The Complete 12 Novels of Mark Twain. Mark Twain

      Whenever she halted, she was presently surrounded by Ministers, Generals, Congressmen, and all manner of aristocratic people. Introductions followed, and then the usual original question, “How do you like Washington, Miss Hawkins?” supplemented by that other usual original question, “Is this your first visit?”

      These two exciting topics being exhausted, conversation generally drifted into calmer channels, only to be interrupted at frequent intervals by new introductions and new inquiries as to how Laura liked the capital and whether it was her first visit or not. And thus for an hour or more the Duchess moved through the crush in a rapture of happiness, for her doubts were dead and gone, now she knew she could conquer here. A familiar face appeared in the midst of the multitude and Harry Brierly fought his difficult way to her side, his eyes shouting their gratification, so to speak:

      “Oh, this is a happiness! Tell me, my dear Miss Hawkins — ”

      “Sh! I know what you are going to ask. I do like Washington — I like it ever so much!”

      “No, but I was going to ask — ”

      “Yes, I am coming to it, coming to it as fast as I can. It is my first visit. I think you should know that yourself.”

      And straightway a wave of the crowd swept her beyond his reach.

      “Now what can the girl mean? Of course she likes Washington — I’m not such a dummy as to have to ask her that. And as to its being her first visit, why bang it, she knows that I knew it was. Does she think I have turned idiot? Curious girl, anyway. But how they do swarm about her! She is the reigning belle of Washington after this night. She’ll know five hundred of the heaviest guns in the town before this night’s nonsense is over. And this isn’t even the beginning. Just as I used to say — she’ll be a card in the matter of — yes sir! She shall turn the men’s heads and I’ll turn the women’s! What a team that will be in 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 downtrodden 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 purpose. He feared he had “missed a trick,” as he expressed it.

      He only found one little opportunity of speaking again with Laura before the evening’s festivities ended, and then, for the first time in years, his airy self-complacency failed him, his tongue’s easy confidence forsook it in a great measure, and he was conscious of an unheroic timidity. He was glad to get away and find a place where he could despise himself in private and try to grow his clipped plumes again.

      When Laura reached home she was tired but exultant, and Senator Dilworthy was pleased and satisfied. He called Laura “my daughter,” next morning, and gave her some “pin money,” as he termed it, and she sent a hundred and fifty dollars of it to her mother and loaned a trifle to Col. Sellers. Then the Senator had a long private conference with Laura, and unfolded certain plans of his for the good of the country, and religion, and the poor, and temperance, and showed her how she could assist him in developing these worthy and noble enterprises.