hanging ’round Laura? I see him with her everywhere, at the Capitol, in
the horse cars, and he comes to Dilworthy’s. If he weren’t lame, I
should think he was going to run off with her.”
“Oh, that’s nothing. Laura knows her business. He has a cotton claim.
Used to be at Hawkeye during the war.
Selby’s his name, was a Colonel. Got a wife and family.
Very respectable people, the Selby’s.”
“Well, that’s all right,” said Harry, “if it’s business. But if a woman
looked at me as I’ve seen her at Selby, I should understand it. And it’s
talked about, I can tell you.”
Jealousy had no doubt sharpened this young gentleman’s observation.
Laura could not have treated him with more lofty condescension if she had
been the Queen of Sheba, on a royal visit to the great republic. And he
resented it, and was “huffy” when he was with her, and ran her errands,
and brought her gossip, and bragged of his intimacy with the lovely
creature among the fellows at Newspaper Row.
Laura’s life was rushing on now in the full stream of intrigue and
fashionable dissipation. She was conspicuous at the balls of the fastest
set, and was suspected of being present at those doubtful suppers that
began late and ended early. If Senator Dilworthy remonstrated about
appearances, she had a way of silencing him. Perhaps she had some hold
on him, perhaps she was necessary to his plan for ameliorating the
condition the tube colored race.
She saw Col. Selby, when the public knew and when it did not know.
She would see him, whatever excuses he made, and however he avoided her.
She was urged on by a fever of love and hatred and jealousy, which
alternately possessed her. Sometimes she petted him, and coaxed him and
tried all her fascinations. And again she threatened him and reproached
him. What was he doing? Why had he taken no steps to free himself?
Why didn’t he send his wife home? She should have money soon.
They could go to Europe–anywhere. What did she care for talk?
And he promised, and lied, and invented fresh excuses for delay, like a
cowardly gambler and roue as he was, fearing to break with her, and half
the time unwilling to give her up.
“That woman doesn’t know what fear is,” he said to himself, “and she
watches me like a hawk.”
He told his wife that this woman was a lobbyist, whom he had to tolerate
and use in getting through his claims, and that he should pay her and
have done with her, when he succeeded.
CHAPTER XLI.
Henry Brierly was at the Dilwortby’s constantly and on such terms of
intimacy that he came and went without question. The Senator was not an
inhospitable man, he liked to have guests in his house, and Harry’s gay
humor and rattling way entertained him; for even the most devout men and
busy statesmen must have hours of relaxation.
Harry himself believed that he was of great service in the University
business, and that the success of the scheme depended upon him to a great
degree. He spent many hours in talking it over with the Senator after
dinner. He went so far as to consider whether it would be worth his
while to take the professorship of civil engineering in the new
institution.
But it was not the Senator’s society nor his dinners–at which this
scapegrace remarked that there was too much grace and too little wine–
which attracted him to the horse. The fact was the poor fellow hung
around there day after day for the chance of seeing Laura for five
minutes at a time. For her presence at dinner he would endure the long
bore of the Senator’s talk afterwards, while Laura was off at some
assembly, or excused herself on the plea of fatigue. Now and then he
accompanied her to some reception, and rarely, on off nights, he was
blessed with her company in the parlor, when he sang, and was chatty and
vivacious and performed a hundred little tricks of imitation and
ventriloquism, and made himself as entertaining as a man could be.