Senator North. Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
events, the money is not laid on with a trowel," she thought. And then she became aware of a curious sensuous longing as she looked again at the dim rich beauty about her, the smothered windows, the suggested power of withdrawal from every vulgar or annoying contact beyond those stately walls.
"I should like—I should like—" thought Betty, striving to put her vague emotion into words, "to live in this sort of house when I marry." And then her humour flashed up: it was a sense that sat at the heels of every serious thought. "What a combination with the twang and the toothpick! Can they really be my fate? Of course I might reform both, and cut off his Uncle Sam beard while he slept."
She had taken the wrong direction and entered a room in which there was not even a stray guest. A loud buzz of voices rose and fell at the end of a long hall, and she slowly made her way to the drawing-room, pausing once to watch a footman who was busily sorting visiting-cards into separate packs at a table. She handed him her card, and he slipped it into a pack marked "I Street."
The drawing-room was thronged with people, and as many of them surrounded the hostess, while constant new-comers pressed forward to shake a patient hand, Betty decided to stand apart for a few moments and look at the crowd. She was in a new world, and as eager and curious as if she had been shot from Earth to Mars.
Lady Mary was quite as handsome as her portraits: a cold blue and white and ashen beauty whose carriage and manifest of race were in curious contrast, Lee had told Betty, to a nervous manner and the loud voice of one who conceived that social laws had been invented for the middle class. But there was little vivacity in her manner to-day, and her voice was not audible across the large room. She looked tired. It was half-past five o'clock, and doubtless she had been on her feet since three. But she was smiling graciously upon her visitors, and gave each a warmth of welcome which betrayed the wife of the ambitious politician.
"Her mouth is not so selfish as in her photographs," observed the astute Betty. "I suppose in the depths of her soul she hates this, but she does it; and if she loves the man, she must think it well worth while."
She turned her attention to the visitors. There were many women superbly dressed, in taste as perfect as her own. She never had seen any of them before, but they had the air of women of importance. The majority looked frigid and bored, a few dignified and easy of manner. The younger women of the same class were more animated, but no less irreproachable in style.
There were others, middle-aged and young, with all the native style of the second-class, and still others who were clad in coarse serges, cashmeres, or cheap silks, shapelessly made with the heavy hand of many burdens. These did not detain the hostess in conversation, but gathered in groups, or walked about the room gazing at the many beautiful pictures and ornaments. There were only three or four really vulgar-looking women present, and they were clothed in conspicuous raiment. One, and all but her waist was huge, wore a bodice of transparent gauze; another, also of middle years, had crowned her hard over-coloured face with a large gentian-blue hat turned up in front with a brass buckle. Another was in pink silk and heavily powdered. But although these women were offensively loud, they did not suggest any lack of that virtue whose exact proportions so often elude the most earnest seeker after truth.
Betty turned impulsively to an old woman clad in shabby black who stood besides her gazing earnestly at the crowd. Her large bony face was crossed by the lines and wrinkles of long years of care, and her eyes were dim; but her mouth was smiling.
"Tell me," exclaimed Betty, "please—are all these people in politics?
I—I—am a stranger, and I should like to know who they are."
"Well, I can tell you pretty near everything you want to know, I guess," replied the old lady. She had the drawl and twang and accent of rural New England. "I guess you've come here, like myself, jest to see the folks. A few here, like you and me, ar'n't in official life, but the most are, I guess. Nearly all the Cabinet ladies are here to-day and a good many Senators' wives and darters. That there lady in heliotrope and fur is the wife of the Secretary of War, and the one in green velvet and chinchilla is Mis' Senator Maxwell. That real stylish handsome girl just behind is her darter, and I guess she has a good many beaux. They're real elegant, ar'n't they? I guess we have good cause to be proud of our ladies."
She paused that Betty might express her approval, and upon being assured that Paris was responsible for many of the gowns present, continued in her monotonous but kindly drawl,
"And some of them began life doin' their own work. The President ain't no aristocrat, and most of his friends ain't neither; but I tell you when their wives begin to entertain they do it jest as if they was born to it. I presume if my husband—he was a physician—had gone into politics and had luck, I'd have been jest like those ladies; but as he didn't, I'm still doin' most of my own work and look it. But the Lord knows what he's about, I guess. Senator Maxwell's a swell; they've always been rich, the Maxwells, and he married a New York girl, so she didn't have much to learn, I guess. Mis' Senator Shattuc—she's the one in wine colour—was the darter of a big railroad man out West, so I guess she had all the schoolin' and Yurrup she wanted. Now that real pretty little woman jest speakin' to Lady Montgomery is Mis' Senator Freeman. They do say as how she was the darter of a baker in Chicago and used to run barefoot around the streets, but she looks as well as any of 'em now and she dines at every Embassy in Washington. Her dresses are always described in the Post: she wears pink and blue mostly. You kin tell by her face that she's got a lot of determination and that she'd git where she had a mind to. I guess she'd dine with Queen Victoria if she had a mind to."
"I feel exactly as if I were at a pantomime," cried Betty, delightedly. "Even you—" She caught herself up. "I mean I always thought the New England playwrights invented all their characters. Who are these plainly dressed women and—and—half-way ones?" "Oh, they're Representatives' wives mostly," drawled the old lady, who looked puzzled. "They take a day off and call on each other. One or two is Senators' wives. Some of the Senators is rich, but some ar'n't. Mis' Montgomery's jest as nice to them as to the swells, and she told me to be sure and go into the next room and have a cup of tea. I don't care much about tea excep' for lunch, and she don't have a collation—I presume she can't; too many people'd come, and I guess she has about enough. Now, those ladies that don't look exactly as if they was ladies," indicating the large birds of tawdry plumage and striking complexions, "they don't live here. Washington ladies don't dress like that. I guess they're the wives of men out West that have made their pile lately and come here to see the sights. First they look at all the public buildin's, and I guess they about walk all over the Capitol, and hear a speech or two in the Ladies' Gallery—from their Senators, if they can—and after that they go about in Society a bit. You see, Washington is a mighty nice place fur people who haven't much show at home—those that live in small towns, fur instance. There is so many public receptions they can go to—The White House, the Wednesdays of the Cabinet ladies, the Thursdays of the Senator's wives, and six or seven Representatives—mebbe more—who have real elegant houses; and then there is several Legations that give public receptions. You can always see in the Post who's goin' to receive; and those women can go home and talk fur the rest of their lives about the fine time they had in Washington society. Amurricans heighst themselves whenever they git a chance. I don't care to do that. My sister—she's a heap younger 'n I am and awful spry—and I come down from the north of New Hampshire every winter and keep a boardin'-house in Washington so that we can see the world. We don't go home with ten dollars over railroad fare in our pockets, but we don't mind, because the farm keeps us and we've had a real good time. I often sit down up in New Hampshire and think of the beautiful houses and dresses and pictures I've seen, and I can always remember that I've shaken hands with the President and his wife and the ladies of the Cabinet. They're just as nice as they can be."
Betty, whose sympathies were quick and keen, winked away a tear. "I'm so glad you enjoy it so much," she exclaimed, "and that there is so much for you here to enjoy. I never thought of it in that way. I'm awfully interested in it all, myself, and I feel deeply indebted to you."
"Well, you needn't mind that. My sister says I always talk when I can git anybody to listen to me, and I guess I do. Where air you from? New York, I guess."
"Oh, I am a Washingtonian. My name