Chapter IV: Part 4

“Then let me tell you,” he said, authoritatively, “you made a big mistake. That man Crane is on the Committee on Manufactures, and we have been arguing with him, and sending the most expensive men we have to prove to him that we are entitled to the same rebate on the platinum used in our machines as the Oshkosh Shoe-Stitching-Machine people get--and I have reason to know that Crane is the man standing in the way. I wish you had snuggled right up to him.”

Eleanor surveyed her father with cold displeasure. Mrs. Hill-Smith was politely oblivious, especially of the word “snuggled.” Coming, as she did, of a very old family which dated back to 1860, she felt a certain degree of commiseration for brand-new people like the Baldwins, who had not appeared above the social horizon until 1880--twenty years later. But she really liked them, and with a diplomatic instinct inherited from her father she relieved the situation by rising and saying:

“I see dear Mrs. Baldwin on the balcony and must go and speak to her.”

And as she flitted through the glass door a deep masculine voice just behind Eleanor said:

“Good morning, Miss Baldwin.”

It was the Honourable Edward George Francis Castlestuart-Stuart, third secretary of the British Embassy, whom Eleanor had asked to breakfast that morning. She grew pale as she rose to greet him--suppose--suppose he had heard that remark about the shoe-stitching machine? And what was more likely? The shoe-stitching machine was the family skeleton, and was usually kept under lock and key. By some occult and malign impulse her father had hauled it out and rattled it in Mrs. Hill-Smith’s face, and perhaps it might be known at the British Embassy!

Baldwin himself realised the impropriety of his conduct, and tried to rectify it by saying, with great cordiality, to the Honourable Mr. Castlestuart-Stuart:

“Good morning--good morning. Very pleased to see you. You find me, as usual, among my books--my best and oldest friends.”

To this Castlestuart-Stuart replied simply, like the honest Briton that he was:

“I hate books.”

Baldwin was nearly paralysed at this, and still more so when the honest Briton quite eagerly went out on the balcony to speak to Mrs. Baldwin. Only the day before, in one of his rambles about town, he had come upon her getting out of a cab before a poor lodging-house in Southeast Washington, her arms loaded with bundles. A swarm of poor children had run forward to greet her--they evidently knew her well. Her usually cold, statuesque face had been warmed with the sweet light of charity, and a heavenly joy shone in her eyes in the process of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick.

As Castlestuart-Stuart went out on the balcony and took Mrs. Baldwin’s hand cordially, she blushed, but not painfully. She, too, had seen him yesterday, and he had managed to convey with that peculiar art of a simple and candid nature that he admired her for what she was doing. Again did she feel this sincere and admiring approval, and was profoundly grateful for it. Castlestuart-Stuart knew the history of the family--all the diplomats in Washington know the family history of those who race and chase after them. He remembered hearing Constance Maitland say “Mrs. Baldwin redeems the whole family.” Goodness such as hers could redeem much worse people than the Baldwins, thought Castlestuart-Stuart, and he proceeded to be bored by Mrs. Hill-Smith and Eleanor with the best grace in the world. His chief had told him to take what was set before him in a social way, asking no questions for conscience’ sake. In the performance of his duty he had dined, breakfasted, and lunched with pork, dry-goods, whiskey, shoes, sewing-machines, and every other form of good, honest trade. But the word trade was never so much as mentioned among them--certainly not at the breakfast which was now served.

_Chapter Eight_

A NEW SENATOR--A RAILWAY JOURNEY--THE ROSE OF THE FIELD AND THE ROSES OF THE GARDEN

Crane was in nowise disappointed at the sensation his published letter made. The justice of his position was at once apparent. But it was equally apparent that he was making a serious break in the political dykes which held the party together in his State against the ocean of the party opposed to it. Under Senator Bicknell’s rule, insubordination had gradually crept in. The late landslide, which had elected a Congress in opposition to the party in power, increased the importance of States like Crane’s, where the balance of power shifted about every ten years between the two parties. Senator Bicknell, in the seclusion of his boudoir--for such was his luxurious den in reality--tore his hair and used all of the expletives permissible in polite society. In a week or two Governor Sanders, without any further newspaper controversy, appointed to the vacant senatorship Mr. Michael Patrick Mulligan, a gentleman of Hibernian descent, who had made a vast fortune out of manufacturing pies by the wholesale, and who cherished an honourable ambition to legislate for the hated Saxon. Senator Bicknell, Crane, and everybody in the State knew of Mr. Michael Patrick Mulligan, who was commonly called Mince Pie Mulligan. He was a ward politician of the sort peculiarly unhampered by prejudices or principles, and who bought and sold votes by wholesale, very much as he bought and sold pies. He was totally without education, but by no means without brains, and proposed to himself a seat in the Senate as an agreeable diversion, without the least idea of doing anything beyond voting as directed by “the boss”--for so he designated the Senator who was chairman of the National Committee of Mr. Mulligan’s party. It was, on the whole, about as harmless an appointment as could be made. Mulligan’s private life was perfectly clean, and he was known to have an open hand for charity, and never to have forgotten a friend. It gave both Senator Bicknell and Crane a breathing-spell, and they were willing enough to put up with Mince Pie Mulligan until the first of January.

Senator Bicknell, although easy enough in his mind about Mulligan, was far from easy about Crane, who had gone up like a rocket, but showed no disposition to come down like a stick. The Senator got into the way of stealing over to the House, “just to see how things are going”--in reality to see how Crane was going--and it scared him to observe how Crane was making good his footing everywhere. His first triumph, even after subtracting Thorndyke’s assistance, had been a real triumph. Following hard on this came his controversy with the Governor, in which he clearly had the best of it. The shrewd men in his party saw that in the readjustment of allegiances Crane must be counted, and the chairman of the National Committee said as much to Senator Bicknell when the two discussed the war between the Governor and Representative Crane. When the chairman said that, Senator Bicknell felt as Henry IV. of England felt when he saw the Prince of Wales trying on the crown before the looking-glass.

Meanwhile, Thorndyke was speeding West, as he had said, and after a week’s absence he turned eastward again, escorting Annette Crane and her two children to Washington, as he had suggested to Crane.

For the purpose of acquiring knowledge of others and of one’s self, there is nothing like a long railway journey. Marriage itself is scarcely more of an eye-opener. The old Greeks, who reasoned so closely on the nature of man, would have been vastly informed could they have taken a few long journeys. Locke could have known more of the human understanding had he taken the Chicago Limited, with a party, from Chicago to Washington. In that journey Annette Crane found out all about Geoffrey Thorndyke, and Geoffrey Thorndyke found out all about Annette Crane. Their mutual discoveries changed the natural sympathy which had been established between them to a deep and lasting friendship.

Those five years of seclusion at Circleville had been developing years for Annette Crane. In appearance she had gained in dignity and had not lost in youthfulness. She had fair hair and a wild-rose complexion, and a pair of the sweetest, most limpid hazel eyes in the world. Everything about her bore the impress of a gentle sincerity--her frank gaze, her pretty smile, her soft voice, in which the Western burr was almost obliterated. Those five years represented a cycle to her. In that time all of her relations to life seemed to have changed--and especially were her relations with her husband curiously altered. In their early married life Crane’s intensity of love and excess of devotion had frightened her a little. But in time other passions had come to take the place of this one in his wife, and it had been shouldered out of place. He was a fairly good husband, but after the microbe has once lodged in a man’s brain that he is very superior to his wife, he may still be called a good husband, but scarcely an agreeable one.

At this stage of the proceedings--which was at the time she first came to Washington--Annette discovered that she adored her husband. As he had always accused her of coldness and reserve, she determined to show him all the treasures of her love. It was the common mistake of youth and ignorance; but Annette, whose secret pride was great, suffered a horrible mortification in finding that the display of her affection did not bring forth the response on which she had confidently relied. She had made no moan, and had deceived the whole world, including Crane himself, into believing that she was a satisfied wife; but her misery had been extreme. Her pride, informed by common-sense, had helped her over the crisis. She had herself proposed to spend the winters in Circleville, instead of Washington, thus forestalling any possibility of the proposal coming from Crane; and in Circleville she had set herself the task of making the most and best of herself, not only for her husband, but for her children. She had learned a good deal in that brief and unpleasant experience in Washington. Among others was a just appreciation of herself. She realised that she had certain great advantages, and she no longer had the self-deprecatory tone of mind which had made her feel that Crane had perhaps condescended in marrying her. She was as passionately attached to him as ever, but her eyes were opened and she saw.

She had taken to reading as a solace, and as a duty, and not because she was strongly attracted to books. The result, however, was good, and she found it enabled her to meet men like Thorndyke on a common ground. In training her children, she had performed the inevitable function of training herself. Under her system, her children had become quieter and sweeter than American children usually are. The American women in general can more than hold their own with the women of other countries, except in two trifling particulars--the arts of housekeeping and of bringing up children. In these two things they generally fail egregiously, and the more money they have the more conspicuous is their failure. To paraphrase the Scripture--“See you the house of the rich American man? Behold therein a tribe of undisciplined and impudent servants and children.” The newness of the rich in America may account for the undisciplined servants, of whom their mistresses are in mortal terror. But American women have been bringing up children ever since the settlement at Jamestown and the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, and every year they seem to know less about it.

However, Annette Crane’s children were more quiet, more simply dressed than most American children. They had escaped, to a great degree, the demoralising influences of children’s magazines, “The Children’s Page” in newspapers, and children’s plays, and they had not been amused to death. Annette, it is true, had not mastered the science of managing servants, but in that she was at one with the women of other parts of the country, except the South--for, as Senator Hoar once remarked on the floor of the Senate, as a preliminary to a ferocious attack on the South, it is the Southerners alone, in this country, who have the habit of command. Annette Crane, however, although she could no more manage her household staff of one maid-of-all-work than Mrs. James Brentwood Baldwin or Mrs. Hill-Smith could manage her retinue of English flunkeys and French maids, yet, by tact and judgment, succeeded in keeping the maid-of-all-work within bounds--which is more than the Brentwood Baldwins and the Hill-Smiths could do with their maids and flunkeys.

On the journey with Thorndyke, not one word had passed Annette’s lips to indicate any rift between her husband and herself. She spoke of him frankly and affectionately. But the two children showed none of that happy eagerness to meet their father which the average American child shows to meet a dutiful and obedient parent. This did not escape Thorndyke, and amazed him. He had the usual bachelor’s fear and dread of children, but two days and nights of travel with little Roger and Elizabeth Crane had placed him upon terms of perfect intimacy with them. Roger had climbed all over him, and Thorndyke, instead of resenting it, had been secretly pleased at it. He had wrung permission from Annette to take the boy into the smoking-car with him occasionally, and Roger emerged with many mannish airs for his eight years. Thorndyke’s berth was at the other end of the sleeper from Annette’s and her children, and on the second night, when Thorndyke turned in, he found the youngster had eluded his mother’s vigilant eye, and had crawled into Thorndyke’s berth for a talk about Indians. Thorndyke not only submitted to this, but permitted Roger to send word to his mother by the porter that he would sleep in Mr. Thorndyke’s berth, because Mr. Thorndyke had asked him--and the two of them managed to defy Annette in the matter. Little Elizabeth took an extreme fancy to Thorndyke, and inquired if she might ask Mr. Thorndyke to be her uncle Thorndyke.

Annette, being acute, as most women are, in affairs of the heart, knew, the very first time that Thorndyke casually mentioned Constance Maitland, that he was in love with her. When he said that he had known her long ago, at Lake Como, and proceeded to describe the beauty of those Italian days and nights, Annette Crane was convinced that it was in those sweet hours that Thorndyke had first loved Constance Maitland. Women have no conscience in probing the love-affairs of men, reckoning them the common property of the sex--and while Thorndyke was blithely unconscious that he had revealed anything, Annette was in full possession of all the essential facts. Also, Thorndyke let out that Crane knew Constance Maitland. Crane had never mentioned Constance’s name to his wife. That, was in itself enough to give Annette a painful interest in this woman who, as Thorndyke said, could charm the birds off the bushes.

When the train came bumping into Washington on a pleasant May afternoon, Crane was waiting at the station. He seemed delighted to meet his family again, and indeed, on seeing them, a kind of tenderness came over him. He kissed his children affectionately, to which they submitted. Just behind them was a shabby, one-armed man, whom a girl of ten or twelve was hugging and kissing with little gurgles of delight. Crane wished that his children had met him like that.

He thanked Thorndyke warmly for taking care of Annette, who said a few words of earnest thanks, and gave him a smile from her dewy lips and eyes that meant much more. The children bade him good-bye with outspoken regret, and would not be comforted until Thorndyke promised to take them to the Zoo the next Sunday to see the baby elephant.

As the party came out of the station together, a handsome little victoria whirled by. In it sat Constance Maitland, her delicate mauve draperies enveloping her, a black lace parasol shading her head, and a filmy white veil over her face. By her side sat a little, withered old lady in rusty black--one of the flotsam and jetsam of weary old people who drift to Washington to die. It was one of Constance Maitland’s pet charities to take these weary old people to drive, and in so doing to wear her loveliest gowns, her most exquisite hats--a delicate compliment unfailingly appreciated.

She did not see Thorndyke and the Cranes as they walked out of the station--but both men saw her. Annette Crane had abundant confirmation of her hypothesis about Thorndyke. His clear-cut, but rather plain, features became almost handsome as he watched the passing vision of the woman he loved. Of far more interest to Annette was Crane’s countenance. It was full of expression, and he was totally untrained in controlling it. There was in his eyes a strange and complex look, which Annette interpreted instantly to mean, “You are the type of woman I most admire and to whom I most aspire.” It struck her to the heart, but, unlike Crane, she had acquired an admirable composure which made her mistress of herself. She was glad, however, that Constance had not seen her first, after two days of hard travel.

When the Cranes had reached the suburban villa where Crane lived, a number of letters and despatches were awaiting him. Two or three men, Hardeman among them, came out that evening to see him. From them Annette found out the great struggle in which her husband was engaged. He had scarcely mentioned it to her.

Not a word of inquiry or reproach from her followed. When Crane, however, alluded to the great fight some days afterward, he was a little staggered to find that Annette knew as much about it as anybody. A study of the newspaper files at the National Library had enlightened her.

Thorndyke did not see Constance for some days after his return; that is to say, he did not show himself to her. But he resumed his nightly prowl in her neighbourhood--a practice ridiculous or pathetic according to the view one takes of an honourable and sensitive man, whose honour stands between him and the love of his life. He did not dream that Constance knew of it, but the fact was she had known of it from the very beginning. It was this knowledge which made her somewhat sad dark eyes grow bright, which brought out a delicate flush upon her cheeks, and gave her step the airy spring of her first girlhood. It is the glorious privilege of love to restore their lost youth to those who love. Constance knew, by an unerring instinct, that Thorndyke, like herself, treasured everything of their past--that past, so ethereal, so innocent, so dreamlike, but to them eternal as the heavens. On the first evening after Thorndyke’s return, when Constance, from her balcony, half-hidden in towering palms, caught sight of the flame of Thorndyke’s cigar as he strolled by in the murky night, she slipped within the darkened drawing-room. The next moment Thorndyke heard her playing softly some chords of the old, old songs--nay, even singing a stanza or two. It filled his heart with a vehement hope that set his pulses off like wild horses, into an ecstasy which lasted until he got home to his old-fashioned bachelor quarters. What! Ask Constance Maitland to give up her beautiful home, her carriages, her French gowns for _that_! Thorndyke called himself a blankety-blank fool, with an emphasis that bordered on blasphemy. Next day he was so dull that the Honourable Mark Antony Hudgins charged him with having been jilted by a certain tailor-made and Paris-enamelled widow whom Thorndyke paid considerable attention to and cordially hated. That very afternoon, though, he had his recompense, for, strolling through the beautiful but unfashionable Smithsonian grounds, he met Constance Maitland driving; and in response to a timid request on his part, she took him in the victoria, and they had a delicious hour to themselves under the great, overhanging elms and lindens. Few situations are more agreeable than driving in a victoria with a charming woman on a sunny spring afternoon through a secluded park. Something like it may be experienced by sitting in a darkened theatre-box a little behind, and within touch of a dainty ear, inhaling the odour of the flowers she wears upon her breast, and watching, with her, the development of the old love-story on the stage. But all pleasures have their seasons--and in the spring, the victoria is more enticing than the theatre-box. And Constance was so very, very kind to him that afternoon!

She showed a truly feminine curiosity about Annette Crane, whom Thorndyke praised unstintedly, and when he asked Constance to call on Mrs. Crane, Constance replied that she already intended to do so. She asked about Crane’s political prospects, which Thorndyke assured her were of the brightest, adding he had grave apprehensions that the majority in the lower House would not, after all, make fools of themselves as he ardently desired they should--which sentiment was promptly rebuked by Constance, who, womanlike, never could be made to really understand the game of politics. Then he asked her what she had been doing in that week. She had been out to a suburban club to a dinner given by Cathcart, at which information Thorndyke scowled. Sir Mark le Poer was coming back to town for a few days, expressly, so Constance believed, to see the Honourable Mark Antony Hudgins, of Texas. The meeting of the Guild for Superannuated Governesses had taken place at the house of the Secretary of State, Mrs. Hill-Smith in the chair, and had been extremely amusing. It had been determined to give an amateur concert in a fashionable hotel ball-room. This, as always, had caused many heart-burnings and bickerings. The concert was to be followed by a tea in the same ball-room. All of the prominent ladies of the diplomatic corps had been asked to act as patronesses, and all had agreed, but were not sure they could be present. Some ladies of great wealth, who were even newer than the Baldwins, came rather aggressively to the front. Mrs. Hill-Smith, with other scions of old families of her date--1860--thought that no one whose family was not moderately old--that is to say about 1870--should be among the directors and patronesses. They did not speak this aloud, but there was a general knowledge prevailing of the period when the various ladies had emerged from having “help” to the stage of having servants--when they had changed the two-o’clock dinner to the eight-o’clock function. Each of these ladies knew all about the others, but hugged the delusion that the others did not know about them, or thought, as Eleanor Baldwin did, that they had come of a long line of belted earls, the Hogans included. Mrs. Baldwin, handsomer, haughtier-looking, and more silent than usual, listened to what was said. Constance Maitland--she alone, who fathomed the nature of this misunderstood woman--said, in describing it to Thorndyke, that she believed Mrs. Baldwin realised the nonsense of the proceedings better than any one present. Constance’s eyes danced when she told about the way in which her only suggestion was received--that it would be impossible to find any parallel between the conditions of governesses in England and the United States. This, however, was ruthlessly brushed aside by a lady who was determined that her daughter should sing a duet at the concert with a member of the Austrian Embassy staff. For the first time Mrs. Baldwin’s voice was heard and in it quiet advocacy of something sensible. This was when it was determined to charge a stupendous price for the tickets.

“In that case,” she said, “it seems to me that we ought to have some real music. It doesn’t seem quite right to charge the price asked to hear good music, and then give a mere amateur performance.”

“But it is for charity!” screamed several ladies in chorus.

Then Constance, still with dancing eyes, told that great stress had been laid upon the alleged opinions of various ladies of the diplomatic corps, who had carefully refrained from expressing any opinions at all and were not present to take care of themselves; and Constance had landed a second bombshell in the camp by pleading ignorance of many admirable things, owing to her ill-fortune in being educated chiefly in Europe. This remark necessitated an immediate departure, in which she was followed by Mrs. Baldwin. The two going out together, Mrs. Baldwin had said diffidently to Constance:

“Miss Maitland--I--I think you are right in all you have said to-day. I hope you’ll come to see me soon. I don’t seem to be afraid of you--you’re genuine. You’re never pretending to anything. Good-bye.”

Mrs. Baldwin had not the gift of tongues, but, as Constance said, a compliment from Mrs. Baldwin was of value, no matter how awkwardly it was expressed.

A few afternoons later, Constance drove out to the Cranes’ suburban villa, but Mrs. Crane was not at home. Constance was disappointed--her curiosity to see Crane’s wife was unabated. Ten days afterward, on a warm afternoon, Constance sat in her cool drawing-room, fresh in its summer dress of linen covers, bead portières, and shaded by awnings, waiting for her carriage. Mrs. Crane was announced. The first impression which Constance got of Annette Crane was that she was exquisitely dressed. Her gown was a delicate, pale-blue muslin, her hat, a white straw, trimmed with white ribbons. Both gown and hat were of her own creation, and the whole outfit had cost less than ten dollars--but not the greatest man-milliner in Paris ever turned out anything more becoming to Annette’s simple and natural beauty than she herself had evolved from the “Emporium” at Circleville. The daintiness and freshness of it was charming; and when, in moving, she accidentally displayed a snowy, lace-edged petticoat, this daintiness and freshness was emphasised.

Never in her life had Annette looked forward to a visit with the same dislike as this one. Crane had at last spoken of Constance Maitland, saying he meant to ask her to call. He was very guarded in all he said, but Annette, as would any intelligent wife, saw that he was on his guard, and that, in itself, told much. She said nothing; she was far above the spites of petty jealousy. She no longer depreciated herself in general, but she had been a little frightened by Thorndyke’s praises of Constance Maitland’s intelligence and charm. And Annette had, by clairvoyance, come very near to Crane’s real feeling for Constance. It was not love--she had begun miserably to doubt whether he were really capable of love--but it was a degree of admiration which could not be agreeable to any wife, because it was plain that Constance was the standard by which Crane measured women. Constance could at any moment influence Crane; so Annette justly surmised. No woman of sense objects to her husband’s simple admiration of another woman, but when it comes to another woman being a factor in his life and his thoughts, a wife must and should resent it.

So it was that Annette disliked the visit she had to pay, and yet was careful not to postpone it. But by some magic of thought and feeling, the instant she came face to face with Constance Maitland, Annette Crane knew she had a friend. In a moment she was at ease. Like a woman of the world in the best sense, Constance at once found something in common to talk about, and the two sat, in the friendliest conversation possible, each singularly pleased with the other.

Seeing Constance dressed to go out, and the victoria standing at the door, Annette, after paying a short visit, rose to go, and with more reluctance than she had thought possible.

“If you are returning home, perhaps you will allow me to drive you out,” said Constance, affably, and Annette accepted without any demurs.

Seated together in the carriage, the conversation between the two turned on Thorndyke. Annette expressed frankly the deep regard she had for him, and described her efforts to keep the children from annoying him, while Thorndyke, from simple tolerance of them at first, had become an accomplished child-spoiler and destroyer of parental discipline. Constance spoke of Thorndyke as frankly and without the least embarrassment, but Annette, who had surmised very readily where Constance stood in the regard of two men, one of them her own husband, had little difficulty in settling to her own satisfaction that Miss Maitland had a particular regard for Mr. Thorndyke.

After driving for three-quarters of an hour along a suburban road, they came to the cottage where the Cranes had established their quarters. It was near six o’clock, and Crane had returned early from the Capitol. He was sitting on the veranda reading to Roger and Elizabeth when Constance Maitland’s carriage drove up.

Since the meeting with his children and noting their perfectly respectful, but perfectly evident, indifference toward him, Crane had received a blow where he least expected it. He was surprised at the degree to which it affected him. Their laughing eyes, suddenly growing demure on his approach, haunted him amid the hurly-burly of debate, and in long conferences on his political future. Impelled by all the natural impulses, Crane determined to try and win his children’s hearts; and as a beginning, he had come home early from the House that day, bringing with him a book to read to them. The reading had been a success, and in the midst of it Crane looked up and saw the victoria approaching with his wife and Constance Maitland in it. He rose at once and walked down the shady path to where the carriage stood. The children, hand in hand, followed after, blowing kisses to their mother.

Crane was so possessed with the idea that Annette, as a native of Circleville, must be far inferior to Constance, that he had a shock of surprise when he saw the two women actually compared, and realised that Annette was by no means cast into the shade. Constance was conscious of this, but good-naturedly wished Annette to have the benefit of it.

Crane talked pleasantly with Constance for a few minutes, Annette still sitting in the carriage. He was certainly remarkably handsome, as the declining sun shone on his clear-cut, olive face, with the little rings of dark-brown hair showing on his forehead. Constance thought the Cranes the handsomest couple she had seen for a long time. The children were introduced, behaved well, as American, and especially Western, children seldom do--and then Constance said to Annette:

“I shall soon be closing my house for the season, but before doing so, I hope to have you and Mr. Crane to dinner with me some evening.”

“We will come with pleasure,” replied Annette; and a date was arranged for the following week.

Constance returned to town, thinking to herself what a fool Crane must be not to be satisfied with such a wife as Annette.

_Chapter Nine_

CONCERNING THINGS NOT TO BE MENTIONED IN THE SOCIETY JOURNALS

The days went rapidly by for Crane, to whom they were full of events. The House committed fewer follies than might have been expected, and the management of the international crisis had put the country into a thoroughly good humour with both the House and the Administration. Crane gained steadily in consequence among the politicians, and it was with difficulty he kept his head; but he kept it.

He did not relax his efforts to win his children’s hearts, and in the effort he began to feel a strange jealousy of Thorndyke, who had won them without any effort at all. Thorndyke had not only taken Roger and Elizabeth to the Zoo on the first Sunday, but on the next he had appeared, looking extremely sheepish, and had requested the pleasure of their company to the Zoo again. The children were in paroxysms of delight, and Annette laughed outright at Thorndyke, particularly when he admitted that he had declined an invitation to a breakfast at the Brentwood Baldwins on the ground of a previous engagement in order to carry out this little trip to the Zoo. The trio went off together in great spirits, and Crane and Annette were left alone. Through all the laughing and joking with the children, Crane had sat silent and sombre--they had not yet laughed and joked with him. Suddenly, he proposed a walk to Annette. It was so long since such a thing had occurred that he was embarrassed in giving the invitation, and she in accepting it; but they walked together along the country lanes in the quiet Sunday noon, and a shadow of the old confidence was restored between them. But Crane was still fully convinced that Annette was not cut out for the wife of a public man, and could not shine in cosmopolitan society. He was soon to have an opportunity to judge of her in this last particular.

Constance Maitland had set her mind to work upon that difficult and interesting problem--the composition of a small dinner. More than that, she meant it to be one at which Annette would be at her best.

The materials to form a good dinner abound in Washington, and Constance Maitland knew it. As the smart set in Washington is composed largely of persons who have made large fortunes in trade, and who have come to Washington to enjoy these fortunes, Constance knew that from this particular element she could not well draw the material for a really sparkling dinner. The people in Europe know something after all, and their dictum that an elegant and brilliant society cannot be constructed out of retired merchants has not yet been disproved. Let us be candid to ourselves. But in Washington the materials for a real society exist outside of this element, and Constance Maitland had been lucky enough to find it. Sir Mark le Poer was in town again, which Constance reckoned as a special Providence. Like all Englishmen of good position, Sir Mark was bored within an inch of his life by the Anglo-American girl, who is an easily detected imitation. Constance, having been a friend of Sir Mark’s for many years, and knowing him like a book, spared him this infliction. She selected in the construction of the party Mrs. Willoughby, an accomplished Washington woman, whose family had social antecedents dating back to the days of Abigail Adams. Mrs. Willoughby had been a distinguished hostess for twenty years, until the influx of pork, whiskey, dry-goods, and the like commodities had overwhelmed everything to the manner born. She took it all good-naturedly, and got a great deal of amusement out of the status quo. Then there was Mary Beekman, of New York, young, charming, and rich, whose parents had owned a box at the New York Academy of Music, but who were conspicuously out of it with the Metropolitan Opera set. As Mrs. Willoughby remarked, when Constance mentioned the party she had made up:

“What a very interesting collection of has-beens you have got together, my dear.”

For the men, besides Crane and Sir Mark le Poer, Constance had secured Thorndyke, an admirable dinner-man, and a courtly old Admiral--for she was quite unlike the widow of a prominent shoe-dealer, who emigrated to Washington and became violently fashionable, and who declared that on her visiting list she “drew the line at the army and navy.” On the evening of the dinner there was to be a belated reception at the White House, in honour of an international commission which had just opened its sittings in Washington, and it was arranged that the dinner should be somewhat early, that the whole party, being invited to the White House, might adjourn there.

The rest of the guests were assembled in Constance’s drawing-room before the Cranes arrived. Crane himself always looked superbly handsome in evening-clothes, and Annette’s appearance was scarcely inferior in another way. As on her first meeting with Constance, Annette gave the impression of being exquisitely gowned. A simple white crêpe, cut low, showed off her beautiful arms and shoulders, and a few moss rosebuds in their green leaves gave the needed touch of colour to her costume. Simplicity is always the last form of elegance to be attained, and Annette Crane had attained it.

Constance Maitland, too, was at her best, in a shimmering black gown, like a starry night, and with her grandmother’s pearl necklace around her white throat. Mrs. Willoughby, with resplendent black eyes and snow-white hair, looked like one of Sir Peter Lely’s court of beauties, and Mary Beekman was pretty enough to shine anywhere.

When they were seated around the table the men secretly congratulated themselves on the looks of the women with whom they were to dine; and Thorndyke voiced this opinion by quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes’s suggestion that peas and potatoes could be warmed into an early fruition by surrounding them with a ring of handsome women--such as were then present--which caused the ladies all to beam on him.

Annette, seated between the Admiral and Sir Mark le Poer, with Thorndyke’s kind eyes across the table to encourage her, and with Constance Maitland’s fine gift as a hostess to sustain her, felt perfectly at ease. Such was not the case with Crane himself. It was the first time he had ever dined at Constance Maitland’s house, and he yearned to distinguish himself. He wished the conversation would turn on public affairs; he felt he could easily lay them all under a spell then, forgetting that people don’t go out to dinner to be spellbound, but to enjoy an idle hour, and to exchange those pleasant freedoms and trifles which make up the sum of recreation.

The Admiral, a white-moustached, charming old man, who had hobnobbed with princes, and was none the worse for it, began to compliment Annette on her gown, after having previously called her “my dear.”

“Really,” he said, “that gown is a most stunning creation.”

Thorndyke chimed in here:

“Yes,” he said. “It makes Mrs. Crane look like a white narcissus blooming in a bed of mignonette.”

No woman is ever disconcerted by compliments, and Annette was charmed at the praises lavished on her--and particularly in Crane’s presence.

“I should say,” remarked Sir Mark le Poer, “with my feeble powers of comparison, that Mrs. Crane’s gown reminds me of some of your delicious American dishes, not all sauces and flavourings like our European things, but fresh and new and exquisite. I know I have a grovelling nature, but, ’pon my soul, is there anything more charming than a dish of delicate soft crabs on a bed of parsley----”

“Oh, oh!” cried Constance. “How your soul must grovel! However, it’s the highest compliment Sir Mark can pay you, Mrs. Crane, because I know he has an unholy passion for soft crabs.”

“I will pay you the highest compliment of all,” said Mrs. Willoughby, “I will ask you, who is your dressmaker?”

“I made this gown myself,” answered Annette, with a pretty smile.

Crane thought he should have gone through the floor into the cellar. He had never in his life felt such a rage of shame. There was Constance Maitland in a gown that shouted out its French nationality in every line and fold. Mrs. Willoughby and Miss Beekman wore the smartest of smart creations--probably not one of them had ever done a stitch of sewing in their lives, while here was Annette announcing that she made her own gown! The next thing he expected her to proclaim was that she had just completed six suits of pajamas for him, all made with her own hands and feet, on her own sewing-machine at Circleville.

Three persons at the table--Thorndyke, Constance, and Annette herself--saw how annoyed Crane was at what he regarded as a very damaging admission. Annette, however, was quite composed. She saw that instead of making a mistake she had really made a hit, for she was more complimented than ever upon her cleverness in making so beautiful a gown. In truth, the sweet and natural way in which she owned to her handiwork completed the charm of her simple and unaffected personality. Mrs. Willoughby, turning despairingly to the other women, said:

“We are simply outclassed. Every man here thinks that all of us, like Mrs. Crane, could make our own gowns if only we were clever enough.”

“I have always thought,” said Thorndyke, smiling, “that Napoleon’s idea of the education of women was probably right--a plenty of religion and needle-work. However, as I may get myself in trouble, I will say no more.”

“Very properly,” replied Constance, who meant to enlighten Crane on his wife’s accomplishments. “I have a great deal of religion, when I am not annoyed by anything, and I beg all of the gentlemen to observe that even if I were clever enough to make a gown like Mrs. Crane’s, I could not wear it. It is too well adapted to Mrs. Crane’s style for any one else to venture on it.”

“I could have worn it thirty years ago,” said Mrs. Willoughby, with dangerous candour. “But the fact is, Miss Maitland, all of these men are so absurdly prejudiced in favour of the gown, that they overrate it. After all, the rest of us are fairly well-dressed.”

Annette took all this in the spirit of playful compliment in which it was meant, and was flattered by it. Not so Crane. He thought that Annette had, at first, let an ugly cat out of the bag, and secondly, that Mrs. Willoughby was insolent in saying the gown was overrated. But before the dinner was over, his eyes were opened to the fact that Annette had made a most agreeable impression, and every man present admired her, and every woman present liked her.

As soon as the rather short dinner was through, the carriages were called to take the party to the White House. When Crane and Annette were alone in their cab, he said to her:

“It seems to me you made a bad break in saying you made your gown yourself.”

“Far from it,” replied Annette, pleasantly. “It seems to have made them all like me better. Mrs. Willoughby and Miss Beekman both said they would be glad to call to see me, and so did the Admiral. I think I was a success.”

Crane felt like rubbing his eyes and pulling his ears. Was this his submissive Annette, who never questioned his word on any subject? He half expected her to call attention to the fact that he had been rather dull at the dinner, but although Annette knew it quite as well as he did, she forbore to mention it.

When they reached the White House, there was the usual crowd of carriages, their lamps twinkling like myriads of stars in the soft spring night, the roar of horses’ hoofs upon the asphalt, the crowds of gaily dressed women in evening-gowns disembarking at the north portico, the blare of music from the red-coated band within the corridors. Constance Maitland, on Sir Mark le Poer’s arm, and followed by her dinner-guests, presently found herself shaking hands with the President and bowing to the line of ladies of the Administration, which extended across the oval reception-room. Next the President’s wife stood the wife of the Secretary of State. She was a small, thin woman, with a determined nose and the general aspect of a mediæval battle-axe. She was simply though splendidly attired in black velvet, with lace and diamonds, and was as faultlessly correct as the Secretary himself, in language and deportment, except in one small particular--she could not pronounce the word “Something.” She invariably called it “su’thin”--a souvenir of her early bringing up on the banks of Lake Michigan. She greeted Constance coolly, remembering the meeting at her house for the Guild of Superannuated Governesses, but she was effusive toward Sir Mark le Poer.

Constance, however, blandly unconscious, passed on, and when she reached the point whence ingress is had to that select region known as “behind the line,” she was invited, with Sir Mark, to join the elect. Directly behind her was Thorndyke with Mary Beekman, followed by the Admiral with Mrs. Willoughby, and they, too, were invited within the holy precincts. The President himself had stopped Crane for a word with him, and, on having Mrs. Crane presented, had promptly invited her behind the line. This was partly due to the white crêpe gown.

In the general mix-up that followed in the hallowed spot, Constance found herself one of a group near Mrs. Hill-Smith, on the arm of the British Ambassador, and Eleanor Baldwin and the Honourable Edward George Francis Castlestuart-Stuart. Close by were Mrs. James Brentwood Baldwin and Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin, and Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin was gravitating toward the Secretary of State, who loomed large at hand. The Secretary was in a very bad humour for so amiable a man, but diplomatically concealed it. After eighteen months spent in labouring over a couple of treaties, they had been knocked out in three weeks by the Senate. The chief of the gang who perpetrated this nefarious act was a Southern Senator--the wildest, woolliest, and weirdest of all the wild and woolly and weird Senators to be found in the north wing of the Capitol. But he happened to be a lawyer, and he had punched the treaties so full of holes that they were literally laughed out of court. This injured the Secretary’s feelings very much, but he remembered that Beaconsfield and Gortschakoff and Bismarck used to be ruffled the same way, so he concluded to bear it like a statesman and a Christian.

Drifting toward the Secretary and Mr. Baldwin was a very odd-looking object, whom Thorndyke whispered to Constance was Senator Mince Pie Mulligan. These three got into conversation, very languid on the part of the Secretary and Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin, but very strenuous on the part of Senator Mince Pie Mulligan. A part of Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin’s coyness came from the fact that he and Senator Mulligan were old acquaintances--a fact which Mr. Baldwin had no disposition to brag about.

The new Senator had a head of blazing red hair which was as good as a stove on a cold night. He might have stepped bodily from the pages of _Life_ as regarded his contours, but his small, light-blue eye glittered with humour and shrewdness, while his great, slit of a mouth, which divided his face fairly in the middle, had lines of both sense and kindliness. He was enjoying himself hugely, and was not afraid to let anybody see it. Not so Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin, or the Secretary of State, but a Senator is a Senator to the Secretary of State, and Secretary Slater had in mind other treaties to be laid before the Senate, and so was fairly civil to Senator Mulligan. Mince Pie, himself, was much struck by the appearance of Eleanor Baldwin, who was easily the handsomest woman present, except her mother, but although Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin owned up that Eleanor was his daughter, he made no move to introduce Senator Mulligan to her.

Eleanor Baldwin was a patriot. It was her sense of patriotic duty alone which took her to a White House reception. White House receptions, in every particular, including the cabinet people and those behind the line, were “mixed.” This word “mixed” meant, to Eleanor, a social Gehenna, while the word “exclusive” spelled, for her, the very joy of living. There were some “nice people”--by whom she meant the diplomatic corps and those who were intimate with them, and some people from the smart sets of near-by cities--but still it was “mixed.” There was Letty Standiford, whose father, had Eleanor but known it, was personally responsible for the present occupant of the White House being there. Then she noticed, quite close to her, the daughter of a Senator who lived in a very unfashionable part of the town--a girl whom she would never have known, except that paying calls one day, with Mrs. Hill-Smith, she happened to go to the Senator’s house. It had contained for her the one unattainable thing in life--some fine old furniture and portraits, and a beautiful old grandfather’s clock, which had been inherited, and by which the Senator’s daughter had not seemed to set any special store. Eleanor would have given all of their costly bric-à-brac for one single piece of old silver or furniture or lace that had belonged even so far back as to her grandparents; but neither the Baldwins nor the Hogans had inherited any silver, furniture, or lace, or anything except good, strong legs and arms, and the capacity to use them. The sight of family treasures always produced a vague discomfort in Eleanor Baldwin’s mind, and gave her a kind of pique toward those who possessed them. At that very moment she felt a secret dislike toward the Senator’s daughter, who had on a beautiful antique lace bertha, which had been worn by many generations of ladies before the Brentwood Baldwins had “arrived,” as the French say. There had been a fire in the Baldwin family, and likewise one in the Hogan family, and Eleanor had persuaded herself that the frame houses burnt down in these two fires were stately mansions, and priceless family treasures had perished in the flames--and she had hinted at this so often that she had really come to believe it. She was surprised to see that her father and also the Secretary of State were talking with that curious-looking object, Senator Mulligan, whose name she had heard. But seeing the British Ambassador approach with Mrs. Hill-Smith on his arm, and Constance Maitland with Sir Mark le Poer, Eleanor turned her whole attention to them. She, too, had brought dinner-guests with her. She had been the hostess at one of those extraordinary dinners introduced within the last few years by hostesses whose experience of dinner-giving is rudimentary. At these dinners, which are considered by their innocent perpetrators as being the acme of elegance, all the men are foreigners. When Eleanor Baldwin had achieved one of these dinners, she felt that she had accomplished a social triumph. Mrs. Hill-Smith had chaperoned the dinner; and the diplomats invited had refrained from laughing in the face of their hostess, although they had chuckled with amusement when in the dressing-room.

Mrs. Baldwin, who stood in the background, wore more than her usual expression of icy pride, which meant that she was more than usually frightened. Eleanor’s lovely face relaxed into a smile as she turned to the British Ambassador, who was a widower. He was a tall, handsome, high-bred-looking, elderly man, with a clean-shaven face, and a thin-lipped mouth, which had contorted itself into a grin on his first arrival in Washington, and the grin had become fixed and perpetual. He had no fortune beyond his salary and pension, he had rheumatism, liver complaint, nervous dyspepsia, chronic bronchitis, and a family of six unmarried daughters and four sons, ranging from thirty-six to sixteen years of age--yet Eleanor Baldwin would have jumped down his throat, and Mrs. Hill-Smith was going for him with the stealthy energy of a cat after the cream-jug.

Eleanor, putting on a roguish expression of countenance, said to the Ambassador:

“Ah, Mrs. Hill-Smith and I are becoming factors in diplomacy! At our dinner to-night, every man present was a diplomat, and you may imagine what state secrets were disclosed!”

“The results may be serious,” replied the Ambassador, laughing a little. “We shall have to keep our eyes upon the American diplomats who were present so as to find out how our secrets were betrayed.”

“There weren’t any Americans present,” answered Eleanor, gaily.

“Eh?” said the Ambassador, pretending to be deaf.

Eleanor repeated her words a little louder. There was Constance Maitland near enough to hear, and like Mrs. Hill-Smith, Eleanor was a little afraid of Constance Maitland, and also of Mr. Thorndyke, who had an uncomfortable way of laughing at very serious matters; and just at her elbow was that queer Castlestuart-Stuart, who blurted out things, such as not liking books, which other people kept to themselves; and it was this British bull which now proceeded to play havoc in the china-shop.

“Yes,” he said, with an air of infantine innocence, and addressing his chief boldly. “It’s positively true. Not a blessed American man there. Never saw such a thing anywhere in my life before. Fancy giving a dinner in London to foreign diplomats and not having an Englishman there--haw! haw!”

Both Eleanor and Mrs. Hill-Smith turned pale. Constance Maitland laughed outright; the Ambassador and Sir Mark le Poer looked gravely into each other’s eyes, and telegraphed, without winking, their amusement. Castlestuart-Stuart kept on.

“And Hachette, the new French third secretary, told us in the dressing-room about a letter he had got from his mother in Paris--terribly strict old lady. She said, ‘You have written me about going to dinners where no American men are present. You are deceiving your old mother. It is impossible that persons such as you describe us giving those dinners should not know any respectable American men. At all events, do not bring me back a daughter-in-law who has no acquaintance among respectable men in her own country’--haw! haw! haw!”