fact.”
Gwendolen’s face betrayed a dawning hopefulness and she said–with a tone
of reluctance which hadn’t the hall-mark on it:
“If you prefer, I will send word to the Thompsons that I–”
“Oh, is it the Thompsons? That simplifies it–sets everything right.
We can fix it without spoiling your arrangements, my child. You’ve got
your heart set on–”
“But papa, I’d just as soon go there some other–”
“No–I won’t have it. You are a good hard-working darling child, and
your father is not the man to disappoint you when you–”
“But papa, I–”
“Go along, I won’t hear a word. We’ll get along, dear.”
Gwendolen was ready to cry with venation. But there was nothing to do
but start; which she was about to do when her father hit upon an idea
which filled him with delight because it so deftly covered all the
difficulties of the situation and made things smooth and satisfactory:
“I’ve got it, my love, so that you won’t be robbed of your holiday and at
the same time we’ll be pretty satisfactorily fixed for a good time here.
You send Belle Thompson here–perfectly beautiful creature, Tracy,
perfectly beautiful; I want you to see that girl; why, you’ll just go
mad; you’ll go mad inside of a minute; yes, you send her right along,
Gwendolen, and tell her–why, she’s gone!” He turned-she was already
passing out’ at the gate. He muttered, “I wonder what’s the matter; I
don’t know what her mouth’s doing, but I think her shoulders are
swearing. Well,” said Sellers blithely to Tracy, “I shall miss her–
parents always miss the children as soon as they’re out of sight, it’s
only a natural and wisely ordained partiality–but you’ll be all right,
because Miss Belle will supply the youthful element for you and to your
entire content; and we old people will do our best, too. We shall have a
good enough time. And you’ll have a chance to get better acquainted with
Admiral Hawkins. That’s a rare character, Mr. Tracy–one of the rarest
and most engaging characters the world has produced. You’ll find him
worth studying. I’ve studied him ever since he was a child and have
always found him developing. I really consider that one of the main
things that has enabled me to master the difficult science of character–
reading was the livid interest I always felt in that boy and the baffling
inscrutabilities of his ways and inspirations.”
Tracy was not hearing a word. His spirits were gone, he was desolate.
“Yes, a most wonderful character. Concealment–that’s the basis of it.
Always the first thing you want to do is to find the keystone a man’s
character is built on–then you’ve got it. No misleading and apparently
inconsistent peculiarities can fool you then. What do you read on the
Senator’s surface? Simplicity; a kind of rank and protuberant
simplicity; whereas, in fact, that’s one of the deepest minds in the
world. A perfectly honest man–an absolutely honest and honorable man–
and yet without doubt the profoundest master of dissimulation the world
has ever seen.”
“O, it’s devilish!” This was wrung from the unlistening Tracy by the
anguished thought of what might have been if only the dinner arrangements
hadn’t got mixed.
“No, I shouldn’t call it that,” said Sellers, who was now placidly
walking up and down the room with his hands under his coat-tails and
listening to himself talk. ” One could quite properly call it devilish
in another man, but not in the Senator. Your term is right–perfectly
right–I grant that–but the application is wrong. It makes a great
difference. Yes, he is a marvelous character. I do not suppose that any
other statesman ever had such a colossal sense of humor, combined with
the ability to totally conceal it. I may except George Washington and
Cromwell, and perhaps Robespierre, but I draw the line there. A person
not an expert might be in Judge Hawkins’s company a lifetime and never
find out he had any more sense of humor than a cemetery.”
A deep-drawn yard-long sigh from the distraught and dreaming artist,
followed by a murmured, “Miserable, oh, miserable!”
“Well, no, I shouldn’t say that about it, quite. On the contrary, I