Part 8 (2/2)
Suave and conciliatory, tactful yet tenacious of purpose, a carefully cultivated air of frankness ambushed subtle craftiness that rarely failed to accomplish schemes which the unwary never suspected.
Unhampered by scruples, he had scaled the heights of success, climbing the ladder of cautious expediency, and claiming allegiance only to principles and policies that beckoned from the rung just above his head.
Proverbial good nature, voiced by a musical, hearty laugh, won him social popularity, and even in congressional debate he never laid aside the polished armor of imperturbable courtesy. Despite the keen scrutiny of Eliza Mitch.e.l.l during many years of intimate a.s.sociation, his character had remained a baffling enigma, and her suspicious distrust was allayed, in some degree, by his genial equanimity and amiable abdication of control in domestic details. That he wore a mask she had always believed, yet it fitted so perfectly she could not penetrate the steel mesh, and in no unguarded moment had its springs loosened.
The luxuriously furnished library was bright and warm with fire glow and gas light, and sweet with the breath of white azaleas heaped in a pale-pink bowl on the low mantel shelf. Only the click of the typewriter disturbed the stillness until Eglah rose from the instrument, covered it, and numbered the written pages, arranging them in a sheaf.
”All ready now, father, and Mr. Metcalf can incorporate these tables in the report you will need to-morrow. Do you wish to verify the figures?”
”Not necessary, my dear. You are usually accurate.”
”Thanks for the sugar plum. You know exactly how sweet is your praise.”
Coming forward, she sat down on the carpeted foot-board attached to his reclining chair, leaned her head against his knee, and stretched her fingers toward the fire. He laid one large dimpled hand on her shoulder, and she turned her cheek to touch it. After the lapse of some minutes the clock struck, and Eglah sprang up.
”Barely time to dress for the Secretary's dinner! Has the carriage been ordered?”
”Yes. I can doze a while longer, as I have to change only my coat, vest, and tie.”
”Eglah, do you need my help in dressing, or will Octavia suit you best?”
asked Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, who sat at a small table near the hearth, matching silk squares for an afghan.
”You can revise me finally, and punctuate me with additional pins when I come down. Don't let father oversleep himself.”
Senator Kent straightened the folds of his padded dressing-gown, and through half-closed eyes watched the small hands hovering over silken sc.r.a.ps, and wondered, as he had often done before, what manner of man could have been the ”overseer” husband for whom this grave, pretty, reticent, demure widow still mourned in black garments, relieved only by narrow white ruches at her throat and wrists.
The clock ticked softly, and the senator seemed asleep, when the ringing of the door bell roused him. Some moments pa.s.sed before the library door opened and a servant entered.
”A note, sir. It was laid on top of the bell k.n.o.b, and the messenger did not wait, for I looked up and down the street.”
”Evidently of no importance, else the delivery would not have been so careless.”
He lazily took an envelope from the silver salver and held it up.
”Senator Allison Kent, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.
”_Strictly Personal._”
Both the address and contents were type-written.
Intent on her patchwork, Eliza was bending over a ma.s.s of scarlet satin ribbon, when a strange sound startled her: not a cry, nor yet a groan--an anomalous smothered utterance of pain, as from a strong animal sorely stricken.
He had struggled to his feet, and the large, heavy body swayed twice, then righted itself, and he stood staring blankly at the red lily dado on the opposite wall, as though their crimson petals spelled some such message as foreshadowed doom to Babylon. One hand crushed the letter into an inside pocket of the dressing-gown, the other clutched his mustache, twisting it into knots.
The swift, inexplicable change of countenance could be compared only with the startled alertness of a drowsing fox when his dim, snug covert echoes the first far-off blast of the coming hunter's horn. In every life some alluring vision of Arden beckons and beguiles, and to this successful man, basking in the golden glamor of a satisfying attainment of his aim, came suddenly an ominous baying of the bloodhounds of retributive destiny.
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