Part 22 (2/2)
”And it is remarkable how things do go on and on and on,” she thought once. ”They become a habit, then a commonplace. It is because they are so mixed up with the other details of life. Nothing stands out long by itself. The equilibrium is soon restored, and unless one deliberately starts it into prominence again, it stays in its proper place and swings with the rest.”
She knew her greatest danger. She had it in her to be one of the most intoxicating women alive. Was this man she loved so pa.s.sionately to go on to the end of his life only guessing what the Fates forbade him? The years of the impersonal att.i.tude to men which she had thought it right to a.s.sume had made her antic.i.p.ate the more keenly the freedom which one man would bring her. She frankly admitted the strength of her nature, she almost had admitted it to him; should she always be able to control the strong womanly vanity which would give him something more than a pa.s.sing glimpse of the woman, making him forget the girl? If she did anything so reprehensible, it would be the last glimpse he would take of her, she reflected with a sigh, She wondered that pa.s.sion and the spiritual part of love should be so hopelessly entangled. She was ready to live a life of celibacy for his sake; she delighted in his mind, and knew that had it been commonplace she could not have loved him did he have every other gift in the workshop of the G.o.ds; she wors.h.i.+pped his strength of character, his independence, his lofty yet practical devotion to an ideal; she loved him for his att.i.tude to his wife, the manly and uncomplaining manner with which he accepted his broken and shadowed home life, when his temperament demanded the very full of domestic happiness, and the heavy labours of his days made its lack more bitter; and she sympathized keenly in his love for and pride in his sons. There was nothing fine about him that she did not appreciate and love him the more exaltedly for; and yet she knew that had he been without strong pa.s.sions she would have loved him for none of these things. For of such is love between man and woman when they are of the highest types that Nature has produced. Betty hated the thought of sin as she hated vulgarity, and did not contemplate it for a moment, but if she had roused but the calm affection of this man she would have been as miserable as for the hour, at least, she was happy.
XIII
Betty was determined that Sat.u.r.day and Sunday should be her own, free of care. She sent Emory to New York to talk over an investment with her man of business, and she provided her mother with eight new novels. As Harriet loved the novel only less than she loved the studies which furnished her ambitious mind, Betty knew that she would read aloud all day without complaint. Miss Trumbull, of whom she had seen little of late, and who had looked sullen and haughty since Harriet with untactful abruptness had placed her at arm's length, she requested to superintend in person the cleaning of the lower rooms.
Her mind being at rest, she arose at four on the morning of Sat.u.r.day.
She rowed across the lake this time and picked up Senator North about a half-mile from the hotel. His hands were full of fis.h.i.+ng-tackle.
”Will you take me fis.h.i.+ng?” he said. ”Can you give me the whole morning? I hear there is better fis.h.i.+ng in the lake above, and a farmhouse where we can get breakfast. Do you know the way?”
She nodded, and he took the oars from her and rowed up the lake.
”My wife always sleeps until noon,” he said. ”We can have seven hours if you will give them to me.”
”Of course I'll give them to you. I may as well admit that I intended to have them. I made an elaborate disposition of my household to that end.”
They were smiling at each other, and both looked happy and free of desire for anything but seven long hours of pleasant companions.h.i.+p. The morning, bright and full of sound, mated itself with the superficial moods of man, and was not cast for love-making.
”Well, what have you been doing?” he asked. ”I have had you in a permanent and most refres.h.i.+ng vision, floating up and down this lake, or flitting through the forest, in that white frock. I know that Burleigh was here--”
”I did not wear white for him.”
”Ah! He has looked very vague, not to say mooning, since his return. I am thankful he is not seeing you exactly as I do. How is the lady of the shadows?”
”Sally's Southern gorge rose so high, after she discovered the taint, that she left precipitately. She couldn't sit at the table with even a hidden drop of negro blood.”
”You Southerners will solve the negro problem by inspiring the entire race with an irresistible desire to cut its throat. If a tidal wave would wash Ireland out of existence and the blacks in this country would dispose of themselves, how happy we all should be! What else have you been doing?”
”I have read the Congressional Record every day, and the _Federalist_ and State papers of Hamilton; to say nothing of the monographs in the American Statesmen Series. Mr. Burleigh insisted that I must acquire the national sense, and I have acquired it to such an extent that half the time I don't know whether I am living in history or out of it. Even the Record makes me feel impersonal, and as 'national' as Mr. Burleigh could wish.”
”Burleigh intends that his State shall be proud of you.”
Betty flushed. ”Don't prophesy, even in fun. I believe I am superst.i.tious. His idea is that politics are to become a sort of second nature with me before I start my _salon_--Why do you smile cynically?
Don't you think I can have a _salon?_” ”You might build up one in the course of ten years if you devoted your whole mind to it and made no mistakes; nothing is impossible. But for a long while you merely will find yourself entertaining a lot of men who want to talk on any subject but politics after they have turned their backs on Capitol Hill. They will be extremely grateful if you will provide them with some lively music, a reasonable amount of punch, and an unlimited number of pretty and entertaining women. But don't expect them to invite you down the winding ways of their brains to the cupboards where they have hung up their great thoughts for the night. I do not even see them standing in groups of three, their right hands thrust under their coat fronts, gravely muttering at each other. I see them invariably doing their poor best to make some pretty woman forget they could be bores if they were not vigilant.”
”The pretty women I shall ask will not think them bores. The thing to do at first, of course, is to get them there.”
”Oh, there will be no difficulty about that. Why do you want a _salon_?
Are you ambitious?”
Betty nodded. ”Yes, I think I am. At first I only wanted a new experience. Now that I have met so many men with careers, I want one too. If I succeed, I shall be the most famous woman in America.”
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