politics here. I wouldn’t take a quarter of a million for what I can do
in this present session–no indeed I wouldn’t. Now, here–I don’t
altogether like this. That insignificant secretary of legation is–why,
she’s smiling on him as if he–and now on the Admiral! Now she’s
illuminating that, stuffy Congressman from Massachusetts–vulgar
ungrammatcal shovel-maker–greasy knave of spades. I don’t like this
sort of thing. She doesn’t appear to be much distressed about me–she
hasn’t looked this way once. All right, my bird of Paradise, if it suits
you, go on. But I think I know your sex. I’ll go to smiling around a
little, too, and see what effect that will have on you”
And he did “smile around a little,” and got as near to her as he could to
watch the effect, but the scheme was a failure–he could not get her
attention. She seemed wholly unconscious of him, and so he could not
flirt with any spirit; he could only talk disjointedly; he could not keep
his eyes on the charmers he talked to; he grew irritable, jealous, and
very, unhappy. He gave up his enterprise, leaned his shoulder against a
fluted pilaster and pouted while he kept watch upon Laura’s every
movement. His other shoulder stole the bloom from many a lovely cheek
that brushed him in the surging crush, but he noted it not. He was too
busy cursing himself inwardly for being an egotistical imbecile. An hour
ago he had thought to take this country lass under his protection and
show her “life” and enjoy her wonder and delight–and here she was,
immersed in the marvel up to her eyes, and just a trifle more at home in
it than he was himself. And now his angry comments ran on again:
“Now she’s sweetening old Brother Balaam; and he–well he is inviting her
to the Congressional prayer-meeting, no doubt–better let old Dilworthy
alone to see that she doesn’t overlook that. And now its Splurge, of New
York; and now its Batters of New Hampshire–and now the Vice President!
Well I may as well adjourn. I’ve got enough.”
But he hadn’t. He got as far as the door–and then struggled back to
take one more look, hating himself all the while for his weakness.
Toward midnight, when supper was announced, the crowd thronged to the
supper room where a long table was decked out with what seemed a rare
repast, but which consisted of things better calculated to feast the eye
than the appetite. The ladies were soon seated in files along the wall,
and in groups here and there, and the colored waiters filled the plates
and glasses and the, male guests moved hither and thither conveying them
to the privileged sex.
Harry took an ice and stood up by the table with other gentlemen, and
listened to the buzz of conversation while he ate.
From these remarks he learned a good deal about Laura that was news to
him. For instance, that she was of a distinguished western family; that
she was highly educated; that she was very rich and a great landed
heiress; that she was not a professor of religion, and yet was a
Christian in the truest and best sense of the word, for her whole heart
was devoted to the accomplishment of a great and noble enterprise–none
other than the sacrificing of her landed estates to the uplifting of the
down-trodden negro and the turning of his erring feet into the way of
light and righteousness. Harry observed that as soon as one listener had
absorbed the story, he turned about and delivered it to his next neighbor
and the latter individual straightway passed it on. And thus he saw it
travel the round of the gentlemen and overflow rearward among the ladies.
He could not trace it backward to its fountain head, and so he could not
tell who it was that started it.
One thing annoyed Harry a great deal; and that was the reflection that he
might have been in Washington days and days ago and thrown his
fascinations about Laura with permanent effect while she was new and
strange to the capital, instead of dawdling in Philadelphia to no