Senator North Part 14

Betty went in with Senator Burleigh, and they examined the menu together.

"By Jove," he said, "it's even more gorgeous than usual. And did you ever see so many flowers outside of a conservatory?"

The room was a bower of violets and lilies of the valley. The mantelpiece was obliterated, the table looked like a garden, and great bunches of the flowers swung from the ceiling. As what could be seen of the room was green and gold, the effect was very beautiful. The lights were pink, and in this room Mrs. Fonda defied Time and looked so wholly attractive that it was not difficult to fancy her the cause of another war, albeit not its Helen.

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

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

"I'm bored to death," muttered Betty, finally. "I wish I hadn't come.

You won't talk to me and I can't eat any more."

Burleigh turned to her at once. "I've merely been watching her game,"

he whispered. "Now, I'm nearly sure."

"What?" asked Betty, interested at once.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"There is not the slightest danger if you are careful to have only first-rate men, and avoid the temptation to make a pet of any bill.

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

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

XX

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

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

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

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

"Is he?" asked Betty, pointedly.

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

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

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

And the Senate is full of strong men. But they don't make picturesque 'copy' for the enterprising press; the weak and the corrupt do, and so much s.p.a.ce is given them, as well as so much attention by the comic weeklies,--which are regarded as a sort of current history,--that the average man, who does not do his own thinking, accepts the minority as the type."

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

but Betty guessed that she was nearly obliterated from his life. Of his sons he expected great things, but the larger measure of his affections had been given to his daughter, or it seemed so, now that he had lost her.

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

XXI

On Thursday she not only witnessed the last moments of the last session of the Fifty-fourth Congress, but the initial ceremonies of the inauguration of a President of the United States. She had seen the galleries crowded before, but never as they were to-day. Even the Diplomatists' Gallery, usually empty, was full of women and attaches, and the very steps of the other galleries were set thick with people.

Thousands had stood patiently in the corridors since early morning, and thousands stood there still, or wandered about looking at the statues and painted walls. The Senators were all in their seats; most of them would gladly have been in bed, for they had been up all night; and the Amba.s.sadors and Envoys were brilliant and glittering curves of colour: the effect greatly enhanced by the Republican simplicity of the men to whose country they were accredited. The Judges of the Supreme Court, in their flowing silk gowns, alone reminded the spectator that the United States had not sprung full-fledged from nothing, without traditions and without precedent.

What little is left of form in the Republic was observed. Two Senators and one Representative, the Committee appointed to call on the retiring President, who had just signed his last bill in his room close by, entered and announced that Mr. Cleveland had no further messages for the Senate, and extended his congratulations to both Houses of Congress upon the termination of their labours. The United States had been without a ruler for twenty minutes when the a.s.sistant doorkeeper announced the Vice-President, two pages drew back the doors, and Mr.

Hobart entered on the arm of a Senator and took the seat on the dais beside his predecessor, who still occupied the chair of the presiding officer of the Senate. Then there was another long wait, during which the people in the galleries gossiped loudly and the Senators yawned.

Finally the President elect and the ex-President, after being formally announced, entered arm in arm. Both looked very Republican indeed, especially poor Mr. Cleveland, who toiled along with the gout, leaning what he could of his ma.s.sive figure upon an umbrella. The women stood up, and with one accord p.r.o.nounced their President-elect as good-looking as he undoubtedly was strong and amiable and firm and calm and pious. Mr. Hobart took the oath of office, and after the necessary speeches and the proclamation for an Extra Session, the new Senators were sworn in by the new Vice-President, and Betty wondered how any man would dare to break so solemn an oath.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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