Chapter 12

"They may be said to have bought up several climates. I have spent a great many hours puzzling over that question, for they have put an end to the old days when young men could go into business with the hope of a progressive future. Now they are swallowed up at once, depersonalized, and the whole matter is one of the great questions affecting the future development of the Republic."

He was not looking at Betty; he was staring out on the lake. His eyes and mouth were hard again; he looked like a mere intellect, nothing more.

As Betty watched him, she experienced a sudden desire to put him back on the pedestal he had occupied in the first days of their acquaintance, and to worship him as an ideal and forget him as a man. That had been a period of intellectual days and quiet nights. And as he looked now, he seemed to ask no more of any woman.

But in a moment he had turned to her again with the smile and the peculiar concentration of gaze which made women forget he was a statesman.

"Not another word of politics," he said. "I did not get up at four in the morning to meet the most charming woman in America and talk politics. Do you know that it is over three months since I saw you last?"

"You left Washington, so, naturally, I left it too."

"I wonder, how much you mean? If I were to judge you by myself--Your few notes were very interesting. Did you enjoy California?"

"California was made to enjoy, but I felt very much alone in it."

"Of course you did. Nature is a wicked old matchmaker. You have felt quite as lonely up here since your return."

"Yes, I have! But I have had a good deal to occupy my mind. Sally terrified me by asserting that Harriet and my cousin Jack Emory were in love with each other."

"Who is Harriet?"

"Oh, you have forgotten! And you made me take her into the bosom of my family."

"Oh--yes; I had forgotten her name. I hope she is not making trouble for you."

"She admitted that she loves him, but insists that he does not love her, and I don't think he does."

"Probably not. I should as soon think of falling in love with a weeping figure on a tombstone."

"What kind of women do you fall in love with?" asked Betty, irresistibly. She was sure of herself now. The passions of women are often calmed by the presence of their lover. Passion is so largely mental in them that it reaches heights in the imagination that reality seldom justifies and mere propinquity quells. For this reason they often are recklessly unfair to men, who are made on simpler lines.

They had floated under the spreading arms of a thicket on the water's edge, and she was a brilliant white figure in the gloom.

"I have no recipe," he said, smiling. "Certainly not with the women that weep, poor things!" Betty wondered what his personal attitude was to the tears of twenty years. She knew from Sally that Mrs. North had long attacks of depression. But his mind had been occupied; that meant almost everything. And his heart?

"Do you love anybody now?" she broke out. "Is there a woman in your life? Some one who makes you happy?"

The smile left his lips. It was too much to say that it had been in his eyes, but they changed also.

"There is no woman in my life, as you put it. Why do you ask?"

"Because I want to know."

They regarded each other squarely. In a moment he said deliberately: "The greatest happiness that I have had in the past few months has been my friendship with you. If I were free, I should make love to you. If you will have the truth, I can conceive of no happiness so great as to be your husband. I have caught myself dreaming of it--and over and over again. But as it is I am not going to make love to you. When the strain becomes too great, I shall leave you. Until then--Ah, don't!"

Betty, who had dropped her head when he began to speak, had raised it slowly, and her face concealed nothing.

"I, too, love you," she said in a moment. "I love you, love you, love you. If you knew what a relief it is to say it. That is the reason I would not go up into the forest with you just now. I was afraid. I have been with you there too often!"

For the first time she saw the muscles of his face relax, and she covered her face with her hands. "I shouldn't have told you," she whispered, "I shouldn't have told you. I have made it harder. You will go away at once."

He did not speak for some minutes. Then he said,--

"Can you do without what we have?"

"Oh, no!" she said passionately. "Oh, no! No!"

"Nor can I--without the hope and the prospect of an occasional hour with you, of the sympathy and understanding which has grown up between us. I have conquered myself many times, relinquished many hopes, and I think and believe that my self-control is as great as a man's can be. I shall not let myself go with you unless you tempt me beyond endurance; for as I said before, if I find that I am not strong enough, I shall leave you. You are a beautiful and seductive woman, and your power if you chose to exert it would madden any man. Will you forget it? Will you help me?"

She dropped her hands. "Yes," she said, "I'd rather suffer anything; I'd rather make myself over than do without you. And I couldn't! I couldn't! Every least thing that happens, I want to go straight to you about it. I know that trouble is ahead, although I haven't admitted it before. I want you in every way! in every way! And I can't even have you in that. I never will speak like this again, but I'd like you to know. If you love me, you must know how terrible it is. I am not a child. I am twenty-seven years old."

"I know," he replied; and for a few moments he said no more, but looked down into the water. "I am not a believer in people parting because they can't have everything," he continued finally. "It is only the very young who do that. They take the thing tragically; passion and disappointment trample down common-sense. If love is the very best thing in life, it is not the only thing. Every time I have seen you I have wanted to take you in my arms, and yet I have enjoyed every moment spent in your presence. The thought of giving you up is intolerable. We both are old enough to control ourselves. And I believe that any habit can be acquired."

"And will you never take me in your arms? Have I got to go through life without that? I must say everything to-day--I will row out into the middle of the lake if you like, but I must know that."

"You can stay here. There are certain things that no man can say, Betty, even to the most loved and trusted of women. The only answer that I can make to your question is, that if I find I must leave you, I certainly shall take you in my arms once."

"Are you sorry I told you I loved you? Would it be easier if I had not?"

"Probably. But I am not sorry! Love can give happiness even when one is denied the expression of it."

"I never intended to tell you. I was afraid if I did you would leave me at once."

"So I should if you were not--you. But I should think myself a fool if I did not make an attempt to achieve the second best. I may fail, but I shall try. And life is made up of compromises."

"You are more certain of smashing the Trusts," she said with the humour which never bore repression for long. "In dealing with methodical scoundrels you know at least where you are. A man and woman never can be too certain of what five minutes will bring forth. That ends it. We never will discuss the question again until it comes up for the last time--if it does. I do not mean that I shall not tell you again that I love you, for I shall. I have no desire that you shall forget it. I mean that we will not discuss possibilities again, nor give expression to the passionate regret we both must feel. Is it a compact?"

"I will keep my part in it. I promise to be good. I have prided myself on my intelligence. I am not going to disgrace it by ruining the only happiness I ever shall have. I love you, and I will prove it by making your part as easy as I can, and by giving you all the happiness I am permitted to give you."

He leaned toward her for the first time, but he did not touch her.

"And I promise you this, my darling," he said softly: "if you ever should be in great trouble and should send for me--as of course you would do--I will take you in my arms then and forget myself. Now, change seats with me and I will row you part of the way home; I shall get out a half-mile from the hotel. There really was no reason why you should have made me walk nearly the entire length of the lake."

"I had fancied you in this particular part of the forest, and I wanted to find you here."

"That is so like a woman," he said humorously. "But all of us make an occasional attempt to realize a dream, I suppose."

VIII

He came over to dinner that night, and Betty, who had walked about in a vague dreamy state all day, dressed herself again in white. She woke up suddenly as she came into his presence, and was the life of the dinner. Harriet seemed absent of mind and nervous, but Emory's spirits were normal, and he was more attentive to Sally Carter than she to him. But Betty's interest in her friends' affairs had dropped to a very low ebb. She was in a new mental world, stranger than that entered by most women, for her hands were empty, but she was happy. She had reflected again--in so far as she had been capable of reflection--that most marriages were prosaic, and that her own high romance, her inestimable happiness in loving and being loved by a man in whom her pride was so great, was a lot to be envied of all women. It was not all the destiny she herself would have chosen, but it compassed a great deal. She would have made him wholly happy, been his whole happiness; marriage between them never would have been prosaic, and she would not have cared if it were; she would have made him forget the deep trials and sorrows of his past and the worries and annoyances of the present. But this was not to be, and there was much she could do for him and would.

They talked politics through dinner, and Mrs. Madison noted with a sigh that Betty's interest in the undesirable institution was unabated. She admired Senator North, however, and felt pride in his appreciation of her brilliant daughter. She expressed her regret amiably at not being able to meet again Mrs. North, who would see none but old friends in these days, and Senator North assured her of his wife's agreeable remembrance of her brief acquaintance with Mrs. Madison.

"How wonderfully well people behave whose common secret would set their world by the ears," thought Betty. "Our worst enemies could detect nothing; and on what there is heaven knows a huge scandal could be built."

After dinner she played to him for an hour, while the others, with the exception of Mrs. Madison, who went to sleep, became absorbed in whist. But she did not see him for a moment alone, and Jack rowed him across the lake.

She went to her bed, but not to sleep. She hardly cared if she never slept again. Night in a measure gave him to her, and to sleep was to forget the wonder that he loved her.

It was shortly after midnight that she heard a faint but unmistakable creaking on the tin roof of the veranda. She sat up. Some one was about to pass her window. She sprang out of bed, crossed the room softly, and lifted the edge of the curtain. A figure was almost crawling past. It was a woman's figure; the stars gave enough light to define its outlines at close range. She had a shawl over her head, but her angular body was unmistakable. She was Miss Trumbull.

Betty dropped the curtain and stared into the darkness. "Whom is she watching?" she thought. "Whom is she watching?"

She went back to bed and listened intently. In half an hour she heard the same sound again.

"She is going back to her room," thought Betty. "What has she seen?"

The next morning she sent for Miss Trumbull to come to her room. She had no intention of asking her to sit down, but the woman did not wait to be invited. She took a chair and fanned herself with a palm leaf that she picked from the table.

"Lawsy, but it's hot," she said. "I had a long argument with Miss Walker yesterday about New York State bein' hotter 'n down South, and she wouldn't believe it. But I usually know what I'm talkin' about, and hotter it is. I near lost my temper, for I guess I know when it's hot--"

"What were you doing on the roof of the veranda last night?" asked Betty, abruptly.

Miss Trumbull turned the dark ugly red of her embarrassed condition.

"I--" she stammered.

"I saw you. Whom were you watching?"

"I warn't watchin' anybody. I was takin' a walk. I couldn't sleep."

"You know perfectly well that the roof of a veranda is not intended to be walked on. Your curiosity is insufferable. I suppose it has become professional. Or are you hoping for blackmail? If so, the hotel is the place for you."

This time Miss Trumbull turned purple.

"I like money as well as anybody, I guess," she stuttered; 'but I'd never sell a secret to get it. I ain't low down and despicable if I am poor." "Then you admit it is mere curiosity? I would rather you stole."

"Well, I don't steal, thank heaven. And I don't see any harm in tryin' to know what's goin' on in the world."

"Read the newspapers and let your neighbours alone, at all events the people in this house. I have twice seen you reading over the addresses of the letters of the outgoing mail. Don't you ever do it again. You are a good housekeeper, but if I find you attending to anything but your own business, once more, you go on the moment. That is all I have to say."

The woman left the room hurriedly. An hour or two later Betty met Harriet on the terrace.

"I am sorry to appear to be always admonishing you," she said, "but I must ask you to have nothing more to do with Miss Trumbull."

"I don't want to have anything more to do with her, honey. She has taken to arguing with me in that long self-satisfied drawl, and I have 'most got to hate her. I wouldn't mind so much if she was ever right, but she is a downright fool, and I reckon all fools are pretty much alike. And I have a horrible idea that she suspects something. I have seen her staring at my finger-nails two or three times. And I am 'most sure some one has gone through the little trunk I keep my letters in. Of course the key is always in my purse, but she may have had one that fits, and the things are not like I left them, I am 'most sure."

"She probably envies your finger-nails, and the trunk, doubtless, was upset in travelling. Besides, I don't think she's malignant. Like most underbred persons, she is curious, and she has cultivated the trait until it has become a disease."

"But there's no knowing what she might do if she took a dislike to me. She's not bad-hearted at all, but she could be spiteful, and I can't and won't stand her any longer. I reckon I'd like to go to Europe, anyhow. I feel as if every one was guessing my secret. Over there you say they don't mind those things, and I'd enjoy being in that kind of a place."

"Go, by all means. I'll write at once and inquire about a chaperon--"

"Oh, I don't want to go just yet. September will do. I reckon these mountains are about as cool at this time of the year as anywhere, and they make me feel strong." She added abruptly: "Does Sally suspect?"

Betty nodded. "Yes, she surprised the truth out of me. I am more sorry--"

Harriet had gripped her arm with both hands. Her face was ghastly. "She knows? She knows?" she gasped. "Then she will tell him. Oh! Why was I ever born?"

Betty made her sit down and took her head in her arms. Harriet was weeping with more passion than she ever had seen her display.

"You believe me always, don't you?" she said. "For Miss Trumbull I cannot answer, but for Sally I can--positively. She never would do a mean and ignoble thing."

"She loves him!"

That is the more reason for not telling him. Cannot you understand high-mindedness?"

"Oh, yes. You are high-minded, and _he_--that is the reason I should die if he found out; for he hates, he loathes deceit. Oh, I've grown to hate this country. I love you, but I'd like to forget that it was ever on the map. I wish I was coal black and had been born in Africa."

"Why don't you go there and live, set up a sort of court?" asked Betty, seized with an inspiration.

"And live among niggers? I despise and abhor niggers! If one put his dirty black paw on me, I'd 'most kill him!"

Betty turned away her head to conceal a smile; but Harriet, who was wholly without humour, continued:

"Betty, honey, I want you to promise me that if I ever do anything to disappoint you, you'll forgive me. I love you so I couldn't bear to have you despise me."

"What have you been doing?" asked Betty, anxiously.

"Nothing, honey," replied Harriet, promptly. "I mean if I did."

"Don't do anything that requires forgiveness. It makes life so much simpler not to. And remember the promise you made me."

"Oh, I don't reckon I'll ever forget that."

IX

Senator North started for Washington that afternoon. Betty did not see him again. He did not write, but she hardly expected that he would. He had remarked once that two-thirds of all the trouble in the world came out of letters, and Betty, with Miss Trumbull in mind, was inclined to agree with him. He would not return for a fortnight.

On Friday, very late, Senator Burleigh arrived. He was on the Finance Committee, but had written that he should break his chains for this brief holiday if he never had another. He had sent her two boxes of flowers since her return, and had written her a large number of brief, emphatic, but impersonal letters during her sojourn in California.

He looked big and breezy and triumphant as he entered the living-room, and he sprinkled magnetism like a huge watering-pot. Betty knew by this time that all men successful in American politics had this qualification, and had come in contact with it so often since her introduction to the Senate that it had ceased to have any effect on her except when emanating from one man.

"Are you not frightfully tired?" she asked. "What a journey!"

"Anything, even a fourteen hours' train journey, is heaven after Washington in hot weather. The asphalt pavements are reeking, and your heels go in when you forget to walk on your toes--and stick. But it is enchanting up here."

His eyes dwelt with frank delight on her fresh blue organdie. "Oh, Washington does not exist," he exclaimed. "I thought constantly of you when we were struggling over that Tariff Bill in Committee, and I wanted to put all the fabrics you like on the free list, as a special compliment to you."

"The unwritten history of a Committee Room! Law does not seem like law at all when one knows the makers of it. But you must be starved. If you will follow me blindly down the hall, I promise that you will really be glad you came."

Miss Trumbull had attended personally to the supper, and he did it justice, although he continued to talk to Betty and to let his eyes express a more fervent admiration than had been their previous habit.

"There's no hope for me," thought Betty, when Emory had taken him to his room. "He has made up his mind to propose during this visit. If I can only stave it off till the last minute!"

As she went up the stair, she met Miss Trumbull, who was coming down.

"Your supper was very good," she said kindly. "Thank you for sitting up."

That was enough for the housekeeper, who appeared to have conceived a worship of the hand that had smitten her. It had seemed to Betty in the last few days that she met her admiring eyes whichever way she turned. Miss Trumbull put out her hand and fumbled at the lace on Miss Madison's gown.

"Tell me," she drawled wheedlingly, "that's your beau, ain't it? I guessed he was when those flowers come, and the minute I set eyes on him, I said to myself, 'That's the gentleman for Miss Madison. My! but you'll make a handsome couple."

"Oh!" exclaimed Betty. "Oh!" Then she laughed. The woman was too ridiculous for further anger. "Good-night," she said, and went on to her room.

X

Betty had organized a picnic for the following day, inviting several acquaintances from the hotel; and they all drove to a favourite spot in the forest. Mrs. Madison's maid had charge of many cushions, and disposed her tiny mistress--who looked like a wood fairy in lilac mull--comfortably on a bed of pine needles. Major Carter felt young once more as he grilled steaks at a camp-fire, and Harriet enchanted him with her rapt attention while his memory rioted in deeds of war.

Senator Burleigh had never appeared so well, Betty thought. There was an out-of-door atmosphere about him at any time; no doubt he had been a mighty wind in the Senate more than once during the stormy passage of the Tariff Bill; but with all out-doors around him he looked nothing less than a mountain king. His large well-knit frame, full of strength and energy, was at its triumphant best in outing tweeds and Scotch stockings; his fair handsome face was boyish, despite its almost fierce determination, as he pranced about, intoxicated with the mountain air.

"If you ever had spent one summer in Washington, you would understand," he said to Betty. "This is where I'd like to spend the rest of my life. I'd like to think I'd never see a city or the inside of a house again."

"Then you'd probably hew down the forest, which would be a loss to the State: you would have to do something with your superfluous energy. And what would you do with your brain? Mere reading, when your arm ached from chopping, never would content you."

"No, that is the worst of civilization. It either produces discontented savages like myself or goes too far and turns the whole body into brain. I have managed to get a sort of steam-engine into my head which gives me little rest and would wear out my body if I didn't happen to have the constitution of a buffalo. But I doubt if I shall be what North is, sixteen years hence. That man is the best example of equilibrium I have ever seen. His mental activity is enormous, but his control over himself is so absolute that he never wastes an ounce of force. I've seen him look as fresh at the end of a long day of debate as he was when he got on his feet. He never lets go of himself for a moment."

That was the only time Betty heard Senator North's name mentioned during Burleigh's visit, for the younger man was much more interested in himself and the object of his holiday.

"I think if it hadn't been for this Extra Session I should have followed you to California," he said abruptly. "I didn't know how much I depended for my entire happiness upon my frequent visits to your house until I came back after the short vacation and found you gone."

"It would have been jolly to have had you in California. But you must feel that your time has not been thrown away. Are you satisfied with the Tariff Bill?"

"I liked it fairly well as we re-wrote it, but I don't expect to care much about it after it comes out of conference. But there are no politics in the Adirondacks, and when a weary Senator is looking at a woman in a pale green muslin--"

"You look anything but weary. I expect you will tramp over half the Adirondacks before you go back. And I am sure you will eat one of those beefsteaks. Come, they are ready."

But although she managed to seat him between Sally Carter and an extremely pretty girl, he was at her side again the moment the gay party began to split into couples.

"Will you come for a walk?" he asked. "I do want to roam about on the old trails the Indians made, and to get away from these hideous emblems of modern civilization--sailor hats. Thank heaven you don't wear a sailor hat."