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Title: The congressman's wife, a story of American politics

Author: John D. Barry

Illustrator: Rollin Kirby

Release date: February 7, 2022 [eBook #67352]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: The Smart Set Publishing Co

Credits: Carlos Colon, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 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 THE CONGRESSMAN'S WIFE, A STORY OF AMERICAN POLITICS ***





  THE CONGRESSMAN’S WIFE

  [Illustration: “‘_We’ve come back to have another little talk with
  you, Mr. Briggs._’”]




  The
  Congressman’s
  Wife

  _A Story of American Politics_

  BY

  JOHN D. BARRY

  AUTHOR OF
  “A DAUGHTER OF THESPIS,” Etc.

  ILLUSTRATED BY ROLLIN G. KIRBY

  [Illustration: Decorative image]

  1903
  The Smart Set Publishing Co.
  NEW YORK      LONDON




  COPYRIGHTED
  1900, by
  ESS ESS
  PUBLISHING CO.

  COPYRIGHTED
  1903, by
  THE SMART SET
  PUBLISHING CO.

  _First Printing Sept._




Preface


In this story my aim has not been primarily to depict conditions in
American politics. This work has already been done far better than I
could do it by several writers, among others, by Mr. Brand Whitlock,
whose novel, “The Thirteenth District,” shows a remarkable insight and
fidelity. I have merely used a familiar condition for the purpose of
tracing some of its purely social and human complications. The contrast
between the standards a man may follow in public life or in business
and those he maintains at home, with his wife and children, seemed to
me to afford material worth the attention of the story-writer.

  J. D. B.

 _July, 1903._


  “_Naught’s gained, all’s spent,
  When our desire is got without content._”




  THE CONGRESSMAN’S WIFE




I


“Yes, Washington is never finer than now.” The white-haired Senator
stood at the top of the steps of the Capitol and looked benignly across
the city. The air was heavy with the rich odor of Spring. The trees
were putting out their tender green leaves.

Douglas Briggs nodded. “It will be fine for a few weeks. Then we shall
have to send our families away,” he said, adding quickly, with a glance
at the Capitol, “that is, if they keep us here.”

“It soon becomes unbearable, the heat,” the old gentleman agreed. “We
always try to get away before June. I suppose you have to be careful
about your little ones.”

“Yes; and then Mrs. Briggs is rather run down, I think. It has been a
hard Winter for her--so much entertaining.”

“It’s wonderful how they stand it,” the Senator said, musingly. A
delicate moisture had broken out on his smooth, fine face. “But I
sometimes think the women bear it better than the men. When I first
came here I went about a good deal. But that was more than a quarter
of a century ago. The life was simpler then; though, coming from the
country as I did, it seemed gay enough. There’s poor Braddon from
Kentucky. You knew him, of course. I went down to his funeral the
other day. It was this infernal entertaining that killed him--too
many dinners. The last time I talked with him he told me he had eaten
twenty-three public dinners in something less than three weeks. The
wonder is that it doesn’t kill more of them. I suppose it does--only we
say they died of something else.” He looked curiously at Briggs through
his big gold-framed spectacles. “How do you stand it?” he asked.
Without waiting for a reply, he went on: “But you youngsters don’t mind
those things as we old fellows do.”

Douglas Briggs laughed. “Oh, I’m not so young, Senator. I turned forty
more than two years ago.”

“But you look very young,” the Senator insisted, amiably. “And I’m
always hearing of you at the great dinners. I see your speeches in the
newspapers.”

“Oh, I _speak_ at the dinners,” Briggs replied, smiling, “but I
don’t eat at them.”

“No?” the old gentleman asked, softly.

“That is, I never think of eating all they put before me. If I did, I
should have shared Braddon’s fate long ago. My first Winter of public
dinners gave me a fierce attack of gout. Now when I dine out I taste
the soup and I eat the roast and the salad. The rest of the dinner I
pass by.”

The Senator’s eyes twinkled. “Very sensible, very sensible,” he said.
He patted Briggs on the shoulder with the kindly patronage of the older
man. “That’s why you keep your color and your clear eye. That’s right.
That’s right.” He shook his head and his face wrinkled with pleasure.
“I only wish we had a few more sensible young fellows like you in
Congress.”

They clasped hands at the foot of the steep flight of steps. “I hope we
shall see you to-night,” said Briggs.

The Senator shook his head. “Oh, no; those dissipations aren’t for us.
We keep away from crowds. But we’d like to see your new house,” he
added, pleasantly. “My wife and I will look in some afternoon.”

Douglas Briggs walked down the street with a glow of amusement and
pleasure. He felt proud of his friendship with one of the oldest and
most distinguished Senators in Washington. He had reached the age,
too, when he enjoyed being treated like a young man; it gave him
reassurance. As he passed Congressman Burton’s house he noticed a line
of carriages extending far up the street. Then he remembered that the
Burtons were having a reception. “I ought to have asked Helen to go,”
he thought. Then he was glad he had not asked her. She would need all
her strength for the night; he had been putting too many burdens on
her, of late.

This afternoon he was in one of his moods of fine physical
exhilaration. He had had an exciting day in the House; but now he
turned from all thought of care and looked forward with a boy’s
delight to the evening. His wife had asked a few people to dinner to
celebrate their establishment in their new house, and for the reception
that would follow she had invited nearly everyone in Washington that
they knew. As he approached the house he viewed it with a glow of
satisfaction. He had secured one of the most desirable corner lots in
Washington, and Hanscomb, whom he considered the best architect in the
country, had built on it a structure that Briggs proudly considered an
ornament to the city. It would be associated with him as other houses
were associated with men conspicuous in Washington life.

On the sidewalk Michael, the servant whom Douglas Briggs had employed
ever since becoming a house-holder in Washington, was supervising the
arranging of the carpet on the steps and the hanging of the awning.

“Well, Michael, how goes it?” Briggs asked, pleasantly.

“All right, sir. The back of the work is broken,” Michael replied, with
a grin. He brushed down his thick red hair and rubbed his hand over the
perspiration on his forehead.

“Have those men come from the caterer’s?”

“The naygurs, sir? They arrived an hour ago, an’ ye’d think they owned
the place.”

“Well, let them own it while they’re here,” said Briggs, severely,
apprehensive of Michael’s great fault, a fondness for interfering with
other servants and making trouble.

“Div’l the word I’ve had with ’em, sir!” Michael exclaimed with a look
of scorn.

“Very well!” Briggs commented, severely. He was fond of Michael, whom
he knew he could trust; but he had to be severe with the fellow.

When Briggs entered, a young girl met him in the hall. “Oh, here you
are! I’ve been watching for you all the afternoon. Why didn’t you come
home before, you naughty man?”

She put her arms on his shoulders, and he bent forward to be kissed. “I
couldn’t,” Briggs explained; “I’ve been too busy.”

“Oh, Guy,” the girl cried, running to the broad staircase at the back
of the hall, “Uncle Doug has come.” She turned swiftly to her uncle.
“Oh, you should have seen us work this afternoon, Guy and me! We’ve
been helping Mrs. Farnsworth with the flowers. I’ve decorated the
dining-room all myself.” She seized Douglas Briggs by the arm and tried
to drag him with her. “Come along and see.”

He drew his arm away gently. “I mustn’t now, Fanny. I’ll see it
by-and-by. I ought to get ready for dinner. Where’s your aunt?”

“Aunt Helen’s in the drawing-room. She has a caller, I think.”

Briggs frowned. “Hasn’t she taken a rest?”

Fanny shook her head and looked serious. “I tried to make her, but she
wouldn’t. She said there were too many things to do. But Guy and I were
attending to everything,” she concluded, with importance.

Briggs turned away and smiled. “Children awake?” he asked, as he
removed his coat.

“M’m--h’m. Been playing all the afternoon. Miss Munroe’s been a brick.
As soon as she got Jack quiet she came down and helped Guy and me
decorate the ballroom. Oh, we had the loveliest----”

Briggs had turned away absent-mindedly and started up the stairs. As he
passed the door of the drawing-room he heard a rustle of skirts, and a
sharp voice exclaimed:

“Why, there’s your husband now!”

He stopped and turned back. “Oh, Mrs. Burrell, how do you do?” he
said, abruptly. He extended his hand, and the old lady grasped it with
enthusiasm.

“I’ve been all over your house,” she said.

“It’s simply the loveliest place I’ve ever seen. I’ve just been telling
your wife,” she went on, “that I don’t see how Paradise can be any
better than this.”

Briggs smiled. Then he turned to his wife and kissed her on the cheek.

“Well, it does me good to see you do that!” Mrs. Burrell declared.
“It’s the only real home-like thing I’ve seen since I come to
Washington.” She took a long breath. “I was saying to Mr. Burrell
yesterday that if we didn’t know you and Mrs. Briggs we’d think there
was no such thing as home life in Washington.”

“Oh, there’s a lot of it,” Briggs asserted, jocularly. “Only they keep
it dark.”

“It seems to me there’s nothing but wire-pulling, wire-pulling,
everybody trying to get ahead of everybody else. It makes me sick.
Still, I suppose I’m doing a little of that myself just now,” she went
on, with a nervous laugh. “What do you suppose I come here for to-day,
Mr. Briggs? I ought to be ashamed bothering your wife just when she’s
going to have a big party. But I knew it would just break my girls’
hearts if they didn’t come to-night. So I’ve asked if I couldn’t bring
’em.”

“Quite right, quite right,” said Briggs, cheerfully, but with the
absent look still in his eyes.

Mrs. Burrell was a large woman with hair that had turned to a color
approximating drab and giving a suggestion of thinness belied by the
mass at the back. She had a sharp nose and gray eyes, none the less
keen because they were faded with years and from wearing glasses. Her
skin, which seemed to have been tightly drawn across her face, bagged
heavily under the eyes and dropped at the corners of the disappointed
and complaining mouth. Douglas Briggs suspected that at the time of
her marriage she had been a typical New England old maid. If she had
been more correct in her speech he would have marked her for a former
school-teacher. As she talked it amused him to note the flashes of
brightness in her eyes behind the black-rimmed glasses from which was
suspended a gold chain, a touch of elegance which harmonized perfectly
with the whole eccentric figure. Briggs felt sorry for her and he felt
glad for her: she was enjoying Washington without realizing how much
passing enjoyment she gave to the people she met.

“It was a mistake, their not receiving cards,” Helen Briggs explained.
“I know their names were on the list.”

“Oh, those mistakes are always happening,” Mrs. Burrell replied,
greatly relieved now that she had got what she wanted. “Why, when we
had our coming-out party for our oldest girl there was at least three
families in Auburn that wouldn’t look at me. How I happened to forget
to invite ’em I couldn’t understand, to save my life. But I didn’t try
to explain. It was no use. I just let it go.”

Douglas Briggs sighed. Mrs. Burrell represented the type of woman
before whom he had most difficulty in maintaining his air of
confidential friendliness. For her husband, the shrewd old business
man from Maine, who was serving his first term in Congress, he felt a
genuine liking. His weariness at this moment prompted him to make one
of his pleasant speeches. When most bored he always tried hardest to
be agreeable. “There was no need of your asking for invitations for
to-night,” he said. “We hope you know us well enough to bring your
daughters without invitations.”

Mrs. Burrell softened. Her sharp little gray eyes grew moist. “Well, I
think you’re just as good as you can be,” she said. She looked vaguely
about, as if not knowing what to say. “Well, it _is_ lovely!” she
went on. “It’s splendid having these big entries. They’re just as good
as rooms. And those lovely tapestries on the wall downstairs--where in
the world did you get ’em?”

“They were bought for us by a dealer in New York,” Briggs explained,
patiently. He wondered how long Mrs. Burrell could stand without
moving. At that moment the old lady turned and offered her hand to
Helen.

“Well, good-bye again. The girls will be waiting for me at the hotel. I
guess they’ll be glad.”

As soon as Mrs. Burrell started down the stairs Douglas Briggs turned
to his wife. “You must be tired, dear,” he said. “You ought to have
been resting this afternoon.”

“Oh, no. I’m not tired, really.” She let him take her hand and she
smiled back into his face.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He pressed her hand more tightly. “Only I’m glad to see you
again, that’s all.”

He placed his left hand on her forehead and drew her head back. Then he
kissed her on the lips.

She drew away from him with a smile. “We haven’t much time. We have a
great many things to do yet.”

“I must take a peep at the children,” he said. “I wonder if they’re
asleep yet.”

“I think Miss Munroe is giving them their supper.”

The children, who had recognized the footsteps, were at the door to
meet them. Dorothy, a fat, laughing girl of seven, ran forward and
threw herself into her father’s arms, and Jack, two years younger,
trotted after her.

“Oh, you big girl!” Briggs exclaimed, “you’ll take all my breath away.”

She kissed him again and again, laughing as his mustache tickled her
face. Jack was tugging at her skirts, trying to pull her down.

“Let me! Let me!” he insisted.

Briggs placed Dorothy on the floor and took up the boy. “How are you
to-day, sonny?” he asked, as he let the thick, yellow curls fall over
his eyes.

“All right,” Jack replied, contentedly.

“Been a good boy?”

Jack looked wistfully at the governess, a young woman with black hair,
a bad complexion and a disappointed face, that always suggested to
Briggs a baffled motherliness. He pitied all people over twenty-five
who were not married. He valued Miss Munroe, but he often told her
that she had no business taking care of other people’s children; she
ought to be taking care of her own.

“No, he hasn’t!” shouted Dorothy. “He broke his whip, and when Miss
Munroe took it away from him he cried and kicked.”

“Oh--h--h!” said Jack’s father, reproachfully.

“Well, it was my whip,” Jack insisted.

“It’s all right,” Miss Munroe interrupted. “He said he was sorry.”

Briggs walked into the nursery with Jack on his shoulder. Jack, who at
once forgot his momentary disgrace, clung to his father’s thick hair.

“Ow, you rascal, let go!” said Briggs. He sank slowly into a chair, and
lifting the boy high in his arms, deposited him on his knee. Dorothy
followed and climbed up on the other knee. She placed a forefinger
between her teeth and looked admiringly at her father.

“Papa, is the President coming to-night?” she asked.

Douglas Briggs took her hand and drew the finger out of her mouth.
“I’ve told you not to do that, dear,” he said.

She jumped and pressed her head against her father’s coat. “Well, is
he?”

“I think not,” Briggs replied, with a smile. “I’m not sure that we’ve
invited him.”

“Oh, how mean!”

“He doesn’t go to parties,” Jack scornfully explained, with superior
intelligence.

“Well, he has parties himself,” Dorothy insisted, indignantly.

Briggs extended his hand between them. “There, there; that’ll do. Never
mind about the President.”

“You’re going to be President some day, aren’t you, papa?” Jack
ventured, with confidence. “Only I’d rather live here than in the White
House.”

“They say the White House isn’t healthy,” said Dorothy, repeating a
remark she had heard over the stairs.

“Well, papa, when you live in the White House can’t we come and stay in
this house when we want to?” asked Jack.

Helen Briggs, who had been discussing with Miss Munroe a detail of
the decoration for the evening, joined the group. “Jack thinks we’ll
have to move from this place to the White House,” said Briggs. “He’s
worried.”

Helen smiled. “It’s time for Jack to go to bed.”

“Oh, no. Just another minute longer,” Jack pleaded.

“I must go and dress,” said Briggs. “Now, chicks, climb down.” They
obeyed promptly, but turned and made a simultaneous attack upon him.
He endured their caresses for a moment; then he cried: “Now, that’s
enough, I think.” He rose quietly and kissed them. “Go to sleep like
good children,” he said.

On the way to their room Helen remarked: “Jack is getting so lively
Miss Munroe hardly knows what to do with him.”

“Oh, he’ll be all right,” said Douglas. “I like to see a boy with some
spirit in him.”

An hour later Douglas Briggs entered the dining-room, followed by his
wife. Fanny Wallace was already there, talking with Guy Fullerton.

“How do I look?” Fanny cried to her aunt, catching up her long gown.
“Isn’t it perfectly beautiful? Don’t you just love those fleecy things?
Won’t dad be proud of his daughter?”

“You look very well, dear,” said Helen, conservatively.

“Well, you’re kind of nice yourself,” Fanny remarked. “And doesn’t the
gentleman look grand?” she added, to her uncle. “Only,” she went on,
giving him a little push, “you mustn’t let yourself get so fat.” Then
she glanced at Guy. “Do you suppose he’ll be like that when he’s forty?”

“I’ve had a list of guests prepared for the newspaper people,” said
Guy to Douglas Briggs. He liked to ignore Fanny’s jokes when they
reflected on his personal appearance. “It’ll save a lot of time. And
I’ve arranged to have them take supper in a room by themselves. They’ll
like that better.”

Briggs, however, had turned to the servant, who had just come into the
room. “Take the men up to the big room over the front door, Michael.
That’ll be the best place,” he went on, to his wife. “And have you
arranged about their hats and coats?”

“I’ve attended to all that, sir,” Guy said, eagerly.

Briggs looked relieved. “Well, I guess we needn’t worry.”

Helen glanced up into his face. “I’m not going to worry,” she said,
with a smile.

“Is the Secretary of State really coming?” Fanny asked.

“I believe so,” her aunt replied.

“If he speaks to me I shall faint away. Ugh!” The girl walked over to
Guy Fullerton. “You’ll have to do all the talking if you sit near me. I
shall be too scared to say a word. This is my first dinner, you know.”

“You poor thing!” Guy began; but Fanny cut him short.

“Don’t make stupid jokes, sir!”

Helen Briggs turned to the girl. “I’m only afraid you’ll talk too much,
Fanny.”

“If she does, we’ll send her from the table,” said Briggs.

Fanny wrinkled her nose at her uncle. “That funny little Frenchman’s to
sit on my left,” she said, turning to Guy. “Oh, I won’t do a thing to
him!”

“I want you to be particularly nice to young Clinton, of the British
Embassy,” Briggs replied. “He’s a first-rate fellow, but very shy. I
think perhaps you’ll amuse him.”

Guy at once looked uncomfortable. Fanny observed him, and laughed. “I
expect to have a lovely time,” she said, casting down her eyes demurely.

“Who’s going to take you out?” Briggs asked, glancing first at Fanny
and then at Guy.

“Mr. West,” Guy promptly replied.

Briggs looked puzzled. “What did you put her with him for?”

Fanny smiled knowingly. “Perhaps because he thought I’d be out of
danger,” she said demurely.

Briggs turned away impatiently. “Well, don’t you dare to flirt with
him, Fanny. He’s really dangerous.”

Guy’s face looked anxious. “It isn’t too late to change the
arrangement,” he said, wistfully, and they all laughed.

“Is it true that Mr. West is so wicked, Uncle Doug?” Fanny asked. “The
newspapers say awful things about him.”

“Well, the newspapers say awful things about everybody. They say awful
things about me.”

“Then they tell great big lies,” Fanny cried, rushing forward and
throwing her arms around her uncle’s neck.

“Fanny,” Mrs. Briggs remonstrated, “you’ll get your dress all ruffled.”

“Well, never mind,” said Fanny, philosophically, and she smiled at her
uncle. “I’d just like to meet someone that had been talking about you.”

“Gee, it’s a good thing you aren’t a man,” Guy remarked with a shake of
his head.

“Won’t she be a terrible little boss when she gets married?” Briggs
exclaimed, with a knowing look at the young fellow.

“I’m going to be just like Auntie,” said Fanny, and Briggs laughed
aloud.

“Then you’ll have to begin to change mighty quick.”

The door-bell rang and a few moments later the first guest appeared
in the drawing-room. During the next few moments several other guests
arrived and Fanny was kept busy helping her aunt to keep them amused
until dinner was announced. The announcement was delayed by the
tardiness of the Secretary of State, who was known for his punctuality
in business and for his indifference and unpunctuality in social
matters. When, finally, the great man entered, walking quickly but
maintaining, nevertheless, an air of deliberateness and suavity, Fanny
breathed a sigh of relief. She turned to Franklin West, who had taken
his place beside her.

“I’m starving,” she said.

“You poor child.” He looked down at her with his fine dark eyes.

“And yet I’m terribly frightened.”

“At what?” he said with a smile.

“Oh, all these wonderful men with their queer wives. Why do great men
marry such funny women, do you suppose?”

“Be careful, little girl,” West whispered.

Fanny shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not very diplomatic, am I?”

“Perhaps you’ll learn to be as you grow older,” he said, smiling again.
“Diplomacy usually comes with age. It’s only the very young who can
afford to be frank. It’s one of the graces of youth.”

Fanny flushed. “I believe you are making fun of me, Mr. West.”

“Oh, no,” West replied, gallantly. “I’m merely telling you the truth.”

The butler had entered and announced dinner and the procession was
about to start for the dining-room. “Don’t you think this is positively
_languishing_, Mr. West?” said Fanny, as she took the arm offered
her, and when he laughed aloud, she went on: “It’s been the dream of
my life to go to a dinner-party.” She sighed deeply. “And yet there’s
something sad when your dream is realized, isn’t there?”

“Well, I must say you’re complimentary, Miss Fanny,” West exclaimed.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean anything personal to _you_.”

“What did you mean then?”

“Well, I guess I mean that there won’t ever be any first dinner-party
for me again. I’m just foolish, that’s all.”

After helping Fanny in her seat, West took his place beside her. He had
been bored on learning that this child was to be his table companion;
now he felt somewhat amused.

“I can’t say that any of my dreams have been realized,” he remarked,
unfolding his napkin.

“You poor thing!” Fanny cried. Then she looked searchingly at his face.
“You don’t show any very great disappointment.”

Fanny glanced quickly around the table: many of the faces were partly
concealed from her by the masses of roses and ferns in the centre.
There was Guy, talking with that queer little woman from the Argentine
Republic, the wife of an under-secretary or something. Fanny wondered
vaguely how she had happened to be invited. Oh, she was supposed to be
intellectual or literary or something like that. Then Fanny smiled at
the thought of the way poor Guy would be bored. Suddenly she turned to
Franklin West.

“Who do you think is the prettiest woman here?”

“The prettiest woman?” West repeated, gallantly, emphasizing the noun.
“Well, I don’t think I should have to hesitate long about that.”

“Well, who?”

“Mrs. Douglas Briggs, of course.”

Fanny’s eyes rested affectionately on her aunt. “Of course,” she
agreed. “But somehow,” she went on, “I never think about Auntie as
pretty. I just think of her as good. I don’t believe she ever had a
mean thought or did a mean thing in her life. Don’t you think she’s
perfectly lovely?” she asked, inconsistently. Fanny looked up into
West’s face and noticed that it had flushed deeply.

“Yes, she is perfectly lovely,” he repeated in a low voice.

“Now, if I were a man I’d fall head over heels in love with her.”

“And then what would happen?” West asked, without taking his eyes off
Mrs. Briggs’s face.

“Why, I’d marry her, of course.”

“And what would become of Mr. Briggs?”

“Uncle Doug?” Fanny asked in surprise. “Oh, I’d have fallen in love
long before he came along.”

“But suppose you’d fallen in love after he came along?”

Fanny wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like to suppose unpleasant things,”
she replied. “Anyway, there’s only one man in the world good enough for
her.”

“Who’s that?”

“The man that she married, of course,” Fanny exclaimed.

The dinner proved to be a perfect success. When the great men at the
table learned that it was Fanny Wallace’s first dinner-party they
paid her such attention that she let herself go completely and kept
them laughing by her naïve impertinences. The sight of young Clinton
gave Guy Fullerton deep relief; he knew that the blotched-faced, thin
and anæmic Englishman, with the ponderous manner of the embryonic
statesman, would appeal only to Fanny’s sense of humor. Fanny, indeed,
was the centre of interest throughout the dinner; even the great men’s
wives petted her. When the ladies left the table to go into the
drawing-room Helen had a chance to whisper to her: “My dear, you’ve
been splendid. I sha’n’t dare give any more dinner-parties without you.”

“Oh, aren’t they lovely?” Fanny cried, rolling her eyes. “Only I talked
so much I forgot all about eating anything. I’m actually hungry.”

The guests for the reception began to arrive shortly after nine
o’clock. Long before this hour, however, the sidewalk near the house
was crowded with curiosity-seekers, in which the colored population of
Washington was numerously represented. Guy hurried from point to point,
giving directions to the servants, offering greetings, and showing his
fine, white teeth in frank, boyish enjoyment of his importance. As the
newspaper people came, he exaggerated his cordiality; some of the men
he addressed by their first names. “You’ll find the list of guests all
ready for you, old man,” he remarked, placing his hand on the shoulder
of one of them, “in the little room just leading off the dining-room.
Down there. And there’s everything else you can want, there at the
sideboard,” he added, significantly, with the consciousness of being
very much a man of the world. “I knew you newspaper people would like
to have a place to yourselves.”




II


“Well, I guess I _am_ mad! I’ve never been treated so in all my
life!”

Miss Beatrice Wing swept indignantly down the stairs into the
conservatory. The interior of the house, planned after the Colonial
fashion, was filled with surprising little flights of steps and with
delightful irregularities.

“Still, it was a very good supper,” said Mrs. McShane behind her. She
kept hesitating before the younger woman’s elaborate train. Her voice
was one of those plaintive little pipes that belong to many small and
timid women. Compared with Miss Wing and her radiant millinery, she
seemed shriveled and impoverished.

“Oh, what difference does it make, anyway?” This time the voice
was loud and sonorous. It came from William Farley, Washington
correspondent of the New York _Gazette_, a thick-set man with
a face that was boyish in spite of the fine web of wrinkles around
each eye. He looked the personification of amiability, and was plainly
amused by the young woman’s indignation.

Miss Wing sank into one of the wicker seats and proceeded to fan
herself vigorously, throwing back her head and letting the light flash
from the gems on her round, white neck. “Well, I believe in standing on
your dignity.”

“I didn’t know we had any,” said Farley, with a laugh.

Miss Wing turned to a young woman who was extravagantly dressed in a
gray-flowered silk, and who had just followed Mrs. McShane down the
steps. “Listen to that, will you, Emily? I once heard Mrs. Briggs say
that she hated newspaper people,” she added, to the group.

Farley looked down from the head of the steps and smiled pleasantly.
“That doesn’t sound like Mrs. Briggs!”

Miss Wing sat bolt upright and let her fan drop into her lap. “Well, if
I had known we were going to be shoved off for supper to a side room
like that, I’d never have come. I didn’t come as a reporter, anyway.”

“What did you come as?” Farley asked, as he slowly descended the
stairs, brushing against the tall palms on either side. From the other
rooms music came faintly, mingled with talk and laughter.

“I came as a friend of Congressman Briggs,” Miss Wing replied, with
spirit.

Farley took a seat at a small table beside the miniature fountain. In
the little stream that ran through the grass goldfish were nervously
darting. “Wasn’t the invitation sent to the office?” He drew out some
sheets of paper and proceeded to make notes. He had the air of not
taking the discussion seriously. More important affairs were on his
mind.

“No matter. It was addressed to me personally.” Miss Wing turned for
corroboration to Emily Moore, who had sunk into the seat near her.

“So was mine,” Miss Moore echoed.

Farley smiled, without glancing up from his writing. “How about yours,
Mrs. McShane?”

Mrs. McShane, who always looked frightened, seemed at this moment
painfully conscious of the shabbiness of her black silk gown. But she
managed to reply: “I found mine in my letter-box this afternoon.”

“It had been sent to the paper, of course,” Farley remarked,
decisively, as if expecting no answer.

Mrs. McShane nodded. “I’ve never done anything like this before. I
do the temperance column in the Saturday paper, and the news of the
churches.”

The young women exchanged glances.

“Oh, well,” Farley remarked, cheerfully, “these ladies will help you
out. I’m relying on them for the dresses myself.”

Miss Wing and Miss Moore rose and walked to the farthest corner of
the conservatory. By some physical expression they seemed to wish to
indicate that a marked difference existed between themselves and the
shabby, careworn little figure in black.

Mrs. McShane looked relieved. Her face brightened. “It’s a beautiful
reception, isn’t it?” she said to Farley, in an awe-stricken voice.

Farley looked vaguely about the room, as if making an estimate. “Yes,”
he said, slowly. “It must have cost Briggs a tidy bit of money.”

Mrs. McShane opened wide her eyes. “And the champagne!” she whispered.

Miss Wing, who had started to walk slowly back to the table, exclaimed
to her companion:

“And we didn’t have a chance to see anything!”

“Oh, well, you can go in after they’ve finished,” Farley remarked,
good-naturedly.

Miss Wing assumed an air of decision. “I shall complain to Congressman
Briggs of the way we’ve been treated.”

“Oh, let him alone,” said Farley. “He’s got enough on his mind.
Besides, in our business it doesn’t pay to be ruffled by little things.”

“Well, I don’t see why newspaper work should prevent us from keeping
our self-respect!” Miss Wing exclaimed, excitedly. “To be treated like
a lot of servants!”

“Or like people who have forced themselves in, without being invited!”
Miss Moore added.

Farley, however, kept on writing. “To do newspaper work,” he commented,
with exasperating coolness, “you mustn’t have any feelings.”

“The people you meet certainly don’t!” snapped Miss Moore.

Miss Wing turned in the direction of the drawing-room, where, from the
sound of voices, most of the guests seemed to be gathering. “Well, I’d
like to know who these people are, that they presume to treat us so,”
she said, speaking in a loud voice, as if she wished to be overheard.
“Who is Mrs. Briggs, anyway? And who are all this rag-and-bobtail? The
Wings of Virginia have something back of them. They haven’t got their
respectability from political trickery, anyway.”

Mrs. McShane, who had been sitting, with bewilderment in her eyes, as
if hardly knowing what to do, suddenly appealed to Farley. “I’ve got to
get my copy in by one o’clock at the latest,” she said in a whisper.
“It must be nearly twelve now.”

“Come and get down to work, then, before anyone comes in here,” Farley
replied. “I suppose you have the list of guests that young Fullerton
passed round?”

As Mrs. McShane and Farley bent over the table, the butler entered,
bearing a tray covered with cups of coffee. Mrs. McShane and Farley
took coffee, which they sipped as they worked. The others refused it.
As Farley took his cup he said, “Good-evening, Michael,” and the man
smiled and replied, “Good-evening, sir.”

“I feel like tearing up my list,” said Miss Wing, as she held the
printed slip in her gloved hand. “I see,” she went on, addressing Miss
Moore, “they’ve got the Westmorelands down. Is Lady Westmoreland
here?” she asked, as Michael was about to ascend the steps.

“She’s been here, ma’am, but she went away before supper.”

Miss Wing’s lip curled. “Oh, well, they _got_ her, didn’t they?”
Before Michael had time to vanish she cried: “And is Stone here?”

“Who, ma’am?” the servant asked, turning again. His manner subtly
conveyed resentment and dislike.

Miss Wing repeated: “_Mr._ Stone.”

“He’s in the drawing-room, ma’am; I just saw him in there.”

Miss Wing turned to her companion. “Just think of their having Stone
here! Suppose we go and see if we can find him? I’d like to see how
he looks in society. I shouldn’t be surprised to find him in his
shirt sleeves. Well, Congressman Briggs knows which side his bread is
buttered on. He keeps solid with the Boss.”

Farley stopped work for a moment. “I wonder who prepared this list!” he
said to Mrs. McShane. “Good idea!”

“How do you happen to be doing society work, Mr. Farley?” the old woman
asked.

Farley smiled. “Well, it is rather out of my line, I must admit. If I
had to do this sort of thing very much I’d quit the business. But our
little Miss Carey is sick, and she was afraid she’d lose her job if she
didn’t cover this.”

The wistful look deepened in Mrs. McShane’s face. “So you said you’d
do it! You must have a kind heart, Mr. Farley. Oh, I wish they’d give
a description of the dresses with the list of guests!” she added,
despairingly. “It would save us a lot of bother.”

“I’ve a good mind to fake my stuff about the frocks,” Miss Wing
interposed.

Mrs. McShane looked shocked. “But suppose your managing editor should
find it out?”

“Pooh! What do editors know about frocks?” Miss Wing spoke with a fine
superiority. “I’ve noticed that they always like my faked things best,
anyway.”

“You have a wonderful imagination, dear,” Miss Moore remarked,
admiringly.

“Well, I don’t know how I’d ever get through my articles if I didn’t.
The last time I went over to New York I called on all the leading
women tailors and dressmakers, and I couldn’t get a thing out of them,
and the next day I had to write five thousand words on the new Spring
fashions.”

Miss Moore rolled her eyes. “What in the world did you do?” she said,
with an affectation of voice and manner that suggested years of
practice.

Miss Wing smiled. “Well,” she replied, after a moment, “I had a
perfectly beautiful time writing that article. I made up everything in
it. I prophesied the most extraordinary changes in women’s clothes. And
do you know, some of them have really come about since! I suppose some
of the other papers copied my stuff. And then, I actually invented some
new materials!”

The pupils of Miss Moore’s eyes expanded in admiration. “I wish I had
your nerve!” she said, earnestly.

Under the warmth of flattery Miss Wing began to brighten. “And what do
you suppose happened?” she said, exultantly. “The paper had a whole
raft of letters asking where those materials could be bought. One
woman out in Ohio declared she’d been in New York, and she’d hunted
everywhere to get the embossed silk that I’d described.”

Farley smiled grimly. “That woman’s going to get along in the world,”
he muttered to Mrs. McShane. “In five years she’ll be a notorious
lobbyist, with a hundred thousand dollars in the bank.”

By this time Miss Wing had tired of the isolation of the conservatory.
The interest of the evening was plainly centred in the drawing-room.
“Come, dear,” she said, drawing her arm around Miss Moore’s, “let’s
walk about and get a look at the people.”

As the two women started to mount the steps they were met by Franklin
West, whose smiling face suddenly lost and resumed its radiance as
his eyes caught sight of them. The effect was not unlike that of the
winking of an electric light. The women either did not observe, or they
deliberately ignored the effect upon him of the encounter, or possibly
they misinterpreted it. At any rate, it made no appreciable diminution
of their own expression of pleasure.

Miss Wing extended her hand. “Why, how do you do, Mr. West?” Miss Moore
only smiled; in the presence of her companion she seemed instinctively
to reduce herself to a subordinate position.

Franklin West took the gloved hand, that gave a pressure somewhat
more prolonged than the conventional greeting. “I’m delighted to
see you here,” he said, the radiance of his smile once more firmly
established. His face, Miss Wing noticed, was unusually flushed. She
suspected that he was ill at ease. As he spoke he showed his large
white teeth, and his brown eyes, that would have been handsome but
for their complete lack of candor, wore a friendly glow. Miss Wing
considered West one of the most baffling men in Washington, and one
of the most fascinating. His features were strong and bold; his chin
would have been disagreeably prominent but for the good offices of his
thick black mustache, which created a pleasant regularity of outline.
His complexion was singularly clear for a man’s, and he had noticeably
long and beautiful hands. Miss Wing had often wondered how old he was.
He might have been forty; he might have been fifty; he could easily
have passed for a man of thirty-five. His was plainly one of those
natures that turn a smiling front on life. In fact, Franklin West had
long since definitely formulated an agreeable system of philosophy:
he liked to say that it was far better for a man not to try to adjust
circumstances to himself, but to adjust himself to circumstances;
that, after all, was the only true secret of living, especially--but
he usually made this comment to himself alone--of living in a city
like Washington. At this moment he was adjusting himself to a most
unpleasant circumstance, for in his attitude toward women he had a few
decided prejudices, one of the strongest of which was typified by the
Washington woman correspondent.

“Where are you going?” he asked, when he had offered his hand to Miss
Moore, vainly searching for her name in the catalogue of newspaper
acquaintances. These newspaper people were great bores; but he must be
civil to them.

“Well, we felt like going home,” Miss Wing pouted. “But now that you’re
here, perhaps we’ll stay.”

West looked at her with an expression of exaggerated solicitude.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“We’ve been neglected--shamefully,” Miss Wing replied.

“They put us in a side-room,” Miss Moore interposed, “with the
reporters.”

“It’s a mistake, of course,” West remarked. “Mrs. Briggs will be very
sorry when she hears about it. Have you been through the rooms?”

Miss Wing shook her head. “We haven’t been anywhere,” she said,
plaintively.

“Then let me take you into the drawing-room. Mrs. Briggs is----”

“She’s always near where you are, Mr. West,” Miss Wing interrupted,
with a malicious smile. “I feel as if I had no right to appropriate
you.” She glanced affectionately at her companion. “Shall we go, dear,
or shall we send him back to our hostess?”

“I think we ought to send him back,” Miss Moore replied, taking her cue.

Miss Wing turned to West, her face shining with generosity. “So run
along. We’ll be generous--for once.”

For a moment West looked confused. Then he recovered himself. “I
certainly do admire Mrs. Briggs, but that doesn’t keep me--” he assumed
his most intense look--“from admiring others.”

Miss Wing threw back her fine shoulders. “Oh, if you’re going to pay
_compliments_, we’ll certainly keep you. Come along, dear.”




III


The departure of the two women with West gave Mrs. McShane and Farley a
chance to work rapidly for several moments. Mrs. McShane, whose years
of experience had not developed speed in writing, kept glancing every
now and then at Farley in admiration of his skill. He was evidently
preparing a general description of the evening, which promised to be
remembered, according to Mrs. McShane’s report, “as one of the most
brilliant events in a Washington Winter remarkable for the brilliancy
of its entertainments.” The old woman had read that phrase somewhere,
and she had already used it several times, each time with a growing
fear of detection by her editors. But for such sonorous phrases she
would have had some difficulty in continuing her newspaper work. During
one of her pauses Farley remarked, pleasantly:

“Inspiration given out, Mrs. McShane?”

“Oh, if I could only compose like you, Mr. Farley!” she replied,
enviously.

Farley laughed. “I guess you’ll be all right,” he said.

“Sometimes I think I oughtn’t ever to have gone into newspaper work,”
the old woman went on, pathetically. “I don’t know enough.”

“Oh, you don’t have to know anything to do this kind of work,” said
Farley. Then he felt sorry. He looked up quickly, but Mrs. McShane had
apparently noticed nothing in the remark to wound her feelings.

“Perhaps I can help you,” Farley went on, in a kindly tone. “I’ve been
trying to do my article in a different way from the usual society
article. I should think people would get sick of reading the same old
things about the entertainments here. Besides, this party is given more
to show off Briggs’s house than anything else; so I’ve been giving
up a lot of space to a description of the place itself. It’s one of
Hanscomb’s houses, you know--that big Boston architect, who’s been
getting such a lot of advertising lately. He’s one of the best men in
his line we’ve ever had. He’s modeled it on the Colonial style, which
is fashionable again. I know a little something about architecture. I
studied it once for six months in New York, before I began newspaper
work. So I’m sort of spreading myself. Now, you might do something like
that.”

“But that wouldn’t be fair to you, Mr. Farley,” said the old woman.

“No, I don’t mean that,” Farley went on. “You might make a lot out of
the floral decorations and the color scheme in the rooms. People like
to hear about those things. Didn’t you notice how the library was in
Empire----?”

The old woman shook her head. “Oh, I don’t understand about these
things,” she interrupted. “I don’t know enough.”

Farley laughed again. “Well, I’ll tell you. You see, in the first
place, Briggs didn’t have a professional decorator, as so many people
do nowadays. This place doesn’t look like a professional decorator’s
house, does it? Do you know why? Simply because Briggs has a wife whose
taste is the very best in the world.” Farley’s face brightened; his
eyes shone. “You know Mrs. Briggs, don’t you?”

“Yes; I was sent to interview her once. She wouldn’t let me interview
her, but she was so nice about it I couldn’t help liking her.”

“Ah, she’s fine to everyone!” Farley exclaimed, enthusiastically. “I
never knew anyone to meet her without--” He checked himself suddenly,
and his face flushed. “But we must get down to work. Look here. You’ve
been over the house, haven’t you? Well, I’ll describe the principal
features as quickly as I can, and you can work ’em up.”

“But how about your own article?” Mrs. McShane inquired, anxiously.

“Oh, that’ll be all right. I’ve got it half-done already.”

For several moments Farley talked rapidly and Mrs. McShane took notes.
She kept looking up at him in awe of his skill in observation. What
a mind he must have, to be able to see so much at a glance! When, at
last, she took a moment to offer a compliment, he replied, with a smile:

“Oh, this isn’t the result of my looking the place over to-night,” he
said. “I know Mrs. Briggs a little, and I’ve talked the house over with
her many times. In fact, I’ve had a hand in it myself.”

As he spoke Farley turned at the sound of a footstep on the stairs. His
face brightened, and he started to rise from his seat.

“Good-evening, Congressman,” he said.

Douglas Briggs walked quickly down the steps. The exhilaration of the
evening made him appear at his best. His gray eye was clear, and his
brown hair, and lighter mustache, closely trimmed to his lip, gave him
a look of youth.

“Oh, hello, Farley!” he said; “what are you doing here?” Then he
observed the little woman at the table. “Why, bless my soul! Mrs.
McShane, I’m delighted to see you.” He grasped Mrs. McShane’s hand
cordially; then he turned, smiling at Farley.

“Great night for you, Congressman,” said the journalist.

Briggs shook his head deprecatingly. “For Mrs. Briggs, you mean. This
is her blow-out.”

Mrs. McShane gathered courage to speak. “And she’s looking beautiful
to-night, sir,” she said in a half-whisper.

Briggs let his hand rest affectionately on the old woman’s arm. “My
dear lady,” he said, in the confidential manner that had won friends
for him all through life, “between you and me, she’s the prettiest
woman in Washington. But you mustn’t put that in the paper.”

Mrs. McShane glowed. “I won’t, sir; but it’s true, just the same.”

Briggs glanced from Mrs. McShane to Farley and again at Mrs. McShane.
“What are you two people doing in here, all alone?” he asked, in the
tone of the host who catches his guests moping.

“We’re trying to get some notes together,” Farley explained. “But we’re
all at sea about the dresses,” he added, with a smile.

The music had just ceased, and they heard a rustle of skirts in the
next room. Suddenly Fanny Wallace stood among the palms. As she was
looking back over her shoulder she did not observe the group in the
conservatory.

“Isn’t it good to get out of the crowd?” she said, when Guy Fullerton
had come up to her. Suddenly she turned and glanced through the palm
leaves. “Oh, I didn’t know anyone was here!”

“You’re just the person we’re looking for, my dear,” Douglas Briggs
exclaimed. “This is Fanny Wallace, my wife’s niece, Mrs. McShane.
She’ll take you through the rooms. She knows all about the pretty
frocks. It’s all she thinks about.”

Fanny looked reproachfully at Briggs. Then she darted toward the old
woman. “Oh, Mrs. McShane, I want you to see Mrs. Senator Aspinwall’s
dress before she leaves. It’s gorgeous.” She turned to the youth,
who had dropped into conversation with Farley, and seized him by
the coat-sleeve. “Mrs. McShane, this is Mr. Fullerton,” she said,
impressively, “Mr. Guy Fullerton. He’s a very important young man,”
she went on. “He’s my uncle’s secretary. Think of that! _You_ can
come, too, infant, if you like,” she concluded, with a change of tone.
“You need to learn something about frocks.”

The young man laughed good-humoredly and followed Fanny, who
had unceremoniously taken Mrs. McShane by the arm. As they were
disappearing, Farley called out: “I’ll rely on you, Mrs. McShane.”

Fanny replied for the old woman. “We’ll be in the conservatory in half
an hour with yards of description. Oh, this is lovely!” she exclaimed,
with a little jump. “I always wanted to be a newspaper woman.”

As soon as they were alone Farley walked toward Douglas Briggs. “This
is a good chance for me to ask you something, sir,” he said.

Briggs smiled. “Have a cigar first, won’t you? Oh, I forgot. I
promised Mrs. Briggs there should be no smoking here. We might go out
on the balcony or up to the smoking-room.”

Farley shook his head. “Thanks; no. I won’t smoke just now. And I won’t
detain you more than a minute.” He hesitated. “What I’m going to ask
seems a little like a violation of hospitality,” he remarked, with a
look of embarrassment.

“My dear fellow, there’s no such thing as a violation of hospitality in
the case of a man in public life,” said Briggs, pleasantly.

“Well, it’s simply this: We want to deny the story about you that’s
going all over Washington. It hasn’t got into the papers yet, but
I happen to know that the New York _Chronicle_ has it, and is
thinking of publishing it.”

Briggs looked grave. In repose his face took on years; the lines around
the mouth deepened, and the eyes grew tired and dull. “What story?”

“Why, the story that you are in that Transcontinental Railway deal.”

“Oh, that!” Briggs threw back his head and laughed, but with a
suggestion of bitterness. “Why, to my certain knowledge, they’ve been
saying that about me for the past five years--ever since I entered
Congress. In fact, there’s hardly been a big political steal that I
haven’t been in.”

“But the _Chronicle_ people are pretty strong, you know,” Farley
insisted.

“I don’t give a snap of my finger for them.”

“Then you won’t let me deny the story for you?” There was a ring of
disappointment in Farley’s voice.

For a moment Briggs did not speak. Then he said, slowly: “Farley, I
know you mean all right, and I know you’d like to do me a good turn.
You _Gazette_ people have been mighty good friends to me. You’ve
stood by me when I had almost no other friends on the independent
press; in fact, no friends.”

Farley’s brow knotted. “But if you’ll only let us show there’s nothing
in the story!”

Briggs shook his head. “No, not one word! I discovered before I’d
been in public life three months it was simply a waste of time to
deny campaign stories. When a man goes into politics,” he concluded,
bitterly, “he makes himself the target of all the blackguards in the
country.”

“But, Congressman,” Farley pleaded, “just a word would be enough.”

“No. I’m older than you are, and I know what I’m talking about. I care
so little about this particular story that I made a point of getting
Franklin West to come here to-night. He’s the man, you know, who’s
supposed to be at the bottom of that railroad scandal.”

“There’s not another man in your position who’d dare to take the bull
by the horns like that,” said Farley, his brow clearing.

“I assure you,” Briggs replied, reassuming his confidential manner,
“it’s the only way of treating the bull.”

Farley held out his hand. “I’m glad to have had this little talk with
you, Congressman.”

Briggs took the hand firmly. “Look in on me at the House to-morrow; I
may have something for you.”

“Thank you,” said Farley, as he ascended the steps.




IV


Douglas Briggs stood motionless. His face was hot; he could feel his
pulse beating in his temples. Sometimes he wondered if he betrayed the
fever that the mere mention of that railroad and the scandals connected
with it always caused him. The music had begun again, and he could hear
the dancers and the loud talk, broken by laughter. Some of the voices
he recognized, among them Fanny’s and Guy Fullerton’s. His wife’s voice
he could not hear. He started at the sound of a quick footfall. When
he looked up Franklin West’s white teeth were gleaming at him from the
head of the stairs.

“Oh, here you are!” said West. “I’ve been trying to get a chance to
speak to you all evening.” He looked hard at Briggs, and the smile
faded. “Anything the matter?”

Briggs drew his arm away and West let his hand drop to his side. “Yes.
Farley, of the New York _Gazette_--you know him, don’t you? I’ve
just been having a talk with him--he says the _Chronicle_ is
getting ready to jump on me.”

West lifted his brows with a nice imitation of surprise. “About what?”

“About our precious railroad business, of course.”

West looked relieved. “They can’t hurt you,” he said, contemptuously.

“I’m not so sure about that. A paper like the _Chronicle_ carries
weight. It’s not like the small fry that have been knifing me lately.”

West turned quickly. This time he betrayed a suggestion of genuine
feeling. “But, my dear man, what can they say?”

“They can say what all Washington is saying,” Briggs replied, fiercely.
“They can say I’ve taken money to push that bill through the House.
They can queer my re-election.”

West drew out a silver-ornamented cigar-case and offered it to Briggs.
“You have a very bald way of expressing yourself sometimes. Have one?”

Briggs lifted his hand in refusal, with a suggestion of disgust and
impatience. West deliberately lighted his cigar, puffed it, and then
looked closely at the burning end. “Taking money,” he repeated, as
if addressing the cigar--“that’s a very disagreeable expression! It
isn’t,” he added, with a laugh, “it isn’t professional.” He waited as
if expecting to receive a reply from Briggs. Then he asked, with a lift
of his eyebrows: “Besides, why shouldn’t you?”

“Why shouldn’t I what?”

“Why shouldn’t you take money for the work you’ve done? You earned it.”

Briggs rose from his seat. His face clouded. “Then why should I lie
about it every time the subject is mentioned? Why should I try to
bamboozle that decent young fellow who was in this room a moment ago?
He believes in me. He believes that I’m an honest man, a statesman, a
patriot. He believes that I think of nothing, care for nothing, work
for nothing, but the welfare of the people who elected me.”

West smiled. “He must be an awful ass!” he remarked, quietly.

In spite of his disgust Briggs gave a short laugh. “He--oh, well!” He
turned away as if the sight of West had become suddenly obnoxious.
“Have you ever believed in anyone in your life, West?” he asked,
keeping his face averted.

“Oh, yes,” West replied. “In you, for example. I believed in you the
first time I saw you. I knew you were going to get there.”

Briggs looked at him as if examining a curiosity. “That was why you
helped me?”

“Certainly,” West acknowledged, with a resumption of his large smile.

“You knew that some time I’d be useful to you?”

“You’re brutal now, Briggs.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“One doesn’t refer in that way to any service, however slight,” West
remarked, in the soft voice of conscious politeness.

“True,” Briggs replied, bitterly. “But you must admit the payment has
been rather hard.”

“Most people wouldn’t think so. When you came to me, five years ago,
you were on the verge of bankruptcy, and you hadn’t even begun to make
your reputation.” West looked at Briggs to observe the effect of his
words. Then he continued, with a wave of his hand: “And now see what
you are! You’ve made a big name. You’re a power. You have all the
swells in Washington at your parties. If you had gone under, five
years ago, you never could have retrieved yourself. You know that as
well as I do.”

“And how much satisfaction do you suppose my success has given me?”
Briggs exclaimed. “Since I began to prosper here I’ve not had one
really happy moment.”

West laughed.

“You don’t believe that?”

“Of course I don’t. You’re blue, that’s all. That newspaper man has
hurt your feelings. That’s your only fault, Briggs--you’re too easily
hurt. You want to have everybody’s good opinion.”

“I could get along with my own,” Briggs replied, quietly.

“By helping to put that bill through the House you’re doing the country
a thousand times more good than you’ve ever accomplished through those
reform schemes of yours. You aren’t practical enough, Briggs. Solid
facts are good enough for me.”

“I’ve observed that,” said Briggs, without a change of expression.

“But I’ll tell you what you can do,” West went on, ignoring his host’s
manner, “since that conscience of yours is bothering you so much. You
can vote against the bill. That’s what I wanted to speak to you about.
It would be a very good move just now.”

Briggs looked interested. “How vote against it?” he said, wrinkling his
forehead.

“Simply vote,” West replied, with a smile and a wave of the hand.

“After all the work I’ve done for it?” Briggs asked, in astonishment.

“Who’s to know about that? If you like you can get up in the House and
explain why you’ve changed your mind.”

“_Speak_ against it, too?” Briggs could not resist the temptation
to lure West on. The revelation of the workings of this man’s mind had
a fascination for him; they were strangely free from any relation to
the principles which he had always believed in, if he had not always
practised them.

“Yes. That will turn the tables on the papers that have been attacking
you. It will make you seem like a martyr, too. It’s worth thousands of
votes to you.”

Briggs walked slowly across the conservatory. His curiosity had
suddenly changed to strong temptation. After all, the scheme was
practicable. It was merely another expression of the deceit he had
been practising for years. In spite of his confidence in his safety,
it would be wise for him to take every precaution to protect his
reputation. The attacks on his character by the opposition papers would
probably grow more violent as the time for his re-election approached.
But at the thought of getting up in the House and attacking the bill he
had worked for, of making himself an object of contempt to the very men
who were his partners in the deal, he turned sick. “No, thank you,” he
said, suddenly. “I may have done worse things, but I couldn’t do that!”
For a moment, in spite of the sordid quality of his motive, he had the
delicious exhilaration of feeling that he had resisted a temptation.

West shrugged his shoulders. “It’s what Aspinwall has done over and
over again in the Senate. It doesn’t seem to hurt him. He’s one of the
most popular men in the country--and the biggest fraud,” he added, with
a laugh.

Briggs had begun to pace the narrow walk of the conservatory. He
stopped as if on impulse. “West!” he said.

West looked up in surprise. “Well?”

“I have something to say to you. I’ll stand by you in this railroad
business till it goes through. I’ll vote for the bill, because I’ve
pledged myself to it. You can get along without my vote, I know. The
bill is sure to pass. But if there’s any odium to be attached to me for
supporting it, I’ll take the consequences.”

“Oh! I thought you were a little nervous about your election, that’s
all,” West remarked, carelessly.

The lines running from the corners of Briggs’s mouth deepened. “I’ve
lied pretty constantly so far, and I suppose I’ll go on lying till the
deal goes through.”

“That won’t be till the next session. We never can bring it up before
adjournment.”

Briggs apparently did not hear this speech. “But remember one thing,”
he went on, as if continuing his previous remark, “it’s the last
official work you need expect me to do for you. Any personal service
I shall be only too glad to do. Whatever your motives may have been,
you stood by me when I needed a friend. You made my career possible.
I should be an ingrate to forget that. But we’re quits. In future, I
propose to keep my hands free.”

West rose from his seat and walked toward Briggs. His face betrayed
that he was trying to hide a feeling of amusement. These spasms of
virtue on the part of Briggs always gave him a pleasant feeling of
superiority. “My dear fellow,” he said, laying his hand on Briggs’s
shoulder, “you’ve been a brick through the whole business. Stand by me
till the bill goes through. That’s all we expect. Only don’t try to be
too ideal, you know,” he urged, gently. “Ideals are very pretty things,
but they won’t work in practical politics. If the Government were
run by ideals it wouldn’t last six months. Legislation’s a business,
like everything else that brings in money, and the shrewdest men are
going to get the biggest returns. Think of all the men we’ve known
who’ve been sent home from Washington simply because they’ve been
over-zealous! But I must hurry back to the drawing-room. I’m in the
clutches of two newspaper women. I only broke away for a moment on a
pretext. I’ll see you later in the evening.”

Briggs watched West disappear. Then he sank on the wicker seat again.
This interview was only one of many similar talks he had had with
the lobbyist; but each new encounter had the result of heaping fresh
humiliation on him. He had always disliked West. The first time that
he met the fellow he had felt an instinctive mistrust of him. Now the
dislike had become so bitter that he could hardly keep from showing it.
Sometimes, indeed, he did not try to hide it, and it seemed as if West
only pretended that he did not observe it; or as if, indeed, it only
amused him. Briggs recalled, with helpless misery, the steps by which
he had bound himself to one of those men who used their knowledge of
the law to spread corruption in politics. He had come to Washington
full of ambition and eager for reform, with an inspiring sense that he
had been chosen to be a leader in a great work. Soon he discovered how
small an influence he was able to exert. After a few months, however,
his personal qualities, his faculty of putting himself on confidential
terms with people, made friends for him even in the opposition party.
The first time he spoke in the House, his remarks, faltering and
vague, had made a poor impression. At that trying moment his ease and
eloquence had left him. For several months he was too discouraged to
try again. He found it easy, as many another man had done, to drift
with the political tide. One day, however, he suddenly lost his
self-consciousness in a debate on a pension bill in which he had been
taking a deep interest. He threw himself into it with vehemence, making
two speeches that were reproduced in part by nearly all the big papers
in the country. Those speeches gave him a national reputation. The
leaders in Congress took an interest in him; their wives discovered
that Mrs. Briggs was worth knowing. He felt more pride in his wife’s
success than in his own. He became dissatisfied with his hotel rooms
and took a house that proved to be nearly twice as expensive as he
thought it could possibly be. In return for hospitalities he had to
give elaborate entertainments. His wife remonstrated; he reassured her,
and she trusted him. At the end of the year he owed fifteen thousand
dollars.

It was then that he had first met Franklin West. He recalled now with
shame his own ingenuous dealings with the lobbyist. In spite of his
misgivings, he had accepted the fellow’s offer of help; he had placed
himself under such obligations that only two courses were open to him,
both, as it seemed, dishonorable--to go into bankruptcy and to ruin
his future career, or to become West’s agent, his tool. At the time,
he thought he was making a choice between two evils, and he tried to
justify himself by the exigencies of the situation and by the plea that
his public services more than justified his course. After all, if the
Government did not pay its legislators enough to enable them to live as
they must live in Washington, it was only fair that the matter should
be squared. But it was only in his worst moments that he resorted to
this argument.

Like most buoyant natures, Douglas Briggs often had sudden attacks
of depression. His talk with Farley, followed by the interview with
Franklin West, had taken away all his enthusiasm. Farley, he thought
bitterly, had just said that this was a great night for him. Yes, it
was a great night. It advertised him before the country as one of
the most successful men in Washington and one of the richest men in
Congress. What if the papers did ask where he got his money? They were
always asking such questions about public men. He need have no fear of
them. It was from himself that his punishment must come.

The opening of the new house, this magnificent ball--what real
satisfaction could it give him? He could not feel even the elation of
victory. He had won no victory. This ball, this house, stood for his
defeat, his failure, for the failure that meant a life of deceit, of
concealment, of covert hypocrisy. Even from the woman he loved beyond
the hope of salvation he must hide his real self. He must let her
think he was someone else, the man she wished him to be, the man she
had tried to make him. Their children, too, would be taught by her, he
would teach them himself, to honor him. They would learn the principles
by which he must be judged.




V


“What’s the matter, dear?”

Douglas Briggs looked up quickly. “Oh, is that you, Helen?” He smiled
into his wife’s face and took her hand. In spite of her matronly figure
Helen Briggs did not look her thirty-five years. She had the bright
eyes and the fresh coloring of a girl.

“I stole away just for a minute,” she said. “I got so tired of smiling.”

“So did I. Come over here and let me kiss the tired place.” She
took a seat beside her husband and turned her cheek toward him,
with the amused patience of the married woman who has ceased to be
demonstrative. “I know the feeling,” said her husband, with his fingers
at the corners of his mouth. “Muscles in here.”

Helen sighed. “Horrid, isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s all part of the game, I suppose. Whew!”

“What was that for?” she asked, quickly.

Briggs patted her hand. “Nothing, dear, nothing. They say it’s a great
success.”

“I was frightened about the supper; but everything has gone off well.”

Briggs looked into his wife’s face. “Helen, sometimes I wonder what
would become of me if it weren’t for you.”

“What a foolish thing to say, Douglas!”

“Someone told me to-night that I’d been successful here in Washington
because I had such a popular wife. I guess there was a good deal of
truth in that.”

She drew her hand away and let it rest on her lap. “Nonsense! You’ve
succeeded because you’ve worked hard, and because you’ve had the
courage of your convictions.”

“Oh!” In the dim light she could not see the change of expression in
his face.

“And I suppose you’ve had a little ability, too,” she conceded, with a
smile.

For a moment they sat in silence.

“Helen!” he said.

“Well?”

“Sometimes I feel as if I hadn’t a shred of character left, as if I
couldn’t stand this political life any longer, with its insincerities,
its intrigues, its indecencies. Now, these people here to-night--what
do they care about us? Nothing. They come here, and they eat and drink
and dance, and then they go away and blacken my character.”

She turned quickly, with astonishment in her face. “Why, Douglas!”

“I shouldn’t talk like this, dear, especially at this time, when you
have so much on your mind.” He took her hand again and held it tightly.
“Helen, do you ever wonder if it’s worth while--all this?”

“This display, do you mean?”

“Yes; this society business. I’m sick of it. Sometimes it makes
me--well, it makes me long for those old days in Waverly, when we were
so happy together. Even if we were poor we had each other, didn’t we?”

“Yes.”

“And we had our ambitions and our foolish aspirations. They helped to
make us happy.”

She drew closer to him. “But they weren’t foolish, Douglas. That is,
yours weren’t. And think how you’ve realized all you hoped for already!”

Douglas Briggs drew a long breath. “Yes, I’ve got what I wanted. But
the reality is considerably different from what I thought it was going
to be. I suppose that’s true of nearly every kind of success. We have
to pay for it some way. Why, Helen, there are whole days when you and I
don’t have five minutes together!”

“That’s because you have so much to do, dear. I used to mind it at
first. But then I saw it couldn’t be helped.”

“And you’ve been too good to complain. I’ve understood that all along.”

“I didn’t want to stand in the way of your work, Douglas. I could
afford to make a few sacrifices, after all you’d done for me.”

“Never mind. Just as soon as I can break away from Washington we’ll
have a good long holiday. If Congress doesn’t hang on till Summer,
perhaps we can take a little trip abroad. We’ll go to Scotland and hunt
up those people of yours that your father was always talking about.
Then we’ll run over to Paris and perhaps see a bit of Switzerland.
We’ll send the children with Miss Munroe to Waverly and then we’ll
pretend we’re on our honeymoon again. You need the rest and the change
as much as I do, dear--more. We’ll forget about everything that
has bothered us since we began to be prosperous. We’ll be boy and
girl again, Helen. Why, we haven’t grown a day older since we were
married--in our feelings, I mean--and to me you’re just as young and as
pretty as you were that afternoon in your father’s study when I told
you I couldn’t get along without you.”

She had allowed her head to rest on his shoulder. “Douglas!” she
whispered. “Don’t be so silly.”

He bent forward and kissed her on the forehead. “And do you remember
what you said when I told you that?”

“What did I say?” she asked, with a smile.

“You said you’d rather be poor with me than the richest woman in
the world without me. You were a very romantic little girl in those
days, weren’t you? And then I made up my mind to make a great place
for you. That’s the only real happiness that has come out of my luck
here, Helen--seeing you respected and admired by these great people in
Washington, the famous men we used to talk about and wonder if we’d
ever know.” He stopped; then he went on, in a lower voice: “Some of
them I know a little too well now. Oh, ho!” he sighed, “I’m afraid I’m
growing pessimistic. It can’t be I’m getting old without realizing it.
See these two lines that are coming on my forehead. They grow deeper
and deeper with every session of Congress.”

“They’ll go away when you take your vacation, Douglas,” she said,
reassuringly.

“And you haven’t a line in your face, dear,” he said, looking at her
with a husband’s proprietary pride.

She shook her head. “Oh, yes, around the eyes. They’re plain enough
when I’m tired.”

“No matter, you always look the same to me. I sha’n’t ever see ’em,”
he went on, exultingly. Then he sighed again. “What a fine thing it
would be if we could give our poor brains a vacation, if we could only
stop thinking for a few weeks! But for some of us the waking up would
be--well, it wouldn’t be cheerful. Helen, the other night I dreamed
that we were back in the little cottage in Waverly, where we lived
during the first year of our marriage. I could see the old-fashioned
kitchen stove and the queer little furniture, and your father’s
portrait over the mantel in the parlor. It all seemed so cheerful
and restful and happy and innocent. There you were, in that pretty
little house dress you used to wear--the one I liked, you know, with
the little flowers worked in it. We were just two youngsters again,
and it seemed good to be there with you all alone. Then I woke up,
and a thousand worries began to buzz around my head like an army of
mosquitoes, and I had that awful sinking of the heart that you feel
after you come back from a pleasant dream and have to face reality
again.”

“You mustn’t think of those things, Douglas.”

“Mustn’t think of them? Why, they’re the things that keep me happy. If
I didn’t think about those days and expect to live them over again some
time, I believe I’d lose courage.”

“No, you wouldn’t, Douglas. You just imagine that.”

He laughed, patting her arm. “My dear practical little wife, what a
help you are! Do you know, I feel as if I had always been married. I
was thinking of that the other day. I can’t think of myself any more as
not married. I can’t think of myself as apart from you. Have you ever
felt that way?”

She looked into his face and smiled.

“Ever since the very first day we became engaged,” she said, and he
leaned forward and started to clasp her in his arms, when they heard
a rustle of leaves behind them. Instinctively they drew away from each
other. Then they heard Fanny Wallace exclaim:

“Oh, here they are!”

Fanny was out of breath, and young Fullerton was waving his
handkerchief before his face. They had evidently been dancing
desperately.

“Oh, Auntie,” the girl panted, after a moment, “the great Mrs.
Senator Aspinwall is going, and she’s looking around for you, to say
good-night. What in the world are you doing here?”

“Mr. Stone is moping in the drawing-room, sir,” said Guy, respectfully.
“He looks as if he wanted to eat somebody’s head off.”

Briggs smiled and passed his hand over his face. “I don’t believe Stone
enjoys parties. He feels more at home at his club. I suppose we ought
to go, Helen.” He rose wearily and stretched out his arms. “What a bore
it is!” he said. “I suppose we’ll have to stop and speak to some of
those people in the ballroom,” he whispered, noticing a group that had
just come downstairs.

As soon as they had left the conservatory Fanny turned to her
companion. “Uncle and Auntie are just like lovers, aren’t they? Do you
suppose you’ll be like that when you’ve been married ten years?”

Guy lost no time in seizing the advantage. “That’ll depend a good deal
on you,” he said, insinuatingly.

Fanny drew back from him and tried to look taller. “What a horrid thing
to say! You make me very uncomfortable when you talk like that.” But
she could not maintain a severe demeanor for more than a moment. “Isn’t
it beautiful to be allowed to stay up just as late as you please!” she
exclaimed, rapturously. “It makes me feel really grown. It’s almost as
good as wearing long dresses. Just listen to that music, will you?”
She struck an attitude, her arms extended. “Want to try?” she asked,
holding her hands toward the young fellow.

He fairly dived into her arms, and they swung about together, brushing
against the palm leaves and breathing hard. Suddenly she thrust him
back from her and continued alone.

“You haven’t improved a bit. Oh-h-h!”

From the waltz Fanny broke into a Spanish dance she had learned
at school, using her fan with a skill that caused Guy to applaud
enthusiastically. “Oh, isn’t it great!” she cried. “I could dance like
this all night. Look out! Don’t get in my way and spoil it!” While in
the midst of one of her most elaborate effects, she suddenly stopped. A
voice had just exclaimed:

“What in the world are you two people doing?”

Fanny turned and confronted a large, smooth-faced, white-haired old
gentleman, who was looking down in astonishment from the head of the
steps.

“Oh, is that you, dad?” she said, tossing back her hair. “I’m just
practising being in society. How d’you like it?” Then she went on,
glancing at Guy: “Oh, you haven’t met dad, have you? Well, this is
_It_, dad--Mr. Fullerton, Mr. Guy Fullerton.”

Jonathan Wallace walked deliberately down the steps and offered Guy his
hand. “How do you do, sir?” he said, with ponderous gravity.

Before Guy had a chance to speak Fanny broke in: “Mr. Fullerton’s
the young man I’ve been writing to you about--the one that’s been so
attentive this Winter. Here, come and let me fix that tie of yours.”
She gave her father’s tie a deft twist and patted the broad shoulders.
“There! That’s better. Now they’d never know you come from the country.”

Wallace turned to Guy. The expression in his flushed face began to
soften. “You mustn’t mind _her_,” he said, quietly. “She’s always
letting her tongue run away with her. We let her talk to keep her out
of worse mischief.”

Fanny walked over to Guy, who looked as if he were trying hard to
think of something worth saying. “Well, you _have_ been paying
me attentions, haven’t you, Guy?” she said, her voice growing tender
as she finished the question. Then she triumphantly exclaimed to her
father: “Now!”

Guy was plainly embarrassed. He tried to assume a careless air. “Oh,
yes, I’ve been giving Miss Fanny all my spare time,” he replied,
entering into the joke.

The face of Jonathan Wallace grew severe again. “You could find better
use for your time, I haven’t a doubt,” he said, without looking at
the young fellow. “Well, sis, I’m going home. I’ve had enough of this
rabble. I’ve rubbed up against politicians enough in the past half-hour
to make me hate my country. To hear ’em talk you’d think the country’d
been invented to support their families. This is the most selfish
town I’ve ever been in. It’s every man for himself and nobody for his
neighbor.”

“There is a lot of wire-pulling going on here, that’s true, sir,” said
Guy.

“Wire-pulling!” Wallace’s face expressed a profound scorn. “There was
a fellow in the other room mistook me for the Secretary of State, and
he buttonholed me for half an hour, talking about the benefit he could
confer on the country by being made Minister to Austria. Minister to
Austria! I wouldn’t give him a job as an errand boy in my factory.”

Fanny threw her arms around her father’s neck. “Poor old dad! he does
have such a hard time whenever he comes to Washington. Don’t you, dad?”

She drew her hands away and danced behind Wallace’s broad back,
jumping on her toes and smiling satirically over his shoulder at young
Fullerton, who had assumed his gravest expression.

“Then there’s another fellow,” Wallace went on, addressing the boy,
“who’s been trying to work me because I am related to Briggs’s wife. I
forget what he wanted, now. Some job in New York. If I had to stay in
this town ten days at a stretch I’d lose my reason. Talk about serving
the country! Rifling the country is what those fellows are doing. If I
had the power I’d clap the whole gang of ’em in jail.”

“Dad, you are very cross to-night,” said Fanny, decidedly. “You’d
better go home. Think how I feel, having you talk like that before this
rising young politician.”

“Well, sir, if you intend to make a politician of yourself I’m sorry
for you. I’m going, sis.”

Fanny seized him by the lapel of his coat and kissed him twice. “All
right. Get your beauty sleep,” she said, protectingly. “Good-night. And
be sure to put on your scarf and turn up the collar of your coat. I’ll
go down to the hotel and take breakfast with you to-morrow if I wake up
in time.”

“Better be sensible and stay in bed,” Wallace grumbled.

“Good-night,” Fanny repeated.

Wallace bowed to Guy. “Good-night, sir,” he said, as he turned to go
out.

“Isn’t he a lovely father?” said Fanny. “Oh, you needn’t be afraid
of him. I just do this to him,” she exclaimed, twirling her little
finger--“except--oh, I know when to let him alone. Sometimes he’s
dangerous. Oh, here comes Aunt Helen and that horrid Mr. West. What do
you suppose would happen if Mr. West took his smile off? D’you suppose
there’d be anything left?”

Helen Briggs looked surprised at seeing the girl. “Your uncle told me
you had gone away with Mrs. McShane, Fanny,” she said.

“Oh, she found Madame Alphonsine, the dressmaker,” Fanny replied. “So I
wasn’t any use.”

West glanced significantly at the young people. “I hope we aren’t
interrupting a _tête-à-tête_,” he said, with exaggerated
politeness.

Guy tried to assume a careless air. “Oh, not at all, not at all,” he
said, grandly. He objected to West’s amiable air of patronage.

“Let’s go into the ballroom, Guy,” Fanny whispered.

Guy hesitated. He looked wistfully at Helen. “Can I do anything for
you, Mrs. Briggs?”

Helen shook her head. “Just amuse yourself, that’s all.”

Fanny seized the boy by the arm and drew him toward the steps.

“Guy’s always trying to earn his salary. I never knew anyone that
worried so much about it.”

West took a seat on the wicker divan beside Helen. “He’s an exception
here in Washington, then, isn’t he?” he remarked.

“He’s a good, conscientious boy. I sometimes wonder if this Washington
life isn’t hurting him.”

“There’s so much wickedness here, do you mean?”

“So much wasting time,” Helen replied, seriously.

West drew one of the palm leaves between his fingers. “Don’t you think
you are--well, just a little too scrupulous about these matters?” he
asked, keeping his eyes turned from Helen’s face.

Helen laughed. “That’s what Douglas is always saying. You aren’t going
to blame me, too, are you?”

West let the palm spring back from his hand. He tried to look serious.
“I should be the last man in the world to blame you for anything, Mrs.
Briggs,” he said, softly. “I admire you too much as you are.”

Helen took her fan from her lap. He could see that her face had
flushed. “Aren’t we complimentary to-night!” she said, with a smile.
“Do you often say things like that?”

“No. I’m not much of a hand at paying compliments.” West leaned
back and took a long breath. “Besides, it would be very hard to pay
compliments to a woman like you.” He leaned forward and allowed both
his hands to fall to his knees. “Do you know why?” he went on. “Because
you are one of the few women I’ve met whom I really respect. I pay you
the compliment,” he laughed, “of telling you nothing but the truth.”

“That’s the best compliment any woman could be paid, isn’t it?” said
Helen, fanning herself nervously.

West leaned toward her. “But there are some things I have never quite
dared to tell you,” he remarked, in a low voice and with a smiling lift
of the eyebrows. “I’ve never dared, because--well, perhaps they would
be too interesting. There are some things, you know, that it’s very
hard for a man to say to a woman, especially to a woman like you.”

“They are usually the things that are better left unsaid, aren’t they?”
Helen remarked, quietly.

“Perhaps.” He spoke slowly, as if trying to keep his voice steady.
“But sometimes it is almost as hard not to say them. It isn’t always
necessary to put them into words, you know. They say themselves in a
thousand ways--in a look, a tone of the voice, in the lightest touch of
the hand.”

Helen sat suddenly upright. “You are in a very sentimental mood
to-night, aren’t you, Mr. West? I’m prepared to receive all kinds of
confidences.” Her assumption of gayety was betrayed by the expression
of her eyes.

“I was going to tell you something,” West acknowledged. “I think I will
tell you. I’m in love. I’m in love with the most fascinating woman in
Washington.”

“We all know who that is,” said Helen, smiling. “But aren’t you afraid
of the Senator? They say he’s a wonderful shot.”

West looked injured. “You’re laughing at me now, aren’t you?”

“It’s very hard to take you seriously sometimes, Mr. West.”

West apparently did not notice the suggestion of satire in Helen’s
voice. He did show impatience, however, at the interruption that took
place as soon as Helen had spoken.

“Here she is! Everybody is looking for you, Auntie! Uncle Douglas is
out on the terrace with Mr. Stone, and there’s a whole raft of people
waiting to say good-night in the drawing-room and in the hall.”

Fanny Wallace made a pretty picture as she stood half-hidden by the
foliage. Her faithful attendant waited in the background.

Helen rose and turned to West, who offered his arm. “Shall we go? I’m
afraid I’m behaving very badly to-night,” she said.




VI


In the drawing-room Douglas Briggs found Stone standing disconsolate in
a corner. The Boss was plainly out of his element. The politicians who
stood near him either had no personal acquaintance with him or belonged
to the opposition party. One of these, indeed, the white-haired Senator
from Virginia, had recently made a bitter attack on him in a magazine
article. It was the first attack that had persuaded Stone to break
silence under censure, and the bitterness of his reply showed how
deeply he had been hurt. He seemed now to be ostentatiously unconscious
of his enemy’s presence; but when the host appeared his face assumed a
look of intense relief.

“I’ve been looking all over the place for you,” said Briggs, fibbing,
as he often did, to cover a momentary embarrassment. The presence of
Jim Stone in his house on so conspicuous an occasion, had caused him
considerable perturbation. He knew, however, that the Boss had come
out of personal friendliness and as a mark of special favor.

Stone had no small-talk, and stood in silence waiting for Briggs to
make a statement that might lead up to a discussion of their mutual
interests.

“Have you seen my wife?” Briggs asked, glancing vaguely about the room,
though he knew perfectly well she had gone back to the conservatory
with West. A few moments before Helen had mentioned that Stone had
shaken hands with her, without, however, entering into conversation.

“Yes, I saw her when I came in,” the Boss replied, indifferently. The
animated scene in which he found himself evidently annoyed him.

“Suppose we walk out on the balcony,” said Briggs, desperately. Stone
nodded, and they slowly made their way through the crowd, Stone
without speaking and looking straight ahead, and Briggs exchanging a
few smiling words with those of his guests whom he could remember by
name. At his wife’s parties he frequently sustained long conversations
with people whom he could not remember to have seen before, but whom
he impressed by his interest and friendliness. It was this faculty of
being agreeable that made enthusiastic young girls say of him: “When
he is talking with you, you feel that you’re the only person in the
world he cares anything about.”

His natural keenness and his long experience with men of Stone’s type
made it plain to Briggs that the Boss had in mind something that he
wished to discuss. He decided to give Stone an opening.

“I see by the papers to-night that you’re leaving town to-morrow.”

“Yes; I shall take the noon train,” Stone replied, dropping into a seat
where he could look down the wide avenue. The air was warm and heavy,
and the electric light fell in soft showers through the foliage of the
trees. Hansom cabs and coupés were passing along the asphalt pavement.
Around the canopy leading across the sidewalk to the front door the
group of unwearied curiosity-seekers watched the departing guests.
Stone observed these details as if they had no interest for him. He had
the curious eyes of the man who seems to be always looking within.

“I must be getting over to New York myself pretty soon,” Briggs
remarked, tentatively.

“You’ll find some people there who’ll be glad to see you.” For the
first time in their talk Stone showed interest. “The boys would like to
talk over a few matters with you. They don’t like the way things are
going lately.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Briggs, quietly.

“They think you’re going back on ’em.”

For a moment they listened to the clatter of the horses’ hoofs in the
street. Then Briggs asked: “What has given them that impression?”

“Well, they say you’re getting too high and mighty for ’em. You ain’t
looking out for their interests. They say you’ve been making altogether
too many concessions to the kid-glove fellows.” Now that Stone had
escaped from the drawing-room he was limbering up, getting back his
usual confidence and his air of authority.

“I don’t believe I quite know just what they mean by that,” Briggs
said, with a laugh.

“Oh, I guess you do,” Stone went on, easily. “That is, you will,”
he explained, suddenly realizing that he was a guest talking to his
host, “if you take a little time to think it over. I knew what they
meant, and I’d been thinking pretty much the same things myself. The
only trouble with you, Briggs, is, you’re too easy. You don’t seem to
remember that we’re not in politics for our health. Those fellows think
we ought to do all our work for glory. They’ve got plenty of money
themselves, and they believe we ought to get along without any.”

“I suppose there’s some truth in that,” Briggs acknowledged.

“But don’t you let them fool you,” Stone went on. “They’re in the game
for what they can make, just as you and I are. Bah, I know ’em. When
they want anything from me they come and fawn and lick my boots, just
as the dirtiest of my heelers do. Then, when they find I won’t budge,
they call me a thief and a scoundrel. I’ve observed, though, that in
spite of being the most abused man in the country I manage to run
things pretty much as I choose. Now you take warning by me. I can see
plain enough that you are getting farther and farther away from the
party. If you don’t look out you’ll find yourself high and dry. If you
lost your grip on the machine, d’you suppose the kid-glove crowd would
have any use for you? Not a bit of it.”

Briggs kept silence for a moment. In the presence of this man he
felt curiously helpless. Whatever might be said against Stone as a
public influence, there was no doubt that he was a man of force and
self-confidence.

“Still,” Briggs said at last, “I’ve got to stand by my convictions, Mr.
Stone.”

“Oh, keep your convictions! But don’t let them make you forget you’re
here in Washington because your party sent you here. Now, if you
do what your party wants you’ll be all right. If you pull off your
renomination next Fall you’ll have to do something for the boys. They
won’t have any more shilly-shallying. I know that, because I’ve heard
them say so.”

Briggs smiled grimly. “Well, sir, I must say I appreciate your
frankness.”

Now that Stone had delivered his warning, the significance of which he
knew Briggs would fully appreciate, his manner softened. “I say these
things to you because I like you. You’re a credit to the machine.
You’ve done mighty well here for a young man. Only don’t forget that it
was the machine that made you. That’s the point. Well, it’s about time
for me to be going. You’ve got a fine place here. By Jove! I envy you
myself.”

Douglas Briggs did not stir. He was thinking hard. The loss of
his renomination in the Autumn had not occurred to him even as a
possibility. He had believed that, with Stone’s support, he was firmly
established in New York.

“It’s very early yet, Mr. Stone,” he remarked, absently, following his
guest back into the house.




VII


As this evening marked her first “grown-up party,” Fanny Wallace had
entered with delight into the festivities. She had danced nearly all
the dances, most of them with Guy Fullerton, who stood at the door of
the ballroom and watched her hungrily while she was waltzing with other
men. Now she was exhausted, but, in spite of her aunt’s hint, repeated
several times, determined not to go to bed. “Let’s go where we can
be alone,” she said to Guy. “Then you can fan me till I get a little
breath, and entertain me. I’ve done so much talking ever since we got
acquainted I actually don’t know whether you can talk or not.”

Guy, who liked her little jokes, even when they were directed against
himself, agreed enthusiastically. They passed from room to room, only
to find a group of people in each.

“I don’t suppose there’s any use in trying the library,” said Fanny at
last, with a sigh. “But perhaps no one’s there. It’s about time people
were going home, anyway,” she added, tartly.

On entering the library she uttered a cry of delight. “Not a soul!” she
exclaimed. “Isn’t all this leather furniture nice? I just love green
leather. I made Auntie promise that she’d have it. Here, you fix this
big chair for me, and bring up that foot-rest. Yes, that’s it. Oh, I do
wish they wouldn’t make furniture so _tall_. There, that’s lovely!
Now you can sit on that chair--yes, that one, and don’t bring it too
near, please. That’s right.” She sank back luxuriously and folded her
hands in her lap. “Now you can tell me--let me see, what can you tell
me? Oh, talk to me about your life at Harvard. You haven’t told me half
enough about that.”

“Well, there isn’t much to tell,” said Guy, with a smile, as he stroked
his thick, blond hair.

“There isn’t? Well, you ought to be ashamed to say so. Did you work
_very_ hard?”

“Well, not _very_,” Guy replied, with an amused glance from his
blue eyes.

“What did you do, then?”

“Oh, I did lots of things.”

“Such as what?”

“Well, the best thing I did was to make the first ten of the Pudding.”

“What!” Fanny sat bolt upright.

“Yes. I made the first ten of the Pudding,” Guy explained, modestly.
“Great, wasn’t it?”

“What in the world are you talking about? Is it possible you’re guying
me? Well, I’m ashamed. I didn’t think you’d try anything like that on
me!”

“Oh!” Guy’s face lighted up. “I thought you knew what that meant.
Please excuse me. Why, I wouldn’t guy you for anything in the world.
The Pudding’s one of our crack societies, that’s all, and the men are
elected in batches of ten. It’s a great compliment to be on the first
ten. I was awfully proud of it.”

Fanny looked humbled. “I’m just a country girl, after all,” she
acknowledged. “And you’re the first Harvard man I’ve ever known.
There!” Suddenly she resumed her usual manner. “Now, don’t you take
me down like that again, Guy Fullerton. If you do I’ll--Well, tell me
about your old society.”

Guy controlled an impulse to rush over and kiss her. He never loved her
so much as when she bullied him like that, especially if her bullying,
as often happened, followed a moment of contrition or self-abasement.

“Well, it’s all right as a society. The best men in the class belong to
it--that is,” Guy explained, with a blush, “a lot of the fellows are
perfectly fine. Oh, I wish you could have come to my class day!” he
broke out. “A lot of us, together in the gym--that is, the----”

“Oh, I guess I know what the _gymnasium_ is!” Fanny snapped. “I
suppose you had heaps of girls there!”

“Oh, yes; heaps!” Guy continued, innocently. “All the fellows said that
we had the prettiest----”

“Stop!”

Guy stopped, astonished.

“I don’t want to hear about your pretty girls.” Fanny turned her head
away, and Guy hesitated. Then she gave him a sidelong glance and one of
her most amiable smiles.

“Well, never mind,” she conceded. “Tell me about it--girls and all. You
didn’t really care much for any of ’em, did you?”

Guy met her look with a smile. “Well, I thought I did at the time, but
I’ve changed my mind since.”

Fanny kicked out her feet. “Oh, the poor things!” she exclaimed. “I
suppose you made ’em think you’d never forget ’em. Well, anyhow there’s
_one_ girl that’s on to you.” She clapped her hand to her mouth.
“Oh, I’m glad dad didn’t hear me say that. He says if I don’t stop
talking slang he’ll cut off my allowance. Well, now go on. Tell me some
more about the Pudding. Why, of course, the _Hasty_ Pudding. I
once went with Aunt Helen to some theatricals they gave in New York.
That was three years ago. Did you ever take part in their theatricals?”

Guy fairly beamed. “Did I? I was the _Princess_ in ‘The Princess
and the Dwarf.’”

“A girl’s part!” cried Fanny, with a woman’s horror at discovering even
a remote suggestion of effeminacy in a man she likes.

“Yes; why not? It was great sport.”

“But why didn’t they let you be a man?”

“Oh, they said I’d do better for a girl,” Guy replied, flushing. “You
see, with my smooth face I could make up to look like a girl easily
enough.”

“It must have been kind of fun,” Fanny acknowledged. Then she asked:
“Did you wear----?--did you?”

Guy nodded. “It was awful getting ’em on. They made me hold my breath
till I thought I’d nearly die. Then two of the fellows fastened ’em. I
didn’t draw a comfortable breath the whole evening. Gee! It was fierce.”

Fanny clapped her hands. “Oh, how I wish I could have seen you!”

“I’ve got some of the pictures,” Guy remarked, tentatively.

“Here?” Fanny exclaimed.

“They’re up in my trunk somewhere.”

“Oh, you mean thing! You’ve had ’em all this time and never showed ’em
to me! Well, that’s just like a man! And you might have known I’d have
given anything to see ’em.”

“Well, I’ll bring ’em down to-morrow,” Guy promised.

“And what else did you do in your old club?”

“Oh, we used to have all kinds of sport,” Guy replied, feeling the
difficulty of explaining to the feminine mind matters exclusively
masculine.

“And didn’t you do any work at all in college?” Fanny cried,
petulantly, with the exaction of serious accomplishment that all women
make from men.

“Ye-e-s,” Guy replied. “I used to work pretty hard at examination
times. But I wasn’t a grind, you know,” he added, quickly, as if
defending himself from a reproach.

“What’s a grind?”

“Why, a fellow that does nothing but study--just grubs. It’s awful to
be like that!”

Fanny sat upright again.

“Well, I declare!” she said. Then she sighed. “You’re the funniest
thing!”

“There were some fellows I knew,” Guy conceded, “who could do a lot of
work and yet go in for all the society things; but they were wonders.
I never pretended to be much at study, you know. If I got through my
‘exams’ by the skin of my teeth I considered myself lucky.”

Fanny looked at him thoughtfully. “Well, you’re kind of a nice boy,
just the same.” She cuddled in the corner of the chair and crossed her
arms, her hands clasping her shoulders. “I never was much at lessons
myself,” she admitted. Then she turned quickly toward the door.
“_’Sh!_ I see some people coming.”

From the hall they heard a woman’s voice. “Well, I declare! I feel
played out. I’ve done nothing but bump against people all the evening;
all kinds of people, too. I never saw so many nationalities in all my
life.”

“It’s Mrs. Burrell,” Fanny whispered. “You know her, don’t you?--that
queer old woman from Maine, with the three daughters. Let’s go out.”

Mrs. Burrell had entered the room, and started on discovering Guy.
Fanny was hidden behind the back of her chair. “Excuse me, if we’re
intruding,” she said to Guy, with effusive politeness and a bow that
somehow suggested an intended curtsey.

Fanny lifted her head like a Jack-in-the-box. “Oh, not at all, Mrs.
Burrell. How d’you do?”

The old woman started. “How you scared me!”

Three young girls had come into the room, followed by a youth whose
deep black and carefully curled mustache at once revealed his race. A
shriveled little man with thin white hair and beardless, wrinkled face,
enlivened by a pair of keen eyes, walked loosely behind.

Fanny nodded to the girls and rose from her seat. The Frenchman greeted
her with an elaborate bow. Guy looked uncomfortable, but Fanny did
not try to relieve his embarrassment by introducing him. It was Mrs.
Burrell who broke the silence.

“Ain’t it fine here to-night?” she said. “Well, Washington’s a
wonderful place! Here’s Emeline’s been speakin’ French to Musseer de
Lange on one side, and Gladys has been talking German to--” She looked
round at the girls. “Where is he?” she asked.

“I think we have lost ’eem in the crowd,” the Frenchman explained, with
a look of distress on his face. He had evidently been having a hard
time.

“I guess Gladys’s German was too much for him,” said the tallest and
the least pretty of the girls.

“I’ve asked you not to say things like that, Carrie Cora,” said Mrs.
Burrell.

The old gentleman, who had been looking with a dazed expression at the
book-shelves and at the etchings on the walls, now spoke for the first
time, turning, with a smile, to Fanny.

“Carrie Cora an’ I are the plain ones of the family,” he said. “English
is good enough for us.”

Mrs. Burrell sank into one of the leather chairs. “Well, it’s kind of a
relief to get out of that crowd. You go over there, Emeline, an’ go on
talkin’ French with musseer.”

The look of distress deepened in the face of the Frenchman, who,
however, made a place for the girl.

Fanny had edged toward Guy. “Let’s get away,” she whispered. “We
haven’t had more than ten minutes alone the whole evening.”

Guy’s face brightened. “I don’t believe there’s anyone in the
conservatory.”

As Fanny started for the door she asked: “Aren’t you girls dancing?”

Mrs. Burrell answered for them: “I’ve been urgin’ them, but they won’t.”

“I don’t know how,” the eldest girl explained, with a note of
resentment in her voice, which her mother at once detected.

“I should think you’d be ashamed to say so, Carrie Cora, after all them
lessons last Winter.”

“It’s too hot in there,” said Gladys, who, being the prettiest,
evidently considered that she need not try very hard to be amiable.

“Well, good-bye,” said Fanny, unceremoniously. “Come on, Guy.”

Mrs. Burrell followed the slim figure with an envious look in her eyes.
“Ain’t she the bright little thing?” she remarked, addressing her
husband. “I wish our girls was more like her. She’ll marry someone ’way
up. You see if she don’t.”

“Oh, I guess our girls can hold their own against anyone, Sarah,”
Burrell replied.

“Well, I’m sure they’ve had advantages enough,” Mrs. Burrell grumbled.
“I don’t see why they don’t get more attention, though.”

Burrell’s eyes sparkled with irritation. “Well, they get attention
enough when they’re to home. That’s where they ought to be.”

“I just hate to hear you talk like that, father. You don’t seem to have
no ambition for the children.”

“I’ve brought ’em up respectable, an’ I’ve given ’em enough to eat
an’ drink, an’ I’ve expected ’em to marry decent fellers in their own
station in life. I married a farmer’s daughter, an’ I ain’t had no call
to regret it; an’ what’s good enough for me is good enough for them.”

Mrs. Burrell refused to be mollified by the compliment. “Well, times
are changed since then, an’ I guess I ain’t a-goin’ to have those
girls’ education wasted. What did we come here to Washington for,
anyway?”

“Well, that’s the very question I’ve been askin’ myself ever since we
landed here. What in hell did we come here for? I wish I’d stayed down
in Maine, where I belong. I’m somebody down there. But here the’ ain’t
hardly anybody thinks I’m worth speakin’ to. There’s not a man here
that’s asked me to have a drink with him to-night.”

Mrs. Burrell rose from her seat with quiet dignity. “If you’re goin’ to
begin to talk like that,” she said, in a low voice, “I’m goin’ home.
I declare, these parties are only an aggravation, anyway. Come on,
girls.” She walked toward the little Frenchman and offered her hand.
“Good-night, musseer,” she said, with a large smile.

The Frenchman bowed low again. “Good-night, madame.” He touched the
tips of her fingers with his small, gloved hand.

“I don’t believe I like those Frenchmen,” whispered Mrs. Burrell, as
the family started to leave the room. “You never can tell whether
they’re laughin’ at you or not.”

“I guess nearly everybody’s beginning to go,” said Carrie Cora,
briskly. “Let’s hurry up, or they’ll think we want to be put out. Oh,
say, look out there, will you? There’s that Mr. West, that they say is
so attentive to Mrs. Briggs. He’s been drinking champagne and punch all
the evening. See how red his face is!”

“Hold your tongue, Carrie Cora,” said Burrell.

“And talking with Mrs. Briggs, too,” cried the youngest daughter. “Here
they come. Let’s get out of the way. They’ll think we’re spying on
them.”




VIII


The Burrells came face to face with their hostess in the wide hall.
“I wondered what had happened to you,” said Helen, leaving West, who
strolled into the billiard-room, and joining the group. “Have the girls
been enjoying themselves?” she asked, turning, with a smile, from the
mother to the three daughters.

“Oh, yes, we’ve all been having a lovely time!” Mrs. Burrell replied,
her eyes shining with enthusiasm.

“Oh, yes, lovely!” the girls cried together.

“Of course,” Mrs. Burrell went on, with a wistful look, “after my
daughters get better acquainted they’ll have more partners.”

“Ma!” exclaimed Carrie Cora.

“But let me introduce you to some of the gentlemen,” said Helen,
solicitously. “We’ll go back into the drawing-room.”

“No,” Burrell interposed. “We must go home. We ought to have gone long
ago. I’m sorry not to have had a chance to talk with your husband about
that law case of mine, Mrs. Briggs.”

“I’ll speak to him about it, Mr. Burrell,” said Helen. “Now that
Congress is nearly ready to adjourn, he’ll have more time. Is it to
come before the New York courts?”

The old man nodded. “Those New York men have infringed on my patents,
confound ’em! Mrs. Briggs, there ain’t anybody else I’d trust as I do
your husband. He’s been a brick to me ever since I come here. He’s the
only one of the big fellows in Congress that’s taken any notice of me,
an’ I guess I appreciate it. An’ the girls, they think you’re just
perfect.”

“I’m only sorry I couldn’t do more for you, Mr. Burrell,” said Helen,
with a smile.

Mrs. Burrell led the way toward the staircase, the others following,
with the exception of Carrie Cora.

“Oh, Mrs. Briggs!” the girl exclaimed, impulsively, “I have something
to tell you. But I--I mustn’t stay a minute.”

“What is it, dear?”

“He’s come to Washington,” Carrie Cora whispered. “He got here this
morning.”

“Why didn’t you bring him to-night?”

“I wanted to,” Carrie Cora replied, breathlessly. “I wanted him to meet
you. I’ve told him so much about you, and what a help you’ve been to
me. But I was afraid of ma. She was furious when he came to the hotel.
He sent his card up, just as bold, and ma didn’t want to let me go down
to see him. But I did. And oh, he’s--he’s just as handsome as ever!”

She turned her face away, to hide the tears in her eyes.

“My poor girl,” said Helen, taking her hand.

It was at an afternoon tea that the strange girl had confided to Helen
Briggs the story of her baffled love-affair. Since that time Helen had
often thought of it with a pity none the less real because it had the
relief of amusement.

“And he wanted me to go right out, just as I was, and get married. He
said he’d call a carriage.”

“I’m glad you didn’t, dear,” said Helen, trying to keep from smiling.

“I think I would have gone--only I just had my every-day dress on, and
I looked horrid! It seemed so foolish to go like that. And now I’m
sorry I didn’t. I never shall have the courage again.”

“You’re sorry?”

“Yes, because ma says that I’m not to see him any more. She made an
awful fuss. That’s what I wanted to speak to you about. Won’t you
please talk to ma? He’s just as good as he can be, and even if he isn’t
very successful he earns enough for two. That’s all I care about.”

“But what can I say to your mother, dear? I don’t even know him.”

Carrie Cora looked down and began to rub the carpet with her foot.
“Well, ma thinks everything of you, and if you’d just--just ask her to
let him come to see me, that would be something. I’m sure she’ll like
him when she understands him better. Pa likes him, but pa is afraid to
oppose ma in anything, except when he gets roused.”

Helen patted the girl’s hand affectionately. “Well, dear, I’ll go to
see your mother to-morrow. I’ll take her out for a drive. Then we can
have a good talk together.”

Carrie Cora impulsively threw her arms around Helen’s neck. “Oh, Mrs.
Briggs!” she cried. Then she drew back, ashamed. “It’s silly of me to
act like this, isn’t it, before all these people? But I must go now.
They’ll wonder what has happened to me. Good-night, dear Mrs. Briggs.”

During Helen’s talk with the girl Franklin West had appeared at the
back of the hall with M. de Lange, whom he seemed to know. As soon as
the girl disappeared the two men walked toward Helen.

The Frenchman drew his heels together and made another of his low
bows, which West observed with the amused superiority of the American,
scornful of decorative politeness.

“I have been waiting to say good-night, madame. Your reception, it is
most beautiful! The flowers, the pretty women! Ah, you Americans, you
are wonderful!”

West interposed coolly: “Well, we do things in pretty good style over
here, that’s a fact.”

M. de Lange looked bewildered. Then his face shone.

“Ah, yes. It is--it is _superbe_. Such beautiful _toilettes_!
And your women--they are so many--so----”

West threw back his head. “Yes, we certainly have a great many,” he
said, with a laugh.

The bewildered look returned to the Frenchman’s face. “So many--so
beautiful, I mean, so charming. And so many kinds! So different! Your
Washington--it is a marvel.”

Helen extended her hand.

“You are very good to say so. But I’m sorry you’re leaving.”

“_Au revoir_, madame.” He glanced at West and bowed once more.
“Monsieur!”

West looked relieved. “Perhaps now we can have a moment together,” he
said to Helen. “I have something to say to you. Will you come into the
library?”

Helen hesitated. “But only for a moment,” she said. When she had
entered the room and taken a seat she asked, in a matter-of-fact tone:
“What is it?”

“A few moments ago you told me that you weren’t able to make me out,”
West said, slowly.

Helen smiled good-humoredly. “Not quite that, I think. I hadn’t tried
_very_ hard.”

“You said you didn’t understand what kind of man I really was.”

Helen moved uneasily. “I really think I ought to go back. You must tell
me these things some other time.”

“Wait a minute. I may not have another chance to see you alone
to-night. There is something I must say to you now.”

Helen drew a long breath and turned slightly paler.

“I must tell you what it means to me to be near you.”

Helen kept her eyes turned from him. “I don’t understand you,” she
said, quietly.

West let his hand rest on her arm. “You don’t understand?”

Helen turned and faced him. “No,” she replied, coldly.

“Do you mean that you haven’t understood all along how I felt toward
you?” For a moment they faced each other in silence.

“Please take your hand off my arm,” said Helen.

“Why don’t you answer?” West insisted.

Helen drew her arm away.

“Because, as I have told you before, there are some things that are
better not said.”

“Then you’ve known?”

“Yes, I’ve known.” Helen did not flinch. “I’ve suspected.”

“Why have you allowed me to come here, then?”

“Because,” Helen replied, slowly, as if measuring her words, “I thought
you would never dare to speak to me as you’ve just done. And if you go
on I shall have to call my husband. Before that becomes necessary I
must ask you to leave here.”

West assumed an attitude of contemptuous indifference. “Thank you, but
I prefer to stay.”

“You will not go?”

West folded his arms. “No.”

Helen turned toward the electric bell.

“Don’t touch that bell,” said West, authoritatively.

She faced him as if fascinated. He could hear her breathe. “Now, you
won’t call the servants, and you won’t tell your husband anything about
this conversation. In the first place, your servants are really my
servants.”

Helen shrank back. “Oh!” she said.

“They are paid with my money,” West went on, with a grim smile. “So I
think I may call them mine.”

“How contemptible of you!”

West lifted his shoulders. “Well, perhaps I am contemptible. It all
depends on the point of view, I suppose. Now, you don’t consider your
husband contemptible, and yet he’s worse than I am. I don’t pretend to
be any better than I am.”

“I’ll let you say these things to his face,” Helen replied, starting to
leave the room.

West stood between her and the door. “If you make a scene here, Mrs.
Briggs, you’ll simply disgrace yourself and you’ll ruin your husband.
Can’t you see what you’re doing? Your husband has been in my pay ever
since he came to Washington. But for me, do you suppose you could live
in all this luxury? Why, this very ball to-night has cost more than
half his salary. All those stories that they tell about him are true,
do you understand?--only they’re not half as bad as the stories I could
tell. If the whole truth were known he’d be held up before all the
country as a thief and a hypocrite. But for me he’d be a petty country
lawyer in the backwoods that you came from. I gave him his chance;
I’ve made him what he is. I’ve favored him more than anyone else in
his position since he came here, for your sake, because I loved you.
He knew that, and he’s been playing on the knowledge.” He released her
hands. “I hope you’re satisfied now.”

Helen sank weakly into a chair.

“Shall I ring for your husband, Mrs. Briggs?” West asked, with
satirical politeness.

Douglas Briggs, who had just learned from Fanny that his wife was in
the library, happened to be outside, in the hall. He overheard West’s
last remark.

“Ring for me!” he repeated, as he entered the room. “What’s the matter?”

“Mrs. Briggs is feeling a little faint, I think,” said West, with
perfect composure. “So I suggested that we send for you.”

“Are you ill, Helen?” Briggs asked, anxiously.

“No. It’s--it’s nothing. If you will take me out on the balcony I shall
feel better.” Helen passed her hand over her forehead. “It’s so close
here.”

Briggs passed his arm around his wife’s waist and walked slowly toward
the door. As he left the room he turned. “Make yourself at home, West,”
he said.

When they reached the balcony Helen let her hand rest on the rail and
drew a long breath. “It was so dreadfully hot in there!” she said, with
a twinge of conscience at the covert deceit. But she felt she must keep
the cause of her agitation from her husband; at any rate, until she
had time to think and to decide what to do. If she were to speak now
of the insult she had received, she felt sure that nothing would keep
Douglas from attacking West and driving him from the house. She must do
everything she could to prevent a scandal.

[Illustration: “‘_I don’t pretend to be any better than I
am._’”]

“We’ll have to send you back to Waverly, dear, and get some more color
into those cheeks of yours.” Briggs took his wife’s hand. “Why, you’re
trembling!” he said.

“Oh, it’s nothing, dear, nothing. I shall feel perfectly well in a
minute.” She let him draw her close to him, and they stood together in
silence. “We must go back, Douglas. Some of the people must be looking
for us. I’m all right now.”

“If you feel faint again let me know, or go out of that hot
drawing-room,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on you, anyway.”




IX


It was nearly three o’clock before the last guest left. The flowers in
the deserted rooms had drooped and faded; even the lights seemed to
have dimmed. The house wore an air of melancholy. Fanny and Guy came
from the dining-room, where they had eaten a second supper.

“I wonder where Aunt and Uncle are?” she said. “Doesn’t it seem
ghostly?” She yawned, covering her cheeks with both hands. “Ugh! I
guess they’re in the library.”

Helen Briggs was seated in one of the big easy-chairs, her head thrown
back and her eyes closed. Her husband sat beside her, looking down at
her face.

“Flirting, as usual!” said Fanny. Then she added: “Well, wasn’t it
grand?”

“Better go to bed,” said Briggs, sleepily.

Helen half-opened her eyes. “I’m glad you had a good time, dear.”

“Everybody seemed pleased,” said Guy, with a glance at Douglas. He
liked to look at things from the professional point of view.

“Fanny, do go to bed,” Helen insisted.

“All right,” Fanny assented, meekly. She kissed Helen; then she kissed
her uncle. She approached Guy Fullerton on tiptoe and held her hand
high in the air. “Good-night, sir,” she said, softly.

A half-hour later the house was in darkness, save for a light in
the library, where Douglas Briggs sat writing. After an evening of
excitement he never could rest, and he found that some quiet work
soothed his nerves. He was one of those men who seemed to thrive with
very little rest; he had often worked all night, not even lying down,
without showing in his face the next day a trace of the vigil.

Helen had gone to her room, but not to sleep. She changed her ball
dress for a loose gown, and letting her hair fall over her shoulders,
she sat for a long time thinking. Should she tell Douglas? A disclosure
might lead to serious consequences. It would not only break the
business relations between Douglas and West, but it would also involve
her husband in a bitter personal quarrel. For the present she resolved
to keep her secret. As for the charge West had made against Douglas,
that was merely another of the calumnies circulated about him since
he had begun to be successful in Washington. Why was it that one man
could not prosper without exciting the hatred and the envy of so many
other men? Douglas, she felt sure, had never done anything to injure
anyone. His success had been won by his own abilities and industry.
He had worked harder than any other man in Washington. She knew that
herself, and she had often heard it remarked by others. She recalled
all the unselfish work he had done in Congress, the bills he had
toiled for with no purpose beyond that of doing good. Everything he
undertook seemed to succeed. Helen had never thought much about the
way in which he had made his money. It had come to him along with his
successes. She knew that he had lately had good fortune in some land
speculations near Washington; but that was perfectly legitimate, and
it was merely another evidence of his shrewdness. There were plenty of
Congressmen in Washington who remained poor simply because they had not
her husband’s business resources and enterprise. When finally she went
to bed, however, she had a vague sense of discomfort that could not be
attributed to the agitation caused by her interview with Franklin West.
She did not like even the thought of questioning her husband about his
ways of making money. She had never doubted him before. Why should she
doubt him now?

The next day Helen rose at noon with a splitting headache. She rang the
bell, and when the maid appeared, bearing breakfast on a tray, Fanny
came, too. Fanny’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright.

“What do you suppose I’ve been doing? I’ve been taking breakfast
down at the hotel with dad. Then I made him go out with me and buy
me a lot of things. So I’ve had a profitable morning. Half a dozen
lace handkerchiefs, a silk scarf and a _beautiful_ tailor-made
coat. It’s going to be a dream. I went to the place you like so
much--Broadhurst’s. I wish you could have heard what they said about my
figure. And when I got back everybody was asleep except Uncle Doug. I
shouldn’t wonder if he sat up all night, though he declared he didn’t.
Here, I’ll fix that tray, Mary. You go down. Let me pour the tea,
Auntie. There are two black lines around your eyes. They make you look
so interesting! I guess you’re kind of tired.”

“Yes, I am,” Helen acknowledged.

“All right, drink this and you’ll feel better. Why don’t you stay in
bed?”

“I mustn’t. I promised that I’d take Mrs. Burrell for a drive this
afternoon. I told one of the girls.”

“More missionary work, I suppose. Auntie, if you don’t stop driving
round with old frumps like that, I won’t recognize you on the street.
Well, I guess I’ll go for a bicycle ride with Guy. He’s been promising
to take me out to Chevy Chase for a long time. Don’t you think it would
be proper?”

“Can’t you get someone to go with you?” Helen asked, sipping her tea
and wondering why she could not shake off, even for a moment, the
thought of Franklin West’s remarks the night before.

“I suppose I could get Mrs. Simpson. She’s always glad to have someone
to ride with her.”

“Do that, then,” said Helen.

Fanny sighed. “What an awful thing to have to be so proper in this
world!”

When Helen had dressed she went up to the nursery, where she found
Dorothy and Jack eating dinner. They seemed to be always eating. They
jumped from their seats and clung around her. They wore their heavy
street clothes and their thick boots.

“I was going to take them out before dinner,” Miss Munroe explained,
“but it seemed damp. So I thought I’d wait till the afternoon.”

“Are you going out, mamma?” Jack asked, clutching at Helen’s dress.

“Yes, by-and-by,” Helen replied, patiently.

Dorothy immediately became plaintive. “Oh, can’t we go with you?”

“Not to-day, dear. I’m going to take Mrs. Burrell for a drive.”

“Oh, shoot Mrs. Burrell!” Dorothy cried.

“Dorothy!” said Miss Munroe, reproachfully. Miss Munroe often wondered
where the children learned their naughty words. They seemed to absorb
them from the air. Sometimes she was afraid their parents would think
they had learned them from her.

“Papa came up before he went out,” said Jack. “He says he’s going to
buy me a sword.”

“Papa is always buying things for Jack!” Dorothy, with a little
encouragement, would soon have burst into tears. Helen saw that the
child was nervous from her morning in the house.

“Take them out as soon as they have finished eating,” she said to Miss
Munroe.

As Helen descended the stairs she met Fanny and Guy just about to start
out on their wheels. “I’ve telephoned Mrs. Simpson, and she’s going.
She wants us to lunch with her. You don’t mind, do you, dear?” Fanny
asked, solicitously, eager to seem important. “If you do, I’ll stay.”

Helen shook her head. “No, your uncle won’t be here, and I’ll lunch
late. So go and have a good time.”

On the table of the library Helen found a pile of New York and
Washington morning papers. She glanced at them to see what they had to
say about the ball. Some of the New York papers made brief reference to
it; one, the most sensational, published a long account. The Washington
papers gave it considerable space. Just as she was turning a page of
the New York _Chronicle_, Helen caught her husband’s name in one
of the editorial columns. She turned back and read the paragraph:

 “Last night in Washington Congressman Douglas Briggs, of New York,
 gave a ball to celebrate the opening of his new house. It is said that
 the house alone cost twenty-five thousand dollars. It is furnished in
 a style that only a rich man could afford. Six years ago Congressman
 Briggs went to Washington without a dollar, to devote himself to
 political affairs, practically abandoning his growing law-practice. He
 has apparently found politics profitable. Funny world!”

Helen read the paragraph rapidly; then she read it more slowly. On
finishing, she sat motionless for a few moments. Finally, she placed
the paper carefully on the top of the pile. She rose and walked to the
window. She heard Miss Munroe come downstairs with the children. She
had an impulse to go out into the hall and bid them good-bye, but she
checked it; she wished to speak to no one for a few moments.

She went back to the table and read the paragraph again. Then she
placed the paper in the centre of the pile. She would not allow herself
to think why she did that. She heard a servant pass through the hall,
and she called that she would have luncheon served in an hour. During
the interval she busied herself feverishly, but she could not keep
from thinking about that paragraph. Of course, Douglas would see it.
Perhaps he had seen it already. She remembered now that Guy usually
clipped from the papers all references to her husband. He had left the
papers on the table to look them over on his return with Fanny. The
clippings he pasted in the big black scrapbooks that Douglas kept on
one of the lower shelves, under his law-books. She was tempted to look
through these scrapbooks now to see if they contained any references
like the one she had just read. But she felt ashamed.

After luncheon Helen drove to The Shoreham, where the Burrells had
lived since coming to Washington. Carrie Cora was the first to receive
her. “I’ve had the hardest work keeping ma at home,” she said. “I
didn’t want to let her know I knew you were coming. That would have
spoiled everything. It’s just lovely of you to come! Gladys and Emeline
have gone to the Philharmonic concert, and pa’s up to the House.”

Mrs. Burrell presently made a vociferous entrance. She was one of those
women who do everything noisily. “Well, if this isn’t good of you, to
come just after that party of yours! I should think you’d be all beat
out.”

“I’ve come to take you for a drive,” Helen explained.

Mrs. Burrell slapped her dress with both hands. It was a shimmering
brown silk of fashionable cut, that looked somehow as if it did not
belong to her.

“I don’t believe I’m fit,” she said.

“Oh, yes, you are, ma,” Carrie Cora urged. “Please go.”

“We’ll go out into the country somewhere,” said Helen.

“So it don’t make any difference what you wear,” Carrie Cora chimed in.

Mrs. Burrell looked relieved. “I just hate to keep changing. It seems
to me we do nothing here in Washington but dress, dress. I get so sick
of it! That’s the worst of living in these hotels. You never feel at
home.”

After starting with the old lady, Helen Briggs hesitated to broach the
subject of Carrie Cora’s love affair. A remark she made soon after they
had settled down into conversation unexpectedly relieved her of the
necessity.

“I hope Carrie Cora doesn’t mind being left alone in the apartment,”
she said.

“Oh, Lor’, no,” Mrs. Burrell replied. “I’ve never seen anyone like
her. She just loves to be alone. She’s always been queer about that,
and lately she’s been queerer than ever. She don’t seem to take an
interest in anything. Now, last night, she’d never have gone with us
but for you. She hates parties; but she thinks everything of you.” Mrs.
Burrell drew nearer Helen. “She’s in love,” she whispered.

Helen smiled. “There isn’t any great harm in that.”

“There wouldn’t be,” Mrs. Burrell agreed, “if the young man belonged to
her station in life. But he don’t. He ain’t got a cent to his name.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But isn’t there anything else against
him?--besides his being poor, I mean.”

“Oh, I guess he’s _good_ enough,” Mrs. Burrell acknowledged,
grudgingly. “I never heard anything against him. His name is Rufus
James,” she added, as if this fact in some way explained his condition.
“He’s here in Washington now.” Her lips tightened as she looked at
Helen with an expression that said: “Think of that!”

As Helen said nothing, Mrs. Burrell went on: “Of course, he come just
because she was here.”

“He must be very fond of her,” Helen ventured to remark. “But I don’t
wonder; Carrie Cora is a very fine girl.”

“She _is_ a fine girl. I declare to goodness I wish she wouldn’t
keep her light under a bushel. She does make me so mad! She could have
gone to the best teachers down to Boston or anywhere. Father even
offered to send her to Europe. She said she’d rather stay at home and
do housework. She’s a splendid housekeeper. I sometimes think that’s
what Rufus James wants to marry her for.”

“Well, that’s a great compliment to Carrie Cora,” Helen laughed. “It
seems to me a pretty good reason for marrying, too.”

“And have her go off and live in some tumble-down place in Auburn!”
Mrs. Burrell exclaimed, in horror.

“But perhaps that’s the only way she could be happy,” Helen insisted,
gently. “Carrie Cora’s naturally domestic. I can see that.”

Mrs. Burrell sighed. “And I always wanted to make something of her! I’m
sure her father’s spent money enough.”

“But if she makes a good wife and mother--that will be enough, won’t
it? Besides, is Rufus James so very poor?”

“I don’t believe he makes more than a thousand dollars a year.”

“That’s just what Douglas was earning when we became engaged,” said
Helen.

“What?” Mrs. Burrell looked startled. “Well, I declare!” she said.

“Douglas was teaching school then at Waverly, where we lived. They paid
him only six hundred a year; and he made the rest by writing for the
newspapers. At the same time he studied law.”

“Well, he _was_ smart. I don’t wonder he’s so successful.”

“We had to wait three years before we could marry. That seemed a long
time.”

Mrs. Burrell sighed. “It must have been hard.”

Helen at once pressed the point. “How long has Carrie Cora been
waiting?” she asked.

“Oh, they’re not _engaged_,” Mrs. Burrell replied, reproachfully,
as if this fact threw Carrie Cora’s case out of the discussion.

“But how long have they been fond of each other?”

“Well, as soon as I found it out I did my best to stop it,” said Mrs.
Burrell, as if flaunting a generous act. “I just told him he wasn’t to
come to the house any more. That was more’n two years ago.”

“So they haven’t seen anything of each other since?”

“Oh, yes, they have. Indeed they have. That girl’s just as obstinate.
She’s her father all over. I’ve said that to my husband a thousand
times since this trouble come on us. It’s spoiled our Winter here. That
girl’s a damper on everything. I kind of thought when she come down
here she’d get over it. But, as I was saying, she used to meet him
’round places in Auburn, mostly at Emily Farnsworth’s. Emily always was
a great friend of Carrie Cora’s. I used to like Emily real well. Now we
don’t speak.” Mrs. Burrell pressed her lips together again, and tears
stood in her eyes.

“Those things are always unfortunate,” said Helen, sympathetically.

Mrs. Burrell clutched her by the arm. “There he is now!” she said,
“over there. See that slim young man with the derby hat?”

“Who?” Helen asked, mystified.

“Why, Rufus James himself.”

The young man saw that he was observed, and looked at the two women
with surprise in his face. Then his face darkened and he flushed and
turned his head quickly away.

“He reco’nized me,” Mrs. Burrell exclaimed. “You could see that plain
enough. And he never had the politeness to lift his hat.”

“Can you blame him?” Helen asked, with a faint smile.

It was Mrs. Burrell who flushed now.

“He’s good-looking, isn’t he?” Helen went on. She was secretly pleased
by the young man’s show of spirit.

Mrs. Burrell remained silent for several minutes. Helen waited. “Oh, I
know you think I’m as hard as a rock,” she blurted out at last. “Just
because----”

“Oh, no,” Helen interposed, quickly.

Mrs. Burrell grew humble. “Do you think I ought to have let him come?”
she asked. “To the house, I mean?”

“It’s always a pity when those things have to go on outside the house.”

“So Mr. Dyer said. He’s our minister. He talked to me just as you’ve
been talking. But I suppose I’m obstinate myself. Still, I’ve always
tried to do right by that girl.”

“I’m sure you have.”

They fell into silence again. They had reached the country, and soft
breezes blew across their faces, bearing the scent of apple blossoms.

“You ain’t said much,” Mrs. Burrell began, “but I can just _feel_
what you think. You think I ain’t done right. Oh, don’t! I know just
how you feel. You think I’ve been throwing that girl in temptation’s
way. But I guess I know Carrie Cora better’n anyone else. And Rufus
James is an honorable young man. He’s always had a good reputation in
Auburn. Oh, dear!”

The tears ran down her withered cheeks. “I’d like to go home,” she said
to Helen. “I don’t feel a bit well. Perhaps my husband will be home.
I want to have a talk with him.” Helen spoke to the driver and they
turned back toward the city. “I’m an awful fool,” Mrs. Burrell went on.
“And don’t you go and blame yourself for anything I’ve said or done.
I’ve known all along that I wasn’t doin’ right, but it was just that
pride of mine kept me from acknowledgin’ it.” She dried her eyes and
sank back in the seat. Suddenly she sat bolt upright. “D’you suppose
Rufus James would come to dinner to-night if I asked him?” she said.




X


Helen Briggs felt uncomfortable on leaving Mrs. Burrell. It was true
that she had not introduced the subject of Carrie Cora’s love affair,
but her conscience troubled her, nevertheless. She did not like
interfering in other people’s business. However, victory had probably
been won for the girl, unless something should change her mother’s
mind. A resentful word, a disagreeable look on Carrie Cora’s part,
might shatter the possibility of a lifetime of happiness. On the other
hand, Helen argued, Mrs. Burrell might have been justified in opposing
her daughter. In spite of her own experience, Helen had grown sceptical
with regard to marriage. Many marriages among her friends had begun
with every promise of happiness and had been either disappointments or
complete failures. So often, she had observed, love seemed to be only
an expression of egotism, that soon betrayed itself in selfishness or
resentment or bitterness.

On reaching home Helen found the house deserted save by the servants.
On the way she had observed the plain and patient Miss Munroe with
the children in the Park. She went into the library to get something
to read, and her eye fell on the black scrapbooks. Without realizing
that she had for hours been resisting the temptation to examine them,
she quickly drew one out from the shelf and placed it on her husband’s
desk. It happened to be the newest, and it was only half-filled with
newspaper clippings. With a nervous impulse she placed it back on
the shelf and took the volume at the opposite end of the row. On the
fly-leaf she read, in her husband’s handwriting: “My first speeches
in Congress.” Most of these had been clipped from the Congressional
reports, and many of them she had read. She turned the pages quickly,
stopping here and there to read a personal paragraph of praise or
criticism. One paragraph contained this statement:

 “It is a satisfaction to see that in Douglas Briggs New York has at
 last sent a man to Congress who gives promise of taking a conspicuous
 position before the country. Briggs is impulsive, even hot-headed, and
 consequently injudicious, and his faults would be serious in a man
 of greater age and experience. But he has decided force of character,
 invincible determination, remarkable insight into public affairs and
 an inexhaustible capacity for work. He is sure to cut a great figure
 if his party stands by him. His danger lies in the chance of his
 becoming too big a man to be held in check by the party management. He
 has already overridden several party measures and taken leadership in
 pushing reforms that are distinctly opposed to the party’s policy.”

Helen had an impulse to kiss the paper on which these words were
printed. But she checked it and turned the leaves more quickly, letting
her eye run down each column. For more than an hour she pored over
the volumes. When she had glanced over the first three she noticed
a change in the tone of the comments. They began to be sarcastic;
they pointed out several inconsistencies in her husband’s course. One
paper published in parallel columns quotations from his speeches,
contradicting each other. Then followed open charges of corruption
against him in connection with a railroad bill then under consideration
in Congress. As she read, Helen grew faint. How did it happen that she
had neither seen nor heard of this article? Why hadn’t Douglas spoken
of it to her? Why had he not come out with a public denial, or sued the
paper for libel? Then she said to herself that she was foolish to ask
these questions. Attacks of this kind were made every day on public
men; the higher their position the more bitter the enemies they made.

She heard a sound at the front door, and she started. It was probably
Douglas returning early from the House. She was tempted to put the book
quickly back in its place; but she sat without moving, waiting for him
to come in. He walked up the stairs, however. She rose with a sigh of
relief and, closing the book, left it on the table. She made a quiet
resolve that she would never tell him of the thoughts that had passed
through her mind. She would try never to think of them again. She was
ashamed of having thought of them at all.

Douglas Briggs stopped on the upper landing and called, “Helen!” Then
he looked down. “Oh, there you are,” he said. He descended quickly,
and she met him in the hall. “Rested?” he said, taking her hand and
pressing it against his cheek.

“Yes, dear.” Then she suddenly put both her hands on his head
and kissed him twice. “I’m glad you came back early,” she said.
“Everybody’s out, and I’ve been feeling lonely.”

She returned to the library, and he followed. “I’ve been looking over
your scrapbooks,” she said.

“Couldn’t you find anything more interesting?” He dropped into a seat
near the table and ran his fingers through his hair. “We’ve been having
a great fight to-day. Aspinwall’s new tariff schedule. If I’d known I
was going to make a speech I’d have asked you to come. Have you seen
the notices of our ball last night in the papers?”

Helen nodded.

“The _Star_ gave us a great send-off. They treated me as if I were
a millionaire.” Douglas Briggs sighed. “I wish I were.”

“That reminds me, Douglas,” said Helen. “I want to ask you something.”
She was astonished at her own boldness. She felt as if she were
speaking at the bidding of someone else. She thought of her resolution,
but she felt powerless to keep it.

Briggs looked up. “Well?” Helen did not answer at once, and he added:
“What is it?”

“Since last night,” she began, slowly, seeming to hear her voice in
another part of the room, “I’ve been wondering if we weren’t living
very extravagantly.”

He looked at her in surprise. Then the expression in his face softened.
“I shouldn’t worry about that, dear, if I were you. There’s no need of
it.”

“Douglas!” she said.

“Eh?” He observed her sharply.

“How much do you make in a year?”

Briggs smiled and frowned at the same moment. “What?” he said, with
astonishment, “how much do I make?”

“Yes. What’s your income? What was it last year? Please tell me. I have
a reason for asking.”

Briggs looked vaguely around the room. “’Pon my word, I don’t believe I
know myself.”

“Can’t you estimate?”

“I suppose I could,” Briggs replied, with a note of irritation in his
voice. “But what do you want to know for?”

“I think I ought to know.”

“Don’t you have everything you want?” he asked, inconsequently.

“Yes.”

“Have I stinted you in anything?”

“No, Douglas, never. You’ve been perfect. No woman ever had a more
generous husband.”

Briggs thrust his hands into his pockets and burlesqued an attitude
of extreme self-satisfaction. “There! Then there’s nothing more to be
said, since I’m such a paragon.”

“But I want to know, really,” Helen insisted. For the first time she
had known him she suspected that he was not quite sincere. And yet she
could not believe that he was capable of acting with her--with anyone.

Briggs turned quickly. “I told you I didn’t know myself.”

“But I’m serious about this,” Helen went on. “Now, your salary is five
thousand, isn’t it?”

“M’m--h’m!”

“And the property Aunt Lena left me--how much does that bring in?”

Briggs lifted his shoulders. “Last year it brought in only two
thousand. We might have got more out of it----”

“Please don’t reproach me about that. You know how much I want to keep
it safe for the children!”

“Well, if that isn’t just like a woman!” Briggs retorted, laughing.
“When she might have more for the children!”

“Or nothing at all,” Helen remarked, quietly.

Briggs drew his hands from his pockets and sat erect. “Helen,” he said,
leaning toward his wife, “if you weren’t a woman you’d be a parson,
like your father and your two younger brothers. It’s in your blood.”

Helen ignored the remark. “That makes seven thousand, doesn’t it?”

“But I never touch _that_ money. I add it to the principal.”

“So we have only five thousand to live on!” Helen exclaimed, in a
startled voice.

Her husband smiled with patient superiority. “No, no! Now you talk as
if you were a millionaire’s daughter. How much did your father live on,
I’d like to know?”

“Eighteen hundred a year.”

“Well, I dare say he was just as happy on that as we are on----” He
stopped, looking at her with an expression in his eyes that she had
never seen there before.

“On what?” she asked, quietly.

“On what we spend,” he replied.

“The ball we gave last night must have cost at least eighteen hundred,”
Helen persisted.

“Well, I guess we’re good for it,” Briggs replied, complacently.

Helen lost control of herself. “That’s what I can’t understand,” she
cried, excitedly. “How are we good for it?”

Douglas Briggs rose and walked slowly toward his wife. He laid his hand
gently on her shoulder. “My dear child, that’s not a nice way to speak
to your husband!”

“Please don’t call me your dear child again, Douglas. Now, I have a
reason for asking these questions, and I want you to give me direct
answers.”

Briggs let his hand drop. Helen rose and walked to the edge of the desk.

“I think you must be ill, dear,” he said, looking at her solicitously.

She tried to keep the tears from her voice. “I shall be, unless you
tell me the truth.”

Douglas Briggs kept his eyes on her for a long time. She turned from
him. “Do you mean that you want to know whether I am an honest man or
not?” he asked, in a low voice.

“I have never questioned your honesty, Douglas.”

He hesitated. “I will tell you the truth,” he said, as if he had just
passed through a struggle. “Last year I must have spent nearly thirty
thousand dollars. It was all I had. At the end of the year I was five
thousand dollars in debt. That has since been paid.”

“How did you make that money?” she asked, facing him.

Briggs looked down at the table. His eyes wandered over his papers and
over the black scrapbook. “That’s a cruel question for a wife to ask
her husband,” he remarked at last.

“Not when she knows he will be able to answer it,” Helen said, firmly.

“Well, I--I made it mostly through my law practice.”

Helen began to breathe quickly. “But I heard you say the other day
that since you came to Washington you had been forced to give up your
practice.”

“So I have--very largely, almost wholly, in fact,” he replied, growing
impatient again. “But there are some interests that I have to look out
for here.”

“Such as what?”

“Well, there’s the--there are some railroad interests.”

“Some railroad interests!” Helen repeated, blankly.

“Yes.”

“The railroad that Mr. West is concerned in, do you mean?”

“Why, yes. You know that perfectly well. I’ve been associated with that
railroad for years, in one way or another.”

“That’s the road that receives so much favor from the Government, isn’t
it?”

“Oh, that’s mere gossip. There’s no such thing.”

Helen looked straight into her husband’s face. Her figure had become
rigid. “What do you do for the railroad, Douglas?”

His eyes flashed; his nostrils turned white. “You’re going too far,
Helen,” he cried.

She did not stir. “I have a right to ask these questions,” she
continued, keeping her voice low. “Oh, I know you consider that I can’t
understand these things. You acknowledge that you receive thousands of
dollars a year from that railroad--five times as much as your salary.”

“I made no such acknowledgment,” Briggs replied, angrily.

“But it’s true; you know it’s true, Douglas. You can’t deny it.”

“I won’t take the trouble to deny it, since you evidently want to
believe it.”

“And you know you don’t give the road an hour a day of your time.”

His lips curled. “My dear girl, lawyers aren’t paid by the hour, like
your seamstresses.”

“And the railroad’s regular attorney is Mr. West,” Helen went on. “You
know that.”

“Well, West does all the dirty work,” he said, with a laugh.

“And what do you do, Douglas?” She hesitated. “Answer me, Douglas--what
do you do?”

“Wait a minute,” he said, in a low voice. He raised his hand. “I warn
you that you are interfering with matters that don’t concern you, that
you can’t even comprehend. You are doing it at your peril.”

“What do you do for that company?” she repeated.

He extended both hands in a gesture of deprecation. “I simply look
after its interests in the House. There’s the truth, now. It’s
perfectly legitimate. There are plenty of men who do the same thing for
other corporations--men in big positions.”

Her face grew pale and she swayed forward slightly. Then she stood
erect and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Douglas!” she said.




XI


On the morning after the reception Franklin West sat at his desk in
his office in the Belmore Building. His head was bowed over a mass of
type-written sheets. He paid little attention to them, however. He
found it hard to work this morning. He was thinking, with considerable
disgust, that he had made himself ridiculous the night before. He had,
moreover, made a misstep that might lead to serious consequences.

Yes, he had certainly been a great ass. He had spoken to Mrs. Briggs
in a way he would never have thought of speaking if he had been in
his senses. However, now that the mischief was done, he must consider
how to meet the consequences. What would the consequences be? Would
she tell her husband? The answer to that question depended wholly on
whether she believed the charge he had made against her husband’s
integrity. West knew well enough that Mrs. Briggs had an absolute
belief in her husband, and this knowledge had often caused him a
contemptuous bitterness. Why should a man like Briggs be allowed to
deceive such a woman as that? If Mrs. Briggs still kept her faith in
her husband, there was no reason why she should not reveal the episode
of the previous night--none except the woman’s natural fear of creating
a scandal. This motive might be strong enough to keep her silent.
But, of course, he could never enter her house again. He might, it is
true--and the thought gave him a momentary relief--he might write her
an apology, and explain his behavior on the plea of his condition.
But that would be too humiliating, and it might give Briggs a hold
on him that would be decidedly disagreeable, and lead to disastrous
consequences. However, this expedient he could try as a final resort.
It was, of course, possible that Mrs. Briggs would believe what he
had said, or would make an investigation that would bring the truth
home to her. Here was an interesting problem. Once convinced that her
husband was a hypocrite, that he had made his money by means that she
considered dishonest, would she still respect and love him?

West took a satisfaction in thinking that if he had made himself
ridiculous, he might have at least ruined the happiness of the woman
who had repulsed him, and of the man for whom he had a covert hatred,
caused partly by jealousy, partly by an instinctive consciousness of
Briggs’s dislike, and partly by that natural aversion which all men
have for those associated with them in dealings that degrade them in
their own esteem.

The green door leading into the adjoining room opened, and the office
boy entered. “There’s a lady to see you, sir,” he said.

Franklin West looked up. “Who is she?”

“She told me just to say a lady wanted to see you.”

“All right.” West rose slowly and left the room. A moment later he was
greeting Miss Beatrice Wing.

“This is an unexpected pleasure,” he said, with his large smile.

Miss Wing was radiant in a new Spring frock, a tight-fitting blue serge
suit, with a large hat, trimmed with blue flowers, resting jauntily on
her auburn hair.

“I don’t often come out so early,” she replied, “especially after such
late hours.” She looked as if she had had the night’s rest of a child.

“Come into my office, won’t you?” West led the way, and Miss Wing
followed, suggesting by her walk the steps of a dancer. As she passed
the clerks glanced up and smiled covertly at one another. When she had
seated herself she looked at West for a moment without speaking, her
face bright with good humor.

“I’ve come on a funny errand,” she said at last, rubbing her left arm
with her gloved hand.

“That’s interesting,” said West, cheerfully.

“I want you to do something for me.”

The smile disappeared from his face, but swiftly returned. West rarely
suffered more than a momentary eclipse. At this moment, however, his
instinct warned him of danger. “I shall be only too glad,” he began,
but Miss Wing cut him short.

“I want,” she said, waving one hand with the air of making a joke, “I
want to place my services at your feet.”

West continued to smile. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I want you to give me something to do. I want you to give me a share
in your enterprises. I know I can be useful to you.”

“But what about your own work--your newspaper work?”

Miss Wing snapped her gloved fingers. “What does that amount to? Why,
it hardly pays for my frocks. And to tell the truth,” she went on, her
manner growing more familiar, “I’m not at all clever at it. My editor
has to rewrite nearly everything I send him. By nature I’m a business
woman. Society reporting bores me. I like larger interests. That’s what
I came to Washington for.”

West showed that he was growing interested by slightly closing his left
eye. This gave him a curiously sinister expression, which Miss Wing
observed. “You want to do some political work--is that the idea?” he
asked.

Miss Wing sank back in her chair. “I want to get a little power if I
can, and to use it for my own advantage. Now, there’s frankness for
you. But I’m only a beginner. I’m just getting my start.”

West cleared his throat. “Since you’re so frank, Miss Wing,” he said,
pleasantly, “perhaps you’ll tell me just what you have in mind.”

On being confronted with this question Miss Wing flushed. “I think you
know perfectly well what I mean. I’ve told you that I want you to let
me into your schemes.”

West shrugged his shoulders; his face became almost sad. “I haven’t any
schemes of that sort,” he said, softly.

Miss Wing laughed outright. “You haven’t any interest in railroad
legislation?” she asked, with a lift of the eyebrows.

“It is true that I’m employed by a railroad. But as you aren’t a
lawyer, I don’t see how you could help me.”

Miss Wing looked at him for a long time, her smile hardening. “I’m
surprised that you should treat me like this.” Then her face softened.
“I’m a little hurt, too.”

“You wanted me to be frank,” West replied, gently.

Miss Wing hesitated. When she spoke it was with a complete change
of tone. “There’s really no use beating about the bush any longer.
Everybody in Washington knows what you do for that railroad. Everybody
knows that last year you spent more than a hundred thousand dollars
for it--right here in this city. And everybody knows that Congressman
Briggs is your tool. He is helping you push the bill through the House.
But everybody doesn’t know one other fact that I know.” She held her
head high and looked at West defiantly. She flushed, and the flowers
in her hat trembled.

“What may that be?” he asked, quietly.

She sank back in her seat and smiled. “If I were to publish an
article,” she went on, “showing that you had not only bribed
Congressman Briggs, but had taken advantage of your hold on him to make
love to his wife, that would make a dreadful scandal, wouldn’t it?”

West did not stir. He seemed even to control his breath. “I don’t know
what you are talking about,” he said, in a low voice.

Miss Wing smiled and watched him. She admired a man who could take
things so coolly. “I’ve suspected for a long time,” she explained,
lightly, “and when I saw you drinking all that punch last night, I knew
you were losing your head. Wasn’t it strong? I just sipped it. That
was enough. Oh, you _were_ amusing! You entertained me all the
evening.”

West looked at her without a change of expression. He was thinking
how pleasant it would be to take her by the throat and choke out her
silvery laugh. “You followed me about, then?” he asked.

Miss Wing looked injured. “Oh, dear, no--nothing so vulgar. But I saw
it all by the merest chance. I happened to be standing near the library
door at just the right angle. I saw you threaten Mrs. Briggs. There was
no need of hearing what you said. It was all as plain as daylight. Now,
what do you propose to do about it?”

West roused himself. “Do you realize,” he said, “that if you were to
start a story of that sort no one in Washington would believe you?”

Miss Wing looked hurt. “Then you want me to publish the article?” she
said, reproachfully. “How unkind of you!”

“Do as you please about that. It won’t be the first libel that has been
printed about me.”

“Perhaps you would prefer that I should inform Mr. Briggs of what I saw
last night,” she said. “That would be less public, wouldn’t it?”

“Tell him,” West replied, with a yawn, “and you’ll get turned out of
the house for your trouble. Besides, Mrs. Briggs would deny the story.
Then where would you be? No, my dear lady, you’ve made a false start.
You’ll have to try your game on a younger hand. I’ve been in Washington
too long to be afraid of a woman like you.” The smile had completely
faded from his face. He looked like a different man, and much older.
“Only, if I were you,” he went on, “I wouldn’t make the mistake of
bothering Congressman Briggs. That might be disastrous to your career
here.”

[Illustration: “‘_I shall give you a few days to think the matter
over._’”]

Miss Wing rose from her seat. “Thanks for your advice; it’s so
disinterested,” she said, with a bitter smile. “But I shall give you a
few days to think the matter over. The article will keep. In case you
should wish to write me----”

“I know the address,” West interrupted. “Going?” Miss Wing stood at
the green door. The toss of her head conveyed anger, resentment and
disappointment. “If I were you I’d stick to newspaper work,” West
called after her. “It pays best in the end.”




XII


A week later the mild Spring weather changed to heat that suggested
Midsummer. The Potomac flats sent up odors that made people talk about
malaria and the importance of getting out of town. Congress gave no
sign of adjourning, however. The House was choked with business;
important bills were under consideration and equally important bills
lay waiting to be brought up. It looked now as if the session might
last till July.

The heat, combined with a peremptory order from Ashburnham, had
persuaded Fanny Wallace that she must leave for home. She was not
altogether sorry to go; since the night of the ball, an atmosphere
of gloom seemed to envelop the Briggs household. It affected even
Guy, who, however, attributed it to pressure of business. When Fanny
complained of it, Guy would close his lips impatiently and say, “Well,
Mr. Briggs is up to his neck.” At last Fanny ordered him to stop using
that expression. “You have such a horrid trick of saying the same
things over and over again,” she cried one day, and when he looked
depressed, she tried to apologize by adding:

“I suppose that’s because you’ve got such a limited vocabulary.”

“A man don’t need to know as many words as a woman,” Guy retorted, and
he further exasperated Fanny by refusing to explain what he meant.

“I intend mighty quick to go to a place,” Fanny exclaimed, “where my
conversation will be appreciated. At any rate,” she added, “I’ll go
where people aren’t afraid to smile once in a while.”

By the time she did leave, however, she and Guy had quarreled and had
been reconciled again many times. They parted with the understanding
that if Guy could be spared for a week or two, Fanny should go
to Ashburnham for a vacation. But on this subject Guy remained
conservative to the end. “If Congress holds out all Summer,” he said
grimly, “I’ll have to stay here. I can’t leave the Congressmen alone.”

“Great company _you_ are,” Fanny maliciously commented, as Guy
stepped off the train. But she atoned by smiling at him ravishingly
from the car window, and kissing the tips of her fingers.

One hot afternoon, a few days later, as Douglas Briggs was walking
slowly home, he met Miss Munroe and her little charges. Dorothy and
Jack were walking listlessly, their faces pale, their eyes tired. Even
Miss Munroe’s face lacked its expression of patient placidity. On
meeting him the children showed less than usual enthusiasm.

“They ought to be out of town,” said Briggs.

Miss Munroe nodded. “Jack doesn’t seem like himself at all,” she said,
“since this heat began. And Dorothy has lost all her spirits.”

That night at dinner Helen sat alone with her husband. Guy Fullerton
was dining out. For a long time neither spoke. They were becoming used
to silence.

“I’ve just had a letter from Fanny,” Helen said. “She seems very lonely
at Ashburnham; but I’m glad she has escaped this dreadful heat.”

“That reminds me,” Briggs remarked. “I think you’d better not wait till
next month before you go up to Waverly. The children will be far better
off up there. This heat may continue all through the month. Can’t you
get away by Saturday?”

He did not notice that she turned pale.

“I suppose we could,” she replied.

“I shall close up the house,” he continued, “and take rooms with Guy at
the club. If I can manage it I’ll go up to Waverly with you for over
Sunday. To-morrow I’ll send Michael there to open the house and get
things ready. His wife had better go with him, too,” he added, as an
afterthought.

“There’ll be no need of going to all that expense,” said Helen,
flushing. Then she went on, quickly: “Miss Munroe and I can open the
house, and we can get Mary Watson’s daughter to help us.”

“No,” said Briggs, decisively. “I want the place to be aired and put
in shape before you get there. You’re too tired to look after those
things, anyway, and Miss Munroe has all she can do to take care of the
children.”

Helen rose from the table, and her husband followed her out of the
room. “I must go right back to the House,” he said. “We shall probably
have a long session to-night; so I sha’n’t be home till late. You
needn’t have anyone wait up for me.”

Their partings after dinner had lately become very difficult,
involving unnecessary and uncomfortable explanations. Helen had either
to attend to some trifling domestic detail or to hurry upstairs to the
nursery, and Briggs was absorbed in work that called him to his study
or out of the house. They talked a good deal now about matters that
did not relate to themselves. Sometimes it was hard to find a topic.
They were in that most miserable of human situations where, loving
each other, they were able only to cause each other pain. Briggs found
relief in his work; Helen devoted more time to the children. She began
to wonder if she had not neglected them, if she had not left them too
much to their governess. It seemed to her, at times, that they cared as
much for Miss Munroe as for herself. Of course, Miss Munroe was in many
ways valuable, but she was provincial and narrow-minded and she petted
the children too much and gave them sentimental and foolish notions.
Helen dreaded seeming ungrateful, but she suspected that the children
had outgrown their governess.

With his buoyant nature it was impossible for Douglas Briggs to remain
steadily depressed. There were moments when he felt sure that the
trouble between his wife and himself would suddenly disappear. Some
day, when he returned home, she would meet him in the hall or on the
stairs, and by a look, a gesture, would let him know that she had
forgiven him. Then he would take her in his arms, and all the anguish
of the past few weeks would be over. They would be dearer to each other
on account of it, closer, tenderer companions. She was in the right,
of course, but she would see that he had been forced to do what he had
done; that his sin had not been nearly so great as it seemed to her,
and that he was going to pay for it; that he had paid for it already,
and he would make ample amends in the future.

Helen Briggs, however, cherished no such illusion. She could see no
way out of the difficulty. It was not merely that her respect for her
husband had gone; she was bitterly disappointed and hurt. She had
decided never to speak to him about Franklin West’s insult, but it
was her husband’s unconscious participation in it that caused her the
deepest humiliation and resentment. On the other hand, the very cruelty
of her sufferings deepened both her pity for her husband and her love.
The thought of leaving him now made her feel faint. She wished to stay
with him and to be more to him than she had ever been. But in his
presence she felt powerless; she could not even seem like herself.
She accused herself of being a depressing influence, of adding to his
burden.

During the next few days, in spite of the heat that continued to be
severe, Helen worked hard helping to close the house and to prepare the
children’s Summer clothes. Dorothy began to be irritable, and Jack had
developed an affection of the throat that frightened her. The doctors
told her, however, that the boy would be well again after he had been
for a few days in the pure air of Waverly. It was a relief to her to
worry about Jack and to care for him, just as it was a satisfaction to
go to bed exhausted at the end of each day.

On Friday afternoon Douglas Briggs returned home early. “I sha’n’t
be here for dinner,” he said. “I’m going to a committee meeting at
Aspinwall’s house, and it’ll last till evening, probably. Anyway, he’s
asked me to stay for a stag dinner. His wife’s away, you know.”

“Aren’t you too busy to go with us to-morrow, Douglas?” Helen asked.
“You’ve not had a minute to yourself this week. Miss Munroe and I can
manage very well. If you like you can send Guy down.”

Briggs hesitated. “It _is_ a very hard time for me to leave,”
he said, nervously stroking his hair. “I ought to be at the House
to-morrow morning. But I didn’t want you and the children to stay till
Monday. It’s so hot here----”

“We’ll go on, as we planned, and you can stay here,” Helen interrupted.
She turned away quickly and left him with the feeling that the matter
had been taken out of his hands. This turn of affairs displeased him.
He decided he would go to Waverly anyway. But when he had returned to
the cab waiting at the door he recovered from his resentment. Helen’s
plan was best, after all. In a week or two there would be a lull,
and he could run over to New York and then up the river to Waverly.
Perhaps by that time Helen would feel rested and take a different view
of things. She had been tired and nervous lately. He liked himself for
his leniency toward his wife, and when he reached Aspinwall’s house he
was in the frame of mind that always enabled him to appear at his best,
friendly and frank, but aggressive.

The next morning Briggs drove with his family to the morning train,
leaving Guy to reply to his letters. When he bade them good-bye he
tried to maintain a jocular air. The children clamored after him from
the open window, and Dorothy’s face gave promise of tears. “Oh, I shall
see you all in a few days,” he said, as he stood on the platform. “That
is, if I hear that Dorothy and Jack are good. I won’t come if they are
not good.”

“Oh, we’ll be awful good, papa,” said Dorothy, earnestly.

A thick-set young man, with big spectacles, came hurrying to the train,
carrying a heavy suit-case. Briggs did not recognize him till he was
close at hand.

“Oh, hello, Farley! Going on this train? That’s fine. You can look
after these people of mine. Helen,” Briggs called through the window,
“here’s Farley. He’s going over, too.”

“I don’t know that I can get a seat in the car,” Farley panted.

Briggs turned to the conductor, who stood at the steps. “Oh, I guess
Lawton can fix you up,” he remarked, pleasantly, displaying his genius
for remembering names.

The conductor brightened. “Oh, that’ll be all right,” he said. “Just
jump in,” he added, to Farley. “There are two or three vacant places,
and I’ll try to get one of the passengers to change, so that you can
sit with the Congressman’s family.”

Briggs walked forward and stood at the window. “I feel more comfortable
now,” he said to Farley, with a smile.

The conductor managed to secure the seat beside Helen, and a moment
later the train pulled out of the station. Farley had begun to
entertain Dorothy and Jack, whom he had seen a few times at home and in
the parks. He seemed to know how to approach children; he never talked
down to them; he gave them the feeling that they were meeting him on
equal terms. His honest eyes and his large, smiling mouth at once won
their confidence.

“I’m just running over for Sunday,” he explained to Helen. “Awful
day to travel, isn’t it? But we’re going to have a pretty important
meeting of our club--the Citizens’ Club, you know. We’re getting after
Rathburn. Know him?”

“He has been at our house to see Mr. Briggs,” Helen replied. She
remembered Mr. Rathburn as a quiet, and an exceedingly polite man, with
a gray, pointed beard, fond of talking about his hobby, the cultivation
of roses.

“I think we’ve got him where we want him, now,” Farley continued. “He’s
been pretty foxy, but we’ve caught him napping in that big water-supply
steal. He engineered the whole job. It must have cost the city a
half-million dollars more than it should have cost. They say he pulled
out a hundred thousand for himself. But it’s going to queer him for
good!”

“Do you mean that you are going to have him prosecuted?” Helen asked.

Farley could not keep from smiling at the simplicity of the question.
“Hardly that. That would be more than we could hope for. But if we can
only have the thing investigated, and get the people to realize what’s
been done, why, his political career will be over. There’s a whole
gang of ’em in with him; but most of ’em have covered their tracks.”
Farley sighed. “It’s strange,” he said, “how hard it is to rouse public
opinion. Sometimes I believe our people are the most indifferent in the
world. They haven’t any sense of personal responsibility. That’s why we
have so many rascals in public life. If I were going in for rascality,”
he concluded, with a laugh, “I’d become a politician. It’s the safest
and the most profitable way of making money. Big returns and mighty
little risk.”

Farley apparently did not notice the look of distress in Helen’s eyes.
Encouraged by her questions, he went on to give her an account of the
way in which the club had been founded. “I’d been doing the political
work in New York for the _Gazette_ for three years,” he said; “so
that gave me a chance to see things from the inside. And what I did
see made me so sick that I thought of quitting the business. But one
night I was talking things over with Jimmy Barker. You’ve heard of
him, of course. He made me look at things from another point of view.
Jimmy’s father left him half a million dollars, and Jimmy, instead
of spending it all on himself, is blowing it in on his philanthropic
schemes. Lately he’s been living down on the East Side and working for
a reform in the tenement-house laws. Well, he made me see that, instead
of quitting political work, because the society wasn’t good enough for
me, I ought to stay in it and help to make it a little cleaner, if I
could. So he got me to bring together a lot of fellows that looked at
things as we did and we formed a sort of organization. At first we had
only a few rooms downtown. Now we have a house uptown and a pretty big
membership. It’s all Jimmy’s work. He’s given us a lot of money, and
when we got discouraged he’s kept us going by his enthusiasm--and his
money, too. I never knew such a man; nothing discourages him.” Farley’s
eyes flashed through his big glasses in the glow of talk. Helen
realized for the first time that at moments he was almost handsome.

“Douglas has often spoken to me about the work of your club,” she
remarked. “He says it is having a great influence in New York.”

“I wish we could persuade him to come in with us,” Farley said,
wistfully. “I’ve been trying to get him for months. He’s just the kind
of man we need most. You know we’ve been careful to keep absolutely
non-partisan. We have public men from both parties among our members.
It’s been pretty hard keeping ’em together. There are a lot of
hot-heads among reformers, you know,” he went on, smiling. “I suppose
when a man gets a strong bias in any direction it’s apt to throw him
off his equilibrium. But most of our men have seen that partisanship
would be the death of us. Our great point is to keep the city
government out of politics as much as possible. Of course, there’s no
reason why it shouldn’t be, except there seems to be a sort of weakness
in human nature for following a banner and going in crowds.”

“Then you don’t pay attention to politics outside of New York?” Helen
asked.

“Only indirectly,” Farley replied. “Some time we hope we can have a
National organization like our city club to look after some of those
rascals down in Washington. But as I was saying,” Farley resumed,
eagerly, “if I could only get Mr. Briggs to join us, then he’d meet our
men, and they’d get to understand him. They don’t understand him now.
They think he’s been an out-and-out machine man. Of course, that’s all
nonsense. I only wish we had more machine men like him.”

Helen turned her head away. Dorothy and Jack were playing games with
Miss Munroe. When Jack looked up quickly she noticed a little movement
of the head that always reminded her of his father. The first time she
had noticed this resemblance it had given her a thrill of happiness.

On the arrival of the train in New York Farley helped his friends into
a carriage. “I’m not going to bid you good-bye,” he said. “I’ll take
the elevated and I’ll be at the Grand Central station before you have
time to get there.”

Helen offered a protest, but Farley smilingly insisted. “It’s on my way
uptown,” he explained. “It won’t be the least trouble.”

He had charmed Dorothy on the way over from Washington, and for an hour
she had lain asleep in his arms. Now she clamored that he be given a
place in the carriage.

“I can sit in Mr. Farley’s lap,” she pleaded.

“No, Dorothy,” said Farley, “I’d like that all right; but the carriage
is crowded already.”

“Then I’ll go with Mr. Farley,” Dorothy insisted. This compromise,
however, was instantly rejected, and the driver whipped off. When Helen
reached the station Farley had already secured the tickets and the
seats in the parlor car.

“I wish Mr. Farley was going with us,” said Jack.

“Oh, do come, please,” Dorothy exclaimed, delighted. “Can’t you come
and live with us like Mr. Fullerton?”

Farley laughed.

“Perhaps Mr. Farley will come some day,” said Helen. “Perhaps he will
come with papa.”

“Oh, good!” Jack shouted.

“Well, I want Mr. Farley now,” Dorothy pouted. The fatigue of the
journey had begun to tell on her.

Farley walked down to the car and saw his friends settled in their
places. As the train pulled out of the station he stood on the platform
and watched till it disappeared. Then he sighed and walked slowly back
to the street. How fortunate some men were in this world, he thought.
Douglas Briggs was an example. He had everything that could contribute
to happiness--success, power, money, a happy home, a wife who must
be a perpetual inspiration, and children. Farley cared comparatively
little for money or power; he was content to follow his life in the
world as it had been laid out for him; but sometimes he grew depressed
as he thought that the deeper satisfactions, the love of a wife and of
children, he should probably never know. For the past year this feeling
had become a conviction. He encouraged no morbid sentiment about it,
however. He had plenty of interests and pleasures; his work alone
brought rewards that were worth striving for, and in his friendships,
his interests and in books he found distraction and solace. He was
one of those men who are never tempted to experiment with their
emotions; so he had kept his mind wholesome, and he had never known
the disappointment and the bitterness of those who try to substitute
self-indulgence for happiness.

Farley himself hardly realized how much his view of life was influenced
by his attitude toward women. He had the exalted view of women that
only those men can take who have kept their lives clean. He had first
become interested in Douglas Briggs through seeing Briggs’s wife. He
thought there must be remarkable qualities in a man who could win the
love of a woman like that. Until within a few months he had seen Helen
only a few times. Now he felt as if he had known her always. He looked
back on himself during the years before he first saw her as if he had
been someone else, with a feeling very like pity. There were also
moments of weakness when he thought with pity of himself as he had been
since knowing her.

If Farley had realized the misery he had caused Helen Briggs he would
have experienced an agony of regret. On the way to Waverly Helen
kept thinking of her talk with him on the train. The revelation of
his own character that Farley had given made Helen compare him with
her husband. She had never before appreciated the rare qualities
of the journalist, his inflexible honesty, his candor, his generous
admirations, his supreme unselfishness. At the thought of his devotion
to her husband Helen felt her face flush with shame. Douglas, of
course, knew how much Farley admired him; but Douglas was used to
admiration; he had received it all his life.




XIII


After Helen’s departure, Douglas Briggs felt a curious mingling
of relief and depression. It was a relief not to have to face the
constant rebuke that the sight of her gave him; and yet it depressed
him during the day to think that when he returned home he should not
find her there. He realized now many things about himself that he
had been unconscious of before. In the happy time that seemed so far
away now, during the stress of work, how he had loved to think of her
at home there with the children. What a comfort it was just to know
they were there and to feel that they were safe. And then, the walk
home, with the expectation of finding the children and Helen in the
nursery. The glad welcome! Then--but at this point he had to force
himself to think of other things. That happiness could never be the
same because in her eyes he could never be the same man. She must ever
look back on those days with a kind of shame; she must feel that he
had deceived her, that through it all he had been a hypocrite. With
her severe standards she must think that he had never been what she
believed him to be. She would judge him by that perfect father of hers,
by her sturdy older brother, and by the two brothers who had entered
the Church. At other times he would accuse himself of wronging her;
she could not judge him so harshly; she could not put aside altogether
the love she had once had for him. The love she had once had! He would
feel a shock of horror. Why, she must have it still; she had told him
a thousand times that nothing could change her love for him. After the
children came they used to say that much as they loved the children
they loved each other a thousand times more. And how they used to
wonder if other husbands and wives loved as they did. They used to
laugh and say that perhaps to other people they seemed as commonplace
as others did to them. After a time he resolved to discipline himself
when these thoughts came; if he were to indulge them, they would make
life unbearable. He wondered vaguely if she ever had such thoughts now.
Once they used to believe that they often had the same thoughts. In
this way, in spite of his efforts, he found himself going back to his
morbid fancies. Sometimes, on the other hand, he became rebellious and
he pitied himself as a man unjustly and inhumanely treated. No woman
had a right to treat a man like that, a man who had always tried to
be good to her, too. No woman had a right to expect her husband to be
perfect.

It seemed curious that at this time Douglas Briggs should have found
solace in the companionship of Guy Fullerton. The boy’s eager interest
in life and his simplicity of mind amused and interested the older man.
In spite of his four years of money-spending at Harvard, Guy had not
been spoiled; at moments his ingenuousness was almost childish. Douglas
Briggs found that with Guy he could discuss matters he would shrink
from mentioning in the presence of sophisticated and hardened men. In
Guy, too, he saw many of the qualities that he himself had had as a
boy, though he recognized that long before reaching his secretary’s
age he had outgrown most of them. In his dread of being alone he made
pretexts for keeping the boy with him in his few hours of leisure
during the day. In the late afternoon they would walk from the house to
the club where Briggs would let Guy order the dinner. They had a table
reserved for them in the bay-window of the dining-room, by George, the
fat and pompous head-waiter, whose display of teeth at the appearance
of Douglas Briggs suggested the memory of a long line of tips. After
finishing the meal they would often linger, sipping claret punch which
Briggs allowed himself to encourage Guy to drink. He had begun to feel
a paternal fondness for Guy; he enjoyed formulating before the young
fellow a philosophy of life and offering stray bits of advice. Guy’s
admiration for him stimulated him and, though he would have hated to
acknowledge the fact, it supported him in a good opinion of himself.
If in his talks there were matters that occurred to his mind only to
be immediately suppressed, the reason was not less because he wished
to conceal certain aspects of life from the boy than because he wished
to keep the boy’s admiration untarnished. Occasionally he wondered
if he ought not to do something for Guy, if he were not selfish in
his keeping him in a kind of life that might harm him. If the young
fellow stayed long enough in Washington he would probably become one
of those miserable creatures whose days were spent in hanging on to
the soiled skirts of the Government. It would be a pity to see Guy, for
example, in the army of clerks who, at nine o’clock each day, poured
into the Government offices and streamed out again at four in the
afternoon. Briggs said to himself that he ought to find a chance for
Guy to do work into some sort of independence where he could develop
those qualities of faithfulness and intelligence that were plainly his
inheritance even if they were somewhat obscured by his boyishness.

After dinner, when there was nothing to call him to the House, Briggs
would occasionally be joined by a politician, or by one of the Army
or Navy men who frequented the club. He dreaded meeting the officers
even more than the politicians. He had grown tired of hearing of the
exploits of the Spanish War, of the controversy between rival Admirals
and of the rare qualities, on the one hand, of this General or that,
and the injustice of the General’s advance over officers who had given
many years of faithful work to the service. The jealousies and the
rivalries among the heroes disgusted him, and the bragging among some
of the veterans gave him a contempt for war. At moments he had a horror
of meeting anyone except the young fellow who kept him from thinking
about himself. He wondered if he had grown suddenly old. The talk of
the club made him feel as if life had become sordid and mean, as if
nothing was ever done from an unselfish motive. In these moods he would
sometimes take Guy with him for a ride in the country on a trolley-car
to Chevy Chase, where they would sit on the porch of the club and watch
the fireflies gleaming over the green sward, or, as oftener happened,
to Cabin John’s, where they amused themselves by studying the crowd.
Cabin John’s used to remind Briggs of his early days in the country
when he attended the church-picnics. He found himself now going back to
those days very often. After all, he reflected, the plain democratic
life was the best. And it was this very kind of life that he had been
striving so desperately to get away from.

Occasionally during the afternoon Briggs would feel a disgust for
work and would go with Guy to the ball-game. Briggs enjoyed a game
of baseball for its own sake and because it renewed his old boyish
enthusiasm. At college he had been a catcher on his nine and he had
never lost his interest in the game. The crowd, too, entertained him
with its good nature, its amusing remarks to the players, and with its
fitful bursts of rage and scorn against the umpire. Briggs used to say
to Guy that he believed American men were never so happy as when they
were watching a ball-game. “Look at all those fellows,” he would remark
on the days of the big games. “See how contented they are. And what a
harmless pleasure it is, too!” Then, afraid of boring the boy with his
philosophy, Briggs would check himself and devote his attention to the
game. Meanwhile, however, he continued his reflections. Most of these
men were undoubtedly family men; many of them had sent their families
for the hot season away to the country or the seashore. He wondered how
many of them were really happy. Did they miss their wives and their
children as he missed his? Some of them were, of course, glad to be
free and Briggs realized the commonplace thought with astonishment.
There were some men who did not care for family-life, who were unfitted
for it. It had become impossible for him to think of any other kind of
life as endurable. Well, it was good that they could all, the happy and
unhappy, come to a game of baseball and forget there was such a thing
as care in the world.

While he was alone at night, Briggs suffered most. At times he would
work late in order to exhaust himself; then his brain would become so
excited that he could not sleep for hours. Sometimes he rose and tried
to read; and occasionally, he would fall asleep in the chair. In his
dreams he would wander about the new house, breaking his heart over the
sight of places and things associated with his wife. He often said to
himself that he felt as if he had lost part of himself; he recalled the
remarks he had made to Helen on the night of that wretched party, that
he felt as if he had always been married. He wondered what men had to
live for who did not have wife and children to think of, to give them
incentive for their work. He had always been an optimist and he had
felt a curious surprise when he heard people express a dissatisfaction
with life. Even his trials and his disappointments had brought with
them something stimulating. But now he often sank into despair.

Guy Fullerton was consoled in his confinement in Washington by the
sense of his importance to his employer and by the letters that he
received from Fanny Wallace. Though an irregular letter-writer, Fanny
was voluminous, and she kept Guy amused with her comments on the
people that she met and the things that she did. Occasionally one
of her letters would contain a reference that would throw Guy into
temporary depression. Douglas Briggs generally knew when this disaster
had occurred, and used to exert himself to rouse the boy, generally
with success. At these times Guy would give expression to a philosophy
regarding woman so pessimistic and cynical that Briggs with difficulty
kept from laughing. In spite of his own troubles, Briggs congratulated
himself that he retained his sense of humor. Once he said to Guy, as
they were drinking at the club: “My dear boy, you mustn’t take life so
seriously.”

“Well, sir,” Guy replied in a deep breath, “I’m just beginning to find
out how serious it is.”

“It’s all right to realize how serious it is,” Briggs went on, “but
that’s different from taking it seriously. Don’t let things bother
you too much, that’s what I mean--little things. Just be sure that
everything is coming out all right, and don’t mind the details.”

Guy shook his head doggedly. “But the details are mighty important,
sometimes, Mr. Briggs.”

In spite of himself, Briggs sighed. It was much easier to offer
philosophy to this boy than to practise it oneself. The silence that
followed was suddenly broken by Guy’s saying: “Do you believe in early
marriages, Mr. Briggs?”

The question was received without a smile. “That depends on a good many
considerations,” Briggs replied, slowly. “And it depends chiefly on the
woman. Most people would say that it depended on both the man and the
woman. But it’s the woman that counts first every time.”

“Well, the man counts for something, doesn’t he?” Guy urged with a
faint smile; but Briggs went on as if he had not been interrupted.

“The man counts only in relation to the woman. If the woman is all
right, why, there’s no excuse for the man’s not being right.” Briggs
tightly closed his lips. “If he isn’t, it shows there’s something
radically wrong in him. There is no happiness like the happiness of
a youthful marriage founded on love and character; but there is no
Hell so awful as the unhappiness that comes when a marriage like that
strikes disaster.”

“Well, it’s a lottery, anyway, don’t you think so?” Guy asked, made
somewhat uncomfortable by Douglas Briggs’s intensity, and trying to get
back where the water was not too deep for him.

“That’s just what it isn’t. The results of any marriage could
be calculated in advance if we only knew how to weigh all the
considerations. When a good woman marries an unprincipled man, misery
is sure to result for her, possibly for both. When a good woman marries
a weak man, well, there’s a chance that she’ll be able to bolster him
up and make a strong character of him.”

“That’s what I think,” Guy cried, so enthusiastically, that Briggs came
near smiling again. He was tempted to say, “Don’t be so modest, my
boy,” but he checked himself.

“On general principles,” Briggs resumed quietly, “I suppose the great
danger of an early marriage is that the wife may outgrow the husband,
or, what is far more likely to happen, that the husband will outgrow
the wife. I’ve seen that happen in several cases where the woman has
stayed at home and led a limited life, and the man has gone out into
the world and developed.”

“Still I believe it’s possible,” Guy went on eagerly, “for the young
people to go on together and share everything. Then I don’t see--”

“There’s where the trouble starts, my boy. The woman may be willing to
share everything; but the man is willing mighty seldom. If he’s like a
good many men, vain and conceited, he’ll only want to share the good
things, the pleasant things; he’ll keep the unpleasant to himself.”

“Well, that seems to me pretty fine,” cried Guy, shaking his head.

“Yes, it sounds so,” Briggs went on, “but it doesn’t work out right.”
Then he checked himself, fearing that the boy would read a personal
application in what he said. He changed the subject abruptly, as he
sometimes did to Guy’s bewilderment. At such moments Guy feared that he
had unconsciously offended his employer. In spite of the companionship
Guy gave the other, there were times when Briggs felt the boy’s
presence to be somewhat inconvenient. He wished to keep from the young
fellow a knowledge of certain business transactions which, as the days
passed, grew to be more and more complicated. He often had to keep
the door closed against Guy when his broker called. Guy, of course,
knew who Balcombe was, the small, keen-eyed, sandy man who frequented
the club; but he did not know that Douglas Briggs, whose speculations
had previously been conservative, had begun to plunge. Briggs tried
to excuse himself for his recklessness on the plea of desperate
remedies; he must get rid of Franklin West and, in order to maintain
his independence, and, to keep afloat, he must at times take risks.
Guy used occasionally to notice a curious elation in his employer’s
manner; it showed itself most conspicuously at the close of the day,
when they sat at dinner; it sometimes caused Briggs to tell Guy to
order something especially good to eat. But even on the days when he
felt depressed, Briggs managed to display an artificial gayety that
deceived the boy. Then he would indulge in extravagance for the purpose
of cheering himself.

There were moments of solitude, however, when Briggs could not
discipline himself into good humor or take comfort from any sophistry.
Then he used to wonder grimly what the end would be. Suppose everything
went wrong, suppose he should lose the few thousands he had managed to
get together to speculate with? Suppose he should find himself out of
politics, deep in debt and without resources? These thoughts usually
came to him in the middle of the night as he lay in bed, and a cold
perspiration would break out on his forehead. In the early morning,
too, long before it was time to get up, he would lie half-asleep,
suffering from a vague consciousness of profound misery, more terrible
than any suffering he knew in his waking hours. He began to dread
the mornings, and he resolved to try to rouse himself and to escape
the obsession. But, in spite of his resolutions, he would lie in bed,
a helpless prisoner, and as he finally became wide-awake, he would
feel exhausted. For himself he believed that he had no fear; his whole
solicitude was for Helen and the children. He marvelled that he had
never worried about the matter before. He had always felt confident
that he could keep his family in comfort. It was true that he had taken
out a heavy life-insurance policy; but that was a precaution every
sensible family man employed. Already that policy had become a burden;
he dreaded the next payment.

In his moments of greatest depression, Douglas Briggs used to
accuse himself of having accomplished nothing in his life. Here he
was--forty-two! By this time, he ought to have laid a solid foundation
for the future. And yet he had advanced no farther than the point
he had reached at thirty-six, when first elected to Congress. He
had actually gone back. At thirty-six, he had had at least a clear
record and good prospects. Now his name was smirched, his self-respect
was weakened, and he was committed to a course that involved more
hypocrisy, if not more dishonesty. In the morning he often woke feeling
prematurely old with the horrible sense of being a failure, and with
hardly energy enough to take up his cares. He wondered if many men
suffered as he did, and he decided that it was probably only the
exceptional men who did not; he was probably experiencing the common
lot. Here, indeed, was some comfort offered by his philosophy.

One morning Briggs found himself face to face with a definite
temptation. There was an easy way out of his difficulties; in fact,
there were a dozen easy ways. There were a dozen men within reach who
would be glad to take his notes, to extend them, and to hold them
indefinitely. In other words, he could realize on them and meet his
obligations, and not only clear himself of pressing debt, but reach
a position where he need not think of his notes again. He would be
obliged to give no pledge, to bind himself by no promises. The chances
were that he should not in the future be called on to do anything that
would definitely violate his conscience. It was this consideration
that caused him to cover his face with his hands and to lean forward
despairingly on his desk. It recalled to him the situation that had
placed him in the power of Franklin West. He rose quickly, feeling the
blood rush to his face, and he said aloud: “By God, I won’t do it!”
Then he seized his hat and walked rapidly out into the street. In the
open air he took deep breaths and he had a curious impulse to thrash
someone. He was like a man trying to control a wild attack of anger.

Meanwhile, in Waverly, Helen Briggs was suffering as poignantly.
The sight of the place where she had first met the young man who
was to become her husband and where they had known their first
great happiness, added to her misery. The old house, too, brought
back the memories of her childhood, of her saintly old father, her
gentle mother, whose long years of invalidism had only sweetened
her character, her fine older brother, whom she had always regarded
as a second father, and the two boys who were now leading happy and
useful lives ministering to their churches, one in Rochester and one
in Syracuse. Among them all, Douglas had been a sort of hero. To the
two young clergymen he represented all that was best in a career of
public service. On first coming to Waverly, he had brought a letter
of introduction to her father and he had quickly been made a family
friend. His success in the law and in politics made him a marked man
and when Helen’s engagement was announced, it seemed as if everything
pointed to a happy marriage. And now, after years of happiness, the
shock of disappointment had come so suddenly that Helen could hardly
realize it. Often at night it seemed to her that she would wake and
find the trouble had been only a ghastly dream. In the morning she
would go about the house so dispirited that Miss Munroe would ask her
if she were not ill. She began to dread Miss Munroe’s solicitude;
it was terrible to think that someone might discover the secret of
her unhappiness. But she knew she could not hide it always. She had
a feeling that if her brothers were to find it out, all chance of a
reconciliation would be gone. With their stern ideas of rectitude,
they could never forgive Douglas. But, after all, she reflected, her
own ideas were as stern. Sometimes she wondered if she could be wrong,
if her standards were not merely ideal, visionary, the result of her
training at home, in the atmosphere of the church, which stood apart
from real life. But this thought always terrified her and she turned
from it, instinctively feeling that if she were to lose her standards
she should lose her hold on life itself.

In the old days before their estrangement, Helen had never questioned
her husband’s movements or had doubts in regard to them. She had
trusted him always, as he had trusted her; indeed, the thought of the
possibility of suspicion had not entered her mind. Now she wondered why
he remained away so long from Waverly. Was it really because he had to
be in Washington for business? He had been detained there one Summer
before, by private business, but on Friday of each week he had made the
long and fatiguing journey home. Could it be that he dreaded meeting
her? It was true, she acknowledged, that she dreaded meeting him; but
even more she dreaded his not coming. She suffered cruelly from the
fear that he would become used to being away from her, that in time he
would not miss her. It was only in her more desperate moods that she
accused him of not missing her at all now.

It was with regard to the children that Helen Briggs felt most concern
for the future, especially with regard to her boy. How could she
bring them up so that they should not fall upon disaster as she and
Douglas had done? If temptation could so overcome Douglas, whom she
had always looked on as unconquerable, what could she expect when Jack
grew up? Already she had often talked with Douglas of the way they
should help Jack to face the trials that boys have to meet. Sometimes
Douglas laughed at her solicitude and said that she’d better not try
to cross her bridges till she came to them. And she reflected, with a
sinking of the heart, even while he was saying that, he knew that his
own character had broken down. But she seldom reached this point in
her speculations; she received a warning of the violence that would
result to her own emotions. Throughout her self-torments, she never let
herself believe the situation seemed hopeless. Something would happen,
she felt sure, that would finally make everything right. But in her
assurances, the mocking spirit of reason ridiculed her hope.

The practical aspects of her trouble were a constant burden on Helen’s
mind. How could they go on living so extravagantly? Was it not wrong
that she should continue to have the luxuries she was used to having?
For herself she could easily have gone without them; but she wished
to give the children the best that could be bought. They were both
delicate and they often had to be coaxed to eat, and they refused to
eat many of the things that were inexpensive. Helen wondered if she
had not pampered them too much. At times she became nearly distracted
with the problem of living. She tried to console herself by reflecting
that she had two thousand dollars a year of her own and that during the
summer the expenses of the house in Waverly were far less than this
sum. But such sophistry gave her little help; the truth which she must
face was that they were living beyond their means. Someone must suffer
from their dishonesty. Surely Douglas must realize that plain fact. Oh,
how could he have gone on like that, from month to month, from year to
year? And all the while seeming before her the man he had been. That
was the worst thought in the whole matter, the thought of his hypocrisy!

After a time, Helen resolved to try to be at peace with herself in
regard to the business-affairs of the family until she returned to
town. Then she would discuss the whole matter with Douglas. Of course,
they must give up their New York house. The thought of returning to
it appalled her, but they would probably be obliged to return for a
time, until the election had taken place, at any rate. Then there was
the question of the house in Washington. How could she ever go back to
that? It had already become hateful to her. But if she were to return
to Washington it would be hard for Douglas to move into a more modest
house. At any rate, he would think that the change would injure him.
At this juncture she recognized in him a pride which she had never
suspected before, a false pride that lowered him in her opinion.
Indeed, in all her reasoning she was discovering hidden qualities in
him. How could she ever adjust the old Douglas to the new?

When these thoughts came it was a comfort to her to accuse herself of
faults and weaknesses. With a relief that seemed like joy she reflected
that in his place she too might have yielded to temptation. But
instantly she felt a stern denial in her consciousness. Still, if she
could not fail just as he had done she might have failed in other ways,
possibly worse ways. Once she thought of going to her older brother and
telling the whole story, to bring to bear on the situation the light
of his common sense. But she could not endure the thought of exposing
Douglas like that even to him; it seemed a betrayal of her wifely
trust. On the other hand, her brother might help Douglas! But she at
once thought of the anger Douglas would feel. No, such a step could
only aggravate the situation.

In a few days Helen had settled into the monotony of Waverly. The old
friends came to see her; the old country gayeties, however, continued
without her. She devoted herself chiefly to the children, giving Miss
Munroe a holiday of several weeks. She scrupulously wrote to her
husband every day, and he answered as regularly. He said that Congress
would probably not adjourn till late in July, and as he was desperately
driven with work it might be impossible for him to come to Waverly
till the session had ended. It was, in fact, not till the first week
in August that the session closed. Two days later Helen received a
telegram from her husband saying that she might expect him early in
the evening; this was soon followed by another message announcing that
he had been detained in New York. He came late one afternoon; but he
stayed only for the night, returning to New York in the morning. The
work in preparation for the Fall campaign had begun unusually early,
he said. An enormous amount of work had to be done, and he must stay
in town, to be sure it was done right. Helen offered to leave the
children with Miss Munroe and open the New York house for him, but
he refused, insisting that she needed the rest. Besides, he could be
perfectly comfortable at the club. For the next few weeks he would have
to be in consultation with people day and night. He was so busy that
he had been unable to give Guy Fullerton a holiday, or rather, Guy had
refused to take one. He often spoke with praise of Guy’s devotion.

During the rest of the Summer he ran up to Waverly several times,
rarely staying for more than a day. His visits were painful to them
both, though they delighted the children. When September came Helen
made preparations for her return to New York. She wished to live under
the same roof with her husband, though she might seldom see him. At
times her absence from him, and the strangeness with which they greeted
each other on meeting, terrified her. She would not confess to herself
the fear that he would discover she was not indispensable to him; but
in spite of the late September heat, it was with great relief that,
a week before the nominating convention, she found herself with the
children at the house in New York again.

The opening of the New York house began the preparations for its
closing. These Briggs observed without comment. At times, when,
following his wife’s point of view, he realized the expense he was
carrying, he felt appalled. He wondered how he had ever dared to
undertake so much; he felt as if he were just emerging from a debauch
of recklessness. What had he been thinking of? What had he expected to
happen? He saw now that he had been relying on chance, like a gambler.

During the next few weeks Briggs was so busy with his political work
that he practically lived away from home, returning there chiefly
to sleep. Whenever he did pass a part of the day at home, he was
shut up in the library, working with Guy over his mail, or in seeing
callers. He perceived now for the first time how far he had drifted
away from the party-moorings. From all sides he received warnings,
sometimes covert, occasionally frank and threatening, that a determined
opposition was to be made to his renomination. But, the nomination once
secured, he felt sure that he could hold his former supporters and
gain increased strength from the Independents, whom William Farley was
trying to win over. Briggs kept in uninterrupted communication with
Farley; he had begun to find the journalist extremely companionable.
He recalled now with a secret shame that at first he had been
suspicious of Farley, attributing an insidious selfishness to his
motives; but in every emergency, Farley had shown himself to be open
and generous and clean-minded. But it was Farley’s perfect confidence
that most deeply touched Douglas Briggs. Sometimes Briggs wondered
what Helen thought when she saw them working together, with Farley in
a subordinate attitude. With her fine sense of character, a sense he
had never known to err except with regard to himself, she must long ago
have learned to appreciate the journalist’s character. Briggs wondered
if she suspected that he was trying to use Farley. Once the thought
made him boldly accuse himself. But he found a vindication in the
thought that he was fighting his way against odds toward an honorable
goal. Once elected to Congress, he would do everything in his power to
atone for the wrong he had done. His future life would be not merely
an expiation, but a vindication. He assured himself that if he were to
falter now, he would be a coward. He was committed to his course.

As for Helen, she tried to keep her mind distracted from herself by
the cares of the household, and she worked during most of the time
that she did not spend with the children. Every day she came upon
things with happy associations; once the sight of them would have
given her pleasure; but now it only hurt her. She was constantly
reminded, too, of what she now regarded as her extravagances. Why,
they had been living as if they were millionaires! She blamed herself,
not because she had spent so freely, but because she had not won
her husband’s complete confidence. If she had shown more character,
she argued, would he not have trusted her in everything? Would he
not have kept her informed with regard to his condition? Why had he
treated her, a woman and the mother of children, as if she were a
child to be petted and to be maintained at any sacrifice in luxury?
Sometimes this self-questioning caused her a kind of shame. In her
unhappiness she wondered if he had not despised her for accepting so
much unquestioningly. She understood now why some men regarded women as
monsters of selfishness. Oh, she had been selfish and inconsiderate!
Once she thought of going to Douglas and telling him just how she felt.
But she had not sufficient courage. Besides, she knew that he would
resent her pity for him. Then, too, he might think it was far too late
for her to take that superior attitude.

Having decided to let Miss Munroe go, Helen dreaded the parting, not
because she found the governess necessary, but because of the scene
that the children would make. She was tempted to ask the girl to leave
without telling the children she was going; but that would be too
cruel, as well as underhanded. She feared, too, that the governess
would tell the children that she intended to leave them. Miss Munroe
had an exalted idea of her own importance, and would wish to make her
going as difficult and as dramatic as possible. So when she gave the
girl the usual notice, she had to be very careful. To her astonishment,
Miss Munroe received it with what seemed like sublime heroism.

“I knew that things weren’t going right with you, Mrs. Briggs,” she
said, “and that I should have to leave soon. I will look for another
place. Of course,” she went on, her eyes filling with tears, “it will
be hard to give up the children.”

“I know,” Helen said with a sigh, and at the moment she felt pity for
the girl, and she wondered if she had not been unjust and foolish. But
in future, she reflected, the children would be wholly hers.

“It’s too bad, isn’t it?” Miss Munroe went on with a brave smile, “to
be with children long enough to feel almost as if they were your own,
and then have to go away from them!”

Helen Briggs felt as if the muscles in her frame had become rigid.
In spite of herself, her face hardened. “Please don’t tell them you
are going,” she said, trying not to seem severe, and she thought she
detected a look of triumph in the girl’s face.

“Very well,” said Miss Munroe, tightening her lips.

“I’ll write to some people that I know in Washington,” Helen resumed,
speaking gently, “and see if they may not have a position for you.
Their children----”

“Oh, I’d rather not live in Washington again,” Miss Munroe interrupted
with dignity.

“I thought you liked it,” Helen said with surprise.

“Not after what I know about it,” Miss Munroe explained, and Helen
flushed deeply. Could it be that this girl was covertly trying to wound
her? She decided to ignore the suspicion; but it made her rise from
her seat to indicate that the interview had ended.

Two days later the children ran downstairs to their mother, crying
bitterly. It happened that they met the father on the stairs.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, and Helen, from her room, noticed the
pain in his voice.

“Miss Munroe is going away,” they both exclaimed together, and Dorothy
added: “She says she’s never coming back again.”

“An’ she says we can’t come to see her,” Jack cried.

At sight of Helen in the lower hall, they ran past their father down
the stairs.

“What does this mean?” Briggs asked angrily over the balusters,
and Helen, unable to control the indignation she felt against the
governess, replied, “I don’t know,” and, putting her arms across the
shoulders of the children, she led them into the room and closed the
door behind her.

Briggs hesitated for a moment, his face white with anger. He was
tempted to go down the stairs, force open the door of Helen’s room and
give vent to his feelings. But he checked himself. Then he had a second
impulse, and he dashed up the stairs to the nursery. He found Miss
Munroe standing in the middle of the room, in tears. She had evidently
been listening at the half-open door.

“What have you been saying to those children?” he asked sternly.

Miss Munroe began to sob. “They asked me this morning if it was true
that I was going away.” Her head began to move convulsively backward
and forward.

“Who told them you were going away?”

“I don’t know, sir. I only know that I didn’t. I promised Mrs. Briggs
that I wouldn’t.”

“But you’ve told some of the servants, haven’t you?”

“Well, I--I did mention it to----”

“That’s enough!” Briggs exclaimed. “You ought to have known better.”
He hesitated, with a look of despair in his face. “Well, now that they
know it, we’ll have no peace with the children till you go.”

Miss Munroe stopped crying. She seemed to grow an inch taller. “I am
ready to leave at once, sir,” she said.

“Well!” Briggs knotted his forehead in perplexity. After all, the poor
girl had been good to the children. It would be cruel to send her away
like that. But he quailed at the thought of Dorothy’s wailings and
questionings and complaints.

“We’re going to have a hard time here during the next few weeks,” he
said in a tone that showed the girl his anger had subsided, “and I
simply can’t let things be worse than they’ve got to be. So perhaps the
best thing you can do is to take a vacation before you go for good. You
can tell the children you are coming back, you know. Oh!” he exclaimed,
despairingly, “that won’t do at all.”

Miss Munroe, with the air of keeping an advantage, stood in silence.

“I knew that Mrs. Briggs would have worried about that--about your
telling the children,” Briggs went on helplessly.

“She worries about a great many things,” Miss Munroe remarked with
quiet significance.

“But, for my sake, Miss Munroe,” Briggs resumed, plainly without having
heard her comment, “if you could take a little vacation soon! That’ll
be the best for all of us. I know how hard it must be for you, and
it will be hard for the children. But, now that the break is to take
place, the sooner the better. I’ll pay you a month ahead, as I know
Mrs. Briggs will do anything she can for you.”

“Oh, I won’t have any bother about getting another place,” Miss Munroe
said cheerfully. “And I’ll be glad to do everything that will make
things easier for you, sir. I know what a hard time you’ve been having
and, of course, I’ve been with Mrs. Briggs so much, I understand
_her_ pretty well.”

Briggs stood in silence. He felt as if he had been wounded in some very
sensitive place. What did this girl mean? Was she trying to express
sympathy for him and at the same time stabbing at Helen? While living
with them in the intimacy of the family life, had she been spying on
them and gossiping about them with the servants?

“I’ll speak to Mrs. Briggs to-day, and she’ll let you know when she
wants you to leave,” he said mechanically, and he walked out of the
room.

During the rest of the day Briggs suffered from a dull anger, directed
not against the governess, however, but against his wife. If Helen had
only not interfered with his affairs, he assured himself, he would have
worked out of his troubles. Her interference had upset everything, even
the details of the domestic economy. He quickly forgot his resentment
against Miss Munroe; after all, it was natural that the poor girl
should resent being turned away from the family that she had served so
faithfully. She had her little pride, too, in not being a mere servant;
and that pride had probably been wounded. She was so necessary that he
hoped Helen would change her mind about letting her go. He liked the
idea of giving the girl a vacation; after missing her services for a
few weeks, Helen might be glad to take her back. He meant to speak of
the idea to his wife; but in the distraction of his work he forgot it.
After a few days, on observing that Miss Munroe still remained in the
house, he assumed that she was to stay on indefinitely.




XIV


On the morning after the convention Douglas Briggs sat in his study,
looking over his letters. He heard a tap at the door, and Michael
entered with two telegrams.

“If any callers come,” said Briggs, “take them into the reception room.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And give these telegrams to Sam.”

Michael nodded gravely; but he did not stir.

“That’s all,” said Briggs, without looking up.

“It’s glad I am, sir, yer got ahead o’ them div’ls last night,” said
Michael.

“Thank you, Michael. We had a hard fight.”

“Sure, that was a fine speech yer made, sir.”

Briggs raised his head. “I’m glad you heard it.” He glanced sharply at
Michael. “Were you there?”

“No, sir, but me cousin Ned was, that works for Mr. Barstow over the
way. He told me about it this mornin’, an’ I’ve read it in the mornin’
papers.”

“I haven’t had time to look at the papers yet,” Briggs remarked,
absently.

“Here they are, sir.”

“All right.”

Michael kept his position. “Ned said it was fine the way yer drove the
lies down their throats, sir.”

“Oh, well, I had to get back at ’em somehow,” Briggs replied,
carelessly.

Michael assumed a more familiar attitude. “Sure, it’s a shame the
things they say about a man when he’s in politics. There was Miles
O’Connor, over in the Ninth Ward, one of the foinest men----”

“I guess that’ll do, Michael,” Briggs interrupted. “Have those
telegrams sent as soon as you can.”

Michael hurriedly left the room. “Yes, sir,” he said at the door.

Briggs passed one hand over his forehead. “God!” he muttered. “I have
to keep up this bluff even before my servants.” Just as he resumed work
he heard Michael’s tap again. “Come in,” he cried, impatiently.

“Here’s something that just come by messenger, sir,” said Michael.

“Put it on the table, and don’t interrupt me again till I ring. Keep
any other letters and telegrams till Mr. Fullerton comes down.”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, sir,” said Michael. “Mr. West called you up
on the telephone a little while ago.”

Briggs looked surprised. “Mr. Franklin West?” he asked, with a frown.

“Yes, sir.”

“From Washington, do you mean? Why didn’t you let me know?”

“No, sir, not from Washington. He’s here in town, sir. He told me not
to wake you up.”

“Where is he?” Briggs asked.

“He’s stoppin’ at a hotel, sir.”

Briggs hesitated. “At a hotel?” he repeated. “What did he go to a hotel
for? He always stays here when he comes to town.”

“He come over last night on the midnight train, sir. Here’s the
telephone number. He said perhaps ye’d be kind enough to call him up
this mornin’ and let him know when it would be most convenient for yer
to see him.”

“Strange,” Briggs remarked, thoughtfully. Then he turned to Michael.
“Did he say that anyone was with him?”

Michael shook his head. “He only said he’d wait at the hotel till he
heard from yer, sir.”

Briggs stood for a moment thinking. Then he said, with two fingers on
his lips: “You tell Sam to drive down right off and bring Mr. West up
here. Tell him to bring Mr. West’s luggage, too, and ask him to say to
Mr. West that there’s a room all ready for him, as usual. This is a
funny time for him to stand on ceremony with me.”

Michael started to go out; then turned back. “I suppose yer didn’t know
Miss Fanny came last night, sir.”

“I thought she wasn’t coming till next week.”

“She arrived last night, sir, at nine o’clock. She sat up for yer, sir,
till she fell asleep in the chair, and Mrs. Briggs made her go to bed.”

“Good girl,” said Briggs. “I suppose she hasn’t come down yet.”

“No, sir.”

A half-hour later Briggs heard the rustle of skirts outside the study
door. Then the door opened softly. He went on busily writing. Light
steps crossed to the chair behind him.

“Ahem!”

“Oh, hello, Fanny!” he said, without looking up.

“How did you know it was me?” cried Fanny, in a tone of disappointment.

Briggs leaned back in his chair and received an impulsive kiss on the
cheek. “Well, I don’t know anyone else who’d steal in just like that.”

“Michael told you, didn’t he?”

“Perhaps.”

“He didn’t want to let me come in.” Fanny sat on the edge of the desk.
“He said you were busy. You--_busy_!”

Douglas Briggs smiled. “Well, I don’t seem to be busy whenever you’re
around, do I? Still, I have to do a little work now and then.”

“I think there’s too much work in the world,” Fanny pouted. “Now
there’s poor Guy. Think how he works!”

“Guy! Why, at this minute he’s sound asleep, and it’s nearly ten
o’clock.”

“But think how he worked at that old nomination meeting of yours! He
didn’t get home till nearly morning.”

“Well, I didn’t, either.”

“But you’re tough, Uncle Doug; Guy is delicate.”

“They generally are, at his age,” Briggs acknowledged, dryly,
“especially when they have just come out of college.”

“I think you’re horrid to say such things about Guy, when he helps you
so, too. I’ve just been up to see him.”

Briggs sat back in his chair. “W-h-hat!” he exclaimed.

“Oh, you needn’t be shocked! I just _peeked_ in. He was sound
asleep, with his head resting on one hand, just like this, and the
sweetest little blush on his face, and his hair in the cunningest
little bang on his forehead. I was so relieved about one thing.”

“What’s that?”

Fanny looked stealthily around the room. “He doesn’t snore!” she said,
with her hand over her mouth.

“Oh! But suppose he had snored?”

Fanny slid from the desk and drew herself up. “Then, of course, I
should have been obliged to--well, to break the----”

“Do you mean to say there’s an engagement between you two?”

Fanny held her hand over her uncle’s lips. “’Sh! No, not that. What
would dad say if he heard you? Only he’s been writing me the loveliest
letters this Summer. M’m!”

“I shall have to congratulate Guy on not snoring. But suppose,” Briggs
continued, confidentially, “suppose I should tell you that sometimes he
did snore?”

Fanny tossed back her head. “Well, that wouldn’t make any difference,
either. Come to think of it, if Guy had snored this morning, his
snoring would have been nice. Funny about love, isn’t it, Uncle Doug?”
Fanny added, pensively.

“What is?”

“It makes everything nice.”

“In the one you love, you mean?”

Fanny nodded. “M’m--h’m!”

“Then you’re really in love with Guy?”

Fanny danced away. “Oh, I didn’t say that.”

“Fanny,” said Briggs, gently.

Fanny edged toward the table. “Well?” She still kept out of reach.

“Come over here,” Briggs urged.

Fanny stood at her uncle’s side, with one hand on the desk; Briggs let
his hand rest on hers. “If you and Guy are really in love with each
other, I have a bit of advice to give you.”

“Oh, you’re going to tell me how foolish it is to get married, aren’t
you? That’s the way married people always talk.”

Briggs smiled and shook his head. “No, I don’t mean that.”

“Well? Wait till Guy gets rich, I suppose.” Fanny sighed. “Then I know
I shall die an old maid!”

“No, I don’t mean that, either.”

“What do you mean, then?” Fanny said, severely.

“Make him give up the foolish notion he has of going into politics.”

“Oh, Uncle Doug!” Fanny exclaimed, reproachfully.

“Guy is a good, clean-hearted young fellow. You don’t want him to
become cynical and hypocritical and deceitful, do you? You don’t want
him to believe there’s no such thing as unselfishness in the world,
that whenever a man turns his hand he expects to be paid for it ten
times over?”

Fanny looked with astonishment at her uncle. “Well, what in the world
is the matter with you?” she said, after a moment.

Briggs patted her hand. “There, there! I won’t preach any more. But I
mean what I say.”

When Fanny spoke again there were tears in her voice. “Isn’t he a good
secretary?”

“Oh, yes, good enough.”

“You’re mad because he’s staying in bed so late.”

“Nonsense! I told Michael myself not to call him. He’s worked himself
to death during the past few weeks. I had to fight for my renomination,
you know.”

“You did?” said Fanny, with a change of tone. “Why, I thought you were
the most popular man in New York.”

“Well, the most popular men have enemies,” Briggs replied, grimly.

Fanny suddenly became affectionate, almost pathetic. “And I never
congratulated you! I was so sure you’d be nominated--why, I took it as
a matter of course.”

Briggs looked away. “Yes, you women folks always do,” he said,
bitterly. “It is only the disappointments in life that you don’t take
as matters of course.”

Fanny clapped her hands. “Uncle Doug, now I know what the trouble is.
You haven’t had any breakfast. Dad’s always as cross as two sticks till
he’s had his.”

“Yes, I have. I’m tired, that’s all. Now, run along, like a good girl.
I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Oh!” Fanny tossed her head, rose lightly on tiptoe and, swaying back
and forth, started for the door. There she turned. “You forget I’ve had
a birthday since I saw you last,” she said, haughtily.

Douglas Briggs had begun to write again. “Did you? What was
it--fourteen, fifteen--?”

Fanny stiffened her fingers and held them before her eyes. “Ugh!” she
exclaimed.

As she started to open the door she was thrust rudely back. Someone had
pushed the door from the other side. She turned quickly and met the
astonished face of Guy Fullerton.

“Fanny!” Guy cried, joyously. “When in the world did you get here?”

Fanny held out both hands. Guy seized them and tried to draw her toward
him. She stopped him with a warning gesture, and glanced at her uncle.

“Go ahead,” said Douglas Briggs. “I’m not looking.”

Guy and Fanny embraced silently.

Fanny glanced at the shoulders bent over the table. “Thank you, sir,”
she said, meekly.

“Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?” Guy cried, reproachfully.

“Because I thought I’d give you a surprise, sleepy-head.”

Briggs turned on his swivel-chair. “I guess you two’d better go into
the other room.”

“Can’t I do anything for you, sir?” Guy asked. “The correspondence?”

“No hurry about that. I’ll ring when I need you. Oh, Fanny, you might
ask your aunt to look in here a moment. I want to speak to her.”

“All right.” Fanny danced radiantly out of the room, followed by Guy.
A moment later Briggs heard her call up the stairs: “Oh, auntie, Uncle
Doug wants you.”

He listened and heard his wife descending. The sound of her footsteps
gave him a strange feeling of mingled pleasure and discomfort. He
had begun to resent her treatment of him. “Good-morning,” he said,
cheerfully, as she entered. He rose quickly and offered her a chair.

“Did you wish to see me?” Helen asked, still standing.

“Yes. There were one or two things I wanted to talk over. Won’t you sit
down?”

Helen took the seat. “Thank you,” she said. They had become very
ceremonious.

“How are the children this morning?”

“I’ve just left them in the nursery. They are perfectly well.”

“Hasn’t Miss Munroe taken them out yet?”

Helen met his look. “Miss Munroe is leaving to-day,” she replied.

“What?” he cried, astonished.

“I told you several weeks ago that she was going to leave.”

“But I didn’t think you’d--” Briggs turned away and rested his head on
his hand, with his elbow on the table. “Will you be kind enough to tell
me why you have sent Miss Munroe away?” he asked, in a tone that showed
he was trying to control himself. “She’s been with the children ever
since they were born. You can’t get anyone to fill her place.”

“I sent her away because we couldn’t afford to keep her,” Helen replied.

“What do you mean by _we_?”

“Because _I_ couldn’t afford to keep her, then.”

“And you think that I don’t count at all!” He laughed bitterly. “Those
children are as much my children as yours, and I propose to have
something to say about the way they are taken care of.” He glanced
angrily at Helen, who remained silent. “You can be pretty exasperating
at times, Helen. What do you propose to do with the children when we go
back to Washington?”

“I am not going back to Washington,” she replied, in a low voice.

“What?” he exclaimed in astonishment.

“I am not going back to Washington.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We can’t afford----”

“Can’t afford! I’m sick of hearing that expression. You’ve used it a
thousand times in the past six months. You make me feel as if I were a
pauper or a thief.”

“I was going to say that we couldn’t afford to live in Washington as
we’ve been living,” she continued, as if she had not heard him. “When
you leave here I shall take the children to my place in Waverly and
pass the Winter there.”

“_My_ place!” he repeated, coldly. He turned away. “Yes, it is
your place.”

“Did you send for me to speak about the children?”

“No, I wanted to consult you about the house in Washington. I have a
chance to lease it for two years. Senator Wadsworth is looking for a
place, and he said the other day he’d take the house whenever I wanted
to rent it. I had told him I didn’t feel sure of going back, and, of
course, I knew how you hated the place,” he concluded, harshly. “If you
prefer to live somewhere else, I’m willing.”

“I have made up my mind not to go back,” said Helen.

“And may I ask how long you propose to keep away from Washington? Do
you intend to cut yourself off from my political life altogether?”

“You know why I want to cut myself off from it,” Helen replied, her
voice trembling.

“I should think I did! You’ve rubbed that in enough. I suppose you
realize what people will say?”

“There are plenty of Congressmen’s wives who don’t go to Washington
with their husbands.”

“But you’ve taken part in the life. You’ve been conspicuous.”

“You can say that I didn’t feel equal to entertaining this Winter, and
I stayed at home to take care of my children. It will be true, too.”

He looked at her with solicitude in his face. “Do you mean that you are
ill, Helen?”

“I’m sick. I’m sick of living,” she broke out. “But for the children, I
could wish that I----”

“Then _I_ don’t count in your feelings or in your life?” He
hesitated, and when he spoke again it was in a tone of patience that
betrayed the restraint he was putting on himself. “Helen, I think I
have been pretty lenient with you so far, and if I let go now and
then you can’t blame me. Since that night in Washington, the night of
your ball, you’ve been a changed woman. You keep the children away
from me as if you were afraid I’d contaminate them. You have cut down
our expenses and forced us all to live as if we were on the verge of
poverty. You’ve made our house as gloomy as a tomb. Now, I warn you,
look out! Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“And you propose to go on in this way?”

“That is one reason why I have decided not to go to Washington.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Because I saw how unhappy I made you. I thought you would be happier
without me. And I can’t be different--I can’t!” she broke out,
passionately. “I can’t live as we used to live, knowing that the money
I spend----”

She checked herself. Douglas Briggs waited. “Well?” he said.

“Knowing where it comes from, Douglas,” she went on, lowering her
voice. He made no comment, and she added, with a change of tone: “I had
hoped things might be different this morning.”

He looked mystified. “Different?” he repeated.

“I hoped that you wouldn’t have to go back to Washington--except for
the rest of your present term.”

“That I shouldn’t get the nomination, do you mean?” Then he laughed.
“You’re a nice wife. I wonder how you’d feel if you knew what the loss
of that nomination would mean to me?”

“If it meant poverty or humiliation I should have been glad to share it
with you, Douglas.”

He turned away from her with the impatient movement of his head
that she had so often seen Jack make. “Now, please don’t waste any
heroics on me. But let me tell you one thing, Helen. If I hadn’t been
re-nominated last night I should be a ruined man. Just at present I
haven’t five thousand dollars in the world. I told you last Spring how
much it cost us to live. True, last year I made twice as much as I’d
made the year before; but during the past few months I’ve lost every
cent of it.”

Helen looked incredulous. Of late she often assumed an expression of
mistrust at his statements that secretly enraged him. “How have you
lost it?” she asked, fixing her eyes on him.

Briggs shrugged his shoulders. “By trying to make a fortune quick, just
as many another man has done. I took greater risks--that’s all. Perhaps
you’d like to know why I did that? I did it in order to make myself
independent of those men in Washington--the men you’re so down on. I
hoped that I could throw them off and go to you and say that I was
straight.”

“And you thought that would please me?” Helen asked, in a tone of deep
reproach.

He drew a long breath. “Well, I don’t know that anything will please
you nowadays, Helen, but I thought it might.”

“That the money gained by such means----”

“You don’t mean to say that speculating is dishonest, do you?” he
asked, with a harsh laugh.

“If the money that you speculated with had been honestly earned it
would be bad enough, but money--Oh, why do you force me to say these
things? You know perfectly well what I think.”

He turned away, with disappointment and resentment in his face. “I see
that it’s useless to try to please you. Perhaps it’s just as well that
you’re not going to Washington with me.”

She rose from her seat and started to leave the room; but, on an
impulse, she stopped. “I suppose a woman’s way of looking at these
things is different from a man’s, Douglas. A woman can’t understand how
hard it is for a man--how many temptations he has. Oh, I don’t blame
you, Douglas; your doing all that for me--taking all those risks, and
losing everything--I do appreciate it. But if I could only make you
see that it is all wrong, that I’d love you poor and disappointed, a
thousand times more than successful and----”

“And dishonest!” he interrupted. “That’s what you were going to
say, isn’t it? Well, I guess it’s impossible for us to agree about
these matters. Anyway, I’ve got the nomination, and that means my
re-election. We’ve got to take things as they come in this world.”

Helen walked slowly toward the door.

“Then you’ve made up your mind?” he said, thinking she might weaken.

“I have made up my mind not to return to Washington,” she replied,
without meeting his look.

Briggs turned away impatiently. “Very well, then. I’ll take rooms again
at the club.”

When Helen had closed the door behind her Douglas Briggs sank into his
chair and covered his face with his hands. After his work and worry of
the past few weeks it seemed hard to him that he should be obliged to
go through such a scene with his wife. For a few minutes he tortured
himself with self-pity. He heard a rap at the door; but he paid no
attention. He was in the mood where he wished to speak to no one, to
see no one.




XV


“Uncle Doug!”

Briggs whirled impatiently in his chair. “Eh?”

Fanny came forward. “Say, Uncle Doug.”

“Well, what is it?”

“What’s the matter?” Fanny asked.

Briggs frowned. “Matter!” he repeated. “What do you mean?”

“You know. What’s the matter between auntie and you?” Fanny added,
brightly. “I don’t mind your being cross with me a bit.”

Briggs softened. “My dear little girl, you mustn’t interfere with
things that don’t concern you.”

Fanny’s eyes flashed. “Please _don’t_! Besides, they do concern
me. Don’t you suppose I care when I see auntie come out of here with
her face just as white and her eyes looking as if they were going to
pop out of her head?”

“You see too much, Fanny.”

“Well, what do you suppose my eyes were made for, anyway?” Fanny cried,
indignantly. “Besides, I didn’t have anything else to do. Guy’d gone
away and left me.”

“What did he do that for?”

“Because I told him to.”

“Have you two been quarreling?” Briggs asked, severely.

“No, we haven’t,” Fanny replied, with an emphatic toss of her head. “I
told him he’d better go and attend to your business, instead of billing
and cooing with me. There were a lot of people who wanted to see you.
So, as you were busy,” she concluded with importance, “of course Guy
had to represent you.”

Briggs rose hastily. “Where are they?” he asked.

As Fanny did not like the tone of the question, she kept her uncle
waiting for a moment. “In the library,” she finally conceded.

“It’s probably Monahan and his gang,” said Briggs, hurrying out of the
room. “I forgot to ask Michael----”

“Well, then, tell Guy--” Fanny called after him, but he disappeared
before she had time to finish the sentence. She stood disconsolate
in the middle of the room. “Nobody seems to care for me around here,”
she said. “I’ve a good mind to go home.” Then she turned and saw Guy
Fullerton smiling at her.

“Hello, Fan!” he said.

Fanny promptly turned her back on him.

“Everything seems to be going wrong this morning,” she said. “I almost
wish I hadn’t come.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” Guy walked to the opposite side of the room,
dropped into a chair and rested his head on his hand.

“Now, don’t you go and be silly,” cried Fanny, glancing at him over her
shoulder.

Guy looked relieved. “I thought you were mad with me. Oh, that’s all
right, then. If you could only have some sort of sign to show just
_who_ you’re mad with, you know! Fan,” he went on, softly, “as
long as we’re alone, can’t we--can’t we fix it up? You and--” He
touched his chest with his forefinger.

Fanny gave a little jump. Her eyes beamed. “Sir,” she cried, “is this a
proposal?” Then she added, in a tone of disappointment: “Does it come
like this?”

“You know I’ve been awfully fond of you for a long time,” Guy pleaded.

Fanny smiled into his face. “How long?”

“Well, since last Winter. Since those days we went skating together.”

Fanny clasped her hands rapturously. “Weren’t they glorious! Well, I’ll
say one thing for you, you’re a good _skater_.” Then she rolled
her eyes. “But your dancing!”

“Will you?” said Guy, plaintively.

Fanny dropped into a chair and let her hands rest in her lap. She grew
very thoughtful. “I’ll think about it,” she said.

“Think about it!” Guy repeated, derisively.

Fanny assumed an injured air. “Yes, they always say that in books. I’m
going to do this in the proper way, even if you don’t.”

Guy looked disconsolate. “Oh, you never take a fellow seriously.”

“Don’t I?” This time Fanny’s voice had the ring of sincerity. “Well,
what do you want me to do?”

“Just say we’re engaged, can’t you?” Guy pleaded.

Fanny rose and drew herself up with dignity. “You must speak to my
father,” she said, with a demure bow.

“Oh, there you are again! You won’t take me seriously for one
consecutive minute.”

Fanny clasped her hands again and held them extended before her. “I
have an idea. Let’s pretend that I’m dad. That’ll be great. Now here’s
dad, walking up and down the library. That’s what he always used to do
whenever I got into a scrape and the governess sent me to him.” She
cleared her throat and thrust her hand into her shirt-waist. “Well,
sir?” she said, in a deep voice.

“Oh, say, now!” Guy exclaimed, in disgust.

Fanny held her head on one side and made a warning gesture. “Oh, I’m
serious about this. You must answer my questions if you want to please
me. If you don’t, I’ll say ‘No’ outright, and I’ll get Uncle Doug to
discharge you. So you’d better look out, or you’ll lose your job.”

In spite of himself, Guy smiled. “All right,” he said, to humor her.
“Fire away!”

Fanny cleared her throat again and threw back her shoulders. “Well,
sir, what can I do for you?”

Guy tried to mimic her assumed voice. “You can give me your child, sir.”

Fanny glared at him. “Now you know very well you wouldn’t talk like
that!” she said with disgust in her tone. She shook her head and drew
her lips tightly together. “I guess you don’t know dad. M’m.”

“Well, what would I say?”

“Something foolish, I suppose,” Fanny replied, carelessly. “But this
is what you ought to say,” she went on, with elaborate politeness, and
assuming a romantic attitude. “Sir, I love your beautiful daughter,
Miss Fanny, and I ask your permission to make her my wife.”

Guy groaned, bending forward till his fingers nearly touched the floor.

“But it takes an awfully fascinating man to talk like that. Now let’s
go on.” Fanny burlesqued her father’s manner again. “So you want to
marry Fanny, do you? Well, since she’s been out of school, you’re about
the tenth man who has asked----”

“What? Do you mean to say that all last Summer, while I was slaving
down in Washington----?”

“This time my father would tell you to leave the house,” said Fanny,
haughtily, with a wave of her hand.

“Now, look here, I don’t like this game,” Guy declared.

“But I like it. Therefore it goes. Now don’t be a silly boy. You might
as well get used to dad’s ways first as last. Ahem! As I said, you are
the--er--the eleventh. Now, what claim have you on my daughter?”

Guy seized the chance. “She’s head and ears in love with me,” he cried,
before she had time to stop him. “She can’t live without me.”

Fanny seized a book and held it in the air. “Do you know what dad would
do if you said that? He’d pack me home to Ashburnham, and I’d have to
stay there all Winter.”

“I had to tell the truth, didn’t I?” Guy asked, meekly.

“Well, dad wouldn’t believe you, anyway,” Fanny replied. Her voice
deepened again. “Young man, since you are thinking of getting married,
I presume you are in a position to support a wife. What is your income?”

Guy looked serious. “I guess I won’t play any more. This is becoming
too personal.”

Fanny held her hand at her ear. “I didn’t quite catch what you said.
_Five_ thousand?”

“_One_ thousand, since you’re determined to know, inquisitive; one
thousand and keep,” Guy replied, snappishly. “I don’t even have to pay
my laundry bills. That’s just twenty dollars a week spending money.”

The light faded from Fanny’s eyes. “And you’ve been sending me all
those flowers on that?”

“Well, flowers don’t cost so much in Summer. I intended to stop when
the cold weather came.”

“But, Guy, dear, I thought you got ever so much more than that! You
poor thing! Why, I spend twice as much as that myself, and I’m always
sending home for more.”

“Well, I can’t help it if I’m not rich,” Guy grumbled, keeping his face
turned from her.

Fanny inspected him carefully, as if taking an inventory. “Do you know
what dad would do?” she asked. Guy knew that her eyes were on him; but
he refused to look at her.

“Eh?” he said.

“If you told him how much you were earning,” Fanny explained.

“Oh, he’d faint away, I suppose!”

Fanny shook her head. “No, he wouldn’t,” she replied, sadly. “He’d just
laugh that big laugh of his. He has enormous teeth. Remember ’em? It’s
fascinating to watch ’em. His sense of humor is awful!”

Guy sighed. “I suppose I might as well give you up,” he said,
remembering vaguely that he had read of a young and interesting lover
who used that speech on a similar occasion.

“Well, I guess not!” Fanny exclaimed. Then she clasped her hands over
her mouth. “Oh, I s’pose I do kind of like you.”

“Why don’t you treat me better, then?” he asked pathetically.

Fanny lowered her head and looked up at him with mournful eyes. “You’re
awfully interesting when you’re sad like this,” she said with satirical
admiration.

Guy twisted impatiently. “Oh!” he exclaimed.

Fanny walked toward him and began to play with the buttons on his coat.
“Say, Guy, what did you take this place for--this place with Uncle
Doug?”

“I thought it would be a good place to see life.”

“To see life!” Fanny repeated, scornfully. [Illustration: “‘_And
you’ve been sending me all those flowers on that?_’”]

“M’m--h’m! And to get into politics, perhaps.”

Fanny burst out laughing. “You! You get into politics?”

Guy looked injured. “I don’t see anything funny about that.”

“And do the things that Uncle Doug does?” Fanny cried.

“Yes,” said Guy, in a loud voice.

Fanny seized him by both arms. “Now, look here. You’re no more fit for
politics than--well, than dad is, and the mere sight of a politician
makes dad froth at the mouth. Oh, he says awful things about ’em!”

“Then he hates your uncle, does he?”

“No, he doesn’t, stupid!” Fanny cried, shaking him. “But he says Uncle
Doug made the greatest mistake of his life when he went into politics.
It spoiled him as a lawyer.”

“Well, what’s all this got to do with us?” Guy asked, drawing away.

“_Us!_” Fanny repeated rapturously. “Isn’t that a nice word? Dad
would never let _us_--well, you know--if you were going to stick
to politics, not to mention the twenty a week.”

“What can I do, then? I’m not clever, like other fellows. Don’t you
suppose I know I’d have lost my position long ago if your uncle wasn’t
the best man in the world?”

Fanny began to bite the tips of her fingers. “I guess I’ll have to
speak to dad myself,” she said, slowly. “I’ll make him give you a job
in the factory.”

“In the factory?” Guy exclaimed, horror-stricken.

Fanny turned upon him indignantly. “Yes. You don’t mean to say! Well,
you’ll have to get over those notions. I suppose you got ’em at
college. Dad’ll make you put on overalls and begin at the bottom. Oh,
dad’s awfully thorough.”

Guy considered the matter. “How much would he give me?”

“Lots of fellows begin at three dollars a week,” said Fanny. Guy looked
at her reproachfully. “Perhaps through influence you may be able to
get as much as ten.” Then Fanny went on: “Now, look here. Dad’s always
been sorry that I wasn’t a boy, so that I could take the business, and
all that. But I guess I’ll take it, all the same. Only you’ll be my
representative. See? After you’ve learned how to run things, dad may
put you in charge of the New York office. Won’t it be grand? We’ll
have a box at the opera and we’ll--” Fanny stopped. Her aunt stood at
the door. “Oh, auntie, how much does it cost to keep house in New York?”

Helen Briggs smiled. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you live in a house or an apartment--on the way you
live--on a thousand things.”

“To live well, I mean. How much does this house cost a year?”

“The rent is three thousand.”

Fanny grew limp. “Ugh!” she cried, shuddering.

“But of course there are plenty of smaller houses much cheaper,” Helen
added.

“It’s an awfully expensive place, New York, isn’t it?” said Fanny, with
a plaintive glance at Guy.

“Yes, awfully,” Helen smiled.

“It makes Ashburnham seem almost attractive, doesn’t it?” Fanny went on.

Helen looked up suspiciously. “What do you want to know all these
things for?”

“Oh!” Fanny turned away inconsequently. Then she faced her aunt again.
“You couldn’t possibly live _well_ on twenty dollars a week,
could you?”

“No; not possibly,” Helen replied, with a smile.

“I don’t see how so many people can afford to get married,” said Fanny
ruefully.




XVI


When Douglas Briggs returned to the library he wore the cheerful look
of the man who has just accomplished a difficult task. “Well, I got
those fellows off at last,” he said.

“Who were they, Uncle Doug?”

Briggs smiled grimly. “They were gentlemen who are commonly known
as heelers. And they called to let me know that I hadn’t been quite
generous enough to them.”

Fanny looked mystified. Her eyes blinked. “How generous?”

“I hadn’t secured enough places for their friends--jobs.”

Fanny glanced dolefully at Guy. Then her eyes turned toward her
uncle. “It’s awful hard to get a job just now, isn’t it?” she asked,
pathetically.

“Is it?” said Briggs, in a tone of surprise. “Do you know of anybody
that wants one?”

“Yes, I do,” Fanny replied. “But he’s going to get it all right,” she
added, with confidence.

Briggs extended both hands. “If there’s anything I can do--” he said,
with a shrug of the shoulders.

“No. I guess you have trouble enough. Oh, yes, you can do something
nice--you can let Guy take me out for a drive.”

“But I’ve got a lot of work this morning,” Guy protested, with a look
in his face that revealed the spirit of the early martyrs.

Briggs had taken his seat at the desk and had begun to work again.
“Never mind,” he said. “It’ll keep. The drive’ll do you good.”

Guy hesitated between pleasure and duty. “Oh, well,” he said, glancing
from his employer to his employer’s niece.

“You come with us, auntie,” Fanny urged, with an air that made Guy’s
coming inevitable.

“No, I mustn’t,” Helen replied, decidedly. “I have too much to do this
morning.”

As Fanny turned to the door Michael entered. “Mr. Burrell’s in the
library, sir,” he said to Douglas Briggs. “He didn’t want to disturb
you till he was sure you weren’t busy. His wife is with him, and the
young ladies.”

“Ugh!” cried Fanny, seizing Guy by the arm. “Let’s get out, quick.”

Briggs rose. “I’ll go in,” he said, glancing at Helen with resignation
in his tone. “They’ll want to see you, too, Helen. I’ll bring them in
here.”

Mrs. Briggs turned to Michael. “You might bring some of the sherry,
Michael. Oh, I forgot--they won’t want anything. Never mind. Mr. Briggs
will ring if he wants something for Mr. Burrell. Here they are now.”

Helen walked forward and received Mrs. Burrell and the three daughters.
Mrs. Burrell was dressed with an elaborate adherence to the fashion
of the hour, which had the effect of making conspicuous her extreme
angularity. Carrie Cora wore a fantastic gown that betrayed fidelity to
the local dressmaker. The two younger girls, however, looked charming
in their pretty, tailor-made suits, plainly expressive of New York.
“This _is_ nice,” said Helen, offering her hand to Mrs. Burrell.
“When did you come to New York?”

“Just got here this morning,” Mrs. Burrell replied. “You see we didn’t
waste any time coming to see you.”

“It’s that confounded old law business again, Mrs. Briggs,” Burrell
explained, in his high voice. His spare figure had been almost hidden
by his eldest daughter’s ample proportions.

“I’ve done my best for you, Mr. Burrell,” Helen explained, smiling.

Mrs. Burrell raised her hand in a gesture of despair. “Father does
nothing but talk about that case. I declare I’m sick of hearing about
it!”

Burrell gave Helen a meaning look. “Well, I guess she’d be sicker if I
was to lose my patents,” he said, slowly. “I ain’t countin’ on goin’ to
the poorhouse yet awhile. You’d think, by the way Mrs. Burrell talks, a
little matter of a hundred thousand dollars wasn’t worth fightin’ over.”

“Does it mean as much as that to you?” asked Douglas Briggs,
astonished. He had never been able to adjust himself to the knowledge
that the little Congressman, so out of place in Washington, was a man
of wealth and, in his own city, of great importance.

“Well, I should think it did, and more, too,” Burrell replied. “If a
certain friend of mine was to take the case,” he went on, smiling at
Helen and nodding at her husband, “it would be worth a retainin’ fee of
five thousand dollars.”

Briggs shook his head. “That’s a great temptation. I need the money bad
enough.”

“Well, then, take the case,” Burrell exclaimed.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, do take it, Mr. Briggs!” Mrs. Burrell
interposed. “Father says if it was only in your hands he wouldn’t
worry. Then we’d have some peace in the family.”

Briggs looked amused. Secretly he enjoyed the flattery of the old
lady’s words. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll take it----”

“Oh, good!” the girls cried, together.

“--if I’m beaten at the next election.”

The girls looked at each other with disappointment in their eyes. “Oh!”
they said.

Briggs put his hand on Burrell’s shoulder. “Can you wait?”

“Well, the case don’t come on till December,” Burrell replied. “I
guess I could wait all right, only the’ ain’t no chance of you gettin’
beaten.”

“Well, I guess we don’t want you to be beaten, Mr. Briggs,” Mrs.
Burrell cried, resentfully. “You’re forgettin’ your manners, father.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Briggs exclaimed, patting Burrell on the back.
“No harm done, Mrs. Burrell. This husband of yours overrates me, that’s
all. There are hundreds of men right here in New York who could handle
that case better than I could.” He took the old man affectionately by
the arm. “Look here, Burrell,” he said, confidentially, “don’t you
think we’re in the way of these ladies? They probably have a lot to
talk about that they don’t want us to hear.”

Burrell understood at once. “I was thinkin’ of that myself,” he replied.

Mrs. Burrell held up three fingers. “Now, father,” she cried, “you know
all you’ve had already.”

“My dear lady, don’t you be disagreeable,” said Briggs, smiling. “I
haven’t seen your husband for six months.”

Mrs. Burrell softened. “Well, just one, father, and put plenty of
soda-water in it.”

Briggs nodded his acknowledgment of the concession. “There! Come on,
Burrell.”

As the two men left the room Mrs. Burrell exclaimed: “I declare, Mrs.
Briggs, that husband of yours can just twirl me round his little
finger.”

“Come over here and sit down, Mrs. Burrell,” Helen said. “You have
something to tell me, haven’t you? I can see it in your face.”

Mrs. Burrell beamed. “I guess you can see it in Carrie Cora’s face. Eh,
girls?”

“I should think so!” Emeline and Gladys cried together.

“It’s true, then? There is something?” Helen asked.

Carrie Cora’s face flushed violently. “Yes,” the girl replied, lifting
her gloved hand to her forehead.

“Don’t be a ninny, Carrie Cora!” Mrs. Burrell exclaimed.

Helen held out her hand. “It’s all settled?” she asked.

Carrie Cora looked up shyly. “Yes.” Then she cast her eyes down again.

“I’m so glad, dear,” said Helen, bending forward and kissing her.

“Well, it was you that did it, Mrs. Briggs!” Mrs. Burrell cried, in a
loud voice, as if to keep the situation from becoming sentimental. “I
might as well give you the credit. That talkin’ to you gave me that
day after your ball just opened my eyes. I suppose I _am_ kind
of a cross old thing, and--well, I didn’t understand Rufus James. The
family’s always been poor and good-for-nothing. But Rufus, he’s got
lots of spunk. Why, at first he wouldn’t come to the house--even when I
said he could. You’d think he was a prince, the way he acted. And he’s
doin’ real well. He’s had a raise in his salary, and he ain’t lettin’
father do a thing for him.”

“And is it to be soon?” Helen asked.

“The third of next month,” Emeline and Gladys cried together.

“And we want you to come, Mrs. Briggs,” said Carrie Cora, recovering
from her embarrassment.

“It’s going to be a church affair,” said Mrs. Burrell, severely,
smoothing the front of her dress. This was one of the moments when Mrs.
Burrell betrayed that the possession of plenty of money was still novel
to her.

“Oh, do come, Mrs. Briggs,” Gladys pleaded.

“Yes, please,” Emeline echoed.

Helen hesitated. “I don’t know whether I can.”

“Oh, promise. Please promise,” Carrie Cora insisted.

“If I can, I will,” Helen replied, feeling ashamed. She knew that her
husband would not entertain the notion for an instant.

“And, of course, you’ll stay at our house,” Mrs. Burrell went on.
“We’ve had a wing built on this Winter. It’s just like that wing on
yours in Washington.”

“And the furniture’s just like yours, too,” said Carrie Cora. “We
got it in Portland. They say it’s real antique. Lots of it has come
from old houses in Portland and from all kinds of queer places in the
country.”

Mrs. Burrell looked proudly at her eldest daughter. “Ain’t she changed,
though?” she said, glancing at Helen. “You’d hardly know her, would
you? The way she’s brightened up since Rufus James began to come to the
house. Dear me! I used to say to father that I didn’t know what we was
goin’ to do with her.”

Helen smiled at Carrie Cora. “But we’ve always understood each other,
haven’t we, dear?”

“Yes, always, Mrs. Briggs,” the girl replied.

“And what d’you suppose?” Mrs. Burrell went on. “Rufus James didn’t
want Carrie Cora to have any trousseau. He said he didn’t propose to
have people say he was marryin’ her because her father had money. Did
you ever hear anything like that? Father was so mad! But I must say I
kind of liked him for it. But I up and told him I’d attend to all those
things myself, an’ it was none of his business, anyway. That’s what
we’re here in New York for,” she added, lowering her voice as if afraid
of being overheard by the men in the other room. “Father didn’t let
on, but he cares ever so much more about Carrie Cora than for that old
law case he’s always talkin’ about. It’s goin’ to be white satin--the
weddin’ dress--with real Valenceens lace, an’ she’s goin’ to come out
in pearl-colored silk.” Mrs. Burrell stopped at the sound of steps in
the hall. “Oh, here they are back again! It must be almost time for us
to be goin’! We’ve got lots of shoppin’ to do.”

Douglas Briggs walked over to Carrie Cora. “Well, young lady, I’ve
heard the news,” he said. He placed both hands on the big girl’s head.
“Now, I’m a good deal older than you, and you won’t mind,” he went on,
kissing her between the eyes. “I hope he’s worthy of you, my dear.”

“I hope I’m worthy of him, Mr. Briggs,” Carrie Cora stammered, through
her embarrassment. At that moment she looked pretty.

Briggs patted her hand. “My dear child, no man is worth half as much as
a nice girl like you.”

“Now, don’t you go to spoilin’ my children, Mr. Briggs,” Mrs. Burrell
exclaimed, rising. “Come on, father.”

Helen rose at the same moment. “But we’ll see you again, of course.
Come to dinner to-night, won’t you?”

The girls looked delighted. “Oh!” they exclaimed.

Mrs. Burrell assumed an expression of severity.

“No, we won’t. You’ve got enough on your hands, with all these
political people pilin’ in on you. I guess I know what it is. We’ll
come to say good-bye, if we can, to-morrow some time. Father says he’s
got to get back Thursday.”

“But we’d like to have you, really,” said Helen, smiling.

Mrs. Burrell remained firm. “No. You’re too good. That’s the only
trouble with you. Well, good-bye.”

“You’ll come to the wedding, won’t you, Mr. Briggs?” said Carrie Cora.

Briggs waved his hand toward Helen. “Ask the lady,” he said.

“She said she’d come if she could,” Carrie Cora declared.

“Well, I’ll come if I can. Good-bye.”

He followed them to the door, and he had the air of dismissing them
with an almost benign courtesy. When they had disappeared with Helen
his face took on an expression of utter weariness. “What a nuisance!”
he said to himself. “I sha’n’t get a stroke of work done to-day.” He
sat at his desk and pressed his fingers over his eyes. His little
exhibitions of hypocrisy made him very uncomfortable now, chiefly
because he knew that his wife took note of them. After a moment he sat
upright and nerved himself to go on with his work. But he had not been
alone for five minutes when Michael interrupted again.

“The gentlemen that left a few minutes ago have come back, sir.”

“They have?” he said, resentfully, as if Michael were to blame. “What
do they want?”

“They want to speak to you a minute, sir,” the servant replied, in a
defensive voice.

Briggs uttered an exclamation of impatience. “Show them in here,” he
said, looking down at the pile of letters on his desk. Then he stood
up and waited for his callers. They came in slowly, as if afraid of
treading on one another’s heels; that is, all but one, the youngest and
best dressed, a rather handsome fellow of about twenty-eight.

“Well, gentlemen?” Briggs remarked, pleasantly. The look of fatigue and
resentment had disappeared from his face. His eye singled out the young
fellow, as if expecting him to speak. But it was the oldest of the
group, a tall, thin man, with a smooth face and heavy, white hair, who
spoke first. He had a deprecating manner, a hoarse voice and a faint
brogue.

“We’ve come back to have another little talk with you, Mr. Briggs,” he
said.

“All right, Mr. Monahan. Sit down, gentlemen, won’t you?” They all
glanced at the chairs and remained standing.

“We didn’t know just what reply to make to your remarks a few minutes
ago till we put our heads together,” Monahan continued.

“Well, what decision have you come to?” Briggs asked, cheerfully.

Monahan hesitated. “Well, the fact is----”

The young fellow broke in. “We’re not satisfied,” he said, fiercely.
“We think you ought to make us a more definite promise.”

“That’s it,” Monahan cried, for an instant growing bolder.

They scowled at one another.

Mr. Briggs directed his look toward the young man. “I think I made no
promise to you, Mr. Ferris,” he said, in a low voice.

“That’s just the trouble,” Ferris exclaimed. “We worked hard for you
last night, and now we don’t propose to be put off with any vague
talk.” His lip curled scornfully and showed fine, white teeth.

“You’re a little indefinite yourself, now, Mr. Ferris.”

“Well, then, I won’t be,” Ferris cried. “We nominated and elected you
two years ago, and you went back on us.”

“How was that?” Briggs said, as if merely curious. His manner seemed to
exasperate Ferris.

“You didn’t do a thing for us. We asked you for places, and you let ’em
all go to the Civil Service men.”

“I had to observe the law,” Briggs answered, in the tone he had used
before.

“Aw!” Ferris exchanged glances with his companions. “You know just as
well as I do that you could have given those places to the men that had
worked for you. But we’ll say nothing about that just now,” he went
on, extending his right hand, with the palm turned toward the floor.
“That’s off. We would have paid you back all right last night if Mr.
Stone hadn’t promised you’d stand by us. He smoothed it over, and he
said you realized your mistake, and all that.”

“That’s right, he did,” Monahan corroborated, huskily.

“He said you told him yourself,” cried one of the others, a
sallow-faced man with thin, black hair.

“I did? When was that, Mr. Long?”

“Down in Washington,” Long replied. “The night you were having a
blow-out.”

For a moment Douglas Briggs was silent. “I don’t remember ever having
made such a promise,” he replied, thoughtfully.

Ferris laughed bitterly. “Listen to that, will you?”

“I should have no right to make any such promise,” Briggs continued.
“And I can only repeat what I said a few moments ago. I’ve pledged
myself to support the Civil Service. I told you that last night.”

“Oh, what did that amount to?” said Ferris, with disgust.

“That was just a bluff,” Long exclaimed.

Briggs smiled. “If you believe that was a bluff, I can’t see why you
should consider my promise worth anything.”

“Well, there are five of us here,” said Ferris, in a surly tone.

“I see. Witnesses!” Briggs shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll tell you what
I will do for you. If any places come my way that aren’t covered by the
Civil Service, you shall have them.”

Ferris looked at Briggs with open contempt. “We might as well tell you,
sir, we’re not satisfied with the way you’ve treated us. An’ with your
record, you’ve got no right to put on any high an’ mighty airs.”

Monahan turned to remonstrate with Ferris.

“What do you mean by that?” said Briggs, looking sternly at the young
fellow.

Monahan extended his hand toward Briggs. “He’s just talkin’ a little
wild, that’s all,” he said, bowing and gesticulating. “He don’t mean
anything. We wanted to let you know how we felt. We didn’t quite
explain that a few moments ago.”

“I understand very well how you gentlemen feel, and I’d help you if
I could. I only wish I could make you see that I can’t do what’s
impossible.”

Monahan started for the door, followed by the others, one of whom
stumbled over a piece of furniture. “Think it over, sir, think it
over,” he said, bowing and holding his cap in both hands.

“I can promise to do that,” Briggs replied.

For several moments after his visitors left Briggs stood motionless
at his table. He appreciated the full significance of the opposition
to him within his own party; it might mean his defeat; so far back as
the previous Spring Stone had foreseen this situation. But he said to
himself that he could not have acted differently. He had done his best
to serve the party in all legitimate ways; but those heelers cared
only for their own selfish interests. Then he realized bitterly that
he had made the mistake of trying to play a double game: he had been
a straddler. If he had followed a straight course, if he had acted on
his convictions, he might now have the satisfaction of feeling that
he had been too good for his party. It was chiefly in order to atone
to his own conscience for the dishonest work he had done that he had
refused to cater to the lower elements of the party. Now he saw that
his scrupulousness was less an expression of honesty than of pride.
He was in one of those moods when he judged himself far more harshly
than he would have judged another man in his own position, when he lost
faith in the sincerity of any of his motives. However, he thought, now
he had taken his stand he could maintain it. Those fellows would give
him a hard fight; but he was ready for it. His resentment was aroused;
he returned to his desk with new energy, as if the contest were already
begun.

A few minutes later Michael entered with a letter. “Sam just brought
this, sir,” he said, and left the room.

Briggs glanced at the address and recognized Franklin West’s
handwriting. He tore open the letter hastily. He had a feeling that it
might contain disagreeable news. His eyes ran swiftly over the lines.

“Your man has come just as I am leaving for Boston. Sorry I can’t go
back with him. I came over to New York for only a few hours. But I’ll
be back in three or four days, when, of course, I shall give myself the
pleasure of seeing you. Congratulations on your nomination, if you will
accept congratulations on a dead sure thing.”

For a moment Briggs had a sensation of chill. It was like a
premonition. Was it possible that Franklin West was going back on him,
too? But he put the thought aside as absurd. It would not have occurred
to him if he were not tired out and if he had not had that interview
with the heelers. Still, it was odd that West should have hurried
through New York without calling. It would have been simple and natural
for him to stop for breakfast at the house where he had so often
received hospitality. Still, Briggs thought, philosophically, it was a
relief not to be obliged to see him.

For the rest of the morning, however, he felt uncomfortable. At
luncheon he had an impulse to speak of West to his wife, but he checked
it. He found it hard to start any new subject with her now.




XVII


Two days later, while Douglas Briggs was smoking his after-dinner cigar
in the library and chatting with Fanny Wallace, whose presence in the
house greatly relieved the embarrassment of his strained relations with
his wife, Michael entered and announced Mr. Farley. “There are two
gentlemen with him, sir,” said Michael, “Mr. De Witt and Mr. Saunders.”

Briggs flushed. “Ah!” he said, as if the callers had suddenly assumed
importance in his eyes.

“Where are they?” he asked, rising hastily.

“In the study, sir.”

“All right. I’ll go in.”

“Give my love to that nice Mr. Farley,” Fanny called after him.

As Briggs entered the room Farley rose with the boyish embarrassment
of manner that years of newspaper work had not changed. He introduced
his friends. De Witt, a tall, slim young man, with a sweeping brown
mustache and a long, well-cut face, took his host’s hand smilingly.
Saunders, shorter, smooth-faced and keen-eyed, glanced at Briggs with a
look not altogether free from suspicion. In Saunders Briggs recognized
a type of political reformer that always made him nervous.

“De Witt and Saunders are of the Citizens’ Club,” Farley explained.
“In fact, we’re all of the Citizens’ Club,” he added, with the air of
making a joke.

“I’m very glad to see you, gentlemen. Won’t you sit down? I caught a
glimpse of you at the reporters’ table at the caucus the other night,
Farley.”

“Hot time, wasn’t it?”

Briggs took from the table a box of cigars, which he offered to his
callers. De Witt and Saunders shook their heads and mumbled thanks.
Farley took a cigar and smoked with his host.

“Well, Congressman,” said Farley, “we haven’t come merely to take up
your time.”

Briggs smiled and nodded.

“We’ve come to ask you some questions,” Farley continued.

“You always were great on questions, Farley,” said Briggs, with a
laugh.

“We’ve been having a racket over you down at the Citizens’ Club,”
Farley began, and Briggs glanced smilingly at De Witt and Saunders.

“Farley has made the racket,” Saunders interposed.

“I’ve been trying to persuade those fellows that you’re a much
misunderstood man,” said Farley, his manner growing more earnest.

“So we’ve come here to try to understand you, Congressman,” De Witt
explained, amiably.

Douglas Briggs continued to look amused. “Anything I can do,
gentlemen,” he said, with an encouraging gesture.

“I know I needn’t tell you that I’ve always believed in you,
Congressman,” Farley remarked.

“You’ve been a good friend, Farley. I’ve always appreciated that.”

Farley leaned back in his chair. “The fellows have been--well, bothered
by those stories the papers have been publishing about you. It’s
because they don’t know you. They don’t know, as I do, that you’re
incapable of any dirty work.”

“Thank you, Farley,” said Briggs, in a low voice.

“Well, matters came to a head last night at the club when we talked
over your renomination. To be perfectly frank, a good many of our men
thought Williams was going to get the nomination, and, if he had got
it, we were going to make him our candidate, too.”

Douglas Briggs laughed. “You _are_ frank, Farley. So, now that I
have the nomination, you’re all at sea. Is that the idea?”

“We can’t stand the opposition candidate!” said De Witt.

Saunders shook his head. “No; Bruce is too much for our stomachs. He’s
out of the question altogether.”

“So we’ll have to choose between endorsing you or putting up a
candidate of our own,” Farley went on. “In fact, that is what most of
the men want to do.”

“You want to help to elect Bruce, you mean?” said Briggs, pleasantly.

“That’s what it would amount to,” De Witt acknowledged.

Briggs hesitated. “Gentlemen, you are placing me in a very delicate
position,” he said at last. “What can I do?”

“You can give my friends here some assurances, Congressman,” said
Farley.

“What assurances?”

“In the first place, you can give us your word that those stories in
the opposition papers are false.”

Briggs rose slowly from his seat. His face grew pale. After a long
silence, he said: “Farley, do you remember what I said to you last
Spring, when you asked me to deny those stories? I said they were too
contemptible to be noticed!”

Farley looked disappointed. “Then you won’t help us? You won’t help me
in the fight I’ve been making for you?”

“Gentlemen,” Douglas Briggs went on, speaking slowly and impressively,
“I know perfectly well what you are driving at, and I’m going to try
to meet you halfway. But I’m a man as well as a politician, and you
can’t blame me if I resent being placed on the rack like a criminal.
However, I appreciate your motives in coming here, and I’m grateful
to Farley for all he’s done for me. Let me say this, once for all: If
I am elected I shall go back to Congress with clean hands and with a
clear conscience, ready to do my duty wherever I see it. Within the
past few months my relations with Franklin West have been the subject
of newspaper talk. West has been my personal friend. I have trusted
him and respected him. Lately I have discovered that he is a scoundrel.
He is coming here this morning, and I shall give myself the pleasure of
telling him so. Now, gentlemen, if you honor me with an endorsement,
I pledge my word that you will find me in perfect sympathy with the
work you’re doing.” He stopped, his lips tightening. “I confess that I
shouldn’t have the courage to say these things, to humble myself like
this, but for this good fellow here. I only wish there were more like
him.”

Farley smiled. “Well, Congressman, I knew you’d see through West some
day.”

“Now, gentlemen, you have asked me for some assurances,” Briggs
continued. “I might as well tell you frankly that I can only give you
the assurance of my good faith, of my honesty of intention. I’ve made
blunders in my career so far that I shall regret to my dying day. I’ve
been the target of the sensational newspapers; but I don’t mind that.
Many of the stories printed about me, I can honestly say, have been
absolute calumnies. Some of the censure has been deserved. I suppose
that the lesson of politics can’t be learned in a day. At any rate,
it has taken me several bitter years to learn it, and I’m not sure
that I’ve learned it all yet. But no matter how great my mistakes have
been, in my heart I’ve always been in sympathy with clean politics.
You know as well as I do that for the past few years I’ve been getting
farther and farther away from my party. The other night I secured my
nomination in the teeth of pretty strenuous opposition. Just now I have
reason to believe that in the coming campaign I shall have to meet as
enemies men who have been my strongest friends. As you probably know, a
good many of my East Side supporters have gone back on me. This means
a big loss. Even with the strength you might give me, my election
would be doubtful. So, if you support me, you’ll gain very little for
yourselves, I can tell you that. We might as well look the situation in
the face, you know.”

“Well, sir, the more enemies you make among the machine men the more
willing we are to stand by you, Congressman,” said Farley. “The harder
the fight the better we like it.”

“That’s very consoling, Farley. Only you fellows had better go slow
before you decide to try to whitewash me. To tell the truth, I don’t
feel quite fit for your company. I’m not good enough for you. I’ve
been a good deal of a machine man myself, you know.”

Farley laughed. “That’s all right. We haven’t any objections to the
machine. We only object to the men who are running it just at present.”

“I don’t think it’s necessary to keep you on the rack any longer,” said
De Witt, rising.

The others rose too.

“Thank you,” said Briggs, with a smile. “Will any of you gentlemen have
a--? I always hesitate in asking any members of the Citizens’ Club.”

“No, thank you,” said Saunders. “Too early in the morning.”

The others shook their heads.

“You’ll probably hear from us before long,” said Farley, at the door.




XVIII


The next morning after breakfast Helen Briggs followed her husband into
the study. “I want to speak to you, Douglas,” she said.

“Well?” He looked embarrassed, as he always did now on finding himself
alone with her.

“It is about this house,” she went on. “Have you done anything about
renting it this Winter?”

“No,” he replied, betraying a little impatience. “I’ve had other things
to think about. Besides, I shall be over here now and then.”

“But it would hardly pay to keep the house open for that,” she
insisted, gently. “Besides, it would be gloomy for you here----”

“Alone?” he said, sharply, looking up at her. “Yes,” he repeated,
dryly, “it would be lonely.” He lifted his hand to his head. “I suppose
you’re right about that,” he sighed. “I’ll speak to an agent to-morrow.
We can doubtless rent it furnished. Still, it’s a little late in the
season,” he concluded, vaguely.

“I shall want to have some of our things sent to Waverly,” she said. “I
thought I would begin to get them together to-day.”

“Oh, don’t begin to break up till we’re ready to get out of here!” he
exclaimed. “Wait till after the election. Besides, I expect Franklin
West over in a few days, and I don’t want him to come into an empty
house.” He was glad of the chance to mention West’s coming in this
indirect way. He kept his eyes turned from his wife.

After a moment of silence she said, in a low voice: “He is coming here?”

He gave her a quick glance. “Yes; why not?”

She moved slightly, but she did not answer. She grew slightly paler.

“I know you don’t like him,” he went on, angry with himself for taking
an apologetic attitude, “but surely you won’t object to his staying
here a day or two. You’ve never objected before.”

“I didn’t know him then as I do now,” she said.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked, angrily. Then, when he saw that
she had no reply to make, he went on, in a more conciliatory tone:
“It will be impossible for me to avoid asking him. You know perfectly
well----”

The blood had rushed to her face. “If he comes, Douglas,” she said, “I
can’t stay here.”

He walked swiftly toward her and rested his hand on one of the chairs.
His eyes shone. “I’ve stood enough of this behavior from you, Helen,
and now I’m going to put my foot down. You sha’n’t stir out of this
house. You’ll stay here, and you’ll receive Franklin West as you
receive all my other friends. He knows you’re here, and I don’t propose
to allow him to be insulted by your leaving. Do you understand?”

Helen bowed. “Perfectly,” she said, in a whisper.

“Then you’ll do as I say?”

“No,” she replied, quietly. “I’ll go. I’ll leave this very morning.”

“Then if you leave,” he said, “you’ll leave for good.”

“As you please.” Helen turned and walked slowly toward the door. He
watched her angrily. As she opened the door she leaned against it
heavily and caught her breath in a sob.

He stepped forward quickly and took her in his arms. “Helen,” he cried,
brokenly, “I didn’t mean that! I didn’t know what I was saying! It’s
because I love you that I’m so harsh with you. Can’t you see I’ve been
in hell ever since this trouble began? Everything I’ve done has been
done for you. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve done wrong. I’ve got into a
terrible mess. But God knows I want to get out of it; and I will get
out of it, if you’ll only have patience. I hate that man West as much
as you do. But I can’t throw him down now. It would mean ruin for me.
Only listen to reason, won’t you? Besides, you haven’t anything against
West. Hasn’t he always treated you civilly?” He hesitated, watching the
tears that ran down her cheeks. “Well, hasn’t he? Answer me, Helen.”

She drew herself away from him. She had a sudden temptation to tell him
the whole truth. It seemed for an instant as if this avowal might clear
up the whole trouble between them. Then she thought of what the other
consequences might be, and she checked herself. “I can’t tell you,
Douglas. You must not ask me to meet him again. I can’t look him in the
face. The mere sight of him terrifies me.”

He looked helplessly at her, thinking that he understood the full
meaning of her words. Then he turned away. “I never thought I should
drag you into this, Helen,” he said, bitterly. “I--I don’t blame you.
Of course, I know it is all my fault.”

“Then why not undo this fault?” she cried. “Why not----?”

He held out his hand despairingly. “Don’t!” he exclaimed. “You don’t
understand. You can’t. You women never can.”

She dried her eyes and was about to leave the room. “Since you are
determined not to have him here,” her husband remarked, with a
resumption of reproach in his tone, “I’ll not ask him to stay. I’ll
offer some excuse.”

During the rest of the day they did not refer to West again. The next
morning Briggs looked for a letter from him from Boston, but none came.
Two days later he received a brief note that West had dictated to his
stenographer in Washington. Pressing business had called him home; he
had not even stopped over in New York. So that scene with Helen might
have been avoided, after all, Briggs thought, with a sigh. He tried
to forget about the episode, however, and during the next few days
the pressure of campaign work absorbed him. The Citizens’ Club had
endorsed his candidacy, and their support, he believed, would more
than counterbalance the opposition within his own party. During the
day he either received the crowds of importunate visitors, chiefly
constituents with axes to grind, who seemed to think his time belonged
to them, or he was working up the speeches that he was to deliver at
night. He had long before ceased to write out what he intended to say;
a few notes written on a card gave him all the cues he needed. He
spent considerable time, however, in poring over statistics and over
newspapers, from which he culled most of his material.

One morning, about two weeks before the election was to be held,
Michael appeared in the library with a card and the announcement that
the lady was waiting in the reception room.

“Miss Wing!” said Briggs, absently. “Where have I seen that name? What
can she want with me?” Then his face brightened. “Oh, yes, I remember.”
He looked serious again. “Why should she come here, to take up my time?
I don’t believe I--Well, show her in, Michael,” he said, impatiently.

Miss Wing wore one of her most extravagant frocks. When Douglas Briggs
offered his hand and greeted her, her face grew radiant.

“How good of you to remember me, Congressman. But then it’s part of
your business to remember people, isn’t it?” she said, archly.

“It’s pretty hard work sometimes. But I remember you perfectly.”

“That’s very flattering, I’m sure.” Miss Wing sank into the seat Briggs
had placed for her. “Well, Congressman, I’ve come on a disagreeable
errand.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Briggs, with a smile.

“But with the best intentions in the world,” Miss Wing hastened to
explain.

“That makes it all right, then.”

“It’s about--Well, I suppose I might come to the point at once. It’s
connected with the Transcontinental Railway.”

“M’m! Aren’t your readers tired of hearing about that?”

Miss Wing shook her head. “Not when there are new and exciting
developments,” she said, insinuatingly.

“Such as what?”

Miss Wing waited for a moment. “Well, thus far the papers have spared
Mrs. Briggs.”

“Mrs. Briggs? What has Mrs. Briggs to do with that railroad?” In spite
of his effort to keep his self-control, Douglas Briggs betrayed anger
in his voice.

“Simply this,” Miss Wing went on, coolly. “I warn you it’s very
unpleasant. But I--I consider it my duty to tell you.”

“Go ahead, then.”

Miss Wing fell into a dramatic attitude, her right hand extended and
resting on her parasol. “I happen to know that Mr. Franklin West has
taken advantage of his hold on you to make love to your wife.”

Briggs rose from his seat. “This is the worst yet,” he said, in a low
voice.

Miss Wing lifted her eyebrows. “You don’t believe it?”

“Of course I don’t,” he replied, contemptuously.

“But I saw him with my own eyes. You’re still incredulous, aren’t
you? It was the night of your ball in Washington. Mr. West was with
Mrs. Briggs in the library. I saw him threaten her, and I saw that
she was frightened. Knowing your relations--excuse me, but I must be
frank--knowing your relations, it wasn’t hard for me to understand what
he was saying.”

Briggs looked angrily at his visitor. “Why have you come to me with
this vile story?” he cried.

Miss Wing met his looks without flinching. “In the first place, because
I thought you ought to know it.”

“That was why you waited for six months to tell me?” he said,
scornfully.

“No. I waited because of my second reason. I knew that if you were
nominated again the information would be more valuable to me. There!”

“How, more valuable?”

“You public men are so dull at times! It’s simply that I--well, I don’t
want to publish the story, though it is a beautiful story. It’s not
only a splendid sensation, but it’s a touch of romance in your stupid
politics.”

“You want me to pay you not to publish the story--is that it?”

Miss Wing grew serious. “Exactly!”

Briggs smiled coldly. “Well, you’ve come to the wrong man. I’ve done
a good many things in my career that I regret, but I’ve never yet
submitted to blackmail.”

“That’s a hard word, Mr. Briggs.” Miss Wing glared at Briggs, but he
made no comment. “You prefer, then, to have your wife’s name disgraced,
perhaps?” she said.

“I tell you the whole story is a lie!”

“You believe that I’ve made it up, do you?”

Briggs laughed contemptuously. “Put any construction on my words that
you please,” and he jammed his hand over the bell on the table beside
him. “But let me tell you this, once for all: Not to protect my wife or
myself will I be cajoled into paying one cent. Publish your article. Do
all the mischief you can!”

Miss Wing rose indignantly. “I’ll queer your election for you!” she
cried, as Michael entered.

“Show this lady out, Michael,” said Briggs, quietly.




XIX


For the next ten minutes Douglas Briggs paced his study. He kept
repeating to himself that what that woman had said was impossible;
she had come simply to blackmail him; she had supposed him to be an
easy mark. But it was strange that Helen’s discovery of his relations
with West should have followed so closely the night of the ball in
Washington. Could West have been so cowardly as to expose him to her?
It flashed upon Briggs that on the very morning after the ball he had
found Helen reading his scrapbooks. Why had she done that? What had
been a merely commonplace incident now seemed significant. Was she
searching those files for support of West’s charges? The idea seemed
too hideous, too monstrous. For a moment Briggs had a sensation of
having been accused of a crime of which he was innocent. Then he called
himself a fool. West had very little respect for women, but he was
altogether too experienced, too much a man of the world, to insult a
woman like Helen.

The only sensible course to pursue was to ignore Miss Wing altogether.
If she started the story about him it would merely add one more to the
scandals already in circulation. Thus far they did not appear to hurt
him very much. The chances were, however, that the woman would not dare
to carry out her threat. Besides, Briggs thought with satisfaction, the
increased severity of the libel laws was making newspapers more careful
of what they said, even about men running for office. He was himself
used to hearing similar stories about his colleagues in Washington,
and he paid little attention to them. As for Helen, he decided that he
would not degrade his wife even by mentioning the matter to her. He
returned to his work, however, with bitterness in his mind, and when,
an hour later, Helen entered the room, he looked up quickly and said:

“Oh, there’s something I want to ask you.”

He dropped his pen and scanned her face, letting his chin rest on his
hands. “Why is it that you were so dead set against having Franklin
West come here the other day?”

She waited, as if carefully preparing an answer. “I would rather not
speak of that again, Douglas,” she said.

“But I want to speak of it,” he insisted. “And I want you to speak of
it in plain language. You needn’t be afraid of wounding me. Was it
because of my connection with him in that railroad business?”

He saw her face flush. Her hand twitched at her belt. “I never liked
him,” she said. “I told you that.”

“Oh!” he cried, impatiently, “this isn’t a question of your liking
him or disliking him. You dislike a good many people.” She looked at
him reproachfully. “You know perfectly well you do, even if you don’t
say so. Don’t you suppose I can tell?” He felt suddenly ashamed, and
he checked himself. “Excuse me, Helen,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be
disagreeable; but I want you to be open with me in this matter. What’s
your reason for saying you’d leave here if he came to stay?”

“Don’t, Douglas!” Helen’s eyes filled with tears. “Please don’t ask me.
It’s better that you shouldn’t. I’ve tried, oh, I’ve----”

“There _is_ a reason, then,” he declared, with grim triumph.
“Now, I’m going to find out what it is,” he added, with determination.

She sank helplessly to the couch. He leaned forward and kept his eyes
fixed on her. “Well,” he said, “I’m waiting.”

“The last time he was at our house in Washington he--he insulted me.”

Briggs started back, as if someone had aimed a blow at him. “He
insulted you?” he cried, incredulously. “This must be some fancy of
yours. West is the most courteous, the most suave--he’s _too_
suave. What did he say?”

“He said that he was in love with me, he said that he’d been in love
with me for years. He said that was why he’d helped you so much. When I
tried to call the servants he said they were his servants, in his pay,
that you were in his pay--” Helen dropped her head on the couch. Her
lips trembled.

Her husband looked at her, dazed. “The scoundrel!” he exclaimed, under
his breath.

“Perhaps now you can understand why I loathe him so. I always knew what
he was. I’ve always been afraid of him.”

Briggs grew suddenly angry. “Why didn’t you speak of this before? Why
didn’t you?” He clasped his hands over his face. “God!” he exclaimed.

“I couldn’t. He said it would ruin you.”

“Ruin me!” Briggs repeated, savagely. Then he looked pityingly at his
wife. “And you’ve kept silent all these months just to protect me?” He
turned away. “I might have known what this life would lead to,” he went
on, as if speaking to himself. “I’ve dragged myself through the gutter,
and I’ve dragged my family with me.”

Helen rose from the couch.

“You ought to have told me,” he went on, this time without reproach.
“That would have been the only fair thing to do. But it isn’t too
late,” he concluded, grimly.

A look of alarm appeared in her face. “What do you mean, Douglas?”

“Oh, I don’t mean that I intend to kill him,” he replied, with a scorn
that was plainly directed against himself. “We can get along without
any heroics.”

“What--?” She looked at him with the helplessness of a woman in such a
situation. Then she walked toward him. “Please let it all go, Douglas,”
she said. “No harm has been done--to me, I mean. Don’t, don’t----”

“Don’t make a scandal? No, I won’t. I promise you that. You’ve suffered
enough out of this thing.” He had an impulse to go forward and embrace
her, but a fear of appearing too spectacular checked him. He had the
Anglo-Saxon’s horror of acting up to a situation. Besides, in her
manner there was something that stung his pride. He could more easily
have borne reproaches.

When she had left the room he asked himself what he could do. He felt
as helpless as his wife had been a few moments before. Of course, he
would break with West; but this contingency did not affect the real
question between them. He might thrash the fellow; but even that would
be a poor satisfaction. He clearly saw that in this matter there could
be no such thing for him as satisfaction. He alone was to blame; he had
brought the shame on himself by introducing to his wife a man for whom
no honest man or woman could feel respect. He must take his medicine,
bitter as it was.

The medicine grew more bitter as the days passed and he did nothing.
West, he felt sure, would never enter his house again. When they did
meet it would be in Washington, where he would let the fellow know
that their business deals were at an end. There was no reason why they
should not end now; he had done the work, and he had received his pay,
he thought, with self-disgust. In future he should keep himself out of
any such complications. West had taught him a lesson that would keep
him straight for the rest of his life.

Two days before the election Michael announced a visitor. When Douglas
Briggs heard the name the expression of his face changed so completely
that it found a reflection in Michael’s face.

“Where is he?” Briggs asked.

“In the drawing-room, sir. Shall I ask him to step in here?”

“No.” Briggs adjusted the collar of his coat. “I’ll go in there,” he
said.

As he was about to leave the room he met his wife, entering from
the hall. She looked as if she were about to faint. “I saw him as I
came down the stairs,” she said. She laid her hand on her husband’s
shoulder. “Douglas, you won’t be foolish, will you?”

He drew her hand away. She noticed that his arm was quivering. “Don’t
be afraid,” he replied, impatiently. “I’ll make short work of him,
and there’ll be no scene. Think of his coming here!” he added, with a
bitter laugh.

She followed him into the hall. When he entered the drawing-room he
closed the door behind him. West was standing in front of the mantel;
he wore a long frock coat, and a pair of yellow gloves hung from one
hand. On seeing Briggs he came forward, smiling, and offering his hand.

“Glad to catch you in,” he said. “I came over in a tremendous hurry.
I----”

He stopped. Briggs stood in front of him, looking him sharply in the
face, with hands clasped behind his back.

“West!”

Franklin West let his hand drop. His eyes showed astonishment. “What’s
the matter?” he gasped.

Briggs went on, in a lower voice: “West, I have something to say to
you, and I might as well say it without any preliminaries. I want to
tell you that you’re a blackguard.”

“What!” West exclaimed.

“I have heard from my wife how you insulted her at our house last
Spring.”

“_Insulted_ her? It’s--it’s a mistake. I never----”

Briggs drew nearer West. He looked dangerous. “No. There’s no mistake.
My wife isn’t in the habit of lying. Now, I have just one thing to say
to you. That is, get out of here. Don’t ever show yourself in my house
again. If you do, by God, you’ll pay for it!”

West had partly recovered from his bewilderment. “You must be crazy!”
he said.

“I shall be if you don’t take yourself out of my sight pretty quick.”

“You mean to throw me over, then?”

“Yes, you and your whole gang. I’ve had enough of you. You thought you
owned me, didn’t you?”

West did not flinch. “It’s war between us, then; is it?” he said.

“Call it what you please, but get out!”

West smiled. “Very well, then. I think we understand each other. Now
that you’ve got your nomination again you believe you’re strong enough
to stand up against us. After we’ve made you, you’re going to knife us.
And you make your wife the cloak, the pretext--just as you’ve used her
all along!”

Douglas seized West by the throat and hurled him to the floor.

The door opened, and Helen stood on the threshold, her face white, her
figure trembling. “Douglas!” she whispered.

Briggs released his hold and stood up. “Excuse me,” he said, glancing
at his wife. “I forgot myself.” He glanced at the prostrate figure.
“Get out!”

West rose, his face flushed with anger. He walked slowly toward the
door. Then he turned. “You’ll pay for this!” he said.




XX


On the night of the election Farley stood at the telephone in Douglas
Briggs’s library. “Oh, hello! hello!” he called. “Yes, this is Mr.
Briggs’s house. Yes, Congressman Briggs. What?” He glanced at Guy, who
sat at the table in the centre of the room. “They’ve shut me off!” he
said, disgusted. He rang impatiently. Then he rang again. “Hello! Is
this Central? Well, I want Central. Who are you? No, I rang off long
ago. Well then, ring off, can’t you?” He turned toward Guy. “Damn that
girl!” Then an exclamation in the telephone caused him to say, hastily,
“Oh, excuse me.” He smiled at Guy. “Telephones are very corrupting
things, aren’t they? What?” he continued, with his lips at the
transmitter. “What’s that about manners? Oh, I _never_ had any?
Excuse me, but I’m nervous. Yes, nervous. Well, give me the number,
won’t you? 9-0-7 Spring. Oh, I beg your pardon, I thought you were
Central.” He turned from the transmitter. “I’ve offended her again.
What? Yes. Well, excuse me, please. Well, I’ll try. Thank you. Thank
heaven, she’s rung off! Women ought never to be allowed to get near
telephones.” He rang again. “Is this Central? Oh, yes, thanks. 9-0-7
Spring, please. Now for a wait!” He leaned weakly against the wall.

Guy rose quickly. “Here, let me hold it for you awhile. You take a
rest.”

“Thanks.” Farley sank into Guy’s chair. “I’ve spent most of the day at
that ’phone,” he said, with a long sigh.

“Yes, waiting,” Guy was saying. “Eh? What a very fresh young person
that is, Farley. Yes,” he exclaimed, snappishly, “9-0-7. Yes,” he
repeated, loudly, “Spring. Who do you want, Farley?”

Farley stood up. “Give it to me.” As Guy returned to his seat, Farley
cried: “Hello! Is Harlowe there? Yes, J. B. Harlowe, your political
man. Well, ask him to come to the ’phone. Just listen to the hum
of that office, will you?” he said, dreamily. “I can hear the old
ticker going tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. The boys must be hustling
to-night.”

Guy, who had taken his place at the desk again, rested his head on both
hands. “You love newspaper work, don’t you, Farley?”

“I love it and I hate it. I wish I’d never gone into it, and I couldn’t
be happy out of it. It’s got into my blood, I suppose. They say it
always does if you stay in it long enough. I--Oh, hello, Harlowe!
Well, how goes it? Any returns down there? We haven’t heard a word
for an hour. Pretty quiet? Yes, this is just the time! What district?
235? Good! Funny we don’t hear. Oh, yes; just come in. We’ll get it
by messenger, I suppose. We’re ahead by 235 in the Ninth District,
Guy. What’s that?” Farley listened intently. “Well, I can tell you
this--you’ll waste your time if you send a man up here. Congressman
Briggs is asleep at this minute, and we don’t propose to wake him
up. He’s nearly dead. He’s been rushing it without a break since the
campaign opened. Seven speeches last night! Think of that! Eh? No, we
don’t propose to deny the story. We’ve had a string of reporters here
all day long, and we’ve steered them all off. They haven’t even seen
Briggs.” He burst out laughing. Then he suddenly became serious. “All
right. That’s the way to talk to ’em. Call me up if you get anything
important.”

“What story?” Guy asked, when Farley had rung off.

“That nasty lie published in the _Chronicle_ this morning,” Farley
replied, dropping into a big chair near the desk.

“Mrs. Briggs hasn’t seen it yet,” said Guy. “I hope she won’t hear
anything while she’s dining down at the hotel. I told Fanny and her
father to be careful.”

Farley sighed. “Well, I suppose she must find out some time. You know,
down in Washington they’ve connected her name with that fellow West’s
for a long time. The idiots!”

“You could see from the way she acted whenever he was around that she
hated him,” said Guy, with disgust in his voice.

“Oh, they’ll say anything about a woman as soon as she becomes
conspicuous,” Farley replied, with the older man’s philosophy.

“But weren’t they clever to spring that story on the very day of the
election?” Guy went on. “Look here. See what the _Evening Signal_
says:

 “There is no doubt that the sensational story published in the
 morning papers that Congressman Briggs has had a split with his former
 backer because of an alleged insult to his wife, and was using the
 Citizens’ Club as a catspaw, has cost him thousands of votes. The
 reference to Mrs. Briggs may be set down as pure falsehood, introduced
 to give romantic color to the story. But there is no doubt that
 personal reasons of considerable interest led Congressman Briggs to
 seek support of the very men who, till the present campaign, had been
 his bitterest opponents.”

Farley’s eyes flashed. “That’s a damn lie!”

“Of course it is,” Guy exclaimed. “But I only hope all the men at the
Citizens’ Club will think so.”

The door was thrown open, and Briggs entered. His face was pale; his
eyes looked inflamed. “Well, boys, how are things going?”

“You got up too soon,” Farley replied. “Everything’s quiet.”

“No news?”

“The Ninth District has gone for you by 235,” said Farley.

Briggs lifted his eyebrows. “Two thirty-five? Is that all? I thought
we were sure of five hundred at least. Oh, well!”

“Things ought to begin to hum soon,” said Guy, rising to give up the
seat at the desk. As Briggs took the chair, Michael appeared at the
door.

“There’s a messenger outside with a letter, sir. He says he was told to
give it to you yourself, and to wait for an answer.”

“Tell him to come in. You’d better take a rest, Farley,” said Briggs.
“Don’t you newspaper men ever get tired?”

Farley smiled. “Not when there’s a little excitement in the air.”

A moment later a messenger followed Michael into the room. He was a
man of nearly forty, and his uniform gave him an air of youth that his
deeply lined face and his figure denied. He looked about aimlessly.

“Congressman Briggs?” he said.

“Yes.” Briggs extended his hand.

“Hello! from the Citizens’ Club,” he exclaimed, as he looked at the
envelope. “What’s this?” He glanced over the letter. “It’s from
Griswold. Listen to this, will you? ‘We have been talking over that
outrageous libel about you that appeared in the _Chronicle_ this
morning, and we think that you ought to take some notice of it. It is
too serious to be passed over. We hear that it also appeared in the
papers in Boston, Chicago and Washington.’ Here, you read the rest,
Farley.”

Farley read, with Guy looking over his shoulder. When he had finished,
he passed the letter back to Briggs. No one spoke.

At last Farley glanced at the uniformed figure. “The messenger is
waiting,” he said to Briggs.

Briggs swung in his chair and faced the desk. “Sit down here, Guy, and
write what I dictate. ‘Frazer Griswold, Esquire, the Citizens’ Club,
Fifth Avenue, New York. My dear Griswold: I see nothing in the article
you mention that requires a reply. If I knew the writer, I’d pay him
the compliment of thrashing him within an inch of his life.’ Give that
to the stenographer. Get her to run it off on the typewriter, and I’ll
sign it.”

“Respectfully yours?” Guy asked, busily writing.

Douglas Briggs smiled faintly. “Yes, very respectfully.”

As Guy left the room, Farley asked: “Any idea who did it, Mr. Briggs?
Someone down in Washington, of course.”

“I think I know who did it,” Briggs replied, quietly.

“Who?”

“No one we can get back at.”

“A woman?”

Briggs ran his fingers through his hair. He took a long breath. “Yes,”
he said, wearily. “Don’t you remember Miss Wing? She was at my wife’s
ball last Spring.”

“Yes,” Farley replied. “She was disgruntled because she’d been put into
a side room for supper with the rest of us newspaper people. Can that
have been the reason?”

“No; she had a better reason. But that supper arrangement was a
blunder, wasn’t it? I’ve heard from that a dozen times since. And Mrs.
Briggs and I knew nothing about it till the supper was all over.”

“But she was a friend of West’s,” Farley went on. “He came to her
rescue at the ball, I remember. He used to put himself out to do her
favors.”

“Yes, it’s one of his principles to be particularly civil to newspaper
people. I’ve often heard him say that. But she’s gone back on him.
She throws him down as hard in this article as she does me. Oh, well,”
Briggs added, stretching out his arms, “I sometimes think that these
things, instead of hurting a man, really do him good.”

“That’s pretty cynical, isn’t it?” said Farley, smiling. “It’s a little
hard on the rest of us in the newspaper line, too.”

Briggs rose and began to pace the room. “I’m out of sorts now, Farley.
Don’t mind what I say. Have you fellows had anything to eat?” he asked,
stopping suddenly.

“We had something brought in,” said Guy, returning with the typewritten
letter. “Didn’t have time to go out. Will you sign this?”

“Don’t you think you’d better get something?” Farley asked.

Douglas Briggs let the pen fall from his fingers. “No, I have no
appetite.” Guy gave the messenger the letter and followed him out of
the room. “We’re helter-skelter here now, aren’t we? Well, to-morrow
will be our last day in this old place.”

“You’re giving it up for good, then?” Farley asked.

“Yes, if we can get rid of it. But we haven’t had an offer for it yet.
Too bad!” he added, with a sigh.

Farley looked surprised. “Then you don’t want to go?”

Douglas Briggs hesitated. “Some of the happiest days of my life have
been spent here,” he said at last, “and some of the unhappiest, too,”
he added, turning his head away. “When I came into this house I felt I
had reached success. What fools we all are! Here I’ve been working for
years among big interests, and what thought do you suppose has been in
my mind all the time? To please my wife, to get money to surround her
with beautiful things, to place her in a beautiful house, to give her
beautiful dresses to wear. Bah!”

“Well, that isn’t altogether a bad ambition,” said Farley, cheerfully.

Briggs looked up quickly. “When you’ve got a wife who’s above all these
fripperies! Isn’t it?”

“But I always think of you as one of the happiest married men I know,”
said Farley. He began to glance over some papers he had taken from the
desk.

“I ought to be. I should be if I weren’t a fool.” He hesitated. “I
went into my wife’s room the other day while the maids were packing her
clothes and I saw a little sealskin coat that I gave her years ago. The
sight of that coat brought tears to my eyes. Ever since we were married
I’d been telling her that she must have a sealskin. That represented
my idea of luxury. It seemed to us then like a romantic dream. Well, I
made a little money and I blew it all on that coat. She’s kept it
ever since.”

Farley was sitting motionless. “That’s a very pretty story,” he said.

Briggs raised his hand warningly. “But it marked my first step in the
wrong direction. All those luxuries, instead of bringing me nearer my
wife, have taken me away from her. Sometimes I----”

They heard a voice in the hall and the sound of a girl’s laughter.
Briggs stopped speaking and listened. A moment later Fanny Wallace ran
in, followed by her aunt, her father and Guy Fullerton.

“Here we are at last!” said Fanny. “Missed us?” she went on, and she
gave her uncle a kiss on the chin. “Oh, we’ve had the loveliest dinner!
Terrapin and mushrooms and venison and--you should have seen dad when
he looked over the bill! Now, aren’t you sorry you didn’t come?” she
asked, turning to Guy.

“I was very sorry before you went,” Guy replied.

“What did _you_ have, Uncle Doug?”

“I didn’t have anything.”

Fanny stood still. “What?”

Helen interposed, as she was about to unpin her hat: “But I told Martha
to have some dinner for you.”

“I told her that I was going out, but I fell asleep,” Briggs explained.

“I’ll see about something.” Helen Briggs removed her hat and pinned her
veil on it.

Briggs shook his head. “No. I couldn’t eat now,” he said, with a scowl
of exhaustion.

Helen looked alarmed. “Aren’t you well?” she asked.

“Perfectly. Don’t worry about me. I’ll take a biscuit and a glass of
wine if I need anything. And if I’m elected we’ll all go out and blow
ourselves to a supper.”

Fanny’s eyes shone. “At the Waldorf-Astoria? Good! We’ll have some
lobster Newburg.”

Jonathan Wallace was drawing off his thick gloves. “Well, everything
looks cheerful for you, they say,” he remarked to Briggs. “I met
Harris, that political friend of yours, and he told me you were going
to have a big majority.”

“Oh, Harris always was an optimist,” said Briggs.

“And dad made him furious,” Fanny cried. “He told him that every time a
friend of his went into politics he felt like saying, ‘There’s another
good man gone wrong!’ and he said that if you got completely snowed
under it would be the best thing that could happen to you.”

Briggs smiled. “And what did Harris say to that?”

“He didn’t say anything. He just looked. Well, I’m going down stairs to
see if I can’t get something to eat for this gentleman. I’m going to
make him eat something. Think of his going without any dinner while we
were gorging! Want to come and help, Guy?”

“Take too long.”

Fanny looked injured. “Why, there isn’t anything for you to do here.”

“Well, there will be soon,” Guy replied.

“Then Uncle Doug can send for you--or Mr. Farley.” Fanny seized Guy by
the shoulders and pushed him out of the room. “Won’t you, Mr. Farley?”
she cried, from the hall.

“All right,” Farley replied, smiling.

“I think I’ll go up and take a nap,” said Wallace. “This New York pace
is a little too much for me.”

As Helen busied herself about the room the telephone rang. Farley
answered. “Hello!” he cried. “Who is it? Citizens’ Club? All right.
I’ll wait. Oh, hello, Gilchrist! Yes, this is Mr. Briggs’s house. We’ve
sent the reply by messenger. He says the libel isn’t worth replying to.
I might have told you that.” He listened for a few moments. Then he
turned to Briggs. “Great excitement over that matter down at the club.
They want me to come down.”

“Go along, then.”

“All right. I’ll be down in fifteen minutes,” said Farley, into the
telephone. As he hung up the receiver he remarked: “I’ll make short
work of them. Good-night, Mrs. Briggs,” he called from the hall.
“I’ll see you soon again, though. Perhaps I’ll bring you news of your
husband’s election.”




XXI


Helen gathered the wraps she had thrown on the couch and started to
leave the room. When she stood at the door her husband said:

“Are you going upstairs?”

“Yes; I’m tired,” she replied, without looking round. She stood,
however, as if expecting him to speak again.

“You--you won’t wait till the returns come in?”

She turned slightly. “I’ll come down again,” she replied, glancing at
him for an instant.

Briggs walked toward her. “We’ve been such strangers in the past few
weeks,” he said, gently, “that I should think you might take advantage
of this chance for a chat.”

Helen dropped her wraps on a chair. “I will stay if you wish.”

“If I wish!” he repeated, with quiet bitterness. “I thought perhaps
you’d like to stay. You do everything nowadays with the air of a
martyr, Helen.”

“I sha’n’t trouble you much longer, Douglas,” she said, lowering her
eyes.

“Then there is no way of our coming to an understanding?”

She kept her eyes from him. “We understand each other very well now, I
think.”

“Now!” he repeated. Helen started to take up the wraps again. He held
out his hand. “Wait a minute. I didn’t detain you to pick a quarrel. I
wanted to make one last appeal to you.”

“For what?” she asked.

“I can’t stand living like this any longer,” he went on, desperately,
throwing off all self-restraint. “I can’t stand the thought of going
back to Washington without you. I’m lonely. I’ve been lonely for
months. You know that as well as I do.”

She hesitated, trying to control herself. Then she said, without a
trace of feeling in her voice: “You have your work. You have as much as
I have.”

“You treat me as if you had no regard, no respect, for me. You make me
feel like a criminal. I thought when I threw that man West over----”

She looked him straight in the face. “But why did you do it? Not
because he was what you knew him to be, but because he had insulted me.
That’s what I can’t forget. All these years you knew what he was.”

They stood looking at each other. “And I was just as bad as he was,” he
said, in a low voice. “You mean that, don’t you?”

Helen turned away. “I didn’t say that.”

“And is there nothing I can do to make things right between us?”

“Perhaps, in time, I shall feel different, Douglas.”

He smiled bitterly. “I hope that God isn’t as merciless as good women
are!” he said.

She showed resentment at once. “I am not merciless, but I can’t go
back to that place to be pointed at, as I should be--to have my name
connected with that man’s--” Her voice broke.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean that I have read the article that was published this morning,”
she went on, more calmly. “I heard some people at the hotel speak of it
while we were waiting to go out into the dining-room. They thought I
couldn’t hear them, but I did hear--every word. They laughed, and they
said there was a good deal more behind it than the paper said. I knew
what that meant. When they went out I looked at the paper on a file.
And yet you can ask me to go back to Washington after that?” she said,
with reproach and shame in her voice.

Briggs grew pale. “I hoped you might not hear of it,” he said. “I’m
sorry, Helen.”

She hesitated, but she resolutely kept her face turned from him. Then
she gathered her wraps again and left the room.

For a few moments after she disappeared Douglas Briggs stood
motionless. Then he sank into the seat beside the desk. Until now he
had believed that a reconciliation with his wife was sure to come in
time. Now the situation seemed hopeless. He had lost her. This last
humiliation made it impossible for her ever to respect him again.
In spite of his resolutions of the past few months, he felt that he
deserved his punishment. He had not only blighted his own happiness,
he had ruined hers. That was the cruelest pain of all. Now he felt,
with a bitterness deeper than he had ever known, that without her love,
without her sympathy and companionship, life had nothing that could
give him satisfaction. Why should he go on working? Why not give up his
ambitions and his aspirations? They had brought him only disappointment
and suffering.




XXII


“Just as I was leaving I met a messenger-boy with these returns. I
opened the envelope.”

Douglas Briggs started. Farley’s cheerful and businesslike voice had
given him a sensation of alarm.

“Oh, is that you, Farley?” he said. “All right,” he went on, vaguely.
Then he glanced at the yellow paper in Farley’s hand. “What does it
say?”

“The returns that we received over the wire from the Ninth District
were wrong. They got mixed down at the _Gazette_ office.”

“How was that?” Briggs’s voice showed that he was still bewildered.

“The majority of 235 was not for you.”

The full significance of the remark slowly made its way into Douglas
Briggs’s mind. “Ah!” He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s a bad sign,
isn’t it?”

“Very bad. I knew they’d been spending money up there.”

Briggs sat back in his chair. He had recovered himself now. “Well, they
would have spent more than we could; so, perhaps, it’s just as well
that we didn’t spend any.”

Farley looked thoughtful. “I think I’ll let those fellows rip,” he
said, slowly. “I’ll stay here and watch out for developments.”

“Don’t do it, Farley,” said Briggs, wearily. “It isn’t worth while.”

Farley looked astonished. “Not worth while?” he repeated.

“No. I don’t care whether I’m licked or not. In fact, I think I’d
rather be licked.”

Farley looked sharply at Briggs. “You’re tired out, I guess,” he said.

“Yes, I’m mentally, physically, morally exhausted,” Briggs replied,
passing his hand across his eyes. “Nothing seems worth while to me--not
even success. Strange, isn’t it? I’ve staked everything on this
election to-night, and if I’m beaten, my political career is done for.
And yet I don’t care.”

“But you won’t be beaten,” Farley insisted, with a laugh.

Briggs made a gesture of impatience. “Don’t be too sure of that.
To tell the truth, Farley, I’ve felt all along that the fight was
hopeless. But I’ve tried to keep a stiff upper lip. I didn’t want you
fellows to know how discouraged I was. Look here, Farley, I’m sick of
this. If I’m snowed under, I’ll only get what I deserve.”

“You’re pretty tired, Congressman,” said Farley, with anxiety in his
face. He had seen men break down before under the strain of a political
campaign.

“When a man has to go through life without any self-respect he’s apt to
get pretty tired of himself. And when he has a wife who knows what he
is!” Briggs threw back his head and laughed. “God! I suppose there are
thousands of men right here in New York who are like that. Their wives
know they’re blackguards, and they know they know it!”

The two men sat in silence. The look of worry was deepening in Farley’s
face.

“Farley,” Briggs suddenly asked, “how old are you?”

“Thirty-five.”

“How does it happen that you aren’t married?”

Farley smiled and flushed. “Oh, I’ve had other things to think of,” he
said, evasively.

Douglas Briggs looked at him for a moment. “Do you mean that you’ve
never been in love?”

“No, I didn’t mean that,” Farley replied, walking to the desk and
looking down at some papers, with both hands resting on the edge.

“Then you have been?”

Farley did not stir. “Yes,” he replied.

“Seriously?”

Farley nodded.

“What was the matter?”

Farley flushed again, and smiled faintly. “I couldn’t get her!”

“Someone else?”

“H’m, m’m.”

Briggs looked at Farley for a long time. “And she knows about it?” he
asked, gently.

“I think so. I don’t know,” said Farley, turning away and leaning
against the desk with his back toward Briggs.

For several moments neither spoke. They heard the clock tick.

“I suppose there is some sort of justice in this world,” Briggs
remarked, with a sigh, “but it’s pretty hard to see it sometimes.”

“I’ve thought of that myself,” Farley replied, dryly.

“But I’m beginning to find out one thing, Farley. The Almighty often
likes to give us what we deserve by letting us have the things we want.”

“Sometimes He gives us more than we deserve,” said Farley, in a low
voice.

“Well, if a man gets it in the neck, it’s something to be able to stand
up against it. And no matter how much you’ve had to take, Farley, you
can have the satisfaction of knowing what you are.”

“That’s a pretty poor satisfaction,” Farley replied, with a laugh.

“Perhaps you’ll care more about it when I tell you what it has done for
me. There are two people who have completely changed my views of life
lately. One is my wife. You are the other one.”

Farley looked up for the first time during the talk. “I?” he said, in
surprise.

Briggs nodded. “Till I began to know you, I didn’t believe that there
were men in the world like you. I had always acted from selfish motives
and I supposed that everyone did.”

“Oh, no,” Farley protested.

Briggs lifted his hand. “Don’t contradict me. I know what I’m talking
about. You think all those reform measures I worked so hard for last
year--you think they were unselfish. Well, so they were, in one
respect: I didn’t get any money out of them. But they were really
selfish. I backed them--well, I suppose because I wanted to live up to
the good opinion my wife had of me, and I wanted to justify myself for
other things I had done.” Briggs rose from the chair and met Farley’s
startled look. “Would you like to know why I say these things to you?
It’s simply because I can’t stand playing a part any longer. I’m a
blackguard, Farley. I’m as vile as any of those fellows in Washington
you’ve been fighting against for years. All that woman said in her
article is practically true.”

“What?” Farley exclaimed, incredulously.

“I was hand in glove with that fellow West till I discovered that he
had been making love to Mrs. Briggs. If I hadn’t found him out, I
shouldn’t have had the moral courage to throw him over. Go and tell
that, if you like, to your friends at the Citizens’ Club.”

“Oh, this is impossible!” said Farley, with distress in his eyes.

“I don’t wonder you think so,” Briggs replied, smiling faintly. For
several moments they stood without speaking. Farley showed in his face
that he was running rapidly over everything in the past. The puzzled
expression gave place to a look of disappointment and pain.

“Does Mrs. Briggs know of this?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And she--?” He stopped.

“I don’t wonder that you can’t say it, Farley. No, she hasn’t forgiven
me. She never will. Now what do you propose to do about it?”

Farley did not stir. His face grew pale. “Nothing,” he said at last.

“Of course, I can’t expect to have your confidence again,” Briggs went
on, in a low voice.

“Why not? It seems to me you have a greater claim on it now than ever.”

“Do you mean to say that you can have any respect for me after what
I’ve told you?” Briggs asked.

“I know enough about public life to realize what the temptation must
have been. And then, I can’t see what you’ve gained by it.”

Douglas Briggs lowered his head. “Thank you, Farley.” After a moment,
he said: “And are you doing all this for my sake or for--?”

Farley turned away with a smile. “Well, partly for your sake,” he
replied.

At that moment Fanny darted into the room, followed by Guy. “It’s all
ready, Uncle Doug!”

“What is?”

“Why, the supper. I got it all up myself--the loveliest scrambled eggs,
with tomatoes and some chicken salad and coffee and--well, you’ll see.
Now please go down.”

“All right. You’re a good girl, Fanny. But I must have told you that
before.”

Farley left the room with Briggs. “I’ll take a cab down to the club,”
he said in the hall.

“And tell them just as much as you like,” Briggs remarked.

“Trust me for that,” said Farley.




XXIII


Fanny looked after the disappearing figures. “They seem kind of
worried, don’t they?” she said to Guy.

“Oh, you’re always imagining things,” Guy replied, with masculine
impatience.

“You say that just because I’m so much cleverer than you are. At school
the girls used to call me the barometer. I could always tell just how
they felt.”

“Well, if you only knew how I felt at this moment!” Guy exclaimed,
ruefully.

Fanny seized both his hands. “Are your hands feverish and clammy? And
do you feel cold chills running down your back? That’s the way they
feel in novels.” She began to jump up and down, as she always did in
moments of excitement. “Now, what are you going to say? Tell me, quick.
He’ll be here in two minutes. He said he was coming right down. ’Sh!
Here he comes now.”

“This is the most infernal town,” cried Jonathan Wallace, pulling down
his cuffs. “If I lived here I’d go crazy from insomnia.” He looked down
at Fanny with the resentful air that even the best of fathers sometimes
like to assume with their children. “Didn’t you say someone wanted to
see me?”

“Yes,” Fanny replied, with a nervous laugh. Then she added,
satirically, patting Guy on the back: “This gentleman. I think I’ll get
away. Bye-bye, little one.” She danced out of the room, waving her hand
to the young fellow, who stood, awkward and flushed, trying to think of
something to say.

“Well, sir?” Jonathan Wallace walked toward Guy with his right hand
thrust into his coat front. At that moment he appeared especially
formidable. Guy noticed that his red face, with its large, hooked nose,
made him look curiously like a parrot.

“Well--er--you--that is--” Guy began. Then he lapsed into silence. “I
wanted to ask you something,” he blurted out.

Wallace cleared his throat; a faint twinkle appeared in his left eye.
“Well, what is it?”

“The fact is, sir, I want to ask--well, to ask a favor of you.”
Perspiration stood on Guy’s forehead.

“Young man, I hope you haven’t got into any money difficulties? Well, I
shouldn’t be surprised if you had. In this political business of yours,
you people seem to do nothing but spend money. By Jove! I sometimes
think it would pay the country to rent out the Government to a firm of
contractors. Well, what is it? Don’t be afraid of me; I’m not half so
bad as I sound. If you’ve got into trouble, perhaps I can help you out.”

“Thank you, sir, you’re very kind,” Guy replied. “I appreciate it. But
it isn’t that.”

“Oh, isn’t it?” Wallace said, in a tone of relief. “Well, that’s all
right, then.” He acted as if the interview were ended. He had the air
of thinking Guy no longer remained in the room.

Guy laughed awkwardly, as if to emphasize his presence. “It’s something
a good deal more serious.”

“Oho!” Wallace looked interested.

“It isn’t your money I’m after. It’s Fanny.”

“Fanny! My little Fanny?” asked Wallace, in a tone of amusement and
surprise.

“Yes, sir, your little Fanny,” Guy replied, boldly. “I’m in love with
her.”

“Well, that’s not anything remarkable, after all,” said Wallace. “I
believe most of the boys down home are. She always was a great hand for
the boys. They like her easy way with them, I suppose. Well, I’m very
glad you like Fanny. I’m sure it’s a compliment to the whole family.
You must see a lot of pretty girls during the Winter.”

“But I want to marry her,” Guy insisted. He did not like the old
gentleman’s manner, and yet, oddly enough, it reminded him of Fanny’s.

“Oh, you do, do you?” Wallace held his right hand over his lips. “Well,
that’s a pretty serious matter, isn’t it? I thought perhaps you were
just feeling your way round. Lots of boys down home like to talk to me
about Fanny. They’re just trying to get the lay of the land, I suppose.
But I generally laugh at ’em, an’ I tell ’em she’s hardly out of her
pinafores yet. You see, by the time she gets through college----”

“Through college?” Guy gasped.

Wallace gave the young fellow a severe look. “Yes. Why not? Don’t you
believe in college education for women? Well, I declare, you college
fellows are pretty selfish! You get plenty of education yourselves, but
you----”

“Oh, I don’t care anything about that,” Guy interrupted. “Let them have
all the education they want. But Fanny doesn’t want to go to college.
She only wants----”

“Eh? What did you say she wanted?” Wallace asked, shrewdly.

“She wants me,” said Guy, with as much modesty as he could display.

“Oh, she does, does she? How do you know that?”

Guy was very modest now. “Because she told me so.”

“M’m!” said Wallace. The old gentleman’s mouth grew tight again. Then
he said, with a sly glance at Guy: “How much money have you got?”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Guy explained, helplessly, his face turning
scarlet.

“What’s your income? Are you prepared to support a wife?”

“I--I expect to be--in time.”

Wallace smiled, smoothing his thick, white hair. “Well, Fanny was never
much of a hand to wait for anything, I can tell you that. How much
money do you make?”

Guy shifted his position. “Well, not much at present. In fact, it is
hardly worth speaking of.”

“Any prospects?” Wallace persisted, mercilessly.

“I don’t exactly know,” Guy replied, feeling that things were going
very badly.

“You don’t know whether you have any prospects or not?” Wallace
exclaimed.

“The fact is----”

“Eh?”

“My affairs are rather mixed up just now.”

Wallace looked indignant. “And yet you want to marry my daughter! Well,
I like your nerve, young man!”

Fanny suddenly stood between them. She had evidently been listening
at the door. “That’s just what I like, too, dad. But it doesn’t seem
to be cutting any ice now.” Then she turned to Guy. “I’m ashamed of
you! After all our practicing, too! Now look here, dad,” she went on,
putting her hand on her father’s shoulder. “I can’t live without Guy.”
She whispered to the young fellow: “See how much better I do it.” “In
fact,” she went on, in a loud voice and with a languishing glance, “I
should die without him.”

Wallace pulled down his waistcoat. “Well, go ahead and die!” he said,
doggedly. “It would be money saved for me.”

Fanny’s face assumed a look of reproach. “Isn’t it awful to hear a
father talk like that? Now, dad, you’ve always blamed me for not being
a boy, though everybody knows boys are the most expensive things. Think
of the money they spend in college, and all it costs to get ’em out of
scrapes! Now, here’s a son for you all ready-made, with his wild oats
sown and ready to buckle down to hard work.”

“Look here,” said Wallace. “What does all this mean, anyway?”

“It means,” said Fanny, imitating her father’s tone, “it means that
you’ve got to give this young man a job.”

“What?”

“You’ve got to give him a job!” Fanny repeated, loudly.

“A job?” Wallace echoed, still mystified.

Fanny nodded vigorously. “M’m--h’m!”

“Where?” Wallace asked, glancing vaguely round the room, as if
searching for a spot where Guy might be safely employed.

“In the factory,” said Fanny, decisively.

Wallace pointed toward Guy, who stood looking helpless and foolish. He
felt as children do when their mothers discuss in their presence their
appearance and their infantile diseases. “What? Him?” Wallace asked.

“Yes, _him_,” Fanny declared, resentfully. “Now don’t you go and
make fun of your future son-in-law, dad.”

Wallace was still struggling with astonishment, either real or assumed.
“In the factory?”

“Yes,” said Fanny, lifting her eyebrows.

Wallace faced Guy. “You’re willing to soil those white hands of yours,
sir?”

Guy laughed and blushed, instinctively putting his hands behind him.
“Oh, yes,” he replied. “Glad of the chance.”

Wallace still appeared incredulous. “And take ten dollars a week for
the first year?”

Fanny dashed toward Guy and threw her arm protectingly across his
shoulders. “What?” she exclaimed, indignantly. “My precious! Ten
dollars a week!”

“I’ll take anything you think I’m worth, sir,” said Guy, over her head.

“With his intellect, and all he learned at Harvard!” Fanny protested.
“Never, dad! You must give him twenty-five, or I’ll cast you off!”

“If you show that there’s any good stuff in you, I may give you fifteen
after three months,” said Wallace.

“Thank you, sir,” said Guy, humbly.

Fanny dropped her arm, clasped her hands and, with lowered head, she
walked toward her father. “Will you give us your blessing, sir?” she
asked.

“I’ll send you to bed if you don’t behave yourself,” Wallace replied.
Then he went on, with a warning gesture: “And let me tell you one
thing. There’s to be no engagement between you two people for a year.
Do you understand that?”

Fanny looked crestfallen, but in a moment she brightened. Guy bowed
respectfully. He seemed glad to accept any terms that would secure
Fanny for him. He hadn’t expected such luck as this.

“Perhaps it’s just as well,” said Fanny philosophically, as her father
started to leave the room. “He couldn’t afford to buy a ring, anyway.”




XXIV


As soon as Wallace had closed the door, Fanny leaped into Guy’s arms.

“Oh, you were perfect!” she cried. “I’m glad you didn’t do as we
practised, after all.”

Guy kissed her rapturously. “Oh, Fan, I hope you won’t get sick of me!”
he said.

The telephone rang, and Fanny had to postpone her reply. “There, go and
attend to business,” she said, giving Guy a push. She watched him as he
held the receiver at his ear.

“Hello! Yes. Oh, Farley. What? Mr. Briggs is still downstairs. 500?
Well, that looks bad, doesn’t it? Do you mean to say they think he’s--?
Oh, impossible!”

“What’s impossible?” Fanny cried.

Guy listened intently, ignoring her. “No. I think you’d better come
here. He’ll want you. I’ll tell him.”

“Tell him what?” said Fanny.

“Good-bye.” Guy rang off.

“Why don’t you answer me? Tell him what?” Fanny heard footsteps in the
hall.

“Well, my dear,” said Douglas Briggs, opening the door, “I feel a good
deal better.”

Fanny held her finger at her lips. “’Sh! Guy has something to tell.”

Briggs observed that Guy was waiting for a chance to speak. “News?” he
asked, nervously.

Guy nodded. “They say down at the Citizens’ Club that things are
looking rather bad.”

Briggs looked steadily at the boy. “Who told you?”

“Farley,” Guy replied.

“Ah!” Briggs sank into a chair. “If Farley is losing courage--! Well,
never mind.”

“But you aren’t beaten yet, Uncle Doug,” Fanny exclaimed, resolutely.

“What difference does it make--now or two years from now? It’s only a
question of time.”

Michael tapped on the door and entered with the soft step of one
bearing important news. “A boy just come in with this telegram, sir.”

“Open it, Guy,” said Briggs.

Guy tore the envelope. “These are the figures Farley gave me,” he
said. He passed the telegram to Briggs.

“It’s all up with me!” said Briggs, just as Helen appeared.

“But they haven’t heard yet from the Nineteenth District,” Guy
interposed. “We can count on a two-hundred majority there.”

“No; West has spent more money there than anywhere else. I shall be
surprised if--” Briggs stopped at the sound of the telephone bell. Guy
darted for the receiver.

“Oh, hello, hello! Is that you, Farley? What? Oh, Bradley. This isn’t
the Citizens’ Club, then? Oh, the _Gazette_! No, Farley isn’t
here, but he’ll be here in a minute. He’s tearing over from the club in
a cab. What district? The Nineteenth? We’ve been waiting for that. How
many?”

Guy listened; they all listened. “Well, good-bye. Thank you. Good-bye.
I’ll tell him.” Guy turned from the telephone and faced the others.

“For goodness’ sake, speak!” cried Fanny.

Guy’s mouth twitched. “I guess it’s all over, Mr. Briggs.”

“How much majority in the Nineteenth?” Briggs asked.

“Over three hundred against us.”

Briggs drew a long breath. “I’m snowed under, buried! This is the last
of me! Oh, well!”

Fanny burst out crying. “I think it’s a shame, and the awful things
you see in Washington who go to Congress year after year, till they’re
ready to drop!” She started to leave the room. Guy started in pursuit
with the hope of comforting her. At the door she met Farley, entering.

“Hello, what’s the matter, Miss Fanny?” he asked.

“Oh, go and find out!” cried Fanny, dashing into the hall and up the
stairs, leaving Guy disconsolate in the hall.

“Come in, Farley,” said Briggs.

“You’ve heard the news, then?” Farley asked.

“Yes.”

“They told me just as I was getting into the cab.” Farley smiled at
Helen. “Well, we made a good fight, Mrs. Briggs. Too bad all our work
was thrown away!”

“It wasn’t, Farley. That is, yours wasn’t,” said Briggs. “And before
you and my wife, I can say what I shouldn’t dare to say to anyone else.
I’m glad I’m beaten. I’m glad to be out of it. Of course, I am out of
it now for good. After such a crushing defeat and with my record, I can
never get back.” He saw that Farley was about to protest. “Oh, don’t,
Farley! Even if I could I don’t want to. I feel as if all my energy and
ambition were gone.”

“They’ll come back after you’ve got rested,” Farley remarked. “You’re
only tired out. You’ve been working on your nerves for weeks. Now I’m
going to say good-night.” He offered his hand to Helen. “Good-night,
Mrs. Briggs.”

“Good-night,” said Helen.

Farley stepped back to let Michael speak to Briggs.

“There’s a gentleman in the reception room, sir, that wants to see you.
He says he comes from the _Chronicle_.”

Douglas Briggs looked at the card. His lip curled. “From the
_Chronicle_?” he said, contemptuously. “Well, we mustn’t refuse
the _Chronicle_. I suppose he’s come to see how I’ve taken my
defeat.” He rose, adjusted his frock coat and threw back his shoulders.
“You stay here, Farley, till I come back,” he said.

“All right.” Michael followed Briggs from the room, leaving Farley and
Helen together.

“Mr. Briggs will be all right after he’s had a rest from the strain,”
said Farley.

“I hope so,” Helen sighed. “It’s a relief that it’s over--such a
relief.”

“And of course,” Farley went on, “Mr. Briggs will change his mind about
going out of politics.”

“Do you think so?” Helen betrayed surprise in her tone.

“We need men like him in Washington.”

Helen did not speak. She held her head down.

“Mrs. Briggs!”

Helen kept her face hidden.

“I hope you’ll pardon me if I speak of something--something that
is--well, that concerns you very closely. I do it only because I
believe in Mr. Briggs, and because I care for his future and for his
happiness, and for yours, if you’ll let me say so.”

“Thank you, Mr. Farley,” said Helen, softly. “You’ve been very good to
Douglas. He has often spoken of all you’ve done.”

“Oh, that’s nothing. But--he has told me all about that man West.”

Helen looked up, startled.

“He hasn’t spared himself. He has even made the case out worse than it
is.”

“He has told you?” Helen repeated.

Farley nodded.

“Of his own accord?”

“Yes.”

“And you still--? You----?”

“Yes, I believe in him. I believe he has been punished for whatever
wrong he has done. And I can’t see why a man’s whole future should be
spoiled because he has made a mistake at the start. There are plenty of
men in public life who have made mistakes like his--men who were young
and inexperienced. Some of them have since done fine work.”

“Why have you spoken to me about this, Mr. Farley?”

“Because--well, because I know--that is, I suspect, from what Mr.
Briggs has said, that you’re not in sympathy with his public life.”

“That is true. I haven’t been, lately.”

“And I thought perhaps if you looked at things a little differently----”

“I shouldn’t be so harsh?” Helen interrupted, her face flushing. “That
is what you mean, Mr. Farley, isn’t it?”

“No, not that,” Farley replied, growing more embarrassed. “I thought
perhaps you’d help him to get back where he belongs, that’s all. It’s
going to be a hard fight. Most men wouldn’t have the nerve to make it.
But he has, if you’ll help him.”

Helen’s eyes filled with tears. “You make me ashamed, Mr. Farley. If
you can forgive him, after all you’ve done for him----”

Farley laughed. “Oh, I haven’t done half so much as you think, Mrs.
Briggs. I’ll feel repaid if you’ll only make him see that he ought
to stay in the fight.” He heard steps in the hall and Briggs’s voice
speaking to the reporter. A few moments later, Briggs entered, looking
more cheerful.

“Well, it wasn’t half so bad as I thought. Nice fellow. One of those
young college men. He was so ashamed of his assignment I had hard work
to put him at his ease.”

Farley offered his hand.

“Now I must be off, Mrs. Briggs.”

“Come in to-morrow, Farley,” said Briggs. “I want to have a talk with
you.”




XXV


When Farley had left the room Briggs sank on the couch. Now that he
was alone with Helen, all his buoyancy disappeared. His face looked
haggard; the hard lines around his mouth deepened.

Helen rose and sat beside him. “Douglas,” she said.

He did not reply.

“I couldn’t say anything while they were here,” Helen went on, “but I’m
sorry. Perhaps it’s all for the best.”

He drew away from her. “All for the best!” he repeated, hopelessly.
“That’s a poor consolation. Do you know what it means to me? It means
that I’ve lost my chance of redeeming myself. That’s the only reason
why I wanted to be elected. I was sincere when I said I was sick of the
life. But I thought if I could only go back there as an honest man and
keep straight, then I could come to you and tell you I’d tried to make
up for what I had done.”

“I understand that, Douglas,” Helen replied. “But it is all right now.”

“How is it all right?”

“With me, I mean. I love you all the more because you’ve failed.”

He leaned forward, with his hands between his knees. “When I
have nothing to offer you, Helen,” he said, “not even a clean
reputation--when I’m ruined and disgraced, with hardly a dollar in the
world?”

“You aren’t ruined and disgraced. It’s foolish to speak so. You’re
only forty-two. Why, you’re just beginning, Douglas! And there’s my
property, Douglas, my two thousand a year. That will be something to
start on. And you have your practice.”

“We’ll have to give up this house,” he said, almost in a whisper.

Helen lifted her head. Her eyes shone. “What difference does it make,
Douglas? I can be happy with you anywhere.”

For a moment he sat without moving. Then he let his hand rest on hers.
Suddenly he lifted her hand and pressed it to his lips. He rose quickly
and walked to the back of the room, where he stood trying to control
himself. At last he said:

“I don’t deserve to have you, Helen.”

“And there’s Mr. Burrell, Douglas. There’s his law case.”

“True. I had forgotten about that. Oh, I guess I’ve some fight left in
me, dear.” He walked back and sat beside her. “Only--I need you now
more than ever.”

“And I’m going to be more to you, Douglas. I’ve just been talking
with Mr. Farley. He has made me see things so differently! I’ve been
selfish, Douglas, and--and harsh with you. I’ve never taken enough
interest in your work. I’ve allowed you to bear all the burdens.
That’s why I lost your confidence. But in future we’re going to share
everything, aren’t we? And one thing, dear, you aren’t going to give
up ever. You’ll stay in politics, and we’ll go back to Washington some
day.”

Briggs looked away and smiled.

“Ah, I know when I’ve had enough,” he replied, shaking his head.

“No. You haven’t had enough. You’ll have to go back, to please me.”

He turned to her again and looked into her face. Then he took her in
his arms and drew her close to him.




XXVI


The next day Douglas Briggs received a large number of telegrams; but
only one contained a message that interested him: “Coming down with
wife and two girls to get you to take that law case.” He passed the
yellow slip to his wife. “Well, that looks promising, doesn’t it?” he
said.

The following morning the family arrived. “It seems awful, coming away
without Carrie Cora,” said Mrs. Burrell. “I declare I didn’t hardly
have the courage to set out. I said to Father--” Here the old lady
glanced quickly at her daughter and then at her husband and Douglas
Briggs. She hesitated. Then she ran over to where Helen was sitting and
whispered in her ear.

“Oh!” Helen exclaimed, laughing and flushing. “Isn’t that splendid?”

“Well, we’re all feelin’ kind of happy,” said Burrell, and the girls
turned quickly to the window, while their mother held a whispered
conversation with her hostess. Finally, she said aloud: “An’ now I want
to have a good talk with you alone. I don’t want pa or the girls or
even you, Mr. Briggs, to hear one word.”

“All right,” said Briggs, cheerfully, and he pretended to dash for the
door.

“Well, ain’t he wonderful?” exclaimed Mrs. Burrell. “I knew he’d be
just like that. He’s always the same, ain’t he?”

“Well, you didn’t think that such a little thing as an election was
going to put me out, did you?” Briggs asked.

“The children are upstairs,” Helen explained, “in the library.”

“I’ll take them up,” said Briggs quickly, “and then Burrell and I will
go where we can have a talk and a little--” He looked mockingly at Mrs.
Burrell. “Oh, I forgot.”

“Go ahead!” the old woman cried with a wave of the hand. “I feel so
happy that I can’t oppose anybody anything. I kind of think I’ve done
too much opposin’ in my life.”

As soon as the door had closed behind the others, Mrs. Burrell embraced
Helen wildly, the tears filling her eyes. “I declare I did feel sorry
for your husband’s failin’ in re-election. I did want him to succeed
so. Father says I’m altogether too ambitious for other people. He says
I’m the one that made him run for Congress. Well, he was mighty glad
not to be up again. But ain’t it wonderful about Carrie Cora? When I
think of the way I treated that girl I almost feel as if I’d die of
shame. An’ it’s you that kept me from makin’ a fool of myself and from
spoilin’ her chances of bein’ happy. An’ if she ain’t the happiest
thing! An’ Rufus! Well since they got married, he ain’t hardly let her
out of his sight except when he’s away to work. Father’s thinkin’ of
settin’ him up in business of his own. I guess he’ll be a rich man some
day, from what father says. That only shows you never can tell. But
he gives all the credit to Carrie Cora. He says if he didn’t have her
he wouldn’t take the trouble to go on workin’. He says queer things
sometimes. He’s kind of notional, I guess.” Mrs. Burrell hesitated,
drawing a deep breath. “But that ain’t what I come to talk to you
about, though the two girls say I’m runnin’ on about Carrie Cora all
the time. They pretend to be jealous; but they’re just as fond of her
as they can be. And as for pa! Why, he spends most of his evenin’s
down there. They’ve got a lovely home. I wish you could see their
parlor carpet. But I guess I’ve told you about it. Well, pa spends most
of his evenin’s with them, smokin’ an’ talkin’. I tell him they must
be awful sick of havin’ him. Well”--Mrs. Burrell gasped, and a fine
perspiration broke out on her cheeks--“where am I? I do get mixed up so
lately. Oh, yes. The girls. Well, now that Carrie Cora’s all settled,
the girls are just crazy to get away again. They were dreadfully
disappointed in their first Winter in Washington; and they are crazy
to go back there with you. Now, what do you think?” Mrs. Burrell
exclaimed, her face flushing violently.

“With me?” Helen said, in astonishment.

Mrs. Burrell nodded. “Now, I wouldn’t ’ave heard of it if pa--well, pa
knows everything--well, if pa hadn’t told me Mr. Briggs--well, that
he was in some trouble about money. There, I suppose you’ll think I’m
awful!”

“Oh, no,” Helen protested, feeling her own face flush.

“Pa just adores Mr. Briggs, an’ he’d like nothin’ better than to help
him out. Well, we talked it over--you see,” Mrs. Burrell went on,
twisting in her seat, “when the two girls went to the Misses Parlins’
school here, we paid a thousand dollars a piece for ’em. An’ then the
extras amounted to a lot more, drivin’, and the theatre, and all that.
They used to go to the theatre every week. It must have been comical to
see ’em walkin’ down the aisle, two by two. Emmeline used to write to
us about it. She hated it. Well, I guess pa spent most five thousand
dollars on the girls that year they were here in New York. But we
didn’t mind, as long as they was happy. But the trouble was they wasn’t
happy. They didn’t have hardly a minute to themselves. They didn’t feel
free. That’s it. Now, if they was with you, it would be different.
They’d meet all the lovely people you know. That is, if you’re goin’ to
go back to Washington?” Mrs. Burrell asked with swift acuteness.

“Yes, I shall go back,” Helen replied, flushing.

“And you’ll be in that lovely home again?” Mrs. Burrell asked, giving
Helen a sharp look.

“No. That has been leased already,” Helen replied, without flinching.
“We shall take another house--a smaller one.”

Mrs. Burrell looked embarrassed. “When pa heard the news”--Mrs. Burrell
impressively lowered her voice--“about the election, I mean, he just
jumped up an’ down. You know he thinks Mr. Briggs ought to be the
greatest lawyer in the country at this minute. He hopes he’ll keep out
of politics after he finishes this term in Congress.”

Helen sighed. “But it’s hard, beginning all over again,” she said
politely.

“Well, pa says,” Mrs. Burrell went on with a knowing look, “that if he
takes his patent-cases he’ll have enough to keep him busy for a whole
year, possibly two years. Ain’t that splendid? An’ it seemed kind of
like Providence, the whole thing, for us. If you only would take the
girls,” Mrs. Burrell pleaded.

“And what will _you_ do?” Helen asked with a smile.

“Well, I’ll stay home, just where I belong, as father’s always sayin’.
I guess I can be more comfortable there than anywhere else. We’ve got
a new furnace, an’ we’ve had the sittin’-room fixed over, and it does
seem a shame to shut up that big lovely house again. Why, how the sun
does stream into our sittin’-room windows! They’re the old-fashioned
kind, you know; they run way down to the floor. Father’ll have to
be down in Washington part of the time, of course, an’ he can be
comfortable at the hotel, especially if the girls are within reach. But
I’m determined to stay near Carrie Cora.”

Helen Briggs was so startled by Mrs. Burrell’s proposition that the
thought of it made her abstracted. As the old lady rattled on about her
own affairs, she noticed Helen’s abstraction. Suddenly she stopped,
and, folding her hands in her lap, she exclaimed: “I suppose you think
I’m awful!”

Helen smiled and shook her head. “Why should I think you are awful,
Mrs. Burrell?”

“Oh, forcin’ my children on you,” the old lady replied, with a
helplessness that made Helen speak out frankly.

“It may be that we shall be glad to take the girls. It may be
Providential for us. We need money now more than we’ve ever needed it.”

“Well, we’ve got plenty of _that_!” Mrs. Burrell exclaimed with a
nervous laugh. “I tell father----”

“And if Douglas is willing,” Helen Briggs went on, “if he’s willing
that I should take the responsibility----”

At that moment Douglas Briggs returned with the old gentleman, whose
face was shining with happiness.

“Well, mother, I feel as if a big load was taken off my mind.”

“Oh, Mr. Briggs,” the old lady broke out, “I knew a talk with you would
make my husband feel right. He’s been groanin’ all Summer because he
couldn’t get at you. He ain’t no hand at writin’ letters, an’ I jest
wouldn’t let him go down to Washington while the weather was so hot. It
was bad enough down to Auburn, though, as I tell everybody at home, no
matter how hot it is, there’s always a cool spot in our house. You see,
I keep the house closed all day long jest so’s the heat can’t get in.”
Mrs. Burrell began to laugh. “Father often takes his paper an’ goes
down cellar. He says it’s as good as goin’ into an ice-house. But I’m
awful afraid he’ll catch his death of cold, an’ I know it’s bad for his
rheumatism.”

By this time Burrell had sunk into one of the big chairs and was
waiting patiently for his wife to cease.

“Well, ma,” he finally interrupted, “suppose you let me get a word in.
Mr. Briggs is goin’ to take the case, an’ he’s goin’ to look after all
my business here in New York. He says he ain’t competent to do it, an’
he says I ain’t got no right to put so much trust in him. He says he
ain’t nothin’ but a tricky politician. I s’pose the truth is, he feels
kind of too stuck up to get down to every-day business.”

They all laughed, and Mrs. Burrell exclaimed: “Well, stuck up is about
the last thing I’d ever think of you, Mr. Briggs. Now if you’d ’a’
said that about some of those other politicians we used to see down to
Washington, Alpheus!”

Mrs. Burrell looked from her husband to her hostess, and then at
Douglas Briggs. “Well, if you two men have finished your business, I
s’pose we’ve got to go.” She turned appealingly to Helen, as if hoping
to be urged to stay.

“This time you’ll have to come to dinner,” said Helen.

“Oh, that’s all arranged,” said Briggs easily. “They’re coming
to-night.” As Mrs. Burrell was about to protest, he held up his hands.
“Now, don’t say a word. Everything’s settled!”

Mrs. Burrell looked at Helen with a comic expression of despair. “Well,
I think it’s a shame!” she said, her face shining with pleasure.

“Now I’ll go and get those girls of yours,” said Briggs, walking
into the hall. “I left them romping with the children. I thought the
children would tear them to pieces.”

When the Burrells had left, Helen walked into the library with her
husband. Her face looked puzzled.

“Did Mr. Burrell talk with you about the girls?” she asked.

Briggs sank heavily into a chair. “Yes, he told me all about it. He
seemed a good deal ashamed. Poor old man! And yet I could see that he
was making them an excuse for offering me more money.”

“He’s been offering you money, then?” Helen asked, her face growing
slightly paler.

“Oh, yes. He wants to pay me absurdly for taking that law-case and
looking after his affairs here. There’s really a good deal to be
done; but he won’t be satisfied unless I agree to fleece him,” Briggs
concluded with a laugh.

For several moments they sat in silence. Then Briggs broke out: “He’s
been fooled so often, he says I’m the only man in the world he can
trust. I felt like a hypocrite, Helen. Honestly, I thought of asking
him to go to you and to get you to tell him all about me. I didn’t have
the nerve to tell him the truth myself. It would have been easier,” he
added whimsically, “to put that on you.”

“I shouldn’t have found it very hard, Douglas,” she said with a smile.

“You wouldn’t?”

She shook her head. “And I’m afraid you’re growing morbid about the
past, dear. It’s over, and why think about it?”

“I have to think about it now and then,” he said grimly. He pressed
his hand against his forehead. “Of course, I know what you mean. I
ought to think about the future--and I do--I think of it--well, most of
the time.” He rose nervously and began to walk up and down the room.
“Somehow those people make me realize what we’re up against.”

“It would help us out if we were to have the girls with us in
Washington,” said Helen conservatively.

An expression of annoyance and disgust appeared in his face. “But why
should we have our home invaded like that? Why should you have to--?”
He turned away angrily.

“I shouldn’t mind, dear. It really would make things easier for me.”

“Easier?”

Helen bowed her head. “We could have more servants. And I should--I
should worry less about the expense.”

“Oh, but Helen, our privacy--our privacy--” he pleaded.

“I know. But we shall appreciate it all the more when”--she smiled
faintly--“when we’ve earned it.”

He sighed heavily. “Well, we haven’t had much privacy in the last
few years, have we? It’s almost as if we’d been living in the public
square,” he added bitterly.

They agreed not to discuss the matter again for a few hours. “If you
like you can take a week or so to think it over,” said Briggs, and from
his tone his wife knew that he wished her to agree.

“It seems too good a chance to lose,” she said. “And the girls are nice
girls, too,” she went on, to encourage him.

He made a wry face, and walked over and kissed her. “Let us not decide
for a few days anyway.”

Nevertheless, as he went down town that day Douglas Briggs felt more
encouraged than he had been for many months.

At any rate, Burrell would put him in the way of having a little money;
during the past few weeks he had been so straitened that he hardly
knew where to turn. He considered himself reduced to an extremity when
he began seriously to think of appealing to his wife. He was glad
to be able to assure himself it was not pride that made the thought
of appealing to her distressing; it was the fear that she should be
worried by discovering he was so harassed; like a woman, the solution
would seem to her far more serious than it really was. Even now, he
told himself that he must be careful in talking over the taking into
the family of the two girls; he must not let her realize what an
immense help the money would be to them.

That night when he returned home, he found Helen already dressed for
dinner. He noticed that she looked unusually happy.

“Douglas,” she said.

“Well?”

“Why didn’t you tell me how pressed you were for money?”

He looked at her with astonishment in his face. “What?” he exclaimed,
and in the exclamation he was conscious of the continuation of his
old habit of deceit. He tried to atone for it in his consciousness by
saying: “Well, dear, you are a wonder. What did I say this morning?”

“It wasn’t what you said. It was your being willing to consider the
proposition at all. Now, of course, we must take the girls. I’ve
thought it all over, and I’ve even decided which rooms to give them.”

He walked toward her and kissed her. “It will only be for one Winter,
dear,” he said, assuming, in spite of the humility he felt, his usual
attitude of superiority. “By that time I’ll be established in practice
again and we’ll have all the money we want.”

She drew away from him, and he knew that in some subtle way he had
pained her. He could not clearly divine that she felt there was
something remotely wrong, almost criminal, in his assuming money could
be so easily earned. But it must have been some vague sense of her
feeling that prompted him to add: “I’ll have to work like the devil,
dear. But it will be worth fighting for.” He sighed heavily. “And then
when we get the money,” he went on whimsically, “we’ll be in a position
to laugh at the people we’re afraid of now. We’ll go and live plainly
in the country as soon as we can afford to pretend that we’re poor.”

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t be happy, Douglas,” she said simply,
and he felt a pang. It was as if her look had penetrated his inner
consciousness. “We must go on as we’ve begun.”

He knew that what she meant was wholly in unison with his own thought;
but, for an instant, he felt the sinister interpretation; it was almost
like a judgment on him. But he quickly recognized his injustice, and he
walked over to her and placed both hands on her shoulders. “Do you love
me, Helen?” he asked, looking into her eyes.

“Yes, Douglas,” she replied, and he detected the note of pain in her
voice. She leaned toward him. “I love you always, Douglas, always.”

He held her closely in his arms. “My poor little wife,” he said, but he
hardly knew why he should have felt pathos in the situation.

She drew away from him and he saw the tears in her eyes.

“I’m a hard man to live with in some ways, Helen,” he said with a
sincerity that astonished him. It made her respond at once.

“Oh, no, Douglas!” she exclaimed, in a clear voice, that told him she
had recovered from her little emotional attack and had become her
wholesome self again. With his habit of generalizing he instantly
reflected that it must be a terrible thing for a man to live with an
emotional woman.

That night it was arranged that the Burrell girls, instead of going
home with their father and mother, should go to Mrs. Briggs for the
Winter. Burrell insisted upon putting the matter on the most rigid
business basis, and offered Helen Briggs a recompense in money that she
considered wholly out of proportion to what was just. Briggs maintained
in the discussion an air of jocular remoteness and, in spite of Helen’s
objection, Burrell established his own conditions. When they had
finally left the house, Briggs tried to give the matter a comic aspect
by telling his wife that he knew the old lady expected her to get
husbands for the two girls. “I suppose we’ll have the house filled with
young scamps of fortune-hunters,” he said. “You’ll have a fine time
chaperoning the poor girls.”

Helen knew that he was trying to hide the chagrin he felt. “I really
sha’n’t mind, Douglas,” and she was sorry she could not tell him in
words how happy it made her to be able to help him. But she had to be
careful now not to hurt the pride that she could see quivering beneath
his air of humorous indifference.

Two days later the girls came to the house to stay until their friends
should go to Washington. Briggs wrote to an agent, and a month later
he was established with his family in a house that would have seemed
ideally comfortable but for the taste of luxury his own house in
Washington had given him. Briggs saw that his fears regarding the
Burrell girls had been unnecessary. Toward Helen they maintained an
air of worshipful devotion that greatly amused him, and they seemed
to enjoy being with the children, too. He saw that, in spite of their
acquired worldly air, they were really simple country girls, easily
abashed and genuinely simple and kind. He grew interested in them and
he began to wonder, as he often did in the case of unattached girls,
if he could not help them to find husbands. It was a pleasure to him
to come home and to hear from Helen about her outings or her calls
with the girls during the day. He realized with astonishment that till
now Helen had led a rather restricted life, and that he had taken an
unconsciously scornful interest in the things she did. At dinner he
really enjoyed hearing the girls talk about the people they had met
during the day, about the art-exhibits and the teas they had been at,
and about the books they had read and the plays they had seen or the
operas they had heard. The comments of his wife regarding the books and
the plays and the operas surprised him, and made him realize that she
lived in a world from which he was shut out. He had been accusing her
world of narrowness, but in reality the narrowness existed chiefly in
his own mind. At moments he felt a kind of jealousy of her; at other
times he was ashamed of the superior attitude he had taken toward
her, and he wondered if she had recognized it. The thought of the
possibility that she had known of it all along gave a sudden pause to
his consciousness like a symptom of sickness.

Briggs took an impersonal interest in his new humility, as he did in
everything that related to the workings of his own mind. As far as
he could follow them, he assured himself that he had always wished
to understand his own nature just as it was, without any self-praise
or palliation; and yet he had begun to make a complete revision of
his opinion of himself. He wondered how far the change could be due
to the change that he felt in the attitude toward him of other men.
Hitherto, among men he had always been treated with consideration; now
he knew himself to be regarded as a man who, if he had not failed, had
not quite succeeded, and, if he had not been smirched in character,
was still marked with the suspicion of taint. Most of all he dreaded
betraying in his manner his knowledge of this change. He had seen so
many men betray the consciousness of their own weakness. Especially he
tried to avoid giving the least suggestion of bravado. He reflected
on the fickleness of good opinion; he had basked in the sunshine of
good opinion all his life; when it was withdrawn he felt chilled and
depressed. It was when he met some of the men who had treated him with
special deference and who now addressed him with easy equality or
with indifference, or, as occasionally happened, with cold formality,
that he felt most deeply his humiliation. But at these times he felt
a swift reaction that found expression in a stubborn assertion of
courage. After all, he reflected grimly, it paid to be on the level.
The important thing was not to be contemptuous to slights, but to be so
established in the sense of being right, that slights could not wound.
He saw now that his previous attitude toward life had been false and
unstable; it had never been established on rock-bottom.

In his humiliation, it was a comfort to know that there were two people
in the world who knew him just as he was. Those others who despised
him, believed he was worse than he could possibly have been. His wife
and William Farley believed in him and counted on him. To Mr. Farley,
whom he saw every day, he confided nearly all his affairs. Once he had
prided himself on standing alone, trusting no one; now it helped him
to place his perplexities before that quiet and shrewd intelligence.
Once he urged Farley to study law and go into partnership with him,
and he laughed when the journalist held up his hand in protest. He
envied Farley’s unswerving devotion to ideals of service that were so
like his own in his best moods, and so unlike most of the realities
that he achieved. It was Mr. Farley’s advice that made him decide,
after his return to New York, to keep out of active politics for a
couple of years. He needed time for readjustment, he said jocosely to
himself. In two years he would be ready to make a fresh start. They
would be hard years, for already he missed the excitement and the
sense of being associated in the large interests that politics had
given him. Meanwhile, he kept assuring himself that he was young; a
man’s best work in life was done after his fortieth year. Already, as
he had observed with pleasure and hope, some of the newspapers were
lamenting his withdrawal from politics, and were referring to some of
his past services, from which he had expected no return. Here, too, he
found material for his philosophy. There were men in political life who
did practically nothing for which they could claim honorable credit,
and who were constantly engaged in schemes either for defrauding the
government or for using their opportunities for private gain. So far as
he could see they suffered neither from remorse or lack of self-respect
or from the resentment of their constituents. But he was not one of
them. It was clear to him now that he must keep straight or take his
medicine, and he assured himself that he had already had medicine
enough.




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  Transcriber’s Notes

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