"G.o.d forbid! But I am a man, and those things are in the atmosphere; a man"s brain acc.u.mulates naturally all widely diffused impressions. I"ve been a great deal in the smoking-cars of railroad-trains, and spent two years in a Western State where a man who had taken a fortune out of a mine made no bones of buying a seat in the Senate from the Legislature, nor the Legislature about selling it. It was the most abominable transaction I ever came close to, and had as much to do with my leaving the place as anything else."
"And you mean to say that you judge all the old States of the country by a newly settled community of adventurers out West?"
"New York and Pennsylvania are notorious."
"There are bad boys in every school. What I want to know is--can you a.s.sert on your knowledge that all the Southern and New England States are corrupt and send only small politicians to Washington? This is a more serious charge than Molly"s a.s.sertion that they all use toothpicks."
"I repeat that I do not believe there is an honest man in that Capitol."
"Do you know this? Have you investigated the life of every man in the Senate and the House?" "What a good district attorney you would make!"
"You are talking a lot of copybook plat.i.tudes with which you have allowed your mind to stagnate. But you must convince me, for if what you say is true I shall have nothing to do with politics. Let us begin with Senator North. How and when did he buy his seat, and what Trust does he represent?"
"Oh, I never have heard anything against North. He is too big a gun in Washington--"
"You will admit then that _he_ is not corrupt--"
"I don"t doubt he has his own methods--"
"I don"t care three cents about your suppositions. I want facts. How about Senator Maxwell?"
"He has been in Congress since before I was born. One never hears him discussed."
"And his Puritanical State has heaped every honour on him that it can think of. Tell me the biography of Senator Ward--all that is too awful to be printed in the Congressional Directory--"
"He is from one of those dreadful North-western States and bound to be corrupt," cried Emory, triumphantly. He wished desperately that he had waited and got up his case. He spoke from sincere conviction. "There may be a rag of decency left in the older States, but the West is positively fetid. I give you my word I am speaking the truth, Betty dear, and in your own interest. If I have no more details to give you, it is because I promised my father on his death-bed that I would have nothing to do with politics, and I have kept my word to the extent of reading as little about them as possible. But I can a.s.sure you that I know as much about them as anybody not in the accursed business. It is in the air--" "There are so many things in the air that they get mixed up. Your whole argument is based on air. Now, _mon ami_, you turn to to-morrow and study up the record of every man in that Senate, as well as the legislative methods of his State. When you know all about it, I shall be delighted to be instructed. But I don"t want any more air. Now come in to dinner, and if you allude to the subject before Molly, I"ll leave the table."
He bowed over her hand again with his old-fashioned courtesy. "When you issue a command I am bound to obey," he said, "and although you have set me an unpleasant, an obnoxious task, I certainly shall accomplish that also to the best of my ability. You belong to this old house, Betty, to this old set; I love to think of you as the last rose on the old Southern tree, and you shall not be blighted if I can help it."
Betty tapped him lightly with her fan.
"I belong to the whole country, my dear boy; I am no old cabbage rose on a half-dead bush, but the same vegetable under a new name,--the American Beauty Rose. Do you see the parable? And I"ve a great many thorns on my long stem. Remember that also."
V
Betty, in accordance with a time-honoured habit, was the last to arrive at the dinner-party on the following evening. She had arranged her heavy large-waved hair low on her neck, and the pale green velvet of her gown lifted its dull mahogany hue and the deep Southern whiteness of her skin. She did not take a beautiful picture, for her features had the national irregularity, but she seldom entered a room that several men did not turn and stare at her. She carried herself with the air of one used to commanding the homage of men, her lovely colouring was always enhanced by dress, and she radiated magnetism. It was such an alive, warm, buoyant personality that men turned to her as naturally as children do to the maternal woman; even when they did not love her they liked to be near her, for she recalled some vague ideal. She knew her power perfectly, and after one or two memorable lessons had put from her the temptation to give it active exercise. It should be the instrument of unqualified happiness when her hour came; meanwhile she cultivated an impersonal att.i.tude which baffled men unable to propose and tempered the wind to those that could.
During the few moments in the drawing-room she could gather only a collective impression of the men who stared at her to-night. There was a general suggestion of weight, in the sculptor"s sense, and repose combined with alertness, and they stood very squarely on their feet.
Betty had only had time to single out one long beard dependent from a visage otherwise shorn, and to observe further that some of the women were charmingly dressed, while others wore light silk afternoon frocks, when dinner was announced.
Her partner was evidently one of the younger Senators, one of those juvenile enthusiasts of forty-five who beat their b.r.e.a.s.t.s for some years upon the Senate"s impa.s.sive front. He was extremely good-looking, with a fair strong impatient face, trimmed with a moustache only, and a well-built figure full of nervous energy. He had less repose than most of the men about him, but he suggested the same solidity. He might fail or go wrong, but not because there was any room in his mind for shams.
His name was Burleigh, but what his section was, Betty, as they exchanged amenities and admired the lavish display of flowers, could not determine; he had no accent whatever, and although his voice was deep and sonorous, it had not the peculiar richness of the South. His gray eyes smiled as they met hers, and his manners were charming; but Betty, accustomed to grasp the salient points of character in a first interview, fancied that he could be overbearing and truculent.
"Are they going to talk politics to-night?" she asked, when the plat.i.tudes had run their course.
"I hope not. I"ve had enough of politics, all day."
"Oh, I hoped you would," said Betty, in a deeply disappointed tone.
He looked amused.
"Why?" he asked.
"Oh, I am so interested. That sounds very vague, but I am. When Lady Mary told me she was dining members of the two Committees, I thought it was to talk politics, and--and--settle it amicably or something." Betty could look infantile when she chose, and was always ready to cover real ignorance with an exaggerated a.s.sumption which inspired doubt.
"We have the excessive pleasure of discussing the bill in Senator North"s comfortable Committee room for several hours every few days, and we usually are amiable. We are merely dining out to-night in each other"s good company. Still, I guess your desire will be more or less gratified. Second nature is strong, and one or two will probably get down to it about the middle of dinner."
"You are from New England," exclaimed Betty, triumphantly. "I have been waiting for you to say "I reckon" or "I guess.""
"I was born and educated in Maine, but I went west to practise law as soon as I knew enough, and I am Senator from one of the Middle Western States."
"Ah!" Betty gave him a swift side glance. He looked anything but "corrupt," and that truculent note in his voice did not indicate subservience to party bosses. She determined to write to Jack Emory in the morning and command him to look up Senator Burleigh"s record at once.
"I suppose all the Senators here to-night are the--big ones?"
"Oh, no; North and Ward are the only two on this Committee belonging to the very first rank. The other four here are in that group that is pressing close upon their heels; and myself, who am a new member: I"ve been here four years only. Would you mind telling me who you are? Of course American women don"t take much interest in politics, but--do you know as little as you pretend?"
"I wish I knew more; but I"ve been abroad for the last two years, and my mother prefers rattlesnakes to politics. Which is Senator North?"
"He is at the head of the table with Lady Mary, but that rosebush is in the way; you cannot see him."
"And which is Senator Ward?" "Over there by Mrs. Shattuc,--the woman in ivory-white and heliotrope."
Betty flashed him a glance of renewed interest. "You like women," she exclaimed. "And you must be married, or have sisters."
"I like women and I am not married, nor have I any sisters. I particularly like woman"s dress. If you"ll pardon me, that combination of pale green and white lace and soft stuff is the most stunning thing I"ve seen for a long while."
"Law, politics, and woman"s dress! How hard you must have worked!"
"Our strong natural inclinations help us so much!" He gave her an amused glance, and his manner was a trifle patronizing, as of a prominent man used to the admiration of pretty girls. It was evident that he knew nothing of her and her long line of conquests.
"Senator Ward looks half asleep," she remarked abruptly.
"He usually does until dinner is two-thirds over. He is Chairman of one Committee and serving on two others; and all have important bills before them at present. So he is tired."
"He doesn"t look corrupt."
"Corrupt? Who? Ward? Who on earth ever said he was corrupt?"
"Well, I heard his State was."
""Corruption" is the father of more plat.i.tudes than any word in the American language. There are corrupt men in his State, no doubt, and one of the Trusts with which we are ridden at present tried to buy its Legislature and put their man in. But Ward won his fight without the expenditure of a dollar beyond paying for the band and a few courtesies of that sort. His State is proud of him both as a statesman and a scholar, and he is likely to stay in the Senate until he drops in his tracks."