Kitabı oku: «Her Infinite Variety», sayfa 6

XIII

VERNON found Amelia in one of the hotel parlors, seated on a sofa by a window. She was resting her chin in her hand and looking down into Capitol Avenue.

“Amelia,” he said, bending over her. “What is it? tell me.”

He sat down beside her, and sought to engage one of her hands in his own, but she withdrew it, and pressed it with the other and the handkerchief in both, to her lips and chin. Vernon glanced about the respectable parlors, maintained in instant readiness for anybody that might happen along with his little comedy or his little tragedy. She continued to look obdurately out of the window.

“Amelia,” he said, “aren’t you going to speak to me? Tell me what I have done.”

Still there came no answer. He flung himself back on the sofa helplessly.

“Well,” he said, “I don’t know what it all means. I’ve tried to fathom it in the last hour, but it’s too deep for me; I give it up.” He flung out his hands to illustrate his abandonment.

“God knows,” he suddenly exclaimed, “I was only trying to do something worthy—for your sake!”

“Please don’t swear, Morley,” Amelia said.

He looked up swiftly.

“Well—” he began explosively, but he didn’t continue. He relapsed into a moody silence. He stretched his legs out before him in an ungainly attitude, with his hands plunged deep in his trousers’ pockets. Then he knitted his brows and tried to think.

“I suppose,” he said, as if he were thinking aloud, “that you expect some explanation, some apology.”

“Oh, not at all,” she said lightly, in the most musical tone she could command.

“Very well,” he said, “I wouldn’t know where to begin if you did. I’m sure I’m not aware of having—”

She began to hum softly, to herself, as it were, some tuneless air. He remembered that it was a way she had when she was angry. It was intended to show the last and utmost personal unconcern. In such circumstances the tune was apt to be an improvisation and was never melodious. Sometimes it made her easier to deal with, sometimes harder; he could never tell.

“I don’t exactly see what we are here for,” he ventured, stealing a look at her. She had no reply. He fidgeted a moment and then began drumming with his fingers on the arm of the sofa.

“Please don’t do that,” she said.

He stopped suddenly.

“If you would be good enough, kind enough,” he said it sarcastically, “to indicate, to suggest even, what I am to do—to say.”

“I’m sure I can’t,” she said. “You came. I presumed you had something to say to me.”

“Well, I have something to say to you,” Vernon went on impetuously. “Why didn’t you answer my letters? Why have you treated me this way? That’s what I want to know.”

He leaned toward her. He was conscious of two emotions, two passions, struggling within him, one of anger, almost hate, the other of love, and strangely enough they had a striking similarity in their effect upon him. He felt like reproaching, yet he knew that was not the way, and he made a desperate struggle to conquer himself.

He tried to look into her face, but she only turned farther away from him.

“I’ve spent the most miserable week I ever knew, doomed to stay here, unable to get away to go to you, and with this fight on my hands!”

“You seemed to be having a fairly good time,” the girl said.

“Now, Amelia, look here,” said Vernon, “let’s not act like children any longer; let’s not have anything so foolish and little between us.”

His tone made his words a plea, but it plainly had no effect upon her, for she did not answer. They sat there, then, in silence.

“Why didn’t you write?” Vernon demanded after a little while. He looked at her, and she straightened up and her eyes flashed.

“Why didn’t I write!” she exclaimed. “What was I to write, pray? Were not your letters full of this odious Maria Burlaps Greene? And as if that were not enough, weren’t the papers full of you two? And that speech—oh, that speech—that Portia and Helen, and ‘I fill this cup to one made up,’ ah, it was sickening!” She flirted away again.

“But, darling,” Vernon cried, “listen—you misunderstood—I meant all that for you, didn’t you understand?”

She stirred.

“Didn’t you see? Why, dearest, I thought that when you read the papers you’d be the proudest girl alive!”

Her lip curled.

“I read the papers,” she said, and then added, significantly, “this once, anyway.”

“Well, you certainly don’t intend to hold me responsible for what the papers say, do you?”

She resumed her old attitude, her elbow on the arm of the sofa, her chin in her hand, and looked out the window. And she began to hum again.

“And then,” he pressed on, “to come down here and not even let me know; why you even called me Mister Vernon when I came into the dining-room.”

“Yes,” she exclaimed, suddenly wheeling about, “I saw you come into the dining-room this morning!” Her eyes grew dark and flashed.

He regretted, on the instant.

“I saw you!” she went on. “I saw you rush up to that Maria Burlaps Greene woman, and—oh, it was horrid!”

“Her name isn’t Burlaps, dear,” said Vernon.

“How do you know her name, I’d like to know!” She put her hands to her face. He saw her tears.

“Amelia,” he said masterfully, “if you don’t stop that! Listen—we’ve got to get down to business.”

She hastily brushed the tears from her eyes. She was humming once more, and tapping the toe of her boot on the carpet, though she was not tapping it in time to her tune.

“Why did you come down without letting me know?” Vernon went on; but still she was silent.

“You might at least have given me—”

“Warning?” she said, with a keen inflection.

“Amelia!” he said, and his tone carried a rebuke.

“Well, I don’t care!” she cried. “It’s all true! You couldn’t stay for my dinner, but you could come off down here and—”

She covered her face with her hands and burst suddenly into tears. Vernon gazed at her in astonishment.

“Why, dearest!” he said, leaning over, and trying to take her in his arms. She drew away from him, and sobbed. Vernon glanced about the room helplessly. He pleaded with her, but she would not listen; neither would she be comforted, but continued to sob. Vernon, in a man’s anguish with a weeping woman, stood up.

“Amelia! Amelia!” He bent over her and spoke firmly. “You must not! Listen to me! We must go over to—”

Suddenly he stood erect, and jerked out his watch.

“Heavens!” he cried. “It’s half-past ten!”

She tried to control herself then, and sitting up, began to wipe her eyes.

“Sweetheart,” he said, “I must go now. I should have been in the Senate at ten o’clock; I hate to leave you, but I’ll explain everything when I get back.”

He waited an instant, then he went on:

“Aren’t you going to say ‘Good bye’?”

Amelia got up.

“I’ll go, too,” she said. She was still catching little sobs in her throat, now and then. Vernon looked at her in some surprise.

“Why—” he began, incredulously.

She must have divined his surprise.

“I have to help Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop,” she said, as if in explanation. “But, of course, I hate to bother you.”

“Oh, nonsense, dearest,” he said, impatiently. “Come on. Let’s start.”

“But I can’t go looking this way,” she said. She walked across the room, and standing before a mirror, wiped her eyes carefully, then arranged her hat and her veil.

“Would anybody know?” she asked, facing about for his inspection.

“Never—come on.”

They went out, and down the elevator. When they reached the entrance, Vernon looked up and down the street, but there was no carriage in sight. The street was quiet and the hotel wore an air of desertion, telling that all the political activity of Illinois had been transferred to the State House. Vernon looked around the corner, but the old hack that always stood there was not at its post.

“We’ll have to walk,” he said. “It’ll take too long for them to get a carriage around for us. It’s only a few blocks, anyway. The air will do you good.”

As they set forth in the bright morning sun they were calmer, and, having come out into public view, for the time being they dropped their differences and their misunderstandings, and began to talk in their common, ordinary fashion.

“Did Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop ask you to change me on the Ames Amendment?” Vernon asked her.

“The what?”

“The Ames Amendment; that’s the woman-suffrage measure.”

“No, do her justice; she didn’t.”

“What then?”

“She said she wanted me to work against it, that’s all.”

“Didn’t she say anything about asking me not to vote for it?”

“Well, yes; but I told her—”

“What?”

“That I wouldn’t try to influence you in the least.”

Vernon made no reply.

“No,” she went on, “I’m to work against it, of course.”

They were silent then, till suddenly she appealed to him:

“Oh, Morley, I’ve got to ask strange men, men I never met, to vote against it! How am I ever!”

She shuddered.

“It’s all very strange,” Vernon said.

XIV

THEY walked briskly down the sloping street under the railroad bridge and then up the little hill whereon sits the Capitol of Illinois. They could see the big flag high up on the dome standing out in the prairie wind, and the little flags on the House wing and the Senate wing whipping joyously, sprightly symbols of the sitting of both houses.

Now and then they heard cheers from the House wing, where the legislative riot that ends a session was already beginning. They passed into the dark and cool corridors of the State House, then up to the third floor, where members and messenger-boys, correspondents and page-boys, rushed always across from one house to the other, swinging hurriedly around the brass railing of the rotunda. It seemed that the tide of legislative life was just then setting in toward the Senate.

“Oh, Morley,” whispered Amelia, forgetting his offense, and clinging close to him, “I can’t go in there, really I can’t.”

“Nonsense,” said Vernon, “come on. I’ll deliver you to Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop in a minute; then you’ll be perfectly safe. Besides, you have your lobbying to do.”

They reached the Senate entrance, and the doorkeeper, seeing a senator, opened a way through the crowd for their passage. There was confusion everywhere, the nervous and excited hum of voices from the floor, from the vestibule, from the galleries, from all around. And just as they stepped up to the raised floor whereon the desks of senators are placed, the gavel fell, and stillness with it. They saw the lieutenant-governor leaning over his desk, studying a slip of paper he held in his hand.

“On this question,” he said, “the yeas are thirty and the nays are seventeen; and two-thirds of the members-elect having failed to vote in the affirmative, the resolution is lost.”

Vernon stood transfixed. The whole thing was borne in upon him; he saw Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, and the expression of calm and lofty satisfaction that had settled on her face told him that it was the Ames Amendment that had been lost. But some new thought seemed to strike her, for when Senator Porter looked around with something like a smile of congratulation, she beckoned him, and he hastened to her side.

“Move to reconsider and to lay on the table,” she said, and with a look of admiration he turned and made the motion. It was put, it was carried of course, and the amendment was lost irrevocably.

“Well, that’s attended to,” said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop. “Ah, Morley,” she said calmly, “you here? And Amelia?”

“She’s here,” he said, “and I—I didn’t get here on time!” The shame and mortification on his face were pitiable, though they could not have touched Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop’s heart.

“And I didn’t get here on time,” he repeated ruefully.

“Why, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, “I didn’t intend that you should.”

He looked at her fiercely, angrily, a second.

“So that was the game, was it?” he said. He whirled, with another fierce look, on Amelia.

“That was the game, yes, Morley,” said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, “but you needn’t look at Amelia so—she was utterly innocent, the dear little thing.”

Amelia came up. She had seen Vernon’s expression.

“What is it—what has happened?” she inquired.

“Well, I got here too late, that’s all,” said Vernon. “I was detained, and Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop has just now kindly told me that she had arranged that I should be. I’m ruined, that’s all; I’m lost.”

“No, Morley,” said Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop, “you’re saved. You’re saved from yourself.” She still smiled at him sweetly. “You might have made, don’t you know, another one of your speeches.”

Vernon bit his lip and walked away. He encountered Martin, but could only look at him helplessly. Martin returned his look with one of surprise.

“You here?” he said.

“Well, yes,” replied Vernon. “At last—too late, it seems.”

The surprise had not left Martin’s face; to it was now added a perplexity.

“If we’d known,” said Martin; “but we thought, that is, we heard, that you had ducked.”

Vernon shook his head as with a pain that would not let him speak. He was looking disconsolately across the chamber to where Miss Greene stood talking with Bull Burns. As in a dream, he heard Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop exclaim:

“Ah, there is that Greene woman!”

Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop was lifting her gold glasses again. Vernon was wondering how he was to face the Greene woman. But at Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop’s words an idea came to him.

“I’ll go bring her and introduce her,” he said. He bolted away and went toward her. She was cold and distant. Fortunately, Burns fled at his approach.

“Can you forgive me?” he said. “I’ll explain it all in an instant.”

“And how?” she asked with a chill rise in her tone.

“Have you ever met Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop?” he asked significantly.

“No,” she answered.

“Then permit me,” he said. She went with him. Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop had withdrawn her delegation to the rear of the chamber, and there awaited Vernon’s return.

“Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, permit me to present Miss Greene; Miss Ansley, Miss Greene.” And so on, in the order of relative rank, he introduced her to the other ladies.

Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop extended her hand officially. Miss Greene took it with a smile.

“I am very glad,” she said, “to meet Mrs.—Mrs.—ah, pardon me, but what was the name?”

“Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop,” Vernon said.

“Ah, Mrs. Lathrop.”

Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop seemed, to the eye, to swell.

“You have a charming little city here, Mrs. Lathrop. We poor Chicagoans love to get down into the country once in a while, you know.”

Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop reared back a little.

“No doubt,” she stammered. “I have always found it so.”

Miss Greene feigned surprise, and affected a look of perplexity. Vernon withdrew a step, and with his chin in his hand looked on out of eyes that gloated. The other women in the party exchanged glances of horror and wrath. Mrs. Barbourton, for her part, seemed unable to endure it.

“Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop lives in Chicago,” she interjected.

“Oh!” cried Miss Greene. “Is it possible? How very strange that one could live in the city all one’s life and yet not have heard!”

“Not so very strange, I fancy,” said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop. “One’s circle is apt to be so far removed.”

“Yes?” said Miss Greene, with that rising inflection. “Then you can not have lived in Chicago long?”

“All my life,” snapped Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop.

“So long as that!” said Miss Greene with eyes that stared incredibility. Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop actually colored.

“You are enjoying your visit to Springfield, I trust? You have seen the Lincoln Monument and the Homestead? How very interesting they must be! And the Legislature offers novelty; don’t you find it so?” She gathered her skirts as if to withdraw. But Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop achieved a smile.

“We have not enjoyed the pleasures of sight-seeing. On the contrary, we came to appear before the Senate,” she said.

Miss Greene surveyed her critically, with that look in which one woman inspects another woman’s attire. She then extended her critical scrutiny to the dress of the others.

“To be sure!” she said, “I should have known.”

The ladies again exchanged glances. Mrs. Barbourton plainly could not bear that their position should be equivocal. She doubtless had her little vainglorious wish to have their success known.

“Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop came down to appear in opposition to the woman’s-rights resolution!” She emphasized the word woman as if she would not for worlds have been a woman herself.

“Indeed!” exclaimed Miss Greene. “I am sure her appearance must have been a very convincing argument.” She gave her opponent another searching glance. Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop was having difficulty in getting her breath.

“We have been having a taste of lobbying, Miss Greene,” she began, “and—”

“How unpleasant!” said she.

“You know, possibly,” said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, regaining something of her position.

“Indeed I do,” Miss Greene assented sweetly, “but where it is in the line of one’s profession, duty obscures the unpleasantness. One can not, you know, always choose one’s occupation. Good morning!”

And catching her skirts, with a smile and a bow she left.

The successful lobbyists stood in silence a moment, looked one to another with wide and staring eyes. Then at last Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop spoke.

“Morley,” she said, “I do wish you could learn to discriminate in your introductions.”