Part 38 (2/2)
”I believe you are right, but I doubt if it comes in my time.”
Hamilton shook his head. ”Every state in Europe has its upper lip curled back above its teeth, and who knows, when the leashes snap, what our fate will be, now that we have practically abandoned our policy of non-interference in the affairs of the Eastern Hemisphere? If all Europe is at somebody's throat in the next five years, we shall not escape; be sure of that. Then will be the great man's opportunity. You always have despised the office of President. Work for it from this day. The reaction from this madness will help you. Democrats as well as Republicans will turn to you as the one man worthy of the confidence of the entire country.”
”Not if they guessed that I meditated treason, sir. Nor should I. I agree with you that your ideal was the best, but there is nothing for me to do but to make the best of the one I've inherited. If I am aristocratic in my preferences, I am also a pretty thoroughgoing American.”
”Yes, yes, I know, sir. You never will meditate what, if premeditated, would be treason. But when the great moment comes, when your patriotism and your statesmans.h.i.+p force you to admit that if the country is to be saved it must be rescued from the people, and that you alone can rescue it, then you will tear the Const.i.tution down its middle. This country is past amendments. It must begin over again. And the whole great change must come from one man. The people never could be got to vote for an aristocratic republic. They must be stunned into accepting a monarchy. After the monarchy, then the real, the great Republic.”
The two men looked long into each other's eyes. Then North said,--
”I repeat that I never should work nor scheme for the position that such a change might bring me. Nevertheless, believing, as I do, that we are on the threshold of a new and entirely different era in this country, if the time should come when I felt that I, as its most highly trained servant, could best serve the United States by taking her destinies entirely into my own hands, I should do so without an instant's hesitation. I have done all I could to preserve the old order for them, and they have called me traitor and gone their own way. Now let them take the consequences.”
Hamilton set his mobile lips in a hard line. His eyes looked like steel. ”Yes,” he said harshly, ”let them take the consequences. They had their day, they have gone mad with democracy, let them now die of their own poison. The greatest Republic the world ever will have known is only in the ante-room of its real history.” He stood up suddenly and held out his hand. ”Good-bye, sir,” he said. ”We may or may not meet again before you too are forced to abandon your work. But I often shall be close to you, and I believe, I firmly believe, that you will do exactly as I should do if I stood on solid ground to-day.”
North took the exquisite hand that had written the greatest state papers of the century, and looked wonderingly at its white beauty. It suddenly gave him the grip of an iron vise. North returned the pressure. Then the strong hand melted from his, and he stood alone.
Exactly in what the transition from sleep to waking consisted, North was not able to define. There was a brief sense of change, including a lifting of heavy eyelids. Technically he awoke. But he was standing on the hearthrug. And his right hand ached.
He shrugged his shoulders.
”What difference does it make whether he appeared to my waking eyes or pa.s.sed through my sleeping brain and sat down with my soul?”
He plunged his hands into his pockets and stood thinking for many minutes. He said, half aloud, finally,--
”Not in my time, perhaps. But it will come, it will come.”
XVI
When Betty awoke at four o'clock in the afternoon, she discovered with some surprise that she had slept soundly for eleven hours. Her head was a trifle heavy, but after her bath she felt so fresh again that the previous day and night seemed like a very long and very ugly dream. She reflected that if she had not written to Burleigh before she went to bed she certainly should do so now. He still seemed the one safeguard for the future; she had convinced herself that with her capacity for violent emotion and nervous exaltation, her head was not to be trusted.
She felt calm enough this afternoon, and she opened with no enthusiasm the note which had arrived from Burleigh. She might have drawn some from its superabundant amount, but she frowned and threw it in the fire. Then she went to her mother's room and announced her engagement.
”My dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Madison. ”Well!--I am delighted.”
Then she looked keenly at Betty and withheld her congratulations. But she asked no questions, although the edge suddenly left her pleasure and she began to wonder if Burleigh were to be congratulated.
”He is coming to dinner,” Betty continued, ”and I want you to promise me that you will not leave us alone for a moment, and that you will go with me to New York to-morrow.”
”I will do anything you like, of course, and I always enjoy New York.”
”I want to get away from Was.h.i.+ngton, and I want to shop more than anything in life. I hate the thought of everything serious,--the country, the war, everybody and everything, and I feel that if I could spend two weeks with shops and dressmakers I'd be quite happy--almost my old self again.”
”I wish you were,” said Mrs. Madison, with a sigh. ”I wish this country never had had any politics.”
The instinct of coquetry was deeply rooted in Betty Madison, but that evening she selected her most unbecoming gown. She was one of those women who never look well in black, and look their worst in it when their complexion shows the tear of secret trouble and broken rest. She had a demi-toilette of black chiffon trimmed with jet and relieved about the neck with pink roses. She cut off the roses; and when arrayed had the satisfaction of seeing herself look thirty-five. For a moment she wavered, and Leontine, with tears, begged to be allowed to remove the gown; but Betty set her teeth and went downstairs.
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