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Senator North

G >> Gertrude Atherton >> Senator North




"Yes," she said, rising abruptly, "I want an object in life, a vital
interest. I need it! A year ago I took up politics out of curiosity
and ennui; to-day they represent a safeguard as well as a necessity. I
cannot write books nor paint pictures; charities bore me and I never
shall marry. My heart must go to the wall, and my brain is very
active. The more one studies and observes politics the more absorbing
they become. But that is only a part of it. I want to be of some use
to the country, to accomplish something for the public good; and it
will be a form of happiness to think that I am working with you--for I
certainly agree with you in all things, whatever the cause. When the
time comes that we meet in public only, I can have that much happiness
at least; and I always shall know where I can help you--"

"The mere fact that you are alive is help enough--and torment enough.
I shall go now. We have gotten through this first meeting better than
I had hoped."

They both laughed a little as they shook hands, for politics had
cleared the air.




IV



He came in again on Sunday, but Burleigh and other men were there; and
as the Senate had adjourned until the fifth, there was no excuse for
him to call at the late hour when she was sure to be alone; so he
dropped in twice to luncheon, and they went for a long walk in Rock
Creek Park afterward. On one of these occasions Sally Carter joined
them; and on the other, although but for the occasional passer-by they
were alone for two hours in the wild beauty of rocky gorges and winter
woods, they talked of war and Spain. He left her at the door.

On Thursday night she was to have her dinner, and in spite of her
stormy inner life she felt a pleasurable nervousness as the hour
approached; for on its results depended the colour of her future. With
love or without it she had to live on, and if she could see the way to
serve her country, to preserve some of its higher ideals as well as to
win a distinguished position, she had no doubt that in time she should
find resignation.

All her invitations but one had been accepted: the British Ambassador
was attending a diplomatic dinner, but would come in later. Betty was
not altogether regretful, for the question of precedence, with all her
personages, was sufficiently complicated. The Speaker ranked the
Senators, but there were eight Senators to be disposed of with tact;
they might overlook a mistake, but their wives or daughters would not.

She had spared no pains to honour her guests. She still scorned the
plutocratic multiplication of flowers until they seemed to rattle like
the dollars they stood for, but the table looked very beautiful, and
the silver and china and crystal had endured through several
generations. Some of it had been used in the White House in the days
when it was an honour to have a President in one's family. Her
father's wine-cellar had been celebrated, and she had employed
connoisseurs in its replenishment ever since the duties of
entertaining had devolved upon her. She also had her own _chef,_ and
knew with what satisfaction he filled the culinary brain-cells of the
patient diner out in Washington. All the lower house was softly lit
with candles; except her boudoir, which was dark and locked.

She wore a gown of apple-green satin which looked simple and was not.
Mrs. Madison was like an exquisite miniature, in satin of a pinkish
gray hue, trimmed with much Alencon, a collar of diamonds, and a pink
spray in her soft white hair. Her blue eyes were very bright, and
there was a pink colour in her cheeks, but she looked better than she
felt. She was, indeed, hot and cold by turns, and she held herself
with a majesty of mien which only a tiny woman can accomplish.

Sally Carter was the first to arrive, and looked remarkably well in
her black velvet of Custom House indignities. The Montgomerys
followed, and Lady Mary wore the azure and white in which she appeared
harmless and undiplomatic. No one was more than ten minutes late, and
at eight o'clock the party was seated about the great round table in
the dining-room.

Senator North sat on Betty's right, Senator Ward on her left. Next to
that astute diplomatist was the lady in azure and white, whom he
admired profoundly and understood thoroughly. She never knew the
latter half of his attitude, however. He was a gallant American, and
delighted to indulge a pretty woman in her fads and ambitions. Mrs.
Madison achieved resignation between the Speaker of the House and
Senator Maxwell, and Sally Carter was paired with Senator March.

Betty had meditated several hours over the placing of her guests, and
had invited as many pretty and charming women as the matrimonial
entanglements of her statesmen would permit. Fortunately it was early
in the year, and a number of wives had tarried behind their husbands.
The family portraits on the dark old walls had not looked down upon so
brilliant a gathering for half a century, and Betty's eyes sparkled
and she lifted her head, her nostrils dilating. The light in her inner
life burned low, and her brain was luminous with the excitement of
the hour. And as he was beside her, there really was no cause for
repining.

At once the talk was all of war. Washington, like the rest of the
country, did not rise to its highest pitch of excitement until after
the destruction of the _Maine_, but no other subject could hold its
interest for long. In ordinary conditions politics are barely
mentioned when the most political city in the world is in evening
dress, but war is a microbe.

"I am for it," announced Lady Mary, "if only to give you a chance to
find out whom your friends are."

"There is nothing in the history of human nature or of nations to
disprove that our friends of to-day may be our enemies of to-morrow,"
observed Senator North.

"I believe you hate England."

"On the contrary, I am probably the best friend she has in the Senate.
My mission is to forestall the hate which leads so many ardent but
ill-mated couples into the divorce courts."

"Well, you will see," said Lady Mary, mysteriously.

"I do not doubt it," said Senator North, smiling. "And we shall be
grateful. If the circumstances ever are reversed, we shall do as much
for her."

"How much?"

"That will depend upon the quality of statesmanship in both Houses."

"I wish you would explain what you mean by that." Lady Mary's wide
voice was too well trained to sharpen. Her cold blue eyes wore the
dreamy expression of their most active moments.

"I wish I knew whether the statesmen of the future were to be
Populists or Republicans."

"Well, whatever you mean you have no sentiment."

"I have no sentimentalism."

Lady Mary shrugged her shoulders and turned to Senator Ward. She knew
better than to talk politics to him before dinner was two thirds over,
but she bent her pretty head to him, and gave him her distinguished
attentions while he re-invigorated his weary brain. He smiled
encouragingly.

"The statesmen of the future will be Populists, Senator," announced
Betty's last recruit, a man with a keen sharply cut face and a
slightly nasal though not displeasing voice. He was forty and looked
thirty.

"The Populist will have called himself so many things by that time
that 'statesman' will do as well as any other," growled the Speaker.
"'The Statesmen's Party' would sound well, and would be worthy of the
noble pretensions of your leader."

"Well, they are noble," said Armstrong tartly, but glad of the
opportunity to talk back to the personage who treated him in the House
as a Czar treats a minion. "We are the only party that is ready to
cling to the Constitution as if it were the rock of ages."

"Well, you've clung so hard you've turned it upside down, and the new
inventions and patent improvements you've stuccoed it with will do for
the 'Statesmen's Party,' but not for the United States--Madam?"

Mrs. Madison had touched his arm timidly, and asked him if he liked
terrapin. Her colour was deeper, but she exerted herself to keep the
attention of this huge personality whom a poor worm might be tempted
to assassinate.

Senator Burleigh's voice rose above the chatter. "Who would be a
Western Senator?" he said plaintively. "My colleague and I received a
document today, signed by two thousand of our constituents, the entire
population of an obscure but determined town, in which we were ordered
to acknowledge the belligerency of the Cubans at once or expect to be
tarred and feathered upon our return. The climate of my State is
excellent for consumption, but bad for nerves. Doubtless most of these
men come of good New England stock, whose relatives 'back East' would
never think of doing such a thing; but the intoxicating climate they
have been inhaling for half a generation, to say nothing of the raw
conditions, makes them want to fight creation."

Senator Maxwell, who had more of the restlessness of youth than the
repose of age, threw back his silver head and gave his little
irritated laugh. "That is it," he said. "It is the lust of blood that
possesses the United States. They don't know it. They call it
sympathy; but their blood is aching for a fight, so that they can read
the exciting horrors of it in the newspapers. You might as well reason
with mad dogs."

"I shall not attempt to reason with my kennel," said Burleigh. "In the
present congested state of the mails this particular memorial has gone
astray."

"The trials of a Senator!" cried Sally Carter. "Petitions and
lobbyists, election clouds, fractious and dishonest legislatures,
unprincipled bosses and the country gone mad!"

"I can give you a list as long as my arm," said Senator March, grimly;
"and you may believe it or not, but it is all I can do to walk in my
Committee-room and I haven't a chair to sit on. I live under a snow-
storm of petitions, memorials, and resolutions. I expect to see them
come flying through the window, and I dream of nothing else."

Betty had taken part in the general conversation until the last few
moments, but as it concentrated on the subject of Cuban autonomy and
her guests ceased to appeal to her, she fell into conversation with
Senator North, who she knew would be willing to dispense with politics
for a few moments.

"You have no idea how I miss Jack Emory," she said. "He half lived
with us, you know, and I am always expecting to meet him in the hall.
When I was writing my invitations I caught myself beginning a note,
'Dear Jack.' It is uncanny."

"It is the only revenge the dead have; and doubtless it is this vivid
after life of theirs in memory that is at the root of the belief in
ghosts. You say that you are going to open your _salon_ every year
with a dinner to the original members. It will be interesting to watch
the two faces in some of the seats--if you attempt to fill the vacant
chairs."

Betty pressed her handkerchief against her lips, for she knew they had
turned white. She was but twenty-eight, and if her _salon_ was the
success it promised to be she would sit at the head of this table
for twenty-eight years to come, and then have compassed fewer years
than the man beside her. She had refused resolutely to permit her
thought to dwell on the tragic difference in their ages, a difference
that had no meaning now, but would symbolize death and desolation
hereafter; but her mind had moments of abrupt insight that no Will
could conquer, and not long since she had gasped and covered her face
with her hands.

"That was brutal of me," he said hurriedly. "Your dinner is the
brilliant success that it deserves to be, and you should be permitted
to be entirely happy. There is not a bored face, and if they are all
jabbering about the everlasting subject, so much the better for you.
It gives your _salon_ its political character at once; you would have
had a hard time getting them to begin on bimetallism and the census--
perish the thought! Ward is now making Lady Mary think that she is a
greater diplomatist than himself. Maxwell and the Speaker are
wrangling across your mother, who looks alarmed; Burleigh is flirting
desperately with Miss Alice Maxwell, who is purring upon his
senatorial vanity; your Populist is breaking out into the turgid
rhetoric of Mr. Bryan; French has persuaded that charming English girl
that he is the most literary man in America, and Miss Carter is
condoling with March about an ungrateful State. So be happy, my
darling, be happy."

His voice had dropped suddenly. She made an involuntary movement
toward him.

"I am," she said below her breath. "I am." She added in a moment,
"Will you always come to my Thursday evenings, no matter what
happens?"

"Always."

He had turned slightly, and one hand was on his knee. She slipped hers
into it recklessly; they were safe in the crowd, and her hand ached
for his. It ached from the grasp it received, for he was a man whose
self-control was absolute or non-existent. But she clung to him as
long as she dared, and when she withdrew her hand she sought for
distraction in her company.

It looked as gay and happy as if war had been invented to animate
conversation and make a bored people feel dramatic. Death was close
upon the heels of two of the distinguished men present; but even
though the eyes of the soul be raised everlastingly to the world
above, they are blind to the portal. The busy member who had incurred
Miss Carter's disapproval and the brilliant Librarian of Congress were
among the liveliest at the feast.

It was Senator Ward at one end of the table and Burleigh at the other,
who finally started the topic of Miss Madison's intended _salon_, not
only that those unacquainted with her ambition might be enlightened,
but that the great intention should receive a concrete form without
further delay. A half-hour later, when the women left the table, Betty
had the satisfaction of knowing that whatever the final result of her
venture, her stand was as fully recognized as if she had written a
book and found a publisher and critics to advertise her.




V



Betty went to the Senate Gallery on the following day at the request
of Armstrong, and heard an exposition of the Populist religion by the
benevolent-looking bore from Nebraska. He was followed by an
arraignment of the "gold standard Administration" and the Republican
Party, from the leading advocate of bimetallism with-or-without-the-
concurrence-of-Europe. The utterances of both gentlemen were delivered
with the repose and dignity peculiar to their body, and Patriotism and
the Constitution would appear to be their watchword and fetish.
Burleigh came up to the gallery as the Silver Senator sat down, and
smiled wearily at Betty's puzzled comments.

"Of course they sound well," he replied. "In the first place there is
always much to be said on both sides of any question, and a clever
speaker can make his side dwarf the other. And of course no party
could exist five minutes unless it had some good in it. There are
several admirable principles in the Populist creed; there are enough
windy theories to upset the Constitution of which they prate; and, by
the way, the more wrong-headed a would-be statesman is the more
hysterically does he plead for the Constitution. As to the other
Senator--I sympathize as deeply with the farmer as any man, and I
hoped against hope for the success of the bimetallic envoys; but the
farmer is of considerably less importance than the national honour;
and if a man is not statesman enough to take the national view when he
comes to the Senate, he had better stay at home and become a party
boss."

"Are you in trouble at home? I saw that you made a speech just before
you left."

"They are furious, and elections are imminent; but I never have
believed that it paid in the end to be a politician, and I propose to
hold to that view. If I am not re-elected this time, I will venture to
say that I shall be six years later--"

"Oh, I should be sorry! I should be sorry! Your heart is in the
Senate. How could you settle down contentedly to practise law in a
Western city for six years?"

"I certainly should have very little to offer a woman," he said
bitterly. His frank handsome face had lost the expression of gayety
which had sat so gracefully upon the determination of its contours; he
looked harassed and a trifle cynical. "There is only one thing I hate
more than leaving the United States Senate--and God knows I love it
and its traditions: what that is I feel I now have no right--"

"Oh, yes, you have; for if I loved you I would live at the North Pole
with you, and I hate cold weather. I don't want you to put me in that
sort of position, both for the sake of your own pride and for our
friendship."

"That is like you, and I shall take you at your word. Perhaps you can
imagine what it cost me to come out and declare myself in a State
howling for Silver, when I knew that to leave Washington meant losing
my chance with you. For if I am not re-elected I must go out there and
stay. I could afford to live here, of course--I hope you know that I
have plenty of money--but my political future is there. Even if you
made it a condition, I should not pull up stakes, for a man who
despised himself for abandoning his ambitions and his power for
usefulness could not be happy with any woman."

"I should not make such a condition. As I said, I willingly would go
West with you if I loved you."

"Would to God you did! What I meant was that in going I lose my
chance."

Betty looked at him and shook her head slowly.

"Yes!" he said. "Yes! Yes! I believe, I know that I could win you with
time. And now that the future looks dark I want you more than ever."

"Ah, I wish I could love you," she exclaimed fervently. "I have enough
of feminine insight to know that a woman is really happy only when she
is making a man happy, and that she is almost ready to bless the
troubles which give her the opportunity to console him."

She was looking straight down at Senator North as she spoke. Her voice
was impassioned as she finished, and she forgot the man at her side.
But he never had suspected that she loved another man. His face
flushed and he lowered his head eagerly.

"Betty!" he said, "Betty! Come to me and I swear to make you happy.
You don't know what love is. You need to be taught. Any man can make a
woman of feeling love him if he loves her enough and she has no
antipathy to him. And there is no reason under heaven why we should
not be happy together."

There was only one. Betty was convinced of that; and for the moment
the dull ache in her heart prompted her to wish that she never had
seen the man down there listening impassively to remarks on the
Immigration bill. She wanted to be happy, she was made to be happy,
and it was easy to imagine the most exacting woman deeply attached to
Robert Burleigh. What was love that it defied the Will? Why could not
she shake up her brain as one shakes up a misused sofa-cushion and
beat it into proper shape? What was love that persisted in spite of
the Will and the judgment, that came whence no mortal could discover,
but an abnormal condition of the brain, a convolution that no human
treatment could reach? But she only shook her head at Burleigh,
although she knew that it would be wisdom to give him her hand in full
view of the stragglers in the gallery.

"I must go now," she said. "I have calls to pay. Come and dine with us
to-night. If there is even a chance of our losing you, my mother and I
must have all of you that we can, meanwhile."




VI



"It is just a year ago to-day, Betty, that you nearly killed me by
announcing your determination to go into politics--or whatever you
choose to call it. I put down the date. A great deal has happened
since then--poor dear Jack! And I often think of that unfortunate
creature, too. But you and I are here in this same room, and I wonder
if you are glad or sorry that you entered upon this eccentric course."

"I have no regrets," said Betty, smiling. "And I don't think you have.
You like every man that comes here, and while they are talking to you
forget that you ever had an ache. As for me--no, I have no regrets,
not one. I am glad."

"Well, I will admit that they are much better than I thought. I must
say I never saw a finer set of men than those at your dinner, and I
felt proud of my country, although I was nervous once or twice. I
almost love Mr. Burleigh; so I refrain from further criticism. But,
Betty, there is one thing I feel I must say--"

She hesitated and readjusted her cushions nervously. Betty looked at
her inquiringly, and experienced a slight chill. She stood up suddenly
and put her foot on the fender.

"It is this," continued Mrs. Madison, hurriedly. "I think you are too
much with Senator North. He was here constantly before you left
Washington, and of course I know you boated with him a great deal last
summer. Since your return he has been here several times, and you
treat him with twice the attention with which you treat any other man.
Of course I can understand the attraction which a man with a brain
like that must have for you, but there is something more important
to be considered. You have been the most noticeable girl in Washington
for years--in our set--and now that you have branched out in this
extraordinary manner and are even going to have a _salon_, you'll
quickly be the most conspicuous in the other set. Mr. North is easily
the most conspicuous figure in the Senate--a half dozen of your new
friends, including that Speaker, have told me so--and if this
friendship keeps on people will talk, as sure as fate. There is no
harm done yet--I sounded Sally Carter--but there will be. That sort of
gossip grows gradually and surely; it is not like a great scandal that
blazes up and out and that people get tired of; they will get into the
habit of believing all sorts of dreadful things, and they never will
acquire the habit of disbelieving them."

Betty made no reply. She stood staring into the fire.

"It would have been more difficult for me to say such a thing to you a
year ago; but you seem a good deal older, somehow. I suppose it is
being so much with men old enough to be your father, and talking
constantly about things that give me the nightmare to think of. And of
course you have had two terrible shocks. But you are so buoyant I hope
you will get over all that in time. Wouldn't you like to go to the
Riviera, and then to London for the season?"

"And desert my _salon?_" asked Betty, lightly. "You forget this is the
long term. I am praying that summer will come late, so that you can
stay on. It never had occurred to me that any one would notice my
friendship with Mr. North. I hope they will do nothing so silly as to
comment on it."

"Well, they will, if you are not very careful. And there is no
position in the world so unenviable as that of a girl who gets herself
talked about with a married man. Men lose interest in her and raise
their eyebrows at the clubs when her name is mentioned, and women
gradually drop her. Money and position will cover up a good many
indiscretions in a married woman or a widow, but the world always has
demanded that a girl shall be immaculate; and if she permits Society
to think she is not, it punishes her for violating one of its pet
standards. Mr. North can be nothing to you. The day is sure to come
when you will want to marry. No woman is really satisfied in any other
state."

Betty turned and looked squarely at her mother, who had lost even the
semblance of nervousness in her deep maternal anxiety.

"Do you believe that I love Mr. North?"

"Yes, I do. And I know that he loves you. There is no mistaking the
way a man turns to a woman every time she begins to speak. But on that
score I have no fears. I know that you not only must have the high
principles of the women of your race, but that you are too much a
woman-of-the-world to enter upon a _liaison_, which would mean
constant lying, fear, blackmail by servants, and general wretchedness.
And I have perfect faith in him. Even a scoundrel will hesitate a long
while before he makes himself responsible for the future of a girl in
your position, and Mr. North is not a scoundrel but an honourable
gentleman. Moreover he knows that a scandal would ruin him in his
Puritanical State; and he adores his sons, who are prouder of him than
if he were ten Presidents. But the world can talk and continue to
talk, and to act as viciously about an imprudent friendship as about a
_liaison_, for it has no means of proving anything and likes to
believe the worst. Now, I shan't say any more. You are capable of
doing your own thinking. Only do think--please." Betty nodded to
her mother, and went to her boudoir and sat there for hours. Nothing
could have put the ugly practical side of her romance so precisely
before her as her mother's black and white statement, full of the
little colloquial phrases with which an un-ambitious world expresses
itself. Even for him, Betty reflected, she could not endure vulgar
gossip, and wondered how any high-bred woman could for any man.

"For what else does civilization mean," she thought, "if those of us
that have its highest advantages are not wiser and more fastidious
than the mob? And unless a woman is ready to go and live in a cave,
she cannot be happy in the loss of the world's regard, for it can make
her uncomfortable in quite a thousand little ways. Expediency is the
root of all morality. It is stupid to be unmoral, and that is the long
and the short of it. I would marry him to-morrow if I had to cook for
him, if he were dishonoured by his country, if he were smitten
suddenly with ill-health and never could walk again. I am willing to
go through life alone for his sake, even without seeing him, and after
he is dead and gone. I love him absolutely, and if there is another
world I must meet him there. But I am not willing to become a social
pariah on his account."

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