndyke, -and keep him forever in a subordinate position, while he, Senator -Bicknell, was always engaged in a tussle with his lieutenants. - -Crane improved the opportunity to explain fully his position; and there -could not be the slightest doubt that he had narrowly escaped from a -conspiracy meant to ruin him. - -Senator Bicknell said little and was evidently impressed by Crane’s -statement. Thorndyke was mentally comparing his own boss with Crane’s -boss. All the pleas in the world would not have availed Crane had he -been dealing with Standiford. He would have been required to sacrifice -himself without a moment’s hesitation and accept the disastrous -honour of the senatorial appointment or be quietly put out of the -way. Politics with Senator Standiford was a warfare in which quarter -was neither asked nor given, and no time was permitted to succour the -wounded or bury the dead. Yet Thorndyke doubted if Senator Bicknell, or -any man then in public life, had ever known a tithe of the tremendous -parental passion which Senator Standiford had for his daughter. So -strange a thing is human nature. - -A discussion followed Crane’s words which made a very important fact -clear: that Crane had suddenly become a factor in State politics. -Crane’s colour deepened as Senator Bicknell made a last effort with -him for peace with Sanders, and when it was met with a firm refusal -to accept the appointment, Senator Bicknell dropped some words which -indicated plainly that if forced to choose sides he might be with -Crane. For a man who a month before had been obscure this was a vast -though silent triumph. - -After an hour’s talk Senator Bicknell got up and departed. It was well -on toward ten o’clock, and Crane, too, rose to go. Thorndyke went out -with him and they walked together as far as the foot of the hill at -Connecticut Avenue. Then Thorndyke turned back, to indulge in a folly -which had been his nightly, since that first afternoon with Constance -Maitland. It was, to pass within sight of her house, then to return -sick at heart to his own rooms and ask himself if he could be such a -fool as to wish her to give up that charming home for lodgings such as -he could afford. - -Crane presently reached his quarters, a comfortable suburban house with -many verandas, and not unlike his own house at Circleville. On the -table in his room lay a parcel, evidently containing photographs. He -opened it and took out a photograph of his wife with her two children, -Roger and Elizabeth, by her side. The children were handsome--the boy -the sturdy, well-made replica of his father, the little girl her mother -in miniature; both of them children of whom any father might be proud. -As for Annette, the sweetness, the soft, appealing character of her -beauty, was singularly brought out in the photograph. Nor was there any -suspicion of weakness in the face, which most men would have fallen in -love with on the spot. - -But Crane was dissatisfied. She was not a woman even to be talked -about. Crane would have liked a woman whose name would be in the -newspapers every day. True, Constance Maitland kept out of them all -she could, but she was too striking a personality not to attract the -attention of the society correspondents. If she had been the wife of a -public man, she would have been in print quite as often as he was. - -Still Crane was glad he had sent for his wife. He had not realised -until this crisis in his fate had come upon him what a mistake he -had made in not having her with him sometimes. Not a man of his -acquaintance who owned a wife but had her occasionally in Washington. -He began to think with terror of what his enemies might have to say -concerning this, and then, going to his table, wrote Annette another -letter more urgent than his first, in his desire that she should come -to Washington. He mentioned the chance that Thorndyke, who had never -failed to show interest in her, had offered to escort her East. He felt -like a hero and a martyr while writing this. But after he had posted -his letter, and he had gone back to the balcony of his room and gazed -out into the solemn night, he had a return of that strange sense of -guilt. He felt like a hypocrite; and, as he was not a hypocrite by -nature, the feeling was uncomfortable. He put his request to Annette -on the same ground he had alleged to Thorndyke--his wish to see her. -And he ought to wish to see her--he _did_ wish to see her; but the -stillness of the night and the presence of the stars is disconcerting -sometimes to one’s conscience. The stars were very bright and it was -wonderfully clear, although the moon was just rising. Tall apartment -houses blazing with light made centres of radiance in the purple night. -The Washington monolith was like a pillar of cloud, and the dome of -the Capitol seemed suspended in mid-air. It was all very beautiful, -but Crane saw nothing of its beauty. He saw only before him a struggle -with stupendous forces--these he feared not--but also a struggle with -himself; and this he feared! He went to bed and slept uneasily. - - - - -_Chapter Seven_ - -HOW VARIOUS PERSONS SPENT A MAY SUNDAY IN WASHINGTON - - -Next morning Crane rose with the intention of going to church--a thing -he had not done for years. And in the practice of this virtue he -committed an act of the greatest hypocrisy. He knew the very hour when -Hardeman, the correspondent of his home paper, took his Sunday morning -stroll on Connecticut Avenue. Crane timed his own appearance so that he -met Hardeman directly in front of the Austrian Embassy. - -In half a minute afterward Crane mentioned that he was on his way to -church. - -As he spoke Hardeman took a newspaper out of his pocket, and opening -it, held it up before Crane. On the first page, with the most violent -display-head, was the official announcement of his appointment by -Governor Sanders to the unexpired time of the late Senator Brand’s -term. - -Crane turned pale. He was ready for the fight, but the fight had come -unexpectedly soon. And that it was to be to the knife, and knife to the -hilt, was now perfectly plain. - -“Come with me,” said he to Hardeman, “and I’ll tell you all about it.” - -They turned back to Dupont Circle, seated themselves on a bench left -vacant by a coloured brother, and Crane told the whole story to -Hardeman to be printed next day. - -As he talked, his course of action, simple, above-board, and effective, -at once took shape in his mind. He wrote out on a pocket-pad a letter -to the Governor, saying as the Governor had thought fit to make the -public aware of his action in the senatorship before communicating with -Crane himself, that he, Crane, should do likewise and make a public -declination of it. He then gave a brief statement of what had passed, -inserted a copy of his first letter to the Governor, and reiterated his -refusal to accept the senatorship. Hardeman, a keen-eyed man, was in -the seventh heaven of delight. The letter would, of course, be sent to -the Associated Press, but there was “a good story” for the home paper, -and a specific mention that Representative Crane was on his way to -church when the news was communicated to him. - -Crane, still pale, rose and announced that he should keep on to -church--a fact also certain to be chronicled. Church was a very -good place to think out the problems which would come out of this -extraordinary and far-reaching fight. - -He went on, sat through a long sermon of which he heard not a word, -listened to the musical gymnastics of a high-priced quartette, and -gradually became himself, or, rather, more than himself, for the -fight at hand brought out in him all the thews and sinews of courage, -foresight, and judgment. At the very last, when the name of God was -mentioned in the final prayer, Crane had one moment of sincere piety. -Otherwise his thoughts were very far from pious, being absolutely those -of self-seeking and revenge. Like other men, he promised himself that -when Mammon had granted him all he wanted, then he would turn to God. - -When he found himself on the street again it was a little past twelve -o’clock. He turned into the side streets to escape the throng of -people going home from church. As he walked under the arcade of the -sweet-smelling tulip-trees with the May sunshine filtering through, he -felt the ever-present longing for sympathy. He would have liked to go -to Constance Maitland, but something in her tone and manner at their -last meeting made him afraid. - -On that former occasion he had scarcely been master of himself, he did -not know when he was offending her; but now he was far more composed. -Yet he dared not go. - -While these thoughts were passing through his mind he looked up and -saw Constance coming down the street under the dappled shadows of the -tulip-trees. She was dressed simply in black, but Crane had never -been more struck by the distinction of her appearance. With her was a -fine-looking man whom Crane surmised was Cathcart, the naval man. Crane -intended to pass the pair without stopping, but when he raised his hat -Constance halted him. There was that ever-present feeling of pity for -him, and she was conscious of having said some hard things to him in -that last interview. - -“I have glanced at the newspaper this morning,” she said, “and I fancy -your friend, Governor Sanders, has treated you rather shabbily.” - -“Very shabbily,” replied Crane, smiling; “he has driven me to the wall, -but he will find me fighting with my back to the wall.” - -Then Constance introduced her companion, and it was Cathcart, after all. - -“You can’t expect much sympathy from me, Mr. Crane,” said Cathcart, -smiling. “If it had not been for you and your colleagues I might -have been in command of a ship at this moment, making a run for the -Caribbean Sea. You did us naval men a bad turn by forcing those beggars -to back down without striking a blow.” - -Cathcart, like all naval men, was eager to play the great game of -war with the new implements lately acquired, and did not welcome the -exercise of peaceful power which had forced an amicable arrangement of -a dangerous question. - -Just then a handsome victoria drew up at the sidewalk. In it sat Mrs. -Hill-Smith, the widowed daughter of the Secretary of State, and a -beautifully dressed, high-bred-looking girl, Eleanor Baldwin. Baldwin, -_père_, whose cards read, “Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin,” was the -successful inventor of a machine for stitching shoes, which had brought -him a great fortune early in life, and had enabled him to establish -himself in Washington and adopt the rôle of a gentleman of leisure -and of inherited fortune. His daughter looked like the younger sister -of Lady Clara Vere de Vere, as Mrs. Hill-Smith, Cap’n Josh Slater’s -granddaughter, looked like Lady Clara Vere de Vere herself. - -Mrs. Hill-Smith beckoned to Constance, who approached, leaving the -two men a little distance away talking together under the overhanging -branches of the tulip-trees. - -“My dear girl,” said Mrs. Hill-Smith, who had adopted the “dear girl” -mode of addressing all women like herself over thirty-five, “you must -come to the meeting of the Guild for Superannuated Governesses, which -is to be organised at my house to-morrow. It is a branch of the one -presided over in London by the Princess Christian”--and Mrs. Hill-Smith -ran over glibly a number of names of ladies of the diplomatic corps in -Washington who were interested in it, winding up with, “And we _can’t_ -get on without you.” - -Constance Maitland’s full gaze had in it power over women as well as -over men, and Mrs. Hill-Smith was not quite certain whether there was a -laugh or not in Constance’s deep, dark eyes, as turning them on her she -replied: - -“Very well--but my first proposition will be revolutionary, I warn you. -I shall suggest that we pay governesses enough to enable them to save -something, and thus we can get hold of the economic problem by the head -instead of by the tail.” - -Was she really in earnest? Mrs. Hill-Smith did not know, but there -was certainly a flippancy in Constance’s tone which shocked both Mrs. -Hill-Smith and Miss Baldwin. The serious, hard-working women by whom -they were mothered and grandmothered had given them a deadly soberness -and energy in the pursuit of social schemes and pleasures, just as -their forbears had industriously and seriously washed and baked and -brewed. - -Mrs. Hill-Smith was so annoyed by Constance’s manner of receiving her -communication that if Constance had not been very intimate at the -British Embassy Mrs. Hill-Smith would have made her displeasure felt. -But she was constitutionally timid, like all social new-comers--timid -in admitting people into her circle, and timid in turning them out--so -she merely smiled brightly and said as they drove off: - -“You’ll come like a dear, and be as revolutionary as you please. -Good-bye.” - -Constance, with her two men, lingered a minute, and then Crane left -her. He yearned for his stenographer, and set out to seek him. Cathcart -walked home with Constance and left her at the door. She was malicious -enough to describe to him some of Mrs. Hill-Smith’s charities, at which -Cathcart was in an ecstasy of amusement. - -Meanwhile Mrs. Hill-Smith went home with Eleanor Baldwin to what they -called breakfast, but most Americans call luncheon. On the way the two -women had discussed Constance Maitland cautiously--each afraid to let -on to the other what she really thought--because, after all, Constance -was intimate at the British Embassy. - -Arrived at the Baldwin house--an imposing white stone mansion, with -twenty-five bedrooms for a family of four, of whom one was a boy at -school, a family which never had a visitor overnight--Eleanor led the -way to the library, where her father sat. - -It was a great, high-ceiled, cool room, dark, in spite of many windows -and a glass door opening on a balcony. At a library table near the -glass door sat Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin, alias Jim Baldwin, and on -the balcony outside, under the awning, sat Mrs. James Baldwin, née -Hogan. - -It was easy to see whence Eleanor Baldwin had got her beauty. Jim -Baldwin was handsome, Nora Hogan Baldwin was handsomer. - -From the days when Jim Baldwin had carried home parcels of tea and -buckets of butter in his father-in-law’s corner grocery, he had -cherished an honourable ambition to have a great big library full -of books. In the course of time, through the operations of the -shoe-stitching machine, he had been able to gratify this ambition and -taste. He had all of those books which Charles Lamb declares “are no -books--that is, all the books which no gentleman’s library should be -without.” They were all bound sumptuously in calf, and éditions de luxe -were as common as flies in a baker’s shop. The four vast walls were -lined with these treasures, and from them Baldwin derived an excess -of pleasure. This was not by reading them--he had never read a book in -his life. Two Chicago newspapers, one from New York, and the Washington -morning and evening papers satisfied his cravings for knowledge. -But he got from the outside of his books all the pleasure that most -people get from the inside. He justly felt that to be seen surrounded -by the glorious company of the living who died a thousand years ago, -and the conspicuous dead who live to-day, was to give him dignity and -poise. Nobody but himself knew that he never read. His days were spent -in his library--he always spoke of himself as “among my books”--and -shrewd, sharp, and keen as he was and ever must remain, he had actually -succeeded in bamboozling himself into the notion that he was a person -of “literary tastes.” - -Mrs. Baldwin was one of the handsomest women in Washington, and -considered quite the proudest. Her abundant grey hair, setting off -a face of Grecian beauty, gave her a look as of a queen in the days -of powder and patches. She had a rarity of speech, a way of looking -straight ahead of her, which was regal. But this exterior of pride was -really a result of the sincerest bashfulness and reserve. When Nora -Hogan, the grocer’s daughter, had married Jim Baldwin, the contractor’s -son, Fortune was already smiling on Jim. Then suddenly she opened -her apron and deluged him with gold. Mrs. Baldwin was frightened -and stunned. She was afraid to say much for fear she might make -mistakes--so she gradually came to saying nothing at all. She dreaded -to look from side to side for fear she might find some one laughing -at her. So she always looked straight ahead of her. By degrees she -acquired a degree of coldness, of stiffness, that was perfectly well -suited to the mother of Lady Clara Vere de Vere. She was, of course, -an unhappy woman, being a misjudged one. Her chief solace lay in the -practice of secret acts of charity among the poorest of the poor, not -letting her left hand know what her right hand did. The promoters of -fashionable charities complained that Mrs. Baldwin was so stately and -so unsympathetic that they could not get on with her in charitable -work. True it is, that at the meetings for fashionable charities Mrs. -Baldwin would be more silent, more queenly than ever, but her heart -would be crying aloud for the poor who are born to suffer and to -die, and to have helped them she would cheerfully have given the very -clothes off her back. But cowardice kept her silent, as it kept her -silent in the presence of her servants, whom she feared inexpressibly. - -If Mrs. Baldwin was constitutionally timid, not so Eleanor. All -the courage of her father had gone into his willowy, beautiful, -well-groomed daughter. Her first recollections were of the inland -town where they lived secluded in their big house, because nobody was -good enough for them to associate with after their fortune was made. -Then she was taken to Europe and returned a finished product, with no -more notion of what the word “American” meant than if she had been a -daughter of the Hapsburgs. As a compromise between Europe and America, -Baldwin had pitched upon Washington as a place of residence. His social -status had been agreeably fixed by a lucky accident--he had been asked -to be pall-bearer for a foreign Minister who died in Washington. -Baldwin rightly considered the dead diplomat worth, to him, all the -live ones going; for, having assisted in carrying the dead man from -the Legation to the hearse, Baldwin was, in consequence, elected to -the swell club, asked to the smart cotillion, and made more headway in -a month in the smart set than he could have made otherwise in a year. -He repaid his debt to the dead diplomat by buying some very ordinary -pictures at the sale of the Minister’s effects, and paying the most -extravagant price ever heard of for them. - -To Eleanor their social rise was nothing surprising. She expected it, -having been bred like a young princess, only with less of democracy -than real princesses are bred. When she entered the room with Mrs. -Hill-Smith, Baldwin rose and responded smilingly to Mrs. Hill-Smith’s -remark: - -“Here you are, as usual, among your books.” - -“Yes--as usual, among my books. I daresay your father, the Secretary, -spends a good deal of time among _his_ books.” - -“Oh, yes,” replied Mrs. Hill-Smith, airily, “but he has been dreadfully -put out of late. Congress has been so troublesome. I don’t know exactly -_how_, but it has annoyed papa extremely.” - -“Very reprehensible,” said Baldwin, earnestly, who had the opinion -of the average commercial man that Congress is a machine to create -prosperity, or its reverse, and if prosperity is not created, -Congressmen are blamed fools. - -“I _hate_ Congressmen--except a few from New York,” said Eleanor, -drawing off her gloves daintily. “There was one talking to Miss -Maitland when we stopped her on the street just now. The creature was -introduced to me at one of those queer Southern houses where they -introduce people without asking permission first, and ever since then -the man has tried to talk to me whenever we meet. But I really couldn’t -stand him. This morning I cut him dead. His name is Crane, and he’s -from somewhere in the West.” - -Now it happened that there was another Crane in the House from the -West, and Baldwin had a business motive for wishing to cultivate this -particular Crane--and business was business still with Jim Baldwin. So, -at Eleanor’s words, he turned on her. His air of scholar-and-gentleman, -man-of-the-world, and person-of-inherited-leisure suddenly dropped from -him; he was once more Jim Baldwin, the shoe-stitching-machine man. - -“Then let me tell you,” he said, authoritatively, “you made a big -mistake. That man Crane is on the Committee on Manufactures, and we -have been arguing with him, and sending the most expensive men we have -to prove to him that we are entitled to the same rebate on the platinum -used in our machines as the Oshkosh Shoe-Stitching-Machine people -get--and I have reason to know that Crane is the man standing in the -way. I wish you had snuggled right up to him.” - -Eleanor surveyed her father with cold displeasure. Mrs. Hill-Smith was -politely oblivious, especially of the word “snuggled.” Coming, as she -did, of a very old family which dated back to 1860, she felt a certain -degree of commiseration for brand-new people like the Baldwins, who had -not appeared above the social horizon until 1880--twenty years later. -But she really liked them, and with a diplomatic instinct inherited -from her father she relieved the situation by rising and saying: - -“I see dear Mrs. Baldwin on the balcony and must go and speak to her.” - -And as she flitted through the glass door a deep masculine voice just -behind Eleanor said: - -“Good morning, Miss Baldwin.” - -It was the Honourable Edward George Francis Castlestuart-Stuart, third -secretary of the British Embassy, whom Eleanor had asked to breakfast -that morning. She grew pale as she rose to greet him--suppose--suppose -he had heard that remark about the shoe-stitching machine? And what was -more likely? The shoe-stitching machine was the family skeleton, and -was usually kept under lock and key. By some occult and malign impulse -her father had hauled it out and rattled it in Mrs. Hill-Smith’s face, -and perhaps it might be known at the British Embassy! - -Baldwin himself realised the impropriety of his conduct, and tried to -rectify it by saying, with great cordiality, to the Honourable Mr. -Castlestuart-Stuart: - -“Good morning--good morning. Very pleased to see you. You find me, as -usual, among my books--my best and oldest friends.” - -To this Castlestuart-Stuart replied simply, like the honest Briton that -he was: - -“I hate books.” - -Baldwin was nearly paralysed at this, and still more so when the -honest Briton quite eagerly went out on the balcony to speak to Mrs. -Baldwin. Only the day before, in one of his rambles about town, he -had come upon her getting out of a cab before a poor lodging-house in -Southeast Washington, her arms loaded with bundles. A swarm of poor -children had run forward to greet her--they evidently knew her well. -Her usually cold, statuesque face had been warmed with the sweet light -of charity, and a heavenly joy shone in her eyes in the process of -feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick. - -As Castlestuart-Stuart went out on the balcony and took Mrs. Baldwin’s -hand cordially, she blushed, but not painfully. She, too, had seen -him yesterday, and he had managed to convey with that peculiar art -of a simple and candid nature that he admired her for what she was -doing. Again did she feel this sincere and admiring approval, and was -profoundly grateful for it. Castlestuart-Stuart knew the history of -the family--all the diplomats in Washington know the family history of -those who race and chase after them. He remembered hearing Constance -Maitland say “Mrs. Baldwin redeems the whole family.” Goodness such -as hers could redeem much worse people than the Baldwins, thought -Castlestuart-Stuart, and he proceeded to be bored by Mrs. Hill-Smith -and Eleanor with the best grace in the world. His chief had told him -to take what was set before him in a social way, asking no questions -for conscience’ sake. In the performance of his duty he had dined, -breakfasted, and lunched with pork, dry-goods, whiskey, shoes, -sewing-machines, and every other form of good, honest trade. But the -word trade was never so much as mentioned among them--certainly not at -the breakfast which was now served. - - - - -_Chapter Eight_ - -A NEW SENATOR--A RAILWAY JOURNEY--THE ROSE OF THE FIELD AND THE ROSES -OF THE GARDEN - - -Crane was in nowise disappointed at the sensation his published letter -made. The justice of his position was at once apparent. But it was -equally apparent that he was making a serious break in the political -dykes which held the party together in his State against the ocean of -the party opposed to it. Under Senator Bicknell’s rule, insubordination -had gradually crept in. The late landslide, which had elected a -Congress in opposition to the party in power, increased the importance -of States like Crane’s, where the balance of power shifted about every -ten years between the two parties. Senator Bicknell, in the seclusion -of his boudoir--for such was his luxurious den in reality--tore his -hair and used all of the expletives permissible in polite society. -In a week or two Governor Sanders, without any further newspaper -controversy, appointed to the vacant senatorship Mr. Michael Patrick -Mulligan, a gentleman of Hibernian descent, who had made a vast fortune -out of manufacturing pies by the wholesale, and who cherished an -honourable ambition to legislate for the hated Saxon. Senator Bicknell, -Crane, and everybody in the State knew of Mr. Michael Patrick Mulligan, -who was commonly called Mince Pie Mulligan. He was a ward politician -of the sort peculiarly unhampered by prejudices or principles, and who -bought and sold votes by wholesale, very much as he bought and sold -pies. He was totally without education, but by no means without brains, -and proposed to himself a seat in the Senate as an agreeable diversion, -without the least idea of doing anything beyond voting as directed by -“the boss”--for so he designated the Senator who was chairman of the -National Committee of Mr. Mulligan’s party. It was, on the whole, about -as harmless an appointment as could be made. Mulligan’s private life -was perfectly clean, and he was known to have an open hand for charity, -and never to have forgotten a friend. It gave both Senator Bicknell -and Crane a breathing-spell, and they were willing enough to put up -with Mince Pie Mulligan until the first of January. - -Senator Bicknell, although easy enough in his mind about Mulligan, was -far from easy about Crane, who had gone up like a rocket, but showed -no disposition to come down like a stick. The Senator got into the way -of stealing over to the House, “just to see how things are going”--in -reality to see how Crane was going--and it scared him to observe how -Crane was making good his footing everywhere. His first triumph, even -after subtracting Thorndyke’s assistance, had been a real triumph. -Following hard on this came his controversy with the Governor, in which -he clearly had the best of it. The shrewd men in his party saw that in -the readjustment of allegiances Crane must be counted, and the chairman -of the National Committee said as much to Senator Bicknell when the two -discussed the war between the Governor and Representative Crane. When -the chairman said that, Senator Bicknell felt as Henry IV. of England -felt when he saw the Prince of Wales trying on the crown before the -looking-glass. - -Meanwhile, Thorndyke was speeding West, as he had said, and after a -week’s absence he turned eastward again, escorting Annette Crane and -her two children to Washington, as he had suggested to Crane. - -For the purpose of acquiring knowledge of others and of one’s self, -there is nothing like a long railway journey. Marriage itself is -scarcely more of an eye-opener. The old Greeks, who reasoned so closely -on the nature of man, would have been vastly informed could they -have taken a few long journeys. Locke could have known more of the -human understanding had he taken the Chicago Limited, with a party, -from Chicago to Washington. In that journey Annette Crane found out -all about Geoffrey Thorndyke, and Geoffrey Thorndyke found out all -about Annette Crane. Their mutual discoveries changed the natural -sympathy which had been established between them to a deep and lasting -friendship. - -Those five years of seclusion at Circleville had been developing years -for Annette Crane. In appearance she had gained in dignity and had not -lost in youthfulness. She had fair hair and a wild-rose complexion, -and a pair of the sweetest, most limpid hazel eyes in the world. -Everything about her bore the impress of a gentle sincerity--her frank -gaze, her pretty smile, her soft voice, in which the Western burr was -almost obliterated. Those five years represented a cycle to her. In -that time all of her relations to life seemed to have changed--and -especially were her relations with her husband curiously altered. -In their early married life Crane’s intensity of love and excess of -devotion had frightened her a little. But in time other passions -had come to take the place of this one in his wife, and it had been -shouldered out of place. He was a fairly good husband, but after the -microbe has once lodged in a man’s brain that he is very superior -to his wife, he may still be called a good husband, but scarcely an -agreeable one. - -At this stage of the proceedings--which was at the time she first came -to Washington--Annette discovered that she adored her husband. As he -had always accused her of coldness and reserve, she determined to show -him all the treasures of her love. It was the common mistake of youth -and ignorance; but Annette, whose secret pride was great, suffered a -horrible mortification in finding that the display of her affection did -not bring forth the response on which she had confidently relied. She -had made no moan, and had deceived the whole world, including Crane -himself, into believing that she was a satisfied wife; but her misery -had been extreme. Her pride, informed by common-sense, had helped her -over the crisis. She had herself proposed to spend the winters in -Circleville, instead of Washington, thus forestalling any possibility -of the proposal coming from Crane; and in Circleville she had set -herself the task of making the most and best of herself, not only for -her husband, but for her children. She had learned a good deal in that -brief and unpleasant experience in Washington. Among others was a -just appreciation of herself. She realised that she had certain great -advantages, and she no longer had the self-deprecatory tone of mind -which had made her feel that Crane had perhaps condescended in marrying -her. She was as passionately attached to him as ever, but her eyes were -opened and she saw. - -She had taken to reading as a solace, and as a duty, and not because -she was strongly attracted to books. The result, however, was good, -and she found it enabled her to meet men like Thorndyke on a common -ground. In training her children, she had performed the inevitable -function of training herself. Under her system, her children had become -quieter and sweeter than American children usually are. The American -women in general can more than hold their own with the women of other -countries, except in two trifling particulars--the arts of housekeeping -and of bringing up children. In these two things they generally fail -egregiously, and the more money they have the more conspicuous is their -failure. To paraphrase the Scripture--“See you the house of the rich -American man? Behold therein a tribe of undisciplined and impudent -servants and children.” The newness of the rich in America may account -for the undisciplined servants, of whom their mistresses are in mortal -terror. But American women have been bringing up children ever since -the settlement at Jamestown and the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, and -every year they seem to know less about it. - -However, Annette Crane’s children were more quiet, more simply dressed -than most American children. They had escaped, to a great degree, the -demoralising influences of children’s magazines, “The Children’s Page” -in newspapers, and children’s plays, and they had not been amused to -death. Annette, it is true, had not mastered the science of managing -servants, but in that she was at one with the women of other parts of -the country, except the South--for, as Senator Hoar once remarked on -the floor of the Senate, as a preliminary to a ferocious attack on the -South, it is the Southerners alone, in this country, who have the habit -of command. Annette Crane, however, although she could no more manage -her household staff of one maid-of-all-work than Mrs. James Brentwood -Baldwin or Mrs. Hill-Smith could manage her retinue of English flunkeys -and French maids, yet, by tact and judgment, succeeded in keeping -the maid-of-all-work within bounds--which is more than the Brentwood -Baldwins and the Hill-Smiths could do with their maids and flunkeys. - -On the journey with Thorndyke, not one word had passed Annette’s -lips to indicate any rift between her husband and herself. She spoke -of him frankly and affectionately. But the two children showed -none of that happy eagerness to meet their father which the average -American child shows to meet a dutiful and obedient parent. This did -not escape Thorndyke, and amazed him. He had the usual bachelor’s -fear and dread of children, but two days and nights of travel with -little Roger and Elizabeth Crane had placed him upon terms of perfect -intimacy with them. Roger had climbed all over him, and Thorndyke, -instead of resenting it, had been secretly pleased at it. He had wrung -permission from Annette to take the boy into the smoking-car with him -occasionally, and Roger emerged with many mannish airs for his eight -years. Thorndyke’s berth was at the other end of the sleeper from -Annette’s and her children, and on the second night, when Thorndyke -turned in, he found the youngster had eluded his mother’s vigilant -eye, and had crawled into Thorndyke’s berth for a talk about Indians. -Thorndyke not only submitted to this, but permitted Roger to send word -to his mother by the porter that he would sleep in Mr. Thorndyke’s -berth, because Mr. Thorndyke had asked him--and the two of them managed -to defy Annette in the matter. Little Elizabeth took an extreme fancy -to Thorndyke, and inquired if she might ask Mr. Thorndyke to be her -uncle Thorndyke. - -Annette, being acute, as most women are, in affairs of the heart, -knew, the very first time that Thorndyke casually mentioned Constance -Maitland, that he was in love with her. When he said that he had known -her long ago, at Lake Como, and proceeded to describe the beauty of -those Italian days and nights, Annette Crane was convinced that it -was in those sweet hours that Thorndyke had first loved Constance -Maitland. Women have no conscience in probing the love-affairs of men, -reckoning them the common property of the sex--and while Thorndyke was -blithely unconscious that he had revealed anything, Annette was in full -possession of all the essential facts. Also, Thorndyke let out that -Crane knew Constance Maitland. Crane had never mentioned Constance’s -name to his wife. That, was in itself enough to give Annette a painful -interest in this woman who, as Thorndyke said, could charm the birds -off the bushes. - -When the train came bumping into Washington on a pleasant May -afternoon, Crane was waiting at the station. He seemed delighted -to meet his family again, and indeed, on seeing them, a kind of -tenderness came over him. He kissed his children affectionately, to -which they submitted. Just behind them was a shabby, one-armed man, -whom a girl of ten or twelve was hugging and kissing with little -gurgles of delight. Crane wished that his children had met him like -that. - -He thanked Thorndyke warmly for taking care of Annette, who said a -few words of earnest thanks, and gave him a smile from her dewy lips -and eyes that meant much more. The children bade him good-bye with -outspoken regret, and would not be comforted until Thorndyke promised -to take them to the Zoo the next Sunday to see the baby elephant. - -As the party came out of the station together, a handsome little -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.” - -“Very properly,” replied Constance, who meant to enlighten Crane on his -wife’s accomplishments. “I have a great deal of religion, when I am not -annoyed by anything, and I beg all of the gentlemen to observe that -even if I were clever enough to make a gown like Mrs. Crane’s, I could -not wear it. It is too well adapted to Mrs. Crane’s style for any one -else to venture on it.” - -“I could have worn it thirty years ago,” said Mrs. Willoughby, with -dangerous candour. “But the fact is, Miss Maitland, all of these men -are so absurdly prejudiced in favour of the gown, that they overrate -it. After all, the rest of us are fairly well-dressed.” - -Annette took all this in the spirit of playful compliment in which -it was meant, and was flattered by it. Not so Crane. He thought that -Annette had, at first, let an ugly cat out of the bag, and secondly, -that Mrs. Willoughby was insolent in saying the gown was overrated. -But before the dinner was over, his eyes were opened to the fact that -Annette had made a most agreeable impression, and every man present -admired her, and every woman present liked her. - -As soon as the rather short dinner was through, the carriages were -called to take the party to the White House. When Crane and Annette -were alone in their cab, he said to her: - -“It seems to me you made a bad break in saying you made your gown -yourself.” - -“Far from it,” replied Annette, pleasantly. “It seems to have made them -all like me better. Mrs. Willoughby and Miss Beekman both said they -would be glad to call to see me, and so did the Admiral. I think I was -a success.” - -Crane felt like rubbing his eyes and pulling his ears. Was this his -submissive Annette, who never questioned his word on any subject? He -half expected her to call attention to the fact that he had been rather -dull at the dinner, but although Annette knew it quite as well as he -did, she forbore to mention it. - -When they reached the White House, there was the usual crowd of -carriages, their lamps twinkling like myriads of stars in the soft -spring night, the roar of horses’ hoofs upon the asphalt, the crowds of -gaily dressed women in evening-gowns disembarking at the north portico, -the blare of music from the red-coated band within the corridors. -Constance Maitland, on Sir Mark le Poer’s arm, and followed by her -dinner-guests, presently found herself shaking hands with the President -and bowing to the line of ladies of the Administration, which extended -across the oval reception-room. Next the President’s wife stood the -wife of the Secretary of State. She was a small, thin woman, with a -determined nose and the general aspect of a mediæval battle-axe. She -was simply though splendidly attired in black velvet, with lace and -diamonds, and was as faultlessly correct as the Secretary himself, in -language and deportment, except in one small particular--she could not -pronounce the word “Something.” She invariably called it “su’thin”--a -souvenir of her early bringing up on the banks of Lake Michigan. She -greeted Constance coolly, remembering the meeting at her house for the -Guild of Superannuated Governesses, but she was effusive toward Sir -Mark le Poer. - -Constance, however, blandly unconscious, passed on, and when she -reached the point whence ingress is had to that select region known as -“behind the line,” she was invited, with Sir Mark, to join the elect. -Directly behind her was Thorndyke with Mary Beekman, followed by the -Admiral with Mrs. Willoughby, and they, too, were invited within the -holy precincts. The President himself had stopped Crane for a word with -him, and, on having Mrs. Crane presented, had promptly invited her -behind the line. This was partly due to the white crêpe gown. - -In the general mix-up that followed in the hallowed spot, Constance -found herself one of a group near Mrs. Hill-Smith, on the arm of the -British Ambassador, and Eleanor Baldwin and the Honourable Edward -George Francis Castlestuart-Stuart. Close by were Mrs. James Brentwood -Baldwin and Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin, and Mr. James Brentwood -Baldwin was gravitating toward the Secretary of State, who loomed -large at hand. The Secretary was in a very bad humour for so amiable -a man, but diplomatically concealed it. After eighteen months spent -in labouring over a couple of treaties, they had been knocked out in -three weeks by the Senate. The chief of the gang who perpetrated this -nefarious act was a Southern Senator--the wildest, woolliest, and -weirdest of all the wild and woolly and weird Senators to be found in -the north wing of the Capitol. But he happened to be a lawyer, and he -had punched the treaties so full of holes that they were literally -laughed out of court. This injured the Secretary’s feelings very much, -but he remembered that Beaconsfield and Gortschakoff and Bismarck used -to be ruffled the same way, so he concluded to bear it like a statesman -and a Christian. - -Drifting toward the Secretary and Mr. Baldwin was a very odd-looking -object, whom Thorndyke whispered to Constance was Senator Mince Pie -Mulligan. These three got into conversation, very languid on the part -of the Secretary and Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin, but very strenuous on -the part of Senator Mince Pie Mulligan. A part of Mr. James Brentwood -Baldwin’s coyness came from the fact that he and Senator Mulligan were -old acquaintances--a fact which Mr. Baldwin had no disposition to brag -about. - -The new Senator had a head of blazing red hair which was as good as -a stove on a cold night. He might have stepped bodily from the pages -of _Life_ as regarded his contours, but his small, light-blue eye -glittered with humour and shrewdness, while his great, slit of a -mouth, which divided his face fairly in the middle, had lines of both -sense and kindliness. He was enjoying himself hugely, and was not -afraid to let anybody see it. Not so Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin, or -the Secretary of State, but a Senator is a Senator to the Secretary -of State, and Secretary Slater had in mind other treaties to be laid -before the Senate, and so was fairly civil to Senator Mulligan. Mince -Pie, himself, was much struck by the appearance of Eleanor Baldwin, -who was easily the handsomest woman present, except her mother, but -although Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin owned up that Eleanor was his -daughter, he made no move to introduce Senator Mulligan to her. - -Eleanor Baldwin was a patriot. It was her sense of patriotic duty alone -which took her to a White House reception. White House receptions, -in every particular, including the cabinet people and those behind -the line, were “mixed.” This word “mixed” meant, to Eleanor, a social -Gehenna, while the word “exclusive” spelled, for her, the very joy of -living. There were some “nice people”--by whom she meant the diplomatic -corps and those who were intimate with them, and some people from -the smart sets of near-by cities--but still it was “mixed.” There -was Letty Standiford, whose father, had Eleanor but known it, was -personally responsible for the present occupant of the White House -being there. Then she noticed, quite close to her, the daughter of a -Senator who lived in a very unfashionable part of the town--a girl -whom she would never have known, except that paying calls one day, -with Mrs. Hill-Smith, she happened to go to the Senator’s house. It -had contained for her the one unattainable thing in life--some fine -old furniture and portraits, and a beautiful old grandfather’s clock, -which had been inherited, and by which the Senator’s daughter had not -seemed to set any special store. Eleanor would have given all of their -costly bric-à-brac for one single piece of old silver or furniture -or lace that had belonged even so far back as to her grandparents; -but neither the Baldwins nor the Hogans had inherited any silver, -furniture, or lace, or anything except good, strong legs and arms, and -the capacity to use them. The sight of family treasures always produced -a vague discomfort in Eleanor Baldwin’s mind, and gave her a kind of -pique toward those who possessed them. At that very moment she felt a -secret dislike toward the Senator’s daughter, who had on a beautiful -antique lace bertha, which had been worn by many generations of ladies -before the Brentwood Baldwins had “arrived,” as the French say. There -had been a fire in the Baldwin family, and likewise one in the Hogan -family, and Eleanor had persuaded herself that the frame houses burnt -down in these two fires were stately mansions, and priceless family -treasures had perished in the flames--and she had hinted at this so -often that she had really come to believe it. She was surprised to see -that her father and also the Secretary of State were talking with that -curious-looking object, Senator Mulligan, whose name she had heard. -But seeing the British Ambassador approach with Mrs. Hill-Smith on -his arm, and Constance Maitland with Sir Mark le Poer, Eleanor turned -her whole attention to them. She, too, had brought dinner-guests with -her. She had been the hostess at one of those extraordinary dinners -introduced within the last few years by hostesses whose experience of -dinner-giving is rudimentary. At these dinners, which are considered by -their innocent perpetrators as being the acme of elegance, all the men -are foreigners. When Eleanor Baldwin had achieved one of these dinners, -she felt that she had accomplished a social triumph. Mrs. Hill-Smith -had chaperoned the dinner; and the diplomats invited had refrained from -laughing in the face of their hostess, although they had chuckled with -amusement when in the dressing-room. - -Mrs. Baldwin, who stood in the background, wore more than her usual -expression of icy pride, which meant that she was more than usually -frightened. Eleanor’s lovely face relaxed into a smile as she turned -to the British Ambassador, who was a widower. He was a tall, handsome, -high-bred-looking, elderly man, with a clean-shaven face, and a -thin-lipped mouth, which had contorted itself into a grin on his first -arrival in Washington, and the grin had become fixed and perpetual. He -had no fortune beyond his salary and pension, he had rheumatism, liver -complaint, nervous dyspepsia, chronic bronchitis, and a family of six -unmarried daughters and four sons, ranging from thirty-six to sixteen -years of age--yet Eleanor Baldwin would have jumped down his throat, -and Mrs. Hill-Smith was going for him with the stealthy energy of a cat -after the cream-jug. - -Eleanor, putting on a roguish expression of countenance, said to the -Ambassador: - -“Ah, Mrs. Hill-Smith and I are becoming factors in diplomacy! At our -dinner to-night, every man present was a diplomat, and you may imagine -what state secrets were disclosed!” - -“The results may be serious,” replied the Ambassador, laughing a -little. “We shall have to keep our eyes upon the American diplomats who -were present so as to find out how our secrets were betrayed.” - -“There weren’t any Americans present,” answered Eleanor, gaily. - -“Eh?” said the Ambassador, pretending to be deaf. - -Eleanor repeated her words a little louder. There was Constance -Maitland near enough to hear, and like Mrs. Hill-Smith, Eleanor was a -little afraid of Constance Maitland, and also of Mr. Thorndyke, who had -an uncomfortable way of laughing at very serious matters; and just at -her elbow was that queer Castlestuart-Stuart, who blurted out things, -such as not liking books, which other people kept to themselves; and -it was this British bull which now proceeded to play havoc in the -china-shop. - -“Yes,” he said, with an air of infantine innocence, and addressing -his chief boldly. “It’s positively true. Not a blessed American man -there. Never saw such a thing anywhere in my life before. Fancy giving -a dinner in London to foreign diplomats and not having an Englishman -there--haw! haw!” - -Both Eleanor and Mrs. Hill-Smith turned pale. Constance Maitland -laughed outright; the Ambassador and Sir Mark le Poer looked gravely -into each other’s eyes, and telegraphed, without winking, their -amusement. Castlestuart-Stuart kept on. - -“And Hachette, the new French third secretary, told us in the -dressing-room about a letter he had got from his mother in -Paris--terribly strict old lady. She said, ‘You have written me about -going to dinners where no American men are present. You are deceiving -your old mother. It is impossible that persons such as you describe -us giving those dinners should not know any respectable American men. -At all events, do not bring me back a daughter-in-law who has no -acquaintance among respectable men in her own country’--haw! haw! haw!” - -A flood of colour poured into the faces of Eleanor Baldwin and Mrs. -Hill-Smith. The Ambassador’s chronic grin had become a little broader; -Sir Mark le Poer was tugging at his moustache. That impossible person, -Castlestuart-Stuart, was haw-hawing with the keenest enjoyment. -Constance Maitland felt that it was time to come to the rescue of her -country even at the sacrifice of her country-women--so, smiling openly, -she said to the too truthful Castlestuart-Stuart: - -“I can’t blame you for laughing--it makes all the initiated laugh. But -you must see for yourself that it is only the newest of the new who do -such things. All people new to society do strange things.” - -“Never saw it done anywhere before, ’pon my soul,” replied this -incorrigible Briton. “We have our new people at home--tea, whiskey, -drapery, and furniture shops--and rawer than you can think--but they -wouldn’t dare--haw, haw! to give a dinner without an Englishman at it!” - -Constance bit her lip--Castlestuart-Stuart was telling the truth, and -there was no gainsaying it; nor could she offer any fuller explanation -than she had already given. Mrs. Hill-Smith and Eleanor Baldwin were -glaring at her, but Constance remained calm and unmoved. Then from -a most unexpected quarter came a terrible complication. Mince Pie -Mulligan, having been frozen out by the Secretary of State and by Mr. -James Brentwood Baldwin, had been jammed by the crowd almost in Eleanor -Baldwin’s arms, without the least resistance on his part, and had been -an open-mouthed and delighted listener to Castlestuart-Stuart’s candid -words. At the first break he proceeded to improve his opportunities -by hurling himself into the conversation, and looking straight into -Eleanor’s eyes the Senator bawled to Castlestuart-Stuart: - -“To give such heathenish dinners as you say, people have got not only -to be new, but they have got to be blamed fools besides!” - -There was a moment’s awful pause, and then an involuntary burst of -laughter from all except Mrs. Hill-Smith and Eleanor Baldwin. The -functions of society with them meant deadly serious things, such as -baking and washing days had been to their grandmothers, and they -thought one about as little a subject of a joke as the other. Eleanor -Baldwin drew herself up, and looked coldly at the British Ambassador, -whose mouth had certainly grown wider. Mrs. Hill-Smith, who was really -timid, felt frightened to death. Like Eleanor Baldwin, she had thought -it the acme of elegance to have a dinner where every man present was -a foreigner and a diplomat, and secretly regretted that, from motives -of state, there always had to be Americans at a cabinet house. And -here were the diplomats themselves laughing at her! It was exquisitely -painful. - -However, something more painful still was in store for Eleanor Baldwin. -Mrs. Baldwin approached the group, and at sight of her Mr. Mulligan -held out his hand, and a broad smile carried the corners of his mouth -back to his ears. - -“Why, Nora Hogan,” he cried, “it’s good for sore eyes to see you. I -haven’t seen you before for twenty-five years. Jim Baldwin didn’t tell -me, just now when I was talking with him, that you were here, and -didn’t introduce me to his daughter, though I gave him some pretty -broad hints. Sure, you know Mike Mulligan, who was clerk in your -father’s store thirty years ago.” - -“Certainly I do, Mike,” responded Mrs. Baldwin, calmly and sweetly and -offering her hand. It was the first time Constance Maitland had ever -seen Mrs. Baldwin unbend from her cold stateliness. - -The kindness of her greeting seemed to inspire Senator Mulligan with -the greatest enthusiasm. - -“A better man than your father, Dan Hogan, never lived,” proclaimed Mr. -Mulligan, addressing the circle, “and it’s the training I got with him -that’s made my fortune. ‘Dale square, Mike,’ Dan Hogan would say--he -had a beautiful brogue on him--‘and give the widders and the orphans -the turn of the scale when you’re sellin’ ’em sugar and starch and -such.’ And I’ve done it, Nora, in memory of good old Dan Hogan--and if -any man says it’s impossible to keep a corner grocery and be honest, I -say to ’em--‘It’s Danny Hogan, it is, that was the honest man and kept -the corner grocery.’” - -Mrs. Baldwin’s face grew softer and softer as Mr. Mulligan proceeded. -She was so great a lover of charity and had such beautiful humility -of spirit that the idea of her father’s example having moulded a man -into a like charity gave her the deepest gratitude and pleasure; and if -pride had owned a lodgment in her heart she would have been proud at -that moment. - -But not so Eleanor, or Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin, who now appeared -hovering on the edge of the group. Eleanor, her face very pale, fixed -her eyes on Senator Mulligan with a haughty stare, which he perfectly -understood, and resented. A gleam shot into his eye which showed that -he meant to pay her back for her insolence. Mr. Baldwin, in the most -acute misery, practised the goose-step and tried to stem the tide of -Senator Mulligan’s eloquence. - -“Er--ah--eh--Mr. Mulligan, your compliments to the late Mr. -Daniel Hogan are very much appreciated by me, as well as -Mrs. Baldwin--especially as I recall with pleasure--what -an--er--important--er--factor you were in the commerce of our native -place. For myself, business has no real charm for me,” continued Mr. -Baldwin, turning to the British Ambassador. “I have been reasonably -successful, but my taste always lay in the way of books. I live among -my books.” - -Up to this time Mr. Mulligan had spoken with a very fair Irish accent, -but now he chose to lapse into the most violent brogue that ever -grew on the green sod of Ireland. This was accompanied with a wink -to Constance, which gave her extreme enjoyment, and a nudge in the -Ambassador’s ribs, which he did not in the least resent. - -“Faith, and it’s the way yez always was, Jim Baldwin,” cried Mince -Pie Mulligan. “Whin you an’ me was luggin’ the buckets of butter an’ -jugs of the most iligant molasses to th’ cushtomers, it was you, Jim -Baldwin, as was always a-savin’ your tin cints to buy a book. An’ when -you was a-coortin’ Dan Hogan’s pretty daughter, ye’d actually mourn -over the ice-cream ye filled her up wid bekase it wasn’t books wid a -gilt bindin’!” - -At this point Mr. Mulligan squared himself off, and distributed a -general wink around the circle, including Eleanor, who glared at him -like a basilisk. Mrs. Hill-Smith felt acutely for her dear Eleanor, -but, being secretly consumed with curiosity about antecedents as new to -her as they were to Constance Maitland, could not forbear remaining. -The Slaters were well established socially and financially at the -time of Mrs. Hill-Smith’s birth, and she was as innocent of the phase -of American life which Senator Mulligan was describing as if she had -been born and reared in the royal apartments of Windsor Castle. -Rochefoucauld has said there is something not unpleasant to us in the -misfortunes of our best friends--and it was certainly true of Mrs. -Hill-Smith--for while she was eyeing Eleanor Baldwin with an expression -of the tenderest sympathy, she was inwardly rejoicing that there was -no blot of butter or molasses upon the escutcheon of the Slaters. But -a relentless fate seemed to direct Senator Mulligan’s tongue, and -turning to her the Senator said, cheerfully, and without the least -encouragement: - -“And I’m tould ye are the granddaughter of Cap’n Josh Slater, that I -knew like me ould hat, when I was but la’ad, and he was Cap’n of the -River Queen, one o’ the floatin’ palaces of the day on the Ohio River.” - -Mrs. Hill-Smith trembled a little, but answered, coldly: - -“I think you must have been misinformed.” - -“Well, hardly,” responded Senator Mulligan, blithely, “since it was -your own father as tould me, not half an hour ago. I knew th’ ould -man well--an’ he was an honest ould cuss, but for tobacco-chewin’ an’ -bad whiskey ye’ll not find his match betune here and the lakes o’ -Killarney. He knew how to turn th’ honest pinny though, did ould man -Slater. No givin’ of widders an’ orphans the turn of the scale, nor -the turn of a hair neither--he was out for the last rid cint. He was -a good-lookin’ ould chap, when he was washed up and had on a clean -shirt--and now, I’ll say, I think you’re like him--_raymarkably_ like -him--and it’s up to you to prove that he wasn’t your grandfather, -begorra!” - -Had a bomb with a burning fuse dropped at Mrs. Hill-Smith’s feet, -she could not have been any more astounded. She looked from Mince -Pie Mulligan’s laughing face to Eleanor Baldwin’s, and then glanced -helplessly around the circle. It was impossible not to see that the -British Ambassador, Thorndyke, and the wretched Castlestuart-Stuart, -who was primarily responsible for the whole dreadful business, were all -enjoying themselves extremely. Constance Maitland alone seemed to feel -some sympathy for the unfortunates. It was, however, chiefly on account -of Mrs. Baldwin, who began to be painfully embarrassed, that Constance -said, smilingly, to Senator Mulligan: - -“Your reminiscences are very interesting, and what you say of Mrs. -Baldwin’s father must give her cause for honest pride. You have -described a phase of American life of which nobody need be ashamed.” - -“Except them as has been through it,” promptly responded Senator -Mulligan. “There’s some things human nature”--he called it -“natur”--“will always be ashamed of as long as it is human nature. -One of ’em is that more people blush for a rise in their family than -for a fall. And it ain’t so foolish as it seems; because, if you were -born on top of the pile, and all your people were, bedad, you don’t do -any of these outlandish things such as me young friend,” indicating -Castlestuart-Stuart, “has been tellin’ us about. By the way,” asked -Senator Mulligan, explosively, of the terrible Castlestuart-Stuart, -“who was it give the dinner anyhow?” - -And what should that scion of aristocracy, the Honourable Edward George -Francis Castlestuart-Stuart, do but answer: - -“Miss Baldwin’s was the last I went to--but there were plenty of -others!” - -Ambassadors are not supposed to laugh--but at this, the British -Ambassador abandoned all hope of keeping serious. Constance -was laughing frankly, Thorndyke was in quiet convulsions, -Castlestuart-Stuart and Senator Mulligan were exchanging sympathetic -grins--and then Eleanor Baldwin said, with the air of an offended queen: - -“Papa, give me your arm.” - -This Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin, with a heightened colour, did, but -not before Senator Mulligan genially remarked: - -“Well, the best of frinds must part, so here’s good-bye and good-luck -to ye, Jim Baldwin, and I’ll say to you, Miss Baldwin, I hope ye’ll -live and die as honest as ould Danny Hogan, your grandfather, and a -better man never stepped in shoe-leather;” and then, turning to Mrs. -Hill-Smith, Senator Mulligan continued, “I commind to you the example -of your grandfather, Cap’n Josh Slater, that I had the honour of -knowin’ and who always got what he wanted, and was an agreeable man -enough barrin’ the bad tobacco and mean whiskey. But in the polite -society in which we find oursilves, in these dazzlin’ halls of light -an’ scenes of pothry an’ splendour, both Cap’n Josh Slater an’ good -ould Danny Hogan wud be about as much at home as a ham sandwich at a -Jew picnic!” - -With these words, Senator Mince Pie Mulligan bowed himself off, leaving -a great trail of social devastation behind him. - - - - -_Chapter Ten_ - -THERE ARE MEN WHO CAN RESIST EVERYTHING EXCEPT TEMPTATION - - -Congress adjourned on the 15th of June, just two months after it -was convened in extra session. Thorndyke’s apprehensions had been -confirmed. Few legislative follies had been committed--the House had -gone with the people, leaving to the Senate and the Administration the -disagreeable task of stemming the popular tide as far as possible, when -it rushed on too fast. No reputations had been damaged in either House, -and several had been made--but none to equal Julian Crane’s. As for -Thorndyke, the newspapers seemed to have forgotten his existence. - -By the time adjournment was reached, Washington was deserted. The -class which is designated as “everybody” was either going or gone. The -outgoing steamers carried half the town across the ocean. Thorndyke had -promised himself a treat--a trip to Europe that year--the first since -that long-remembered one which had settled his fate in some particulars -for him. It was the first time in years that he felt he could afford -it, for he was a free-handed man, generous to his invalid sister, not -averse to lending money when he had it, and fond of giving presents. -To do this on his Congressional salary did not leave much surplus. -This summer, however, he concluded he could take a three months’ trip. -Constance Maitland’s return had not changed his determination, because -he felt that he could not, in decency, follow her wherever her summer -wanderings might take her; and if he could not be with her, he would -rather, just then, be in Europe. - -But one word from Constance, on the afternoon when he went to bid her -farewell, changed all this in the twinkling of an eye. - -He found that she had just returned from a near-by place in Virginia, -where her family had been established many generations before the -Louisiana Purchase had sent them toward the Gulf of Mexico. Constance -was full of her Virginia trip, and told Thorndyke that she meant to -take, for the summer, the old family place, Malvern Court, at the -foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where many generations of dead and -gone Maitlands had lived and flourished, after their migration from -their first American home on the shores of the Chesapeake. She showed -him a photograph of the place. It was an old brick manor-house, very -tumble-down, but picturesque, with noble old trees around it, and even -in the picture it conveyed a delicious look of repose. It was the -sort of a place where nothing startling had ever happened except the -Civil War, and nothing ever could happen again. The present owner of -the place, an elderly maiden lady, “Cousin Phillis,” was the last of -her race. She had taken up the notion that, she would like to spend -the summer at “the Springs,” as she had done “in papa’s time, and -grandpapa’s time;” and Constance, meaning to confer a benefit on her, -had offered to rent Malvern for the summer at a price which would have -been dear for a Newport cottage. The old lady, after a long struggle, -had agreed. Constance did not tell all of this, but Thorndyke shrewdly -suspected that the arrangement was designed to help Cousin Phillis far -more than she imagined. - -“And Cousin Phillis thinks she is doing me the greatest favour in the -world, and that she is giving me the place for nothing,” Constance -explained, smiling, to Thorndyke. - -Then she went on to tell of her battles with Cousin Phillis regarding -what was necessary for the house. Cousin Phillis could not conceive -that anything should be wanting at Malvern Court, which stood exactly -as it was at the beginning of the war, minus forty odd years of wear -and tear; and Constance had only got the old lady’s consent to fit up -the house somewhat, according to modern ideas, by promising to remove -every one of the new-fangled fallals and gewgaws when she should give -up the place. By hard fighting she had got Cousin Phillis to agree -to have some painting and papering done, and hoped when once Cousin -Phillis was out of the way, that the house could be made as comfortable -as it was picturesque. - -It was two hours by train from Washington and six miles from the -nearest railway-station. - -“Will it not be very lonely for you up there?” asked Thorndyke, smiling -at Constance’s description of her efforts to benefit Cousin Phillis -against her will. - -“Ah, you do not know Virginia cousins,” answered Constance. “Nobody -yet was ever known to want for company in Virginia. The two days I -was at Malvern it rained cousins. Each one had to be treated with -distinguished consideration, and after I had worn myself out with -civility to them--for they were coming all day and half the night to -call on me--Cousin Phillis gently intimated to me that if I wasn’t more -attentive to my relations I might find myself very unpopular with them; -and I find that in Virginia to be unpopular with one’s relations is to -be an outcast. They regard me with great suspicion; my Louisiana ways -and my Louisiana accent only half please them; and they seem to think -me a very forgetful person because I do not remember every birth and -death in the family which occurred during the seventy or eighty years -that the Maitlands have been established in Louisiana. I hope,” she -continued, smiling, “that you will have the opportunity to meet some of -my Virginia cousins. I shall have a great many house-parties during the -summer, and you are among those I shall invite. I hope you may accept.” - -“I accept now,” replied Thorndyke, and in a breath his trip to Europe -melted away and was as if it had never been. Then Thorndyke very -artfully found out the hour of her departure, which was to be three -days later. - -When Constance, on a warm June morning, arrived at the station, with -her five negro servants and her household and personal paraphernalia, -to start for her summer in Virginia, she found Thorndyke waiting for -her. In the station he had met Annette Crane, who had just seen a -constituent off on the train. At the same moment they caught sight of -Constance. - -“Come,” said Thorndyke, “go with me and say good-bye to Miss Maitland. -She is a real friend of yours, and I know she will be glad to see you -before she goes.” - -“I feel that she is a real friend,” answered Annette. “I never knew a -woman in whom I felt greater confidence.” - -“Constance is a very loyal and a very large-minded woman,” replied -Thorndyke, absently. He had used her first name inadvertently, and only -became conscious of it when Annette began laughing softly. Then he -coloured violently, and explained that he had lost his mind, or lost -his manners, or something of the sort, to account for his calling Miss -Maitland by her first name. - -They came upon Constance very smartly dressed, as always, and looking -young and animated. She was superintending the tickets and luggage of -herself and her five servants. There were innumerable boxes and trunks -to be seen to, besides a couple of traps and a pair of horses, and -Constance was doing it vigorously, with Scipio Africanus, her young -butler, and Charles Sumner Pickup, her coachman, acting as purely -ornamental adjuncts, giving her frequent and disinterested advice about -the horses, the trunks, and other impedimenta, but in reality being -waited on by their mistress. Whenever negroes go on a journey, they at -once become children, and are treated as such by those who understand -them. In a group stood the cook, an elderly, respectable negro woman, -dressed in black, with the stamp of “fo’ de war” written all over her -honest black face, and a housemaid and a lady’s maid, both chocolate -coloured. - -Whenever Thorndyke had observed Constance’s servants before, they -had been dressed with entire correctness--but on this occasion they -had evidently been allowed complete latitude. The two maids wore the -shortest of short skirts, with violent-coloured shirtwaists. They had -on hats exactly alike--large picture-hats of white, with wreaths of -red roses. The same riot of colour had broken out on Scipio Africanus -and Charles Sumner Pickup. Scipio sported a scarf-pin composed of two -United States flags crossed, while Charles Sumner Pickup carried a -cane from the handle of which fluttered red, white, and blue ribbons. -The cook, who was plainly an ante-bellum product, had donned, for -the journey, an immense crape veil, which dangled to the ground, and -implied that she was in the first stages of widowhood. As a fact, she -had “planted her ole man,” in the Afro-American vernacular, about -thirty years before, but at intervals since, she had adorned herself -with the crape veil, as a dissipation in dress akin to the maids’ -wreaths of red roses, and the butler and coachman’s assumption of the -national colours. - -Thorndyke, on reaching Constance’s side, proffered his assistance, but -his offer was promptly repulsed. - -“How on earth would you manage five negroes?” she asked. “You would -lose your patience in five minutes--you do not know what they know or -what they do not know. I think I have everything straight now--I will -keep the tickets myself”--and then, escorted by Thorndyke, she saw her -five charges and the horses, the traps, and the trunks in their proper -cars, and, sending Thorndyke after Annette Crane, herself took her -place in the drawing-room car for her two hours’ trip. - -When Annette stepped in the car to spend ten minutes with her, -Constance was sincerely glad. She felt a strong and strange sympathy -with Annette Crane. Never were women more dissimilar in type, in -environment, in ideas, than those two women; but both were gentlewomen -of sense and right feeling, and on that common ground they met and -became friends. - -Constance expressed a wish that Mrs. Crane might be in Washington the -next winter, and Annette quietly replied that she expected to be. - -Thorndyke then began telling her of his amusement at watching -Constance, with five servants, working like a Trojan for them. - -“Of course, you, with your cool Northern temperament, cannot understand -the negro,” replied Constance, good-humouredly. “You would expect a -negro to work when he could help it. What a delusion! Suppose I had -trusted Scipio or Charles to buy those tickets and get those horses -aboard, and meanwhile a street-band had come along?” - -“I suppose Scipio or Charles would have got the tickets and attended to -the horses just the same,” answered Thorndyke. - -“Do you? That shows your utter density regarding Scipio and Charles. I -daresay you thought it very amusing that I should work for my servants.” - -“I did.” - -“They work for me when I want them and make them--that is, they work in -a certain way--_their_ way. And I suppose you would have that United -States flag pin off Scipio’s bosom and that cane with the red, white, -and blue ribbons out of Charles’s hand if you were travelling to -Newport with them.” - -“I am afraid I should.” - -“And you could not stand the wreaths of red roses on the hats of my two -maids?” - -“I am quite sure I couldn’t.” - -“Then, Mr. Thorndyke, stop legislating for the negroes, because you -know nothing about them.” - -“I admit,” said Thorndyke, “that the patience and indulgence of -Southerners toward negroes has always amazed and charmed me. But I -believe the negro would be better off if he were made to assume greater -responsibilities.” - -“Go to. Can the Ethiopian change his skin?” - -Just then, Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin and Eleanor sauntered into -the state-room of the car. They were to join a yachting party at Old -Point Comfort. They spoke distantly and coolly to both Constance and -Thorndyke--the memory of Senator Mince Pie Mulligan’s candid praise of -“ould Danny Hogan at th’ corner grocery” was still a green and smarting -wound in their breasts. - -Mr. Baldwin’s English valet and Eleanor’s French maid were doing -everything possible for the comfort of their master and mistress and -with perfect intelligence. Thorndyke smilingly indicated it, but -Constance shook her head. - -“I am always hearing complaints about French and English servants -in this country, but we who are accustomed to negro servants never -complain of them.” - -“Because you never require anything of them; however,” added Thorndyke, -“I’ll admit there seems to be a comfortable sort of arrangement between -you. It would drive any but Southern people mad, but you don’t seem to -mind it.” - -Then Constance, turning to Annette, said she would be so glad if she -and Mr. Crane would pay her a visit during the summer. Annette’s -eyes sparkled; it was a distinct triumph for her, because she knew, -and knew that Crane knew, that he never would have been asked but -for her. She thanked Constance warmly, but said she was afraid it -was impossible--she never went away from Circleville in summer; and -Constance, seeing longing in Thorndyke’s eye, repeated her invitation -to him, and made his middle-aged heart beat fast by doing it; and then -it was time to go, and the train pulled out, and Constance was gone. - -Thorndyke put Annette on her suburban car, and walked back to his -lodgings, through the hot, bright streets--hot and bright in spite of -the lush greenness of the shade. But the day had turned lead coloured -to him; and although there were still plenty of persons in town, and -the capital was seething, for it was yet some days before adjournment, -Thorndyke felt as if the whole town were silent and deserted. - -The presence of Constance Maitland made any place full for Geoffrey -Thorndyke, and her absence made a desert to him. He contrasted in his -own mind his feelings of to-day and of a year ago. Then, he had reached -a kind of dull acquiescence in fate, or thought he had. Despairing of -forgetting Constance, he had learned to endure quietly the poignant -pain of remembering her, and in default of all else in life to interest -him he had thrown his whole soul and being into politics. Now, the -sound of Constance Maitland’s voice, the touch of her hand, was always -with him, and had turned an otherwise dull and prosaic world into a -region of splendid tumult and delicious agitations, for he would not -have gone back to his past state for anything on earth. Constance had a -deep regard for him--of that there could be no doubt. She commanded his -society whenever she could; she exerted herself to please and flatter -him; and he accepted it as a man drinks water in the desert, not -analysing it, but exulting in it. Even those frequent seasons when he -called himself a blankety-blank fool were not devoid of enjoyment--at -least, it was not stagnation. He yearned after a million or so of -money, that he might lay at Constance’s feet, and ask her to throw -away the fortune that stood between them, but he was too sound and -sane a man to imagine that he would ever be a rich man. Politics had -by no means lost its interest for him, but rather had it gained--that -at least was something to give him value in Constance’s eyes. As for -that bare possibility of the senatorship two years hence, in the event -that Senator Standiford should retire, Thorndyke regarded it as an -iridescent dream. He did not believe that Senator Standiford would -retire. He heard no more of Letty Standiford’s delicate health, or the -Senator’s, either. Letty was rushing about Washington in an automobile, -helloing at young gentlemen on the street, and doing many loud, -unnecessary, and innocent things which require much nervous energy and -lung-power. The Senator himself gave no indications of ill-health and -fatigue. In Washington he led a life as regular and temperate as that -of a boarding-school miss, but when local elections were impending, -or a national convention was on hand, Thorndyke had known the old -gentleman to go for a fortnight at a time almost without eating or -sleeping, and then come out looking as fresh as a daisy. So Thorndyke -was a little sceptical about his boss’s possible retirement from the -field, and took it that the Senator had been trying some sort of an -intellectual bunco game upon him. - -When the adjournment of Congress was reached, Thorndyke took the first -train to his northern home. It was a comfortable old place, on the -skirts of an old colonial town left high and dry among more progressive -places; but shady, serene, and comfortable in the extreme. Here, in the -house where he and his father and his grandfather and great-grandfather -were born, Thorndyke’s summers were spent with his sister Elizabeth, a -gentle, sweet-faced creature, who had not walked for many years, but -whose mind and hands were busy doing such good as lay in their reach. - -Down in the town before a wooden one-story office with a porch, hung -a battered tin sign, which had been repaired and repainted twenty -times since first, in Geoffrey Thorndyke’s grandfather’s time, it had -borne the legend, “Geoffrey Thorndyke, Counsellor at Law.” Thorndyke -still kept the dingy little office which had been his grandfather’s -and his father’s before him. He had given up the best of his law -practice at the time that he had been thrown down and securely roped -for Congress by Senator Standiford and his trusty cowboys, the State -Committeemen, but had always clung to the old law-office as a refuge in -case Senator Standiford should relegate him to private life. Although -he had been compelled to abandon the active and continuous practice of -his profession--for according to the old axiom, “The law is a jealous -mistress”--Thorndyke remained a student of law. He was by nature and -training a very considerable lawyer, and his legal acquirements had -helped to win for him the high and steady position he held in the House -of Representatives. He was not a leader of men, but rather a thinker -and adviser, and was proud of the somewhat scornful appellation of “the -scholar in politics.” - -In his quiet summer home, among his few shabby books--which, unlike -Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin, he read diligently, and never thought to -mention that he lived among them--Thorndyke spent his placid summers. -He read much, and observed a great deal. He was close to the border of -Crane’s State, and their congressional districts were contiguous, and -naturally Thorndyke knew the political happenings across the border. - -In all his experience of men, Thorndyke had never watched with the -same interest the development of a man in his public and private life -as he watched Julian Crane’s. He saw the good and the evil struggling -together in Crane, and had not yet found out which was fundamental. - -Crane, with Annette and the two children, had returned to Circleville -immediately after the adjournment of Congress, and immediately, on -reaching home, he had been beset with a temptation, against which he -had made a short, hard fight, and then was conquered, and gave up all -the honesty of his soul as regards politics. One week after his return -to Circleville, he had received overtures for peace from Governor -Sanders, and a meeting between them had been arranged. - -It took place in a neighbouring city, in the private parlour of a -hotel. The two men were entirely alone. Sanders, a bull-dog of a man, -came out frankly and told Crane that, by the cutthroat policy they -were pursuing, they were simply playing into Senator Bicknell’s hands, -and depriving the State of its just weight with the National Committee -in the year of a Presidential convention. His proposition was a large -one, but was put in a few words. The Governor began by freely admitting -that Crane had got the best of him in the matter of the senatorial -appointment--the politicians were agreed on that. But all men make -blunders, and Governor Sanders proposed to atone for the blunder he -had made about the senatorship by joining forces with Crane instead -of opposing him further. It was plain that there was a strong revolt -against Senator Bicknell, and a split was inevitable among the chiefs -as soon as the Legislature met, which would elect a senator. When this -break came, new alignments must be made, and Governor Sanders believed -and said that if he and Crane should join forces they could oust -Senator Bicknell and get control of the machine. - -At the mention of Senator Bicknell’s name, Crane changed countenance, -and mumbled something about his political obligations to the Senator. -Sanders met this by saying that it was his opinion, if Senator -Bicknell were not ousted, there would be grave danger that the party -would lose the State at the next election; and, in any event, there -must be a new arrangement of forces, and he was simply proposing to -take advantage of the inevitable. He then went on to explain briefly -his plan. The protocols must provide that Governor Sanders should -throw all his strength toward getting Crane the party nomination for -the short senatorial term in January, and second Crane’s efforts to -succeed himself. In return, Crane was to devote all his energies toward -securing the Governor’s election two years hence to succeed Senator -Bicknell. Meanwhile, Senator Bicknell was nursing a very robust and -promising Vice-presidential boom, which must, of course, be strangled -in the cradle. Nothing must be heard of it at the next Presidential -convention a year hence; but four years hence, when both Crane and -Sanders would be in the Senate, it would be time enough to decide which -one would strive for it. The geographical position of the State and -the uncertainty of the elections for many years past would put them in -a very good strategic position either to capture the Vice-presidential -nomination or to dictate it to the convention; and that was a prize -which could be held in reserve. - -The success of the whole, however, depended upon keeping Senator -Bicknell in the dark, for although he had not displayed the qualities -of a truly great boss, like Senator Standiford, yet he was a man of -considerable force, well liked, a gentleman, and a favourite in his -party. If he suspected the plotting of an insurrection against him, -he might in two years’ time overthrow it completely; but he was an -unsuspicious man--a bad thing in a boss--and could be easily deluded -into believing that no effort was necessary on his part to hold his -own. For that reason, the warfare between Sanders and Crane should -be ostensibly kept up. Especially must this be the case in selecting -delegates to the National Convention. Senator Bicknell’s aspirations -for the Vice-presidential nomination must be frosted on the apparent -ground of dissensions among the leaders in the State--but as soon as -the election was over they could come together and have four years’ -amicable struggle to prove whether Sanders or Crane should be seriously -put forward for the Vice-presidential nomination five years hence. - -Crane listened to this nefarious scheme with disgust--a disgust in -which a great longing was strangely and violently mingled. Every -word that Sanders said was true; Crane knew that perfectly well. The -machine was going to pieces--there could be no doubt of that--and -Crane, with accurate knowledge of conditions, saw that the Governor’s -plan, although far-reaching, was quite practicable. The whole thing, -however, hinged upon keeping Senator Bicknell in the dark. If it had -been a free, fair fight, the Governor and himself might be worsted. -Senator Bicknell might be considered the founder of Crane’s political -fortunes, and had certainly treated him with great kindness, and had -procured his advancement; but then, it was a question whether the great -law of necessity would not compel Crane to go with Sanders. Senator -Bicknell would not, if he could, ruin Crane, but Governor Sanders was -fully capable of it, and would, if he could. Indeed, Sanders conveyed -as much. - -“Of course,” he said, carelessly, as he lighted a cigar, “you would -have to be very circumspect in every way from now on. Voters, you know, -are easily offended. As a matter of business, purely, I shall mention -to you that there has been some talk about your leaving your wife at -home during your time spent in Washington. I have heard that, except -for the short visit she paid you during the extra session, she has not -been there since the first session at which you took your seat. Of -course, everybody knows that it is all straight between you, but it -was a mistake on your part, just the same. It will give your enemies a -handle against you.” - -Crane grew pale. How strange it was that in all those years he had -never been conscious of the supreme folly of his behaviour! It had not -once occurred to him until that evening in Washington, hardly more than -a month ago! - -“Mrs. Crane remained by choice in Circleville on account of -the children,” replied Crane, “and because my salary as a -congressman doesn’t admit of my having my family there as I would -wish--particularly as I had some debts to pay, and my house in -Circleville has a mortgage on it.” - -“Oh, I understand perfectly, Mr. Crane. All of us who know you do. I -was not speaking of the views of your friends, but of your enemies, on -the subject. However, if money is the consideration, I think I could -guarantee your senatorial term in good style; nothing extravagant, -you know, but enough to put your mind at ease. Your notes, with my -indorsement, would be accepted at any bank in the State, and the matter -could be kept quiet.” - -It was the old story--making chains out of his necessities. And they -were very great. Crane spoke of paying his debts. He had scarcely made -any reduction in the principal, and had only succeeded in paying the -interest--which, with his living expenses, of which his own were twice -as much as Annette’s and the children’s, and his small life-insurance, -had galloped away with his five thousand a year. And if he should lose -the nomination--there was not much danger of that now, but everything -was possible with a machine and a man like Governor Sanders. - -Crane’s better nature, however, rebelled against the deceit to be -practised on Senator Bicknell. That he declared he could never bring -himself to--and believed it at the moment. - -“Then,” said Governor Sanders, rising, “we may conclude our conference. -The entire success of the campaign I have mapped out depends upon -Senator Bicknell not being taken into our confidence. We are not -proposing anything against the party; we are simply proposing to do for -ourselves what Senator Bicknell has done for himself; and if things go -on as they have been going under his direction, I think we stand an -excellent chance of losing the State at the Presidential election.” - -Before Crane’s ardent mind loomed a vision. Six years in Washington -as a Senator--and he was not yet forty-three years old; living in -good style, and then, the chance, not a bad one by any means, of the -Vice-presidential nomination in a little over four years. It was a -glorious vista. Like the Arabian glass-seller, his imagination far -outstripped itself. He saw himself, at forty-eight, Vice-president, -at fifty-two, another term, at fifty-six, still in the Senate, with -a great reputation--even the Presidency did not seem beyond him. -He had the enormous advantage of youth over most of his rivals. A -Vice-president stands one chance in three and a half of succeeding to -the Presidency--altogether, it was a dazzling dream--so dazzling that -Crane began to feel the old regret and longing that Fate had not given -him a wife like Constance Maitland; he was afraid even, in thought, to -wish that it might be Constance Maitland. How that woman would shine -in an official position! And then, the other side--but there was no -other side. Without Sanders’s help, he would have a desperate fight -before the Legislature; and that outlook which had seemed so rosy when -he described it to Constance Maitland in her drawing-room a few months -before, grew dismal and gruesome when examined in parlour number 20 of -the Grand Hotel. If defeated for the senatorship, and under the ban of -Governor Sanders, his seat, a year hence, would be certainly doubtful, -and if the machine ran over him it meant annihilation. So, tempted of -the devil, Crane yielded, and promised everything the Governor required. - -As the Governor had found him an uncertain quantity before, there were -due precautions taken to keep him in the traces this time, by veiled -threats of what would befall him if he kicked them over a second time. -Crane understood perfectly well. He also realised that there were two -men under his skin--one, honest and loving the truth, and the other, -craving money and power and consideration, tormented with vanity, -enslaved by self-love, a fierce and hideous object to contemplate. -But he need not contemplate it; and with this determination he took -a friendly cocktail with the Governor, and departed for Circleville. -That hint about his wife opened Crane’s eyes to the necessity of the -outward practice of virtue, and he then determined to compass, as far -as in him lay, the whole comprehensive sin of hypocrisy. He would be -very attentive to his wife and devoted to his children. He would go to -church regularly. He would adopt a Cincinnatus-like mode of life, that -out of his small means he might contribute to charity and have it known -by the special correspondents. In short, he proposed to become that -object of man’s hate and God’s wrath, a hypocrite. - - - - -_Chapter Eleven_ - -IN THE SWEET-DO-NOTHING OF THE SUMMER-TIME - - -Straightway, Crane began a hypocritical mode of life, and -deceived everybody in the world except the two most necessary to -deceive--himself and his wife. - -He did not deceive himself. There was enough of honesty in him to -make him loathe himself, while doggedly carrying out the devil’s -programme, into which he had entered with Governor Sanders. As he went -to church on summer Sundays, with Annette by his side and the two -children trotting soberly in front of them, Crane felt as if a bolt -from heaven ought to descend upon him for his treachery to the man who -had befriended him. Sitting in the cool, dim church, his head devoutly -bowed as if in prayer, he doubted that there was a personal God; for -if so, how could He tolerate such blasphemy us a man praying, to be -seen of men; giving, to be published in the newspapers, and saying to -his brother, “How is it with thee, my brother?” and then stabbing him -in the back? - -At one thing, the evil spirit within him shuddered and turned away. -This was when he had a very friendly letter from Senator Bicknell, -saying he should be in the neighbourhood of Circleville in the next -fortnight, and if convenient he would accept Crane’s often-urged -invitation to stop and spend a day at his house. - -The idea of receiving under his roof the man he had betrayed was -too much for Crane. Enough moral sense remained in him to make him -shrink from that. He wrote Senator Bicknell a very friendly and even -affectionate letter explaining that important business would take -him away from home for that week, and expressing the deepest regret -that he could not have the long-promised visit. And forthwith, on the -promised day, Crane made an excuse of business, and went speeding -toward the nearest city. He said no word to Annette about his letter -from Senator Bicknell, but some suspicion of the actual state of things -had crept into her mind. She knew that Crane was under obligations to -Senator Bicknell, and a close reading of the newspapers had shown her -that Crane and Governor Sanders were supposed to be mortal enemies. -Yet, she knew that the Governor and Crane were in the most friendly -communication, while Crane had ceased to mention Senator Bicknell’s -name. And some anxiety was weighing upon him--that she saw plainly. She -saw that Crane was prosperous, that he was rising in importance every -day, and yet was miserable. He had grown thin and pale in those few -weeks since he had entered into his evil compact. It could not be want -of money, because Annette had never known him to be so well supplied. -She begun to suspect some moral lapse on his part, and the thought -nearly broke her heart--for Julian Crane was the love of her life; and -she loved him in his degradation as profoundly as in the time when she -had believed him to be the soul of honour. - -A singular complication came of Senator Bicknell’s letter. He did -not get Crane’s in reply, and on the day he had proposed to be in -Circleville he found himself at the little station. There was no one to -meet him, but it was easy enough to find the way to Crane’s house--he -was the local great man of Circleville. - -When he reached the house, with its many verandas, embowered in fine -and vigorous elm-trees, the front door was wide open, and looking -through the low, wide hall, he could see the garden beyond. There, -under a tall lilac hedge, sat Annette in a rustic chair, sewing. On -a rustic table before her the children had their books, and took -turns reading aloud to her. As always, she was simply but freshly and -becomingly dressed, and as the green light fell upon her fair hair -and her pensive, pretty face, she made a charming picture for any man -to contemplate. Senator Bicknell had an æsthetic soul as well as an -honest heart, and the pretty scene appealed to him. He walked through -the hall, into the trim garden, and, hat in hand, introduced himself to -Annette. - -She rose at once, smiling and blushing, and made him hospitably -welcome. She knew nothing of his expected arrival, which convinced -Senator Bicknell that there had been some misunderstanding concerning -his letter. But the Senator was so pleased with his first impressions -that he accepted Annette’s invitation to remain and share their -one-o’clock dinner--an invitation given with palpitations, but so -promptly and gracefully accepted that Annette was delighted at her own -courage in proposing it. The Senator, seated on a rustic settee, and -admiring the aspect of things in the house and garden, as well as the -mistress and her children, thought himself in luck. He expressed great -regret at not seeing Crane, but frankly declared himself very well -satisfied with things as they were. - -Emboldened by her success in entertaining the Senator, Annette -proposed that she should notify the leading citizens, and invite -them to call at five o’clock to pay their respects to him. Senator -Bicknell good-humouredly assented--it would be of advantage to Crane, -he thought, mistakenly enough--and it was worth while obliging a -subordinate if that subordinate had a wife as pleasing as Mrs. Crane. - -By the time this was settled it was one o’clock, and the Senator found -himself seated at Annette’s dainty table, with the two children, -and being waited on by Annette’s one servant, a neat, hard-featured -creature, who knew how to cook. - -The Senator was worth millions, had a French chef, and a chronic -dyspepsia, but he spoke truly when he told Annette he had not enjoyed -a dinner so much in years as the one she gave him. It was very -simple, but good, and well served. The children never opened their -mouths except when spoken to. Annette was surprised, as at Constance -Maitland’s dinner, to find herself altogether at ease, and was -conscious that she was making an agreeable impression every moment of -the time. To be appreciated gives the most timid confidence; and it was -perfectly evident that this trained man of the world appreciated this -woman, as sweet and natural as the wild roses that grew in the roadside -hedges. They found much to talk about, and Thorndyke was mentioned, at -which Annette overflowed in praises of him, to which Senator Bicknell -agreed. - -He was much amused by Annette’s impromptu plan of having a reception -for him that afternoon, and accused her of aspiring to be a second -Madame Roland, but laughingly agreed with her when Annette assured him -that it would be worth several votes to Crane in the coming senatorial -contest. - -After dinner he was shown to a cool and spotless chamber, where he -had a very refreshing nap and a bath. At five o’clock he was summoned -below. Annette awaited him in the modest drawing-room. She wore -a pretty muslin gown, and looked as fresh as a dewdrop. With the -assistance of the neighbours, the lower floor was dressed with flowers, -and simple refreshments were served upon tables in the large and -well-kept garden. - -Annette, taking her stand at the door of the drawing-room with the -Senator, received with dignity and grace the people who came pouring -in--the Judge of the County Court, the professional men in the town, -the principal of the Circleville High School--all accompanied by their -ladies, wearing their best silk gowns and very tight kid gloves. -Senator Bicknell was affability itself. He was an amiable man, and -Annette Crane’s virtues and charms were such as appeal peculiarly -to men, so that most of them wished to oblige her. He was secretly -amused at the courage and capability she had shown in organising a -political reception for him on such short notice, and determined to -help her through with it. By way of showing his goodwill, he spoke with -enthusiasm of Crane to many persons, and said that he should be pleased -if Crane might be his colleague after the first of January. - -At seven o’clock he was obliged to take his train. Before he stepped -into the carriage of the Judge, who had asked the honour of driving him -to the station, Senator Bicknell expressed to Annette the most sincere -gratitude and pleasure at his visit. - -“Tell Mr. Crane,” he whispered to her, “that with a wife who has such -masterly capacity for political management as you, my dear Mrs. Crane, -he may expect any sort of promotion. If our State is honoured by being -awarded the Vice-presidential nomination, I am afraid no one else will -be heard of except Mr. Crane, if you take the affair in charge.” - -“You are laughing at me,” cried Annette, laughing herself, but -colouring with pleasure at Senator Bicknell’s kind manner and -flattering words. “Imagine me as a political manager!” - -“My dear lady, the only political managers in the world, among women, -are those like yourself, who don’t know that they are managing. -Good-bye, and a thousand thanks. I have not spent so pleasant a day for -a long time. Remember, when you come to Washington, you are to dine -with me many times, but I can’t make you enjoy your dinner as much as I -enjoyed mine. Regards to Crane”--then, stepping into the carriage, the -Senator said to the Judge in a voice meant to be heard by those around: - -“Charming woman--sweet, well-behaved children--comfortable home--our -friend Crane is in luck.” - -Crane did not return until the next evening, and was greeted by the -sensational news of Senator Bicknell’s visit. Annette was, of course, -full of her achievement in entertaining the Senator. Instead of -receiving her account with the pleasure which might naturally have been -expected, Crane listened with sombre eyes and a face which grew pale -and paler as Annette proceeded with the story of the success of her -impromptu reception. It was indeed a horribly awkward complication for -Crane, and vastly increased his difficulties. His chagrin could not -be concealed, and Annette was quickly convinced, to her distress and -amazement, that Senator Bicknell’s visit was anything but pleasant to -Crane. - -When this was borne in upon her, she stopped speaking, and -involuntarily fixed her clear, accusing eyes on her husband. All at -once her suspicions of the changed relations between Crane and Senator -Bicknell, and Crane and Governor Sanders, became a certainty. In a -moment of inspiration--the inspiration of an intelligent honesty--the -probable state of affairs flashed upon her. She remained silent for a -time; they were seated alone at the tea-table, in the garden, and the -August sunset was at hand. Crane’s countenance grew anxious as Annette -watched him. - -“Did the Senator say he had got my letter?” he asked. - -“He expressly said he had not heard from you,” replied Annette. “Did -you go away from home to avoid the Senator?” - -It was but a chance shot, but it hit the bull’s eye. Crane did not -answer the question, but got up and walked to the other end of the -garden. They were sitting and talking in the very spot where Annette -had so successfully entertained the Senator the afternoon before. - -She could not, of course, know the details, but she knew then that -Crane was a traitor, and was pretending a goodwill which he was far -from feeling. Annette suffered as only a high-minded woman can suffer -when the lower man in one she loves reveals itself. But she said -nothing. She knew that Crane must work out his own salvation, and that -she could be of no help to him there. - -And Crane, having a guilty conscience, knew that Annette suspected the -game he was playing; and this made him more unhappy but not less guilty -than before. - -Annette had told Crane of Constance Maitland’s invitation to them, -which piqued as much as it gratified him. He knew quite well that but -for Annette he would have had no invitation. Later on came a note from -Constance repeating the invitation very cordially, but Annette felt -obliged to decline it with all the thanks in the world. - -So the summer passed for those two. - -For Thorndyke the summer was, first, one long anticipation of that -visit he was to pay Constance, and then, one long retrospection of -it. He had enjoyed every moment of it, although the beginning was -inauspicious. When he changed trains at Washington to go into Virginia, -whom should he find in the Pullman with him but Mince Pie Mulligan, who -greeted him effusively. Thorndyke carefully concealed his destination -from Mr. Mulligan, but the junior Senator was by no means so secretive. - -“I’ll tell you where I’m going,” he said, in the friendly juxtaposition -of the smoker. “I’m going to a place up in Virginia to see that -stunning woman I met in Washington, Miss Maitland. Never saw her but -once, but, by Jove, that was enough to make me want to see her again. -I’ve found out where she is spending the summer, and I’m going there -just to do a little prospecting.” - -Mr. Mulligan had abandoned the violent brogue which he had used on a -former occasion, and spoke pretty fair English, but his mouth was as -wide and his hair was as red as ever. - -Thorndyke, consumed with inward rage, inquired blandly of Mr. Mulligan: - -“May I ask if you were invited by Miss Maitland to visit her?” - -“Lord, no,” responded Mr. Mulligan, cheerfully. “But I’m just -prospecting. I don’t know whether I shall like her or not after I know -her better; but I expect to like her. The way she sat down on those two -young women snobs added a year to my life, and I’m thinking I gave ’em -a good whack or two.” - -“I suppose,” said Thorndyke, longing to throw Mulligan out of the -car-window and under the locomotive wheels, “you have engaged -accommodations in Miss Maitland’s neighbourhood?” - -“Never a bit of it. I just found out that Miss Maitland’s station was -Roseboro’ station on this road, and I presume there must be some sort -of a hotel within reach, or I can stop at the next town.” - -“There are no towns in that part of the county, and Miss Maitland has -informed me that there isn’t a hotel or boarding-house within ten -miles,” replied Thorndyke, stalking angrily back into the Pullman. - -The train stopped at Roseboro’ on being flagged, and Thorndyke had one -of the most delicious moments of his life when he stepped into a smart -trap driven by Constance herself, and left Senator Mulligan, the man of -millions and of pies, stranded at the station, which consisted of the -passenger shed and the station-master’s house, which had four rooms, -in which the station-master with his wife and eleven children lived in -much dirt and comfort. - -Constance, sitting in the trap, looking remarkably handsome in her -summer costume and large black hat, felt a thrill of sympathy for the -unfortunate Mulligan, standing in the little shed of a station with his -luggage piled around him. Not so Thorndyke, who derived acute pleasure -from Mulligan’s miserable situation. - -“I hope,” said Constance to the forlorn Senator, “that you will come -over to see me some afternoon while you are at Roseboro’. Malvern is -only six miles away.” - -“Thank you,” cried Mulligan, at once rising into a mood of enthusiastic -optimism, “I’ll call early and often.” - -“The fellow is a good-natured ruffian, but I hope I’ll be out when he -calls,” was Thorndyke’s remark to Constance as they left the sandy road -of Roseboro’ station and entered the cool and shaded highway which led -to Malvern. - -As Constance and Thorndyke drove along the sweet-scented country lanes, -crossing streams by rickety bridges and bumping up and down hills, -Thorndyke felt himself near Paradise. Constance was so kind to him, so -unaffectedly glad to see him. Her country life had freshened up her -complexion, and she looked positively girlish, and her high spirits -were infectious. She described the house-party--Mrs. Willoughby, half a -dozen Virginia cousins of different ages and sexes, a French friend and -her husband travelling in America, and Cathcart, the navy man--at whose -name Thorndyke felt a sensible diminution of his happiness. Constance -was charmed with Malvern Court, and declared it had been the happiest -summer of her life--almost. - -“And when I think of those weary, dreary foreign watering-places of -which I grew so tired, and of those tiresome Swiss hotels, I think I am -in Heaven to be once more in my own country among my own kith and kin, -and hearing no language but good, honest English.” - -“I intended to go to Europe this summer,” said Thorndyke, meekly. “I -had planned it for two or three years.” - -“Why did you not go?” asked Constance, heedlessly. - -“Because you asked me to visit you,” replied Thorndyke, something -within him forcing the truth out of him against his will, and then he -added, hastily: - -“Forgive me, I’m a perfect brute. I wouldn’t blame you in the least if -you sent me back north by the next train.” - -“Get up, Frolic, you idiot!” cried Constance to her smart cob, and -flicking him with the whip. Her face coloured, her eyes shone--it was -plain she was not displeased. But a horrible suspicion occurred to -Thorndyke--possibly she was, after all, a thorough-going flirt! Many of -those Southern women are, and can’t imagine why a man should object to -having a football made of his dearest affections as long as it amuses -the lady in the case. - -This gruesome and uncanny thought, together with Cathcart’s presence -at Malvern, was a huge fly in Thorndyke’s ointment, but misery is as -much a concomitant of love as joy is, and Thorndyke had his share of -miseries. - -The great live oaks were casting long shadows on the large, smooth -lawn when Constance drove up to the doors of Malvern Court. It was -a spacious brick house with wings, and at the back a four-roomed -structure common to Virginia houses, and known as “the office,” where -the bachelors were lodged. The house-guests were having tea under the -trees, where the shadows were long, when Thorndyke and Constance joined -them. Scipio Africanus served the tea, which was iced, and was like -water in the desert to travellers. It was handed with much ceremony by -Scipio, who had doffed his smart livery, and appeared in a snow-white -linen jacket. He was assisted by one of the coloured maids, who now -wore the smartest of smart caps and the neatest of neat print gowns -instead of the short skirt, pink shirtwaist, and picture-hat which had -electrified Thorndyke at the Washington station a few weeks before. -Constance Maitland knew precisely when to relax and when to tighten -discipline among her staff of negro servants. - -Like all people in a country house, the guests were glad to see some -one from the outside world. It was a pleasant and amiable party, -and Thorndyke enjoyed himself in spite of Cathcart’s presence; but -Cathcart, being a remarkably pleasant and personable man, everybody -except Thorndyke relished his company. - -While they were lingering over tea, a ramshackly buggy of the -prehistoric age of buggies, with an unkempt horse, was seen driving -up the winding, shady road which led to the lawn. In the buggy sat no -less a person than Senator Mince Pie Mulligan. He had seen himself -ignominiously left in the lurch by Thorndyke, but with the same spirit -of enterprise which had made him the greatest pie-manufacturer on earth -he had investigated his resources, and promptly pursued his object -with the best means at hand--a sure mark of superiority. - -When he alighted from his ancient buggy, Constance advanced to meet -him, and greeted him with a cordiality which inspired Mr. Mulligan -with admiration and hope. He did not know that Southerners in their -own habitat meet every guest, however undesirable, with the same -overflowing cordiality, which is reckoned as merely good manners. -Senator Mulligan, however, thought this custom of generations a special -tribute to himself, and gloated over that cool, supercilious Thorndyke, -who had smiled in a superior manner at the Senator’s predicament at -Roseboro’ station. So he replied genially to Constance’s greeting: - -“As you were good enough to ask me to call, and as I don’t know how -long I’ll be in these parts, I said to myself, ‘Faith, I’ll pay Miss -Maitland a visit this very afternoon.’ And here I am with this ould -cruelty cart, when I’ve got a stable full of horses at home, and a -Panhard red devil that cost me six thousand dollars to buy and a -thousand a year to keep--but, like the butterfly, I get there just the -same.” - -Constance, being a clever woman, looked into Michael Mulligan’s soul -and saw that it was honest, according to his lights, and that his -bragging was not bragging at all, but an innocent way of mentioning -what the pie business had brought him. - -“I am very glad to see you, Senator,” she replied, smiling, and then -gravely introduced this member of the august Senate of the United -States to the group sitting about the tea-table. - -Nobody but Thorndyke and Cathcart took in the situation. The Virginia -cousins, to whom political preferment means that the object of it -belongs to one of the first families in his own home, supposed that -Mr. Mulligan, although certainly very odd-looking, had a long line -of distinguished ancestors, and it was with much cordiality that an -ex-Confederate Colonel, grave and suave, with a snow-white moustache -and imperial, shook Mike Mulligan’s hand, saying: - -“I am pleased, sir, to make your acquaintance, and to bid you welcome -upon the soil of old Virginia.” - -The Frenchman, a retired army officer, and his wife, a thorough-bred -French gentlewoman, were equally polite, but they arrived at a much -more correct estimate of Senator Mulligan’s social status than the -ex-Confederate Colonel. As for the Honourable Mike, he started in -to enjoy himself in a whole-souled manner, which would commend him -to all sincere persons. He drank three glasses of iced tea running, -complimented the late President Davis and General Lee, declared that -he meant to buy up a good part of the State of Virginia, and worked -himself up into a whirlwind of enthusiasm over everything he saw. This -completely captivated all the ex-Confederates present, amazed the -French strangers, and amused Thorndyke and Cathcart beyond words. On -leaving, Senator Mulligan told Constance nothing but the truth when he -said that he had never enjoyed an afternoon more, or had found himself -among more “conjaynial company.” - -Then began for Thorndyke a week of rapture, mixed with agonising -jealousy; for let no man suppose that his passions have no more power -to trouble him after his hair grows scanty and his moustache grows -grey. In all those years of separation from Constance, the edge of -Thorndyke’s pain had been dulled, but the ache was still there; and -from the April night he had first seen her, until then, he felt himself -being steadily and securely mastered by that great love of his life--as -steadily and securely as if he could have offered her his honest and -devoted heart. And to be thrown with her daily--to spend the bright -summer mornings in the cool, old drawing-room with Constance, listening -to the pleasant, languid talk of people in a country house, the shady -afternoons in driving over the rich, green, placid country, sometimes -with Constance by his side--the deep, blue nights, sitting on the -great stone porch, watching the silver moon rise over the distant -pine-crowned mountain-peaks, and looking at Constance, in a thin white -gown, seeming as young by night as in those sweet Italian nights long -past--it would have been bliss but for two things. One was that she was -as kind to Cathcart as to himself, and the other was that she was so -very kind to him. For since she could not possibly think of marrying -him, she could only be amusing herself at his expense. - -Thorndyke was nearly forty-five years old, he was a member of -Congress, and reckoned a peculiarly cool-headed and long-headed man, -but he was thereby exempt from the agonies of love. - -As for Senator Mulligan, Thorndyke did not need to recall the frank -confession made on the train to know that Mince Pie had speedily made -up his mind that Constance was worth the winning, and to go about it -with promptness and energy. On the very last afternoon, Thorndyke, -disgusted with the goodwill which Constance had shown Cathcart, -retired to a rustic summer-house on the lawn, to writhe in secret with -jealousy, and incidentally to read the New York newspapers. Presently -he saw Constance and Senator Mulligan walking across the sward toward -the house. Constance’s face was flushed, and she was walking rapidly. -Senator Mulligan was talking earnestly to her, and his brogue was more -evident than usual, under the stress of emotion. Immediately in front -of the summer-house Constance stopped and faced the Senator. - -“I must beg of you,” she said, in a clear voice, with a faint ring of -indignation in it, “to say no more on this subject to me now, or at -any other time.” - -“Well, I’ve said about all I had to say,” replied Senator Mulligan, -warmly. “I asked you to marry me, I did, and I tould you, I did, if -you had to lose what money you had because I’m an American, thank God, -that I’d make it up to you a dozen times over. I said that, I did, -and I didn’t desaive you about the senatorship.” The brogue by this -time was rampant. “The thing was going a-beggin’, and the Governor, he -sends for me, and he says to me, ‘Mike,’ says he, ‘you’ll be nothin’ -but a stop-gap, and don’t get any other notion into your red head but -that--and ye’ll step down and out the first of January,’ says he; ‘and -don’t monkey with the buzz saw,’ says he. And I says, says I, ‘I won’t, -Governor, and I’ll have my fling at Washington, and I’ll take down my -Panhard red devil, and go a-scorchin’ over the Washington streets, and -have the time of my life,’ and bedad, I have. And I had no more thought -of falling in love and getting married than I have of trying to get up -a diligation to present my name to the next Prisidential convention. -But then I met you, Miss Maitland, and I came up here after you, and -you’ve bowled me over, senatorship and all, and I’ve tould the truth, -and not a lie in the bunch, and I’ve offered to give up your money, and -I don’t see that I’ve done anything for you to look at me like Lady -Macbeth, and I beg your pardon if I’ve offinded you.” - -During this speech Constance Maitland’s heart softened toward Mince Pie -Mike. He had only claimed a man’s inalienable right, and he had behaved -as honourably as in him lay. So she said, with a softening of the voice -as well as the heart: - -“I feel sure that all you say is true and I am sorry if I have wounded -you--but what you ask is not to be thought of for a moment.” - -“Well,” remarked the Senator, resignedly, “it’s a disappointment, -it’s a great disappointment, but there are other things in life, Miss -Maitland. There’s the pleasure of helping widows and orphans, and I -swear to you I have done that as well as I could iver since I was a -clerk in good ould Danny Hogan’s corner store, and there’s the pleasure -of managing the primaries and handing over the biggest batch of votes -for the money of any man in the State----” - -“Mr. Mulligan!” cried Constance, in horror. - -“Yes, there’s no denying of it in some States--and there’s automobiling -and plenty of other clean, dacent pleasures to make up for love. But -I tell you, Miss Maitland, there never can be the time, if I’m still -single, that you can’t be Mrs. Michael Patrick Mulligan, and your money -may go to the bow-wows for all I care, and I honour and admire you -above all the women I iver knew, I do that. Good-bye. Don’t snub the -life out of me in Washington if I meet you next winter.” - -“I shall not, I promise you--good-bye,” said Constance, and walking -briskly into the summer-house, while Senator Mulligan turned away, she -almost walked into Geoffrey Thorndyke’s arms. - -“I couldn’t help hearing,” said Thorndyke, with a burning face. “I -couldn’t get out--it would have been beastly to the poor devil----” - -And then both of them suddenly burst into a gale of laughter, nor could -they, all that day and evening, meet each other’s eyes without laughing -mysteriously. - -Thorndyke’s visit lasted a week. It was a week of heaven and hell to -him. When he went away, Constance Maitland realised that, to accomplish -her heart’s desire, she would have to do the proposing herself, as -Queen Victoria did on a similar occasion. - - - - -_Chapter Twelve_ - -WHAT IS IT TO BE HONEST IN POLITICS AND TRUE IN LOVE? - - -On the first Monday in December--a gloriously bright winter day--the -flags were run up over the Senate and House wings of the Capitol -building. Congress had met once more. - -There were the usual thronging multitudes in the corridors, the usual -pleasant buzz of meeting and greeting in cloak and committee rooms, and -the cheerfulness and exhilaration of the last session was flamboyant in -the present one. - -Among the last members of the House to arrive was Julian Crane. He -had come late because he wished to put off as long as possible the -meeting with Senator Bicknell. Of course, they must meet early and -often, but that did not make Crane take any less pains to postpone, if -even for a day, the sight of the man he had betrayed. But almost the -first acquaintance he ran across was the Senator in a group of brother -senators who had strolled over to the House side. - -Senator Bicknell greeted Crane with unusual cordiality. In the first -place, he really wished to attach Crane to the Bicknell chariot, but -he had such agreeable recollections of his August day in Circleville, -of Annette and her spotless table, her roast chicken and boiled corn, -her sweet, fresh spare bedroom, where he had enjoyed one of the best -naps of his life, and her impromptu reception in the afternoon, that he -felt an increased kindliness for Crane. He showed this by button-holing -Crane in the midst of the group of senators, and telling the story of -his day in Circleville. He paid Annette many sincere compliments, and -declared that if Crane should enter the senatorial contest a year and a -half hence, and should defeat him, it would simply be on account of the -charming Mrs. Crane. It was not fair to pit a man with such a lovely -wife against a hopeless and incurable bachelor like himself. - -Under other circumstances Crane would have been highly gratified, but -now it tortured him. He heard once more ringing in his ears Governor -Sanders’s words, “It is absolutely necessary that Senator Bicknell be -not taken into our confidence.” To cap the climax, Senator Bicknell -said: - -“Be sure and give my warmest regards to Mrs. Crane, and tell her -I shall take the first opportunity to call on her--she is here, I -suppose? She mentioned last summer that she was coming on with you.” - -“Yes,” replied Crane, “we are established for the season”--and he gave -the name of a comfortable, but not expensive or fashionable, apartment -house where they had quarters. - -“And say to her that, although I can’t give her a dinner half so good -as what she gave me, I shall expect her and you to arrange to dine with -me at my house at a very early day. Good morning.” - -Crane escaped and went to his seat in the House. While he was -contemplating the baseness of his own conduct, Thorndyke came over and -spoke to him. - -Thorndyke’s first impression of Crane was that he looked haggard and -worn, and Crane’s impression of Thorndyke was that he had grown about -ten years younger. His greeting to Thorndyke was very cordial, but he -was conscious of a strange thing--that ever since his bargain with -Sanders, the meeting with former friends, men of sterling probity, -gave him a vague uneasiness. It seemed to him as if, in duping Senator -Bicknell, he was duping every honest man he knew. Thorndyke, too, asked -after Mrs. Crane, and it began to dawn upon Crane’s mind that Annette -had the power, in a remarkable degree, of pleasing men of the world. -Still, he thought her not quite good enough for himself, particularly -if the brilliant future he planned should materialise--as it must and -should. - -The proceedings of the day were perfunctory, and it was but little -after three o’clock when Thorndyke left the House. The afternoon was -briskly cold, and the sun glittered from a heaven as blue as June. Just -as Thorndyke came out on the plaza he encountered Crane, who would have -avoided him, but it was scarcely possible. - -The two men walked down the hill, and toward Thorndyke’s old quarters. -They talked amicably and even intimately, but Thorndyke got a curious -impression of reserve from Crane--and reserve was the last thing in the -world to develop in Julian Crane. As they walked along the streets in -the dazzling sun of December in Washington, they were speaking of the -great economic questions with which the Congress would have to deal. -Thorndyke, as an accomplished lawyer, saw certain difficulties in the -way of regulating these matters which Crane did not at first perceive. - -“After all,” said Thorndyke, “it comes down to whether either political -party will deal honestly with these questions. If they do, a solution -will be found, and the whole matter can, in the course of a few years, -be properly adjusted.” - -“What do you call perfect honesty in politics?” asked Crane, after a -moment. - -“That’s rather a large proposition,” replied Thorndyke, laughing. -“I should say, if called upon to give an immediate definition, that -perfect honesty in politics means keeping one’s hands clean in money -matters, and being an outspoken friend or enemy.” - -Crane’s heart sank at this. He did not know why he should have asked -such a question, and he was hard hit by Thorndyke’s reply. - -“There must be a good, wide margin allowed for offensive partisanship,” -Thorndyke continued. “That’s the trouble with the professors of -political economy in colleges--they leave human nature out of the -equation. There’s my boss, Senator Standiford. He is as honest as -the day as far as money goes, and honest in using his enormous power -for the good of the party, and he was born with the notion that his -party and the country are interchangeable terms. He uses dishonest -men sometimes, but not dishonest methods. It is both shameful and -ridiculous that a great State like ours should hand over such vast -power to one man as it has to Senator Standiford, but that’s not his -fault. It is rather to his credit that he has not misused his power. -The trouble is, that the people will get accustomed to the system of -one-man government, and when Senator Standiford goes hence, the party -will choose another dictator, probably neither as honest or as able as -he.” - -“Senator Standiford is a rich man. Suppose he were poor? What -percentage would you allow a poor man in political life in his efforts -to be honest?” - -“I can’t figure it out that way,” answered Thorndyke, “although I -ought to know public life from the viewpoint of the poor but honest -Congressman. I am not worth ten thousand dollars in the world outside -of my Congressional salary. But as the Kentucky colonel said on the -stump, ‘I am as honest as the times will allow.’” - -“Don’t you think,” persisted Crane, for whom this discussion of honesty -in public life had a powerful fascination, “that the same man in -certain political circumstances would remain honest, while in different -circumstances he might succumb to temptation? Take the case of a poor -man in politics.” - -“I admit that the most desperate venture on earth is for a man to -attempt to live by politics. Some men have done it, like Patrick Henry, -for example. But those men are quite beyond comparison with every-day -men. However, Marcus Aurelius says, ‘A man should _be_ upright, he -should not be made to be upright.’” - -This saying of Marcus Aurelius troubled Crane. He did not fully -believe it. He thought that Marcus Aurelius, like the professors of -political economy in colleges and universities, left out of account the -great factor of human nature, which makes a bad man to do good acts, -and a good man to do bad acts, and makes a man good at one time, bad at -another, and both good and bad together. Presently he roused himself -and said: - -“It would be a great thing for any public man if he could lead such a -life that every word he said or wrote could be printed.” - -“Why, have you been writing letters lately?” - -“God knows, no! I have always had sense enough for that--to write as -few letters as possible.” - -At that moment Crane felt a thrill of satisfaction--not one line did -Governor Sanders have of his. - -The two men then began to talk about the political situation generally, -and Thorndyke noticed in Crane an exultant spirit, a disposition to -brag which had been absent in him at the time of his first rise into -prominence, when it might have been expected to develop. The truth -was that Crane found the only solace for his moral lapses lay in -contemplating the splendid prizes which Sanders had dangled before his -eyes. He had come to believe that some of these splendid prizes must be -his; it was incredible that he should not receive the price for which -he had sold his honour. And as the case always is, whether a man is or -is not wholly bad, Crane promised himself at some future time, when -he had garnered all the fruits of his wrong-doing, to lead a life of -perfect rectitude. - -Then they came to the street corner where their paths diverged, and -Thorndyke said at parting: - -“Please give my warmest regards to Mrs. Crane, and tell her I mean -to presume upon her past kindness to me and call to see her in the -evening.” - -“Have you seen Miss Maitland?” asked Crane. - -“No,” replied Thorndyke, who had just proclaimed himself a man of -truth. He had not, indeed, seen Constance to speak to her, but the -night before, within two hours of his arrival, when he had gone out to -smoke his after-dinner cigar, he had sneaked up to her house, and had -watched her as she passed to and fro before the lighted windows of the -drawing-room. - -Crane went upon his way gloomily, turning over in his mind his -conversation with Thorndyke, and all the difficulties of his situation, -which were accentuated by his being in Washington. The strong fancy -which Senator Bicknell had taken to Annette made everything harder. It -seemed as if all those things which might be reckoned an unmixed good -for an honest man were a burden and a perplexity to him, Julian Crane. - -Thinking these uncomfortable thoughts, he found himself at the entrance -to the big apartment house, and went to his own quarters. - -They were small and cramped, but the locality was good and the outlook -pleasant. Annette and the two children met him with smiles. The -children had grown acquainted with him and had become fairly fond of -him. As for Annette, she had never, in all her married life, so striven -to help her husband as in the last few months, when she had seen that -he was troubled and suspected that he was engaged in wrong-doing. All -her pity, all her loyalty as a wife, had risen within her. She had -gradually abandoned the attitude of reserve which she had maintained -toward him ever since that first unfortunate experience in Washington -so long ago. She reproached herself, as the good always do, for not -having been better. Had she given him more of her confidence and sought -his more, she might now be in a position to help him, or at least to -sympathise with his trouble, whatever it might be. But her conscience -should never upbraid her again for want of sympathy and tenderness to -him. He might tell her of his perplexities, or he might keep them to -himself, she would be all tenderness and softness to him. And then -the hope was born and lived in her heart, which every neglected wife -has, that calamities of the soul as well as the heart might bring her -husband once more to her side. For Annette had never ceased to love her -husband--and loving spells forgiveness with a woman. - -Crane dutifully delivered Senator Bicknell’s and Thorndyke’s messages, -and Annette’s eyes sparkled with pleasure. She felt an increase of -courage. She thought Crane must have seen that she had been a help, not -a hinderance to him, socially and personally, when she had been given -a chance, and she meant to show him that she could hold her own in -Washington as well as in Circleville. - -A week or two passed in all the gay confusion of the beginning of the -season in Washington. Thorndyke had watched his chance to call on -Constance Maitland. Carefully avoiding her usual day at home, he had -called on a peculiarly raw and disagreeable afternoon, very late, when -he felt sure that she must have returned from her daily drive. He found -her in her drawing-room, which was dusky, although it was not yet six -o’clock, with a bright fire leaping high and making the charming room -bright with its ruddy glow. - -Constance, wrapped in rich dark furs, her cheeks tingling with the -fresh cold air without, her eyes sparkling, was standing before the -blazing fire. She was unaffectedly glad to see Thorndyke, and he felt -that sense of quiet well-being which always came upon him when he was -with her in her own house. They had much to talk about. Constance took -off her furs and the long, rich cloak which enveloped her, and sat down -on the deep, inviting sofa, and motioned Thorndyke to her side. - -Among the persons they spoke of were Julian Crane and Annette. -Thorndyke volunteered the suggestion that Crane was passing through -some sort of a crisis--he was so changed, so silent where he was -formerly talkative, so full of vague exultation and of equally vague -depression. Thorndyke had seen Annette and the children. Annette had -asked to be remembered to Miss Maitland, and Constance replied that -she should call at once to see Mrs. Crane. She was not particularly -interested in Julian Crane’s crises, except that she said, woman -fashion, that he ought to be more attentive to his wife. - -Thorndyke then mentioned that Senator Mulligan was in town, at which -they both laughed. But soon the conversation got down to the you -and I--the books each had read, the thoughts each had pondered, the -places each had been. Constance had remained continuously at Malvern -Court from June until late in November. She had had a succession of -house-parties during the summer, but in the golden autumn she had been -quite alone. - -“It was the sweetest, the most peaceful life you can imagine,” she -said, thoughtfully. “All the world was shut out, except Virginia -cousins, but I even escaped most of them. All day I was out in the -woods and lanes, riding or driving or walking, and in the evening, -with a wood fire, a book, a piano, and a lamp--it was company enough, -yet it was solitude itself. It was like Omar’s shady tree and loaf of -bread and jug of wine and book of verse.” - -“And thou,” added Thorndyke, under his breath. He was watching her with -a silent rapture which possessed him on meeting her after an absence. -She surely had the softest and sweetest voice in the world, and those -charming tricks of pronunciation--she called solitude “solee-tude” -and piano “pe-arno,” and was quite unconscious of it, and bitterly -denied any difference between her speech and Thorndyke’s. Constance was -conscious of the adoring look in Thorndyke’s eyes; she had heard the -one suggestive word; perhaps it was that which caused a happy smile to -flicker for a moment on her lips, revealing the faint, elusive dimple -in her cheek, but she continued as if she had neither heard, nor seen, -nor understood. - -“I have heard about the solitude there is in crowds, but I never could -find it so. I am so dreadfully sociable--Southern and Creole French, -you know--that I always find troops of friends and acquaintances in a -crowd. But in that solitary old country house in the autumn--that, if -you please, was to be alone.” - -“You seem to have a passion for solitude,” said Thorndyke, rather -crossly. - -“Oh, no, only a taste for it at times. I never contemplated with -pleasure a solitary life, and I have a horror of a lonely old age.” - -What did she mean? Was she proposing to him? Thorndyke was a good deal -staggered by this speech from the lady of his secret love. - -The time sped fast with them, and both of them started when a -neighbouring clock struck seven. Constance rose at once. - -“I must go and dress for dinner--and you--you will remain?” - -Such an idea had never entered Thorndyke’s brain before, but in half a -quarter of a second he had accepted. - -“Of course,” said Constance, airily, picking up her muff, and putting -her bare hands in it, “it’s very improper for you and me to dine -together without others, but we have reached that comfortable age when -we can commit all sorts of improprieties in perfect safety. It is a -fine thing to grow old.” - -“That thought almost reconciles me to the loss of my hair,” replied -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.’ - -“Then I told him that I owed money, and could hardly support the -position of a Senator here with the salary, less what I was obliged to -pay in interest. - -“‘Nonsense,’ he said; ‘turn your salary over to your wife; she is a -woman of uncommonly sound sense, a good manager--that I saw in her -house. Of course you can’t go into society on less than your salary, -but you can live comfortably and respectably. And let me tell you, this -town is full of big houses which caused the Senators who built them -to lose their elections. It doesn’t hurt a man with his constituents -in the least to live simply. Some of the gentlemen from the rural -districts have complained bitterly of this little place----’ - -“And then, after more talk, everything was settled. I wasn’t to write -to Sanders, of course, but to go and see him. Sanders wouldn’t dare to -proclaim what we agreed to do, but he will fight me with every weapon -at his command. I shouldn’t much care how things went--that is, so I -feel now--except for Senator Bicknell, but every blow at Sanders helps -the Senator, and I shall fight for him as long as breath warms my body. -When we parted I was much overcome, and I think Senator Bicknell was, -too. Coming home, it occurred to me how well you had managed on the -pittance I allowed you at Circleville.” - -“It was not much, but it could hardly be called a pittance,” replied -Annette, smiling through her tears, for the stress of emotion under -which she had suffered had found its natural vent at last, and she was -weeping a little. But they were happy tears. Crane had reached the turn -in life when it was to be determined whether God or the devil should -be his master, and he had turned his back on Satan. He took his wife -in his arms and kissed her tenderly and reverently. No one knew better -then than he the moral beauty, the power to charm, to sustain, to lead -forward, of the woman he had not thought worthy to stand by him in -Washington. - - * * * * * - -The next morning early, Crane started West. He had his fateful -interview with Sanders and returned to Washington within a week. -Sanders’s words had been few, but full of meaning. - -“All right,” he said. “I don’t take any stock in this awakening of -conscience business. You think Bicknell can serve you better than I -can. Very well. We will see.” - -Suddenly, and apparently without volition, Crane’s right arm shot out -and his open palm struck Sanders’s check. The Governor, as quick as -thought, hit back. He was a brute, but not a coward. Then both men -came to their senses, and, hating each other worse than ever, each was -ashamed of his violence. - -The Governor, taking out his handkerchief, coolly wiped the blood from -his nose, and said: - -“I don’t care to engage in a fist fight with you. We can settle all our -quarrels when the Legislature meets. You will need all your courage -then.” - -When Crane returned to Washington, he went straight to Senator Bicknell -and told him all. - -“All right,” replied the Senator, as Governor Sanders had said. “This -is my fight now,” and straightway the Senator took the midnight train -for the State capital to pull off his coat and do yeoman’s work for -Crane, and incidentally for himself. - -The month of December was bright and beautiful all the way through, -and the sunshine lasted into January. Thorndyke thought he had not -been so nearly happy for a long time. He saw Constance often, and she -was beautifully kind to him. He scarcely went into society at all, and -had the hardihood to decline an invitation to one of the Secretary -of State’s small dinners on the comprehensive excuse of “a previous -engagement,” which Mrs. Hill-Smith, who had invited him, did not -believe in the least; and when she had plaintively mentioned the names -of various English, French, Russian, Austrian, and German diplomats who -were to be present, Thorndyke had replied in a manner which mightily -discomposed Mrs. Hill-Smith: - -“Oh, then, you won’t miss a stray American or two!” - -If Mrs. Hill-Smith had had her way, she would have missed every -American invited. - -Thorndyke saw much of the Cranes and of the children, who showered -their favour upon him. He could not but be struck by the new note in -Crane--something subdued, yet full of hope--and he had quite lost -that look of harassment and dejection which, on first meeting him, -had struck Thorndyke. Crane was normally a lover of fighting, and, -although Senator Bicknell, for strategic reasons, chose to keep him in -Washington while the preliminaries to the senatorial fight were raging, -yet he delivered some good shots at long range, and it began to look as -if he might be elected for the short term in spite of Governor Sanders. -The National Committee was not indifferent to this fight, and Senator -Bicknell went into it with all his old-time vigour. He worked, ate and -drank, waked and slept, with members of the Legislature for three -weeks before the election came off. It was a stupendous battle, and -neither side got any odds in the betting. - -During the latter part of the Christmas recess, Thorndyke went north to -pay his sister, Elizabeth, a visit. Her first words to him were: - -“Why, Geoffrey, how young you look!” - -And everybody who met him told him he looked young, or looked well, or -looked prosperous, and one horny-handed old constituent hazarded the -opinion that Mr. Thorndyke was “thinkin’ o’ gittin’ spliced.” It was -all because Constance Maitland had been kind to him. - -On his way back to Washington he found himself in the same car with -James Brentwood Baldwin, Junior, who was coming home to be nursed -and taken to Palm Beach after an attack of the chicken-pox. This -fifteen-year-old youth was in charge of a valet who attended to him -assiduously, and even went into the dining-car with him to see that -he exercised due prudence with regard to his diet. This, however, was -superfluous, as the scion of the house of Baldwin was the very epitome -of prudence, and turned away from entrées, sweets, and ices with a -degree of virtue which, to Thorndyke, dining at the same table with -him, seemed superhuman in a boy of any age. Thorndyke watched the -Baldwin boy curiously; it was one of the most deadly and fascinating -phases of the whole newly-rich question to him, how the children of -the newly rich were brought up. He observed in the Baldwin boy a total -lack of the normal faults and virtues of the normal boy. Young Baldwin -eyed Thorndyke at first with suspicion, but Thorndyke, wishing to -examine and classify the specimen of a boy before him, intimated that -he was acquainted with the James Brentwood Baldwins in Washington. Then -James, Junior, abandoned something of his hauteur. He acknowledged -being the pupil of a school at which Thorndyke happened to know the -fees were made purposely so high as to exclude any but the sons of the -very rich. They had an Anglican nomenclature, a resident chaplain, -and the spiritual direction of the masters as well as the pupils was -attended to by the Bishop of the diocese--the brother of the Secretary -of State. All this James, Junior, communicated while toying with -his rice-pudding, and turning an eye of stern disapproval at the -tutti-frutti ice. - -“And what do you expect to be when you grow up, my lad?” asked -Thorndyke. - -“I shall be a philanthropist,” replied James, Junior, with dignity. -“I shall try to use my wealth as a means of benefiting others. I am -president of our association for giving Christmas gifts to poor boys, -and I like it very much. We, who have superior advantages, should try -and extend a helping hand to others less fortunately placed.” - -Less fortunately placed! Thorndyke looked at the boy with the deepest -commiseration, and pitied the poor children of the rich. - -“You can learn a great deal from a poor boy,” said he, presently, -watching the boy’s solemn, handsome face. He might have been a hearty, -wholesome youngster, this grandson of Danny Hogan’s, had he but been -given a chance. “The poor boy is the normal boy; a boy should be -generally dirty and noisy; he should occasionally get a lecture from -his mother and a licking from his father, and a black eye from some -other boy. He must be a fighter. No less a man than Paul Jones has -said that he never saw a liar who would fight, or a fighter who would -lie; and he must not only tell the truth himself, but be ready to lick -any other boy who tells him a lie, for boys are, to themselves, a -law-making body, and must enforce their own laws.” - -“That is not the way of the boys at our school,” icily replied James -Brentwood Baldwin, Junior, rising with dignity and receiving his hat -from the hand of his valet. - -The day of Thorndyke’s arrival in Washington he was walking along the -street in the bright, sunny, early afternoon of winter. He stopped to -buy an afternoon newspaper, that he might see how the balloting for -Senator was going in Crane’s State, when a shout aroused him, and Letty -Standiford, in a gorgeous crimson automobile, with Senator Mince Pie -Mulligan by her side, dashed up to the sidewalk. - -“Mr. Thorndyke,” shrieked Letty, playfully pretending she meant to run -Thorndyke down. “I have a piece of news for you. Look out, this is my -new red devil--I don’t mean Senator Mulligan, but my auto.” - -“I certainly shall look out when you are around in that death-dealing -machine,” replied Thorndyke, dodging barely in time to save his legs. -“What is your news?” - -“Just this. Dad gave me his word this morning that he would not be a -candidate for re-election next year. I went after the doctors myself, -and made them tell me the truth about Dad--he’s the only father I’ve -got, you know. And they all told me the same thing--that if he could -slack up work, and retire at the end of his term, he was good for -twenty years more, but that if he kept at the grind, his life wasn’t -worth a pin’s purchase. Dad wasn’t scared by that, but when I told -him that I should die of fright and distress if he went away and left -me, the poor old thing weakened, and said he’d decline a re-election, -and--oh, good gracious! He told me not to breathe it to a soul! He -actually shook his finger at me when he said it. Oh, heavens! If you or -Senator Mulligan give me away----” - -“Dad will shake his finger at you again,” replied Thorndyke, laughing. -Nevertheless, his pulses had started off at a great rate. - -“It’s not that--it’s not that I’m afraid of him--but it would break -his dear old heart to think I had disobeyed him.” - -Letty Standiford, as she said this, was an object for angels to love, -in spite of her wild air, her mannish hat and coat, her flying and -dishevelled locks. - -“It is safe with me,” said Thorndyke, gravely, and Senator Mulligan -spoke up: - -“Divil a word will I say about it. I’m too much afraid of th’ ould -chap--and of you, too, Miss Letty.” - -“Glad to hear it, Sinitor,” replied madcap Letty, viciously mimicking -the Senator’s unfortunate accent, “and, oh, Mr. Thorndyke, have you -heard that Miss Maitland is engaged to Mr. Cathcart, the navy man, who -is always hanging around her? It was announced this morning. Good-bye.” - -Letty flashed off, with a bicycle policeman after her full tilt. - -Thorndyke was near his lodgings. He did not know how he got there, but -presently he found himself sitting in his arm-chair before the fire. -Two hours later, when the maid-servant brought him a letter, he was -sitting in the same position. - -The dusk was closing in, but he saw that the address was in Constance -Maitland’s handwriting. Of course she had written to tell him of her -engagement--it was kind of her so to break his calamity to him. - -The letter lay unopened for half an hour. Then, with a desperate -courage, Thorndyke tore open the envelope. It was an invitation to -dinner two weeks hence. It was unfeeling of her to do this. It was -ignoble to forget that dear, lost past of which she had often spoken to -him, and had allowed him freely to speak to her. It was impossible that -he should accept; it was impossible that he should voluntarily meet -Constance again, except for one last interview--that final leave-taking -which is like the last farewell to the dying. And the sooner it was -over the better. Thorndyke pulled himself together, and made up his -mind to go to Constance at once. - -As he walked along the streets in the sharp air of the January -twilight, everything looked unfamiliar to him. His interior world was -destroyed--engulfed. Never more could he know hope or happiness; for -him was only that stolid endurance of life which is like a prisoner’s -endurance of his cell and his shackles. - -When he reached Constance Maitland’s door, she was at home, and he -walked into the familiar drawing-room. She was sitting on the great, -deep sofa, with no light but that of the blazing wood fire, although it -was quite six o’clock. She rose as Thorndyke entered and greeted him -gaily. Her meditations seemed to have been singularly happy. - -Thorndyke sat down on the sofa by her, and, as all men do under stress -of feeling, put his pain into the fewest words possible. - -“I heard this afternoon,” he said, in a strange, cold voice, “of your -engagement to Cathcart.” - -“Did you?” replied Constance, smiling brightly. “From whom, pray?” - -“From Miss Standiford.” - -“So that crazy Letty Standiford goes about announcing my engagement!” -There was a pause, and then Thorndyke said, in the same strange, cold -voice: - -“Cathcart is an admirable man.” - -“So everybody says,” brightly responded Constance. “Many persons have -assured me of that.” - -A longer pause followed. It might be ungenerous to interject a note of -pain into her first happiness, but it is human to cry out, to justify -one’s self, to call attention to the gift, when one has given a heart -and a soul. - -“If Cathcart can give you even a part of the fortune you will lose by -marrying him, he is right to ask you. I could give you nothing. And so, -although I have loved you for nineteen years, I could not ask you to -descend from wealth to poverty with me.” - -“I shall not lose, perhaps, as much as you think by marrying an -American,” replied Constance to this, adjusting her draperies in the -light of the fire, which played over her face. How bright, how smiling -she was! Her dark eyes shone, and the faint dimple in her cheek kept -coming and going. “I did not, of course, relish the thought of spending -all my life alone,” she continued, laughing shamelessly. “I was very -young, you may remember. So I determined to save up all I could of -my income. It was easy enough, living, as I did, with a person who -was most of the time a helpless invalid. Then, my uncle, von Hesselt, -realising the injustice done me by my aunt, left in his will a -considerable sum of money, which was to be paid me if I lost my aunt’s -fortune through marrying an American. This was no more than fair, as -my aunt left the money to the von Hesselts in case I should marry an -American. My lawyers here have assured me that it is an open question -whether I could not, after all, marry whom I will, and retain the -money, because the terms of the reversion to the von Hesselts are very -obscure, and it might come at last to my aunt’s heirs-at-law, of which -I am the chief. But I hate publicity and lawsuits and all such things, -and as I am still reasonably well off, I concluded to spare myself -such agonies, and to be satisfied with much less than I have now. But -it will be enough to give me all I want in any event. I can keep this -house, my carriage and servants, and dress well. What more does any one -want?” - -As she continued speaking, Thorndyke’s agony increased with every word. -If only he had known before! Possibly--ah, how vain now was it! How -hopeless, how full of everlasting pain! - -“But,” Constance kept on, “Mr. Cathcart is not the man for whom I -should sacrifice even so much. He has never hinted that I should marry -him. I am sure he does not want me. I cannot imagine how such an absurd -report got out.” - -Thorndyke felt stunned. He said, after a moment: - -“So you are not engaged to Cathcart?” - -“Certainly not. Have I not just said that he has never asked me to -marry him? And that _he_ is not the man for whom I would sacrifice any -part of my fortune?” - -She emphasised the “he,” and her words were full of meaning. - -Poor Thorndyke was so dazed, so overwhelmed, that he could do nothing -but stare stupidly into Constance’s face. The man who really loves and -suffers is generally stupid at the supreme moment. And as she looked -into his eyes, so full of longing and yet half-despairing, she turned -her head aside and held out her hand a little way, and he caught it in -his. - - * * * * * - -Ten minutes afterward Scipio Africanus poked his head in the door and -saw that which made his eyeballs bulge an inch from his head. At the -same moment the bell rang sharply. - -Scipio opened the front door, and, announcing that Miss Maitland was at -home, showed Julian Crane and Annette into the drawing-room. As they -walked briskly to the fireplace, they saw the two persons on the sofa -start apart. Thorndyke rose to his feet. Having been accepted, he was -once more master of himself and of the situation. Constance cowered in -the corner of the sofa. - -“Pray excuse us,” cried Annette, laughing, blushing, and hesitating. - -“There is nothing to excuse,” replied Thorndyke, smiling coolly. “Miss -Maitland has just promised to marry me. I am sure I don’t know why, but -I am very much obliged to her all the same.” - -Annette reached out and took Thorndyke’s hand in hers. - -“I know why,” she said, “any woman would know why.” - -Crane shook Thorndyke’s hand warmly. - -Constance, too, rose, and without a word, but with rapture in her eyes -and smile, received Annette’s kiss and Crane’s cordial grasp of the -hand. - -“I suppose,” said Annette, “you are too blissfully happy to be -interested in anything now, but when you come to your senses, I am sure -both of you will rejoice with us. We have just had a despatch from -Senator Bicknell, saying my husband was elected Senator at four o’clock -to-day on the fifth ballot.” - -And then Crane spoke, with sincerity in his eye and his smile: - -“We came straight to you for sympathy in our good fortune, for which we -are wholly indebted to Senator Bicknell. And we find you enjoying the -good fortune that befell us ten years ago. Ah, there is no such good -fortune on this earth, Thorndyke, as a good wife!” - - -THE END - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESPOTISM AND DEMOCRACY *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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