Senator North

G >> Gertrude Atherton >> Senator North

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But much to Betty's disappointment the conversation, which was always
general when that radiant hostess presided, soon wandered from the
suffering Cuban and fixed itself interminably about a certain measure
which had been agitating Congress for the last four years. It was a
measure which demanded an immense appropriation, and so far Senator
North had kept it from passing the upper chamber; it was generally
understood that it would fare still worse at the hands of the Speaker,
did it ever reach the House. These two intractable gentlemen had
evidently not been bidden to the feast; but three of the Senators,
Betty suddenly observed, were members of the Select Committee for the
measure under discussion.

Five courses had come and gone, and still the conversation raged along
a tiresome bill that happened to be Betty's pet abomination, the only
subject discussed in the Senate that bored her. Mrs. Fonda, in the
brightest, most impersonal way, defended the unpopular measure,
pointing out the immense advantage the country at large must derive
from the success of the bill, and, while appealing to the statesmen
gathered at her board to set her right when she made mistakes,--she
couldn't be expected to keep up with every bill while her head was
full of Cuba,--assailed the weak points in those statesmen's
arguments.

"I'm bored to death," muttered Betty, finally. "I wish I hadn't come.
You won't talk to me and I can't eat any more."

Burleigh turned to her at once. "I've merely been watching her game,"
he whispered. "Now, I'm nearly sure."

"What?" asked Betty, interested at once.

"She has given a dinner a week this winter, and there is a rumour that
she is spending the money of the syndicate interested in this much
desired appropriation. Heretofore, when I have been here, at least,
although she has always graciously permitted the subject to come up
and has delivered herself of a few trenchant and memorable remarks,
this is the first time she has deliberately made it run through an
entire dinner; every attempt to turn the conversation has been a sham.
She's in the ring for votes, there's no further doubt in my mind on
that subject; and she's getting desperate, as it is so near the end of
the session."

"Then she is a lobbyist," said Betty, in a tone of deep disgust, and
pushing away her plate.

"'Sh! She is too clever to have got herself called that. She has very
successfully made the world believe that the great game alone
interests her; there never has been a more subtle woman in Washington.
During the last two years there has been one of those vague rumours
going about that she has lost heavily through certain investments; but
one hasn't much time for gossip in Washington, and it is only lately
that this other rumour has been in the wind. How long she has been
doing this sort of thing, of course no one knows."

"But do you mean to say these other men don't see through her?"

"More than one does, no doubt. If he is against the bill he will be
amused, as I am, and probably decline her invitations in the future.
If he is for it--and there is a good deal to be said in favour of the
bill, only we cannot afford the appropriation at present--he will make
her think, as a reward for her excellent dinner, that she has secured
his vote. Others may be influenced by having it thrashed out in these
luxurious surroundings, so different from the chill simplicity of
legislative halls. Those that she may be able to get in love with her,
of course will believe nothing that is said of her, and when she
travels from the Committees to the more or less indifferent members of
both chambers, and gets to work on the nonentities whose convictions
can always be readjusted by a clever and pretty woman,--and whose vote
is as good as North's or Ward's,--you see just how much she can
accomplish."

"And if I have my _salon_, shall I come under suspicion of being a
high-class lobbyist?"

"There is not the slightest danger if you are careful to have only
first-rate men, and avoid the temptation to make a pet of any bill.
Besides, as I have told you, your position peculiarly fits you for
having a _salon_. No one could question your motive in the beginning,
and your tact would protect you always. Don't give up the idea, for
its success would mean not only the best political society in the
country, but a famous _salon_ would tend to draw art and literature to
Washington. And you are just the one woman who could make it famous;
and we'd all help you. North would be sure to, his ambition for
Washington is so great. He won't put his foot in this house. I never
heard him discuss her, but I am convinced that he has seen through her
for a long while."

The next day Betty left a card on Mrs. Fonda and struck her from her
list; but she carefully secluded her discovery from Mrs. Madison.

XX

Senator North, until the last six days of the session, came twice a
week to see her. She played for him, and they talked on many subjects,
in which they discovered a common interest, usually avoiding politics,
of which he might reasonably be supposed to have enough on Capitol
Hill. He told her a good deal about himself, of his early
determination to go into public life, the interest that several
distinguished men in his State had taken in him, and of the influence
they had had on his mind.

"They were almost demi-gods to my youthful enthusiasm," he said, "and
doubtless I exaggerated their virtues, estimable as is the record they
have left. But the ideals this conception of them set up in my mind I
have clung to as closely as I could, and whatever the trials of public
life--I will tell you more about them some day--the rewards are great
enough if no one can question your sense of public duty, if no
accusation of private interest or ignoble motive has ever been able to
stand on its feet after the usual nine days' babble."

"Would you sacrifice yourself absolutely to your country?" asked
Betty, who kept him to the subject of himself as long as she could.

He laughed. "That is not a fair question to ask any man, for an
affirmative makes a prig of him and a negative a mere politician. I
will therefore generalize freely and tell you that a man who believes
himself to be a statesman considers the nation first, as a matter of
course. Howard, for instance, nearly killed himself at the end of last
session over a measure which was of great national importance. He
should have been in his bed, and he worked day and night. But although
it was touch and go with him afterward, it was no more than he should
have done, for almost everything depends on the Chairman of a
Committee; and as Howard is a man of enormous personal influence and
knows more about the subject than any man in Congress, he dared not
resign in favour of any one. And yet he is accused of being hand-in-
glove with one of the greatest moneyed interests in the country."

"Is he?" asked Betty, pointedly.

"Those are accusations that it is almost impossible to prove. Howard
is a rich man, and his wealth is derived from the principal industry
of his State, which is unquestionably monopolized by a Trust. It would
be his duty to look after it in Congress in any case, as it is his
State's great source of wealth; so it is hard to tell. It does not
interfere with his being one of the ablest legislators and hardest
workers in the Senate--and over matters from which he can derive no
possible gain. But the suspicion will lower his position in the
history of the Senate."

"Does any one know the truth about the Senate? Even Bryce says it is
impossible to get at it, the country is so prone to exaggeration; but
estimates that one-fifth of the Senate is corrupt."

"No one knows. The whole point is this: the Senate is the worst place
in the world for a weak man, and there are weak men in it. A
Senatorship is the highest honour to-day in the gift of the Republic;
therefore ambitious men strive for it. A man no sooner achieves this
ambition than he finds himself beset by many temptations. He is
tormented by lobbyists who will never let him alone until he has
proved himself to be a man of incorruptible character and iron will;
and that takes time. He also finds that the Senate is a sort of
aristocracy, the more so as many of its members are rich men and live
well. If he never wanted money before, he wants it then, and if he
does not, his wife and daughters do. Then, if he is weak, he finds his
way into the pocket of some Trust Company or Railroad Corporation, and
his desire for re-election--to retain his brilliant position--
multiplies his shackles; for if he proves himself useful, the Trust
will buy his Legislature--if it happens to be venal--and keep him in
his place. But these instances I know must be rare, for I know the
personal character of every man in the Senate. One Senator who is
nearing the end of his first term told me the other day that he should
not return, for his experience in the Senate had given him such a keen
desire to be a rich man that he should go into Wall Street and try to
make a fortune. He is honest, but his patriotism is a poor affair. But
if the Senate makes a weak man weaker, it makes a strong man stronger,
owing to the very temptations he must resist from the day he enters,
the compromises he is forced to make, and the danger to his
convictions from the subtler brains of older men. And the Senate is
full of strong men. But they don't make picturesque 'copy' for the
enterprising press; the weak and the corrupt do, and so much space is
given them, as well as so much attention by the comic weeklies,--which
are regarded as a sort of current history,--that the average man, who
does not do his own thinking, accepts the minority as the type."

He talked to her sometimes about his family life. His wife had been a
beautiful and accomplished girl, the daughter of a Governor of his
State, and he had married her when he was twenty-four. She had been a
great help to him, both at home and in Washington, during those years
when he needed help. She had not broken down until after the birth of
his daughter, but that was twenty years ago, and she had been an
invalid ever since. He spoke of this long period of imperfect
happiness in a matter-of-fact way, and Betty assumed that by this time
he was used to it. He alluded to his wife once as "a very dear old
friend," but Betty guessed that she was nearly obliterated from his
life. Of his sons he expected great things, but the larger measure of
his affections had been given to his daughter, or it seemed so, now
that he had lost her.

During the last week of the Session she saw him from the Senate
Gallery only, but she consoled herself by admiring the cool
deliberation with which he worked his bills through, with Populists
thundering on either side of him.

XXI

On Thursday she not only witnessed the last moments of the last
session of the Fifty-fourth Congress, but the initial ceremonies of
the inauguration of a President of the United States. She had seen the
galleries crowded before, but never as they were to-day. Even the
Diplomatists' Gallery, usually empty, was full of women and attaches,
and the very steps of the other galleries were set thick with people.
Thousands had stood patiently in the corridors since early morning,
and thousands stood there still, or wandered about looking at the
statues and painted walls. The Senators were all in their seats; most
of them would gladly have been in bed, for they had been up all night;
and the Ambassadors and Envoys were brilliant and glittering curves of
colour: the effect greatly enhanced by the Republican simplicity of
the men to whose country they were accredited. The Judges of the
Supreme Court, in their flowing silk gowns, alone reminded the
spectator that the United States had not sprung full-fledged from
nothing, without traditions and without precedent.

What little is left of form in the Republic was observed. Two Senators
and one Representative, the Committee appointed to call on the
retiring President, who had just signed his last bill in his room
close by, entered and announced that Mr. Cleveland had no further
messages for the Senate, and extended his congratulations to both
Houses of Congress upon the termination of their labours. The United
States had been without a ruler for twenty minutes when the assistant
doorkeeper announced the Vice-President, two pages drew back the
doors, and Mr. Hobart entered on the arm of a Senator and took the
seat on the dais beside his predecessor, who still occupied the chair
of the presiding officer of the Senate. Then there was another long
wait, during which the people in the galleries gossiped loudly and the
Senators yawned. Finally the President elect and the ex-President,
after being formally announced, entered arm in arm. Both looked very
Republican indeed, especially poor Mr. Cleveland, who toiled along
with the gout, leaning what he could of his massive figure upon an
umbrella. The women stood up, and with one accord pronounced their
President-elect as good-looking as he undoubtedly was strong and
amiable and firm and calm and pious. Mr. Hobart took the oath of
office, and after the necessary speeches and the proclamation for an
Extra Session, the new Senators were sworn in by the new Vice-
President, and Betty wondered how any man would dare to break so
solemn an oath.

As soon as the move began toward the platform outside, Betty escaped
through the crowd and went home. As she drove down the Avenue, she
heard the stupendous shout of joy, some fifty thousand strong, with
which the American public ever greets its new President and the
consequent show. Be he Republican or Democrat, it is all one for the
day; he is an excuse to gather, to yell, and to gaze.

Betty turned her head and caught a glimpse of a bareheaded man on his
feet, bowing and bowing and bowing, and of a heavy figure with its hat
on seated beside him. She speculated upon the sardonic reflections
active inside of that hat.

She did not expect to see Senator North for at least twenty-four
hours, but his card was brought to her while she was still at
luncheon. She went rapidly to her boudoir, and found him standing with
his overcoat on and his hat in his hand.

Although he had been up all the night before and had not had his full
measure of rest for a week, he looked as calm as usual, and there was
not a hint of fatigue in his face nor of disorder in his dress.

"You deserted us last night," he said, smiling. "I thought perhaps you
would sit up and see us through."

"I was up there at nine this morning and saw the Senate floor littered
with papers. It had a very allnight look. Have you had luncheon? Won't
you come in?"

"I should be glad to, but I haven't time. I find I must go North to-
night, and am on my way home to get a few hours' rest. I wanted to
thank you for many pleasant hours--in this room." His eyes moved about
slowly and softened somewhat. It is not improbable that he would have
liked to throw himself among the cushions of the divan and go to
sleep.

"Well! You might postpone that until we part for life," said Betty,
lightly. "You forget that Congress will convene in Extra Session on
the fifteenth."

"Yes, but there is no necessity for me to be here until some time in
May at earliest. The principal object of the Session is the revision
of the Tariff, and the new bill originates with the Ways and Means
Committee. After it has been thrashed out in the House and returned to
the Committee for amendments, it will be referred to the Finance
Committee of the Senate. All that takes time. I am not a member of the
Finance Committee this term, and I shall not return until the debate
opens in the Senate. As to the Arbitration business, Ward will look
after that. I would not stir if there were a chance of the Treaty
coming back to the Senate in its original form, but there is not. When
Ward telegraphs me I shall come down and cast my vote."

His long speech had given Betty time to recover from his first
announcement, and her eyes were full of the frank earnestness which
had established the desired relation between herself and Senator
North.

"I am glad you are going to have a rest," she said; "that is, if you
are."

"Oh, it is work that sits very lightly on me, and is very congenial: I
am going to do all I can to allay this war fever in my own State. It
is not too late to appeal to their reason; but it might be at any
moment."

"Well, at all events, you go to the bracing climate of the North. But
I am sorry you go so soon. Mother cannot stay in Washington after the
third week in May. I am afraid we shall not meet again until you come
to the Adirondacks."

"Ah, the Adirondacks!" he said. "Yes, I shall see you there. Good-
bye."

He did not smile. There were times when he seemed to turn a key and
lock up his features. This was one of them. Betty felt as if she were
looking at a mask contrived with unusual skill.

He shook her warmly by the hand, however. "I forgot to say that I
shall be in Washington off and on--for a day or so. My wife remains
here. It is still too cold for her in the North. Good-bye again."

He left her, and she did not return to her luncheon.

XXII

Betty, after several long and restless nights, decided that she was
not equal to the ordeal of sitting down patiently in Washington
awaiting the rare and flying visits of Senator North. If she could
place herself quite beyond the possibility of seeing him before the
first of June, she could get through the intervening months with a
respectable amount of endurance, but not otherwise. Hers was not the
nature of the patient watcher, the humble applicant for crumbs. She
might put up with slices where she could not get the whole loaf, but
her head lifted itself at the notion of crumbs. Her heart had not yet
begun to ache. She determined that it should not until it was in far
more desperate straits than now. When Lady Mary Montgomery, who was
tired and wanted a long rest before December, invited her to go to
California, she accepted at once; and, a week after the adjournment of
Congress, went through the formality of obtaining her mother's
consent. "Well," said Mrs. Madison, philosophically, "I have lost you
for three months at a time before, and I suppose I can stand it again.
I think you need a change. You've been nervous lately, and you're
thinner than you were. As long as you don't marry I can resign myself
quite gracefully to these little partings."

"You're a dear, Mollyanthus. I only wish you were going with me, but
I'll keep a journal for you and post it every night. I am glad you do
not dislike Harriet. Of course if you did I should not go, for it is
too soon to turn her adrift."

"She is inoffensive enough, poor soul, and so deep in her books that I
should not know she was in the house if she didn't come to the table."

"Make Jack take her to the theatre once a week. She has promised me
that she will go for a walk every day with Sally."

"Sally says she is convinced Harriet is a Roman empress reborn, and
may astonish Washington at any moment," said Mrs. Madison, anxiously.
"Do you believe in reincarnation?"

"I don't believe or disbelieve anything I don't understand. We none of
us can even guess what is latent in Harriet--for the matter of that I
don't know what is latent in myself. I can only suspect. I don't think
Harriet will ever go very deep into herself; she has not imagination
enough. If circumstances are not too unfavourable, she may slip
through life happy and respected, in spite of her tragic appearance:
she is so slothful by nature, so much more susceptible to good
influences than to bad. All of us possess every good and bad instinct
in the whole book of human nature, but few of us have imagination
enough to find it out. And the less we know of ourselves the better."

"Betty, you certainly do need a change. You looked tragic yourself as
you said that; and if you became tragic it would mean something. I'm
afraid your conscience is tormenting you about Mr. Burleigh, and
perhaps I did not do right in asking him to come to the Adirondacks;
but probably he would have come to the hotel, anyhow; and if I did
have to lose you--"

"You'll never get rid of me." And she went to her room to consult with
Leontine.

The night before she left Harriet came into her room and said
timidly,--

"Betty, I sometimes wonder if you have told Mr. Emory the truth about
myself--"

"Certainly not. Why should I tell Mr. Emory--or anyone else?"

"Well, he is so kind to me and we have become such friends, I thought
perhaps you would think he ought to know."

"That is pure nonsense. Do you suppose I tell my friends everything I
know? No friend is so close as to demand to know more than you choose
to tell him."

"All right, honey; but I am always afraid he will see my finger-nails
when he is helping me with my lessons--"

"He is very near-sighted; and I doubt if anyone would notice those
faint blue marks unless they were looking for them."

"Of course they seem the most conspicuous things I've got, to me."

"Are you happy here, Harriet?" asked Betty, gently. Harriet nodded and
looked at her benefactor with glowing eyes. "Oh, yes," she said. "Yes
--yes. It is like heaven, in spite of the hard work they make me do.
I'm right down afraid of that old Frenchman, and when Professor Morrow
shuts his eyes and groans, 'Door--d-o-o-r, Miss Walker, _not_ d-o-u-g-
h,' I could cry. But I'm happy all the same, and I forgot _that_ for a
whole week."

"Well, forget it altogether. And remember to have a thin travelling
dress and a lot of summer things made. And of all people do not
confide in Jack Emory or Sally Carter--or any other Southerner."

_Part II_

_Senator North, Miss Betty Madison, and several other Characters in
this History go in search of a Mountain Lake and find an Ocean._

I

Betty never denied that she enjoyed her visit to California, despite
the several thousand miles between the Atlantic and the Pacific
coasts, and Senator North's rooted aversion to writing letters. She
received exactly three brief epistles from him in almost as many
months, but in one he said that he missed her even in the North, in
another that Washington was not Washington without her, and in the
third that he looked forward with pleasure to the cool Adirondacks and
herself. And a woman can live on less than that. Betty read and re-
read these simple and possibly perfunctory statements until they were
weighted with love.

And although she visited all the wonders of the most wonderful State
in the Union, and was deeply grateful to them, they never pushed the
man from the forefront of her mind for a moment. The egoism of love
reduces scenery to a setting and the splendours of sunset to a
background. Betty thought of him by day and by night, in company and
in solitude, but even the agony of longing to which her imagination
sometimes rose contained no heartbreak. For the future was all over
there, on the far side of the continent; its grave-clothes were deep
under lavender and rosemary. To think of him was a luxury and a
delight, and would remain so until Imagination had been pushed aside
by the contradictory details of Reality. Sometimes she wept
pleasurably, but she smiled oftener. And still, although she laid no
reins on her imagination, she refused to look beyond the summer among
the Adirondack pines, the frequent and more frequent hours at the
close of busy days. If pressed, she would doubtless have answered that
she must bow to Circumstance, but that in Thought he was wholly hers.

II

Betty reached her part of the Adirondacks late at night. There were
two miles between the station and the house, and Jack Emory and Sally
Carter came to meet her. They told her the recent news of the family
as the horses toiled up the steep road cut through the dark and
fragrant forest.

"Aunt is unusually well and seems to enjoy interminable talks with
Major Carter," said Emory. "Harriet is very much improved; she holds
herself regally and sometimes has a colour. She studied until the last
minute, and even here is always at her books. I don't say she hasn't
intervals of laziness," he added with a laugh, "but she always pulls
up; and it is very creditable of her, for she is full of Southern
indolence. She would like to lie in the sun all day and sleep, I am
sure; although she won't admit it."

"Does she seem any happier? She had suffered too much privation to
have become really happy before I left."

"I am sure she is--" Jack began, but Sally interrupted him.

"I think she is one of those people who hardly know whether they are
happy or not. She seems to me to be in a sort of transition state. One
moment she will be gay with the natural gayety of a girl, and the next
she will look puzzled, and occasionally tragic. I think there must be
a big love affair somewhere in her past."

"I am sure there is nothing of the sort. Have the Norths come?"

"Mrs. North is here, and the Senator brought her, but he had to go
back; for that disgraceful Tariff bill still hangs on. I believe we
are to pay for the very air we breathe: a Trust company has bought it
up. Oh, by the way, you have a new housekeeper;" and both she and
Emory laughed. "Do you mean that old Mrs. Sawyer has left? She was
invaluable."

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