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54-40 or Fight

by Emerson Hough · English · Gutenberg #14355 · 502,482 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: 54-40 or Fight

Author: Emerson Hough

Illustrator: Arthur Ignatius Keller


        
Release date: December 15, 2004 [eBook #14355]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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54-40 OR FIGHT

by

EMERSON HOUGH

Author of _The Mississippi Bubble_, _The Way of the Man_, etc.

With Four Illustrations by Arthur I. Keller

A. L. Burt Company
Publishers New York

1909







[Illustration: "Madam," said I, "let me, at least, alone." Page 49]




     TO
     Theodore Roosevelt

     PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
     AND FIRM BELIEVER IN THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE

     THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
     WITH THE LOYALTY AND ADMIRATION
     OF THE AUTHOR




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

     I THE MAKERS OF MAPS
    II BY SPECIAL DESPATCH
   III IN ARGUMENT
    IV THE BARONESS HELENA
     V ONE OF THE WOMEN IN THE CASE
    VI THE BOUDOIR OF THE BARONESS
   VII REGARDING ELISABETH
  VIII MR. CALHOUN ACCEPTS
    IX A KETTLE OF FISH
     X MIXED DUTIES
    XI WHO GIVETH THIS WOMAN
   XII THE MARATHON
  XIII ON SECRET SERVICE
   XIV THE OTHER WOMAN
    XV WITH MADAM THE BARONESS
   XVI DÉJEÛNER A LA FOURCHETTE
  XVII A HUNTER OF BUTTERFLIES
 XVIII THE MISSING SLIPPER
   XIX THE GENTLEMAN FROM TENNESSEE
    XX THE LADY FROM MEXICO
   XXI POLITICS UNDER COVER
  XXII BUT YET A WOMAN
 XXIII SUCCESS IN SILK
  XXIV THE WHOA-HAW TRAIL
   XXV OREGON
  XXVI THE DEBATED COUNTRY
 XXVII IN THE CABIN OF MADAM
XXVIII WHEN A WOMAN WOULD
  XXIX IN EXCHANGE
   XXX COUNTER CURRENTS
  XXXI THE PAYMENT
 XXXII PAKENHAM'S PRICE
XXXIII THE STORY OF HELENA VON RITZ
 XXXIV THE VICTORY
  XXXV THE PROXY OF PAKENHAM
 XXXVI THE PALO ALTO BALL
       EPILOGUE





CHAPTER I

THE MAKERS OF MAPS

     There is scarcely a single cause in which a woman is not engaged in
     some way fomenting the suit.--_Juvenal_.


"Then you offer me no hope, Doctor?" The gray mane of Doctor Samuel Ward
waved like a fighting crest as he made answer:

"Not the sort of hope you ask." A moment later he added: "John, I am
ashamed of you."

The cynical smile of the man I called my chief still remained upon his
lips, the same drawn look of suffering still remained upon his gaunt
features; but in his blue eye I saw a glint which proved that the answer
of his old friend had struck out some unused spark of vitality from the
deep, cold flint of his heart.

"I never knew you for a coward, Calhoun," went on Doctor Ward, "nor any
of your family I give you now the benefit of my personal acquaintance
with this generation of the Calhouns. I ask something more of you than
faint-heartedness."

The keen eyes turned upon him again with the old flame of flint which a
generation had known--a generation, for the most part, of enemies. On my
chief's face I saw appear again the fighting flush, proof of his
hard-fibered nature, ever ready to rejoin with challenge when challenge
came.

"Did not Saul fall upon his own sword?" asked John Calhoun. "Have not
devoted leaders from the start of the world till now sometimes rid the
scene of the responsible figures in lost fights, the men on whom blame
rested for failures?"

"Cowards!" rejoined Doctor Ward. "Cowards, every one of them! Were there
not other swords upon which they might have fallen--those of their
enemies?"

"It is not my own hand--my own sword, Sam," said Calhoun. "Not that. You
know as well as I that I am already marked and doomed, even as I sit at
my table to-night. A walk of a wet night here in Washington--a turn
along the Heights out there when the winter wind is keen--yes, Sam, I
see my grave before me, close enough; but how can I rest easy in that
grave? Man, we have not yet dreamed how great a country this may be. We
_must_ have Texas. We _must_ have also Oregon. We must have--"

"Free?" The old doctor shrugged his shoulders and smiled at the arch
pro-slavery exponent.

"Then, since you mention it, yes!" retorted Calhoun fretfully. "But I
shall not go into the old argument of those who say that black is white,
that South is North. It is only for my own race that I plan a wider
America. But then--" Calhoun raised a long, thin hand. "Why," he went on
slowly, "I have just told you that I have failed. And yet you, my old
friend, whom I ought to trust, condemn me to live on!"

Doctor Samuel Ward took snuff again, but all the answer he made was to
waggle his gray mane and stare hard at the face of the other.

"Yes," said he, at length, "I condemn you to fight on, John;" and he
smiled grimly.

"Why, look at you, man!" he broke out fiercely, after a moment. "The
type and picture of combat! Good bone, fine bone and hard; a hard head
and bony; little eye, set deep; strong, wiry muscles, not too
big--fighting muscles, not dough; clean limbs; strong fingers; good
arms, legs, neck; wide chest--"

"Then you give me hope?" Calhoun flashed a smile at him.

"No, sir! If you do your duty, there is no hope for you to live. If you
do not do your duty, there is no hope for you to die, John Calhoun, for
more than two years to come--perhaps five years--six. Keep up this
work--as you must, my friend--and you die as surely as though I shot you
through as you sit there. Now, is this any comfort to you?"

A gray pallor overspread my master's face. That truth is welcome to no
man, morbid or sane, sound or ill; but brave men meet it as this one
did.

"Time to do much!" he murmured to himself. "Time to mend many broken
vessels, in those two years. One more fight--yes, let us have it!"

But Calhoun the man was lost once more in Calhoun the visionary, the
fanatic statesman. He summed up, as though to himself, something of the
situation which then existed at Washington.

"Yes, the coast is clearer, now that Webster is out of the cabinet, but
Mr. Upshur's death last month brings in new complications. Had he
remained our secretary of state, much might have been done. It was only
last October he proposed to Texas a treaty of annexation."

"Yes, and found Texas none so eager," frowned Doctor Ward.

"No; and why not? You and I know well enough. Sir Richard Pakenham, the
English plenipotentiary here, could tell if he liked. _England_ is busy
with Texas. Texas owes large funds to _England. England_ wants Texas as
a colony. There is fire under this smoky talk of Texas dividing into two
governments, one, at least, under England's gentle and unselfish care!

"And now, look you," Calhoun continued, rising, and pacing up and down,
"look what is the evidence. Van Zandt, _chargé d'affaires_ in Washington
for the Republic of Texas, wrote Secretary Upshur only a month before
Upshur's death, and told him to go carefully or he would drive Mexico to
resume the war, _and so cost Texas the friendship of England!_ Excellent
Mr. Van Zandt! I at least know what the friendship of England means. So,
he asks us if we will protect Texas with troops and ships in case she
_does_ sign that agreement of annexation. Cunning Mr. Van Zandt! He
knows what that answer must be to-day, with England ready to fight us
for Texas and Oregon both, and we wholly unready for war. Cunning Mr.
Van Zandt, covert friend of England! And lucky Mr. Upshur, who was
killed, and so never had to make that answer!"

"But, John, another will have to make it, the one way or the other,"
said his friend.

"Yes!" The long hand smote on the table.

"President Tyler has offered you Mr. Upshur's portfolio as secretary of
state?"

"Yes!" The long hand smote again.

Doctor Ward made no comment beyond a long whistle, as he recrossed his
legs. His eyes were fixed on Calhoun's frowning face. "There will be
events!" said he at length, grinning.

"I have not yet accepted," said Calhoun. "If I do, it will be to bring
Texas and Oregon into this Union, one slave, the other free, but both
vast and of a mighty future for us. That done, I resign at once."

"Will you accept?"

Calhoun's answer was first to pick up a paper from his desk. "See, here
is the despatch Mr. Pakenham brought from Lord Aberdeen of the British
ministry to Mr. Upshur just two days before his death. Judge whether
Aberdeen wants liberty--or territory! In effect he reasserts England's
right to interfere in our affairs. We fought one war to disprove that.
England has said enough on this continent. And England has meddled
enough."

Calhoun and Ward looked at each other, sober in their realization of the
grave problems which then beset American statesmanship and American
thought. The old doctor was first to break the silence. "Then do you
accept? Will you serve again, John?"

"Listen to me. If I do accept, I shall take Mr. Upshur's and Mr.
Nelson's place only on one condition--yes, if I do, here is what _I_
shall say to England regarding Texas. I shall show her what a Monroe
Doctrine is; shall show her that while Texas is small and weak, Texas
_and_ this republic are not. This is what I have drafted as a possible
reply. I shall tell Mr. Pakenham that his chief's avowal of intentions
has made it our _imperious duty_, in self-defense, to hasten the
annexation of Texas, cost what it may, mean what it may! John Calhoun
does not shilly-shally.

"_That_ will be my answer," repeated my chief at last. Again they looked
gravely, each into the other's eye, each knowing what all this might
mean.

"Yes, I shall have Texas, as I shall have Oregon, settled before I lay
down my arms, Sam Ward. No, I am _not_ yet ready to die!" Calhoun's old
fire now flamed in all his mien.

"The situation is extremely difficult," said his friend slowly. "It must
be done; but how? We are as a nation not ready for war. You as a
statesman are not adequate to the politics of all this. Where is your
political party, John? You have none. You have outrun all parties. It
will be your ruin, that you have been honest!"

Calhoun turned on him swiftly. "You know as well as I that mere politics
will not serve. It will take some extraordinary measure--you know
men--and, perhaps, _women_."

"Yes," said Doctor Ward, "and a precious silly lot: they are; the two
running after each other and forgetting each other; using and wasting
each other; ruining and despoiling each other, all the years, from Troy
to Rome! But yes! For a man, set a woman for a trap. _Vice versa_, I
suppose?"

Calhoun nodded, with a thin smile. "As it chances, I need a man. Ergo,
and very plainly, I must use a woman!"

They looked at each other for a moment. That Calhoun planned some
deep-laid stratagem was plain, but his speech for the time remained
enigmatic, even to his most intimate companion.

"There are two women in our world to-day," said Calhoun. "As to Jackson,
the old fool was a monogamist, and still is. Not so much so Jim Polk of
Tennessee. Never does he appear in public with eyes other than for the
Doña Lucrezia of the Mexican legation! Now, one against the
other--Mexico against Austria--"

Doctor Ward raised his eyebrows in perplexity.

"That is to say, England, and _not_ Austria," went on Calhoun coldly.
"The ambassadress of England to America was born in Budapest! So I say,
Austria; or perhaps Hungary, or some other country, which raised this
strange representative who has made some stir in Washington here these
last few weeks."

"Ah, _you mean the baroness!_" exclaimed Doctor Ward. "Tut! Tut!"

Calhoun nodded, with the same cold, thin smile. "Yes," he said, "I mean
Mr. Pakenham's reputed mistress, his assured secret agent and spy, the
beautiful Baroness von Ritz!"

He mentioned a name then well known in diplomatic and social life, when
intrigue in Washington, if not open, was none too well hidden.

"Gay Sir Richard!" he resumed. "You know, his ancestor was a
brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington. He himself seems to have
absorbed some of the great duke's fondness for the fair. Before he came
to us he was with England's legation in Mexico. 'Twas there he first met
the Doña Lucrezia. 'Tis said he would have remained in Mexico had it not
been arranged that she and her husband, Señor Yturrio, should accompany
General Almonte in the Mexican ministry here. On _these_ conditions, Sir
Richard agreed to accept promotion as minister plenipotentiary to
Washington!"

"That was nine years ago," commented Doctor Ward.

"Yes; and it was only last fall that he was made envoy extraordinary. He
is at least an extraordinary envoy! Near fifty years of age, he seems to
forget public decency; he forgets even the Doña Lucrezia, leaving her to
the admiration of Mr. Polk and Mr. Van Zandt, and follows off after the
sprightly Baroness von Ritz. Meantime, Señor Yturrio _also_
forgets the Doña Lucrezia, and proceeds _also_ to follow after the
baroness--although with less hope than Sir Richard, as they say! At
least Pakenham has taste! The Baroness von Ritz has brains and beauty
both. It is _she_ who is England's real envoy. Now, I believe she knows
England's real intentions as to Texas."

Doctor Ward screwed his lips for a long whistle, as he contemplated John
Calhoun's thin, determined face.

"I do not care at present to say more," went on my chief; "but do you
not see, granted certain motives, Polk might come into power pledged to
the extension of our Southwest borders--"

"Calhoun, are you mad?" cried his friend. "Would you plunge this country
into war? Would you pit two peoples, like cocks on a floor? And would
you use women in our diplomacy?"

Calhoun now was no longer the friend, the humanitarian. He was the
relentless machine; the idea; the single purpose, which to the world at
large he had been all his life in Congress, in cabinets, on this or the
other side of the throne of American power. He spoke coldly as he went
on:

"In these matters it is not a question of means, but of results. If war
comes, let it come; although I hope it will not come. As to the use of
women--tell me, _why not women?_ Why anything _else_ but women? It is
only playing life against life; one variant against another. That is
politics, my friend. I _want_ Pakenham. So, I must learn what _Pakenham_
wants! Does he want Texas for England, or the Baroness von Ritz _for
himself?_"

Ward still sat and looked at him. "My God!" said he at last, softly; but
Calhoun went on:

"Why, who has made the maps of the world, and who has written pages in
its history? Who makes and unmakes cities and empires and republics
to-day? _Woman_, and not man! Are you so ignorant--and you a physician,
who know them both? Gad, man, you do not understand your own profession,
and yet you seek to counsel me in mine!"

"Strange words from you, John," commented his friend, shaking his head;
"not seemly for a man who stands where you stand to-day."

"Strange weapons--yes. If I could always use my old weapons of tongue
and brain, I would not need these, perhaps. Now you tell me my time is
short. I must fight now to win. I have never fought to lose. I can not
be too nice in agents and instruments."

The old doctor rose and took a turn up and down the little room, one of
Calhoun's modest ménage at the nation's capital, which then was not the
city it is to-day. Calhoun followed him with even steps.

"Changes of maps, my friend? Listen to me. The geography of America for
the next fifty years rests under a little roof over in M Street
to-night--a roof which Sir Richard secretly maintains. The map of the
United States, I tell you, is covered with a down counterpane _à deux_,
to-night. You ask me to go on with my fight. I answer, first I must find
the woman. Now, I say, I have found her, as you know. Also, I have told
you _where_ I have found her. Under a counterpane! Texas, Oregon, these
United States under a counterpane!"

Doctor Ward sighed, as he shook his head. "I don't pretend to know now
all you mean."

Calhoun whirled on him fiercely, with a vigor which his wasted frame did
not indicate as possible.

"Listen, then, and I will tell you what John Calhoun means--John
Calhoun, who has loved his own state, who has hated those who hated him,
who has never prayed for those who despitefully used him, who has fought
and will fight, since all insist on that. It is true Tyler has offered
me again to-day the portfolio of secretary of state. Shall I take it? If
I do, it means that I am employed by this administration to secure the
admission of Texas. Can you believe me when I tell you that my ambition
is for it all--_all_, every foot of new land, west to the Pacific, that
we can get, slave _or_ free? Can you believe John Calhoun, pro-slavery
advocate and orator all his life, when he says that he believes he is an
humble instrument destined, with God's aid, and through the use of such
instruments as our human society affords, to build, _not_ a wider slave
country, but a wider America?"

"It would be worth the fight of a few years more, Calhoun," gravely
answered his old friend. "I admit I had not dreamed this of you."

"History will not write it of me, perhaps," went on my chief. "But you
tell me to fight, and now I shall fight, and in my own way. I tell you,
that answer shall go to Pakenham. And I tell you, Pakenham shall not
_dare_ take offense at me. War with Mexico we possibly, indeed
certainly, shall have. War on the Northwest, too, we yet may have
unless--" He paused; and Doctor Ward prompted him some moments later, as
he still remained in thought.

"Unless what, John? What do you mean--still hearing the rustle of
skirts?"

"Yes!--unless the celebrated Baroness Helena von Ritz says otherwise!"
replied he grimly.

"How dignified a diplomacy have we here! You plan war between two
embassies on the distaff side!" smiled Doctor Ward.

Calhoun continued his walk. "I do not say so," he made answer; "but, if
there must be war, we may reflect that war is at its best when woman
_is_ in the field!"




CHAPTER II

BY SPECIAL DESPATCH

     In all eras and all climes a woman of great genius or beauty has
     done what she chose.--_Ouido_.


"Nicholas," said Calhoun, turning to me suddenly, but with his
invariable kindliness of tone, "oblige me to-night. I have written a
message here. You will see the address--"

"I have unavoidably heard this lady's name," I hesitated.

"You will find the lady's name above the seal. Take her this message
from me. Yes, your errand is to bring the least known and most talked of
woman in Washington, alone, unattended save by yourself, to a
gentleman's apartments, to his house, at a time past the hour of
midnight! That gentleman is myself! You must not take any answer in the
negative."

As I sat dumbly, holding this sealed document in my hand, he turned to
Doctor Ward, with a nod toward myself.

"I choose my young aide, Mr. Trist here, for good reasons. He is just
back from six months in the wilderness, and may be shy; but once he had
a way with women, so they tell me--and you know, in approaching the
question _ad feminam_ we operate _per hominem_."

Doctor Ward took snuff with violence as he regarded me critically.

"I do not doubt the young man's sincerity and faithfulness," said he. "I
was only questioning one thing."

"Yes?"

"His age."

Calhoun rubbed his chin. "Nicholas," said he, "you heard me. I have no
wish to encumber you with useless instructions. Your errand is before
you. Very much depends upon it, as you have heard. All I can say is,
keep your head, keep your feet, and keep your heart!"

The two older men both turned now, and smiled at me in a manner not
wholly to my liking. Neither was this errand to my liking.

It was true, I was hardly arrived home after many months in the West;
but I had certain plans of my own for that very night, and although as
yet I had made no definite engagement with my fiancée, Miss Elisabeth
Churchill, of Elmhurst Farm, for meeting her at the great ball this
night, such certainly was my desire and my intention. Why, I had scarce
seen Elisabeth twice in the last year.

"How now, Nick, my son?" began my chief. "Have staff and scrip been your
portion so long that you are wholly wedded to them? Come, I think the
night might promise you something of interest. I assure you of one
thing--you will receive no willing answer from the fair baroness. She
will scoff at you, and perhaps bid you farewell. See to it, then; do
what you like, but bring her _with_ you, and bring her _here_.

"You will realize the importance of all this when I tell you that my
answer to Mr. Tyler must be in before noon to-morrow. That answer will
depend upon the answer the Baroness von Ritz makes to _me_, here,
to-night! I can not go to her, so she must come to me. You have often
served me well, my son. Serve me to-night. My time is short; I have no
moves to lose. It is you who will decide before morning whether or not
John Calhoun is the next secretary of state. And that will decide
whether or not Texas is to be a state." I had never seen Mr. Calhoun so
intent, so absorbed.

We all three now sat silent in the little room where the candles
guttered in the great glass _cylindres_ on the mantel--an apartment
scarce better lighted by the further aid of lamps fed by oil.

"He might be older," said Calhoun at length, speaking of me as though I
were not present. "And 'tis a hard game to play, if once my lady Helena
takes it into her merry head to make it so for him. But if I sent one
shorter of stature and uglier of visage and with less art in approaching
a crinoline--why, perhaps he would get no farther than her door. No; he
will serve--he _must_ serve!"

He arose now, and bowed to us both, even as I rose and turned for my
cloak to shield me from the raw drizzle which then was falling in the
streets. Doctor Ward reached down his own shaggy top hat from the rack.

"To bed with you now, John," said he sternly.

"No, I must write."

"You heard me say, to bed with you! A stiff toddy to make you sleep.
Nicholas here may wake you soon enough with his mysterious companion. I
think to-morrow will be time enough for you to work, and to-morrow very
likely will bring work for you to do."

Calhoun sighed. "God!" he exclaimed, "if I but had back my strength! If
there were more than those scant remaining years!"

"Go!" said he suddenly; and so we others passed down his step and out
into the semi-lighted streets.

So this, then, was my errand. My mind still tingled at its unwelcome
quality. Doctor Ward guessed something of my mental dissatisfaction.

"Never mind, Nicholas," said he, as we parted at the street corner,
where he climbed into the rickety carriage which his colored driver held
awaiting him. "Never mind. I don't myself quite know what Calhoun wants;
but he would not ask of you anything personally improper. Do his errand,
then. It is part of your work. In any case--" and I thought I saw him
grin in the dim light--"you may have a night which you will remember."

There proved to be truth in what he said.




CHAPTER III

IN ARGUMENT

     The egotism of women is always for two.--_Mme. De Stäel_.


The thought of missing my meeting with Elisabeth still rankled in my
soul. Had it been another man who asked me to carry this message, I must
have refused. But this man was my master, my chief, in whose service I
had engaged.

Strange enough it may seem to give John Calhoun any title showing love
or respect. To-day most men call him traitor--call him the man
responsible for the war between North and South--call him the arch
apostle of that impossible doctrine of slavery, which we all now admit
was wrong. Why, then, should I love him as I did? I can not say, except
that I always loved, honored and admired courage, uprightness,
integrity.

For myself, his agent, I had, as I say, left the old Trist homestead at
the foot of South Mountain in Maryland, to seek my fortune in our
capital city. I had had some three or four years' semi-diplomatic
training when I first met Calhoun and entered his service as assistant.
It was under him that I finished my studies in law. Meantime, I was his
messenger in very many quests, his source of information in many matters
where he had no time to go into details.

Strange enough had been some of the circumstances in which I found
myself thrust through this relation with a man so intimately connected
for a generation with our public life. Adventures were always to my
liking, and surely I had my share. I knew the frontier marches of
Tennessee and Alabama, the intricacies of politics of Ohio and New York,
mixed as those things were in Tyler's time. I had even been as far west
as the Rockies, of which young Frémont was now beginning to write so
understandingly. For six months I had been in Mississippi and Texas
studying matters and men, and now, just back from Natchitoches, I felt
that I had earned some little rest.

But there was the fascination of it--that big game of politics. No, I
will call it by its better name of statesmanship, which sometimes it
deserved in those days, as it does not to-day. That was a day of
Warwicks. The nominal rulers did not hold the greatest titles.
Naturally, I knew something of these things, from the nature of my work
in Calhoun's office. I have had insight into documents which never
became public. I have seen treaties made. I have seen the making of
maps go forward. This, indeed, I was in part to see that very night, and
curiously, too.

How the Baroness von Ritz--beautiful adventuress as she was sometimes
credited with being, charming woman as she was elsewhere described,
fascinating and in some part dangerous to any man, as all
admitted--could care to be concerned with this purely political question
of our possible territories, I was not shrewd enough at that moment in
advance to guess; for I had nothing more certain than the rumor she was
England's spy. I bided my time, knowing that ere long the knowledge must
come to me in Calhoun's office even in case I did not first learn more
than Calhoun himself.

Vaguely in my conscience I felt that, after all, my errand was
justified, even though at some cost to my own wishes and my own pride.
The farther I walked in the dark along Pennsylvania Avenue, into which
finally I swung after I had crossed Rock Bridge, the more I realized
that perhaps this big game was worth playing in detail and without
quibble as the master mind should dictate. As he was servant of a
purpose, of an ideal of triumphant democracy, why should not I also
serve in a cause so splendid?

I was, indeed, young--Nicholas Trist, of Maryland; six feet tall, thin,
lean, always hungry, perhaps a trifle freckled, a little sandy of hair,
blue I suppose of eye, although I am not sure; good rider and good
marcher, I know; something of an expert with the weapons of my time and
people; fond of a horse and a dog and a rifle--yes, and a glass and a
girl, if truth be told. I was not yet thirty, in spite of my western
travels. At that age the rustle of silk or dimity, the suspicion of
adventure, tempts the worst or the best of us, I fear. Woman!--the very
sound of the word made my blood leap then. I went forward rather
blithely, as I now blush to confess. "If there are maps to be made
to-night," said I, "the Baroness Helena shall do her share in writing on
my chief's old mahogany desk, and not on her own dressing case."

That was an idle boast, though made but to myself. I had not yet met the
woman.




CHAPTER IV

THE BARONESS HELENA

     Woman is seldom merciful to the man who is timid.
                         --_Edward Bulwer Lytton_.

There was one of our dim street lights at a central corner on old
Pennsylvania Avenue, and under it, after a long walk, I paused for a
glance at the inscription on my sealed document. I had not looked at it
before in the confusion of my somewhat hurried mental processes. In
addition to the name and street number, in Calhoun's writing, I read
this memorandum: "Knock at the third door in the second block beyond M
Street"

I recalled the nearest cross street; but I must confess the direction
still seemed somewhat cryptic. Puzzled, I stood under the lamp,
shielding the face of the note under my cloak to keep off the rain, as I
studied it.

The sound of wheels behind me on the muddy pavement called my attention,
and I looked about. A carriage came swinging up to the curb where I
stood. It was driven rapidly, and as it approached the door swung open.
I heard a quick word, and the driver pulled up his horses. I saw the
light shine through the door on a glimpse of white satin. I looked
again. Yes, it was a beckoning hand! The negro driver looked at me
inquiringly.

Ah, well, I suppose diplomacy under the stars runs much the same in all
ages. I have said that I loved Elisabeth, but also said I was not yet
thirty. Moreover, I was a gentleman, and here might be a lady in need of
help. I need not say that in a moment I was at the side of the carriage.
Its occupant made no exclamation of surprise; in fact, she moved back
upon the other side of the seat in the darkness, as though to make room
for me!

I was absorbed in a personal puzzle. Here was I, messenger upon some
important errand, as I might guess. But white satin and a midnight
adventure--at least, a gentleman might bow and ask if he could be of
assistance!

A dark framed face, whose outlines I could only dimly see in the faint
light of the street lamp, leaned toward me. The same small hand
nervously reached out, as though in request.

I now very naturally stepped closer. A pair of wide and very dark eyes
was looking into mine. I could now see her face. There was no smile upon
her lips. I had never seen her before, that was sure--nor did I ever
think to see her like again; I could say that even then, even in the
half light. Just a trifle foreign, the face; somewhat dark, but not too
dark; the lips full, the eyes luminous, the forehead beautifully arched,
chin and cheek beautifully rounded, nose clean-cut and straight, thin
but not pinched. There was nothing niggard about her. She was
magnificent--a magnificent woman. I saw that she had splendid jewels at
her throat, in her ears--a necklace of diamonds, long hoops of diamonds
and emeralds used as ear-rings; a sparkling clasp which caught at her
white throat the wrap which she had thrown about her ball gown--for now
I saw she was in full evening dress. I guessed she had been an attendant
at the great ball, that ball which I had missed with so keen a regret
myself--the ball where I had hoped to dance with Elisabeth. Without
doubt she had lost her way and was asking the first stranger for
instructions to her driver.

My lady, whoever she was, seemed pleased with her rapid temporary
scrutiny. With a faint murmur, whether of invitation or not I scarce
could tell, she drew back again to the farther side of the seat. Before
I knew how or why, I was at her side. The driver pushed shut the door,
and whipped up his team.

Personally I am gifted with but small imagination. In a very matter of
fact way I had got into this carriage with a strange lady. Now in a
sober and matter of fact way it appeared to me my duty to find out the
reason for this singular situation.

"Madam," I remarked to my companion, "in what manner can I be of service
to you this evening?"

I made no attempt to explain who I was, or to ask who or what she
herself was, for I had no doubt that our interview soon would be
terminated.

"I am fortunate that you are a gentleman," she said, in a low and soft
voice, quite distinct, quite musical in quality, and marked with just
the faintest trace of some foreign accent, although her English was
perfect.

I looked again at her. Yes, her hair was dark; that was sure. It swept
up in a great roll above her oval brow. Her eyes, too, must be dark, I
confirmed. Yes--as a passed lamp gave me aid--there were strong dark
brows above them. Her nose, too, was patrician; her chin curving just
strongly enough, but not too full, and faintly cleft, a sign of power,
they say.

A third gracious lamp gave me a glimpse of her figure, huddled back
among her draperies, and I guessed her to be about of medium height. A
fourth lamp showed me her hands, small, firm, white; also I could catch
a glimpse of her arm, as it lay outstretched, her fingers clasping a
fan. So I knew her arms were round and taper, hence all her limbs and
figure finely molded, because nature does not do such things by halves,
and makes no bungles in her symmetry of contour when she plans a noble
specimen of humanity. Here _was_ a noble specimen of what woman may be.

On the whole, as I must confess, I sighed rather comfortably at the
fifth street lamp; for, if my chief must intrust to me adventures of a
dark night--adventures leading to closed carriages and strange
companions--I had far liefer it should be some such woman as this. I was
not in such a hurry to ask again how I might be of service. In fact,
being somewhat surprised and somewhat pleased, I remained silent now for
a time, and let matters adjust themselves; which is not a bad course for
any one similarly engaged.

She turned toward me at last, deliberately, her fan against her lips,
studying me. And I did as much, taking such advantage as I could of the
passing street lamps. Then, all at once, without warning or apology, she
smiled, showing very even and white teeth.

She smiled. There came to me from the purple-colored shadows some sort
of deep perfume, strange to me. I frown at the description of such
things and such emotions, but I swear that as I sat there, a stranger,
not four minutes in companionship with this other stranger, I felt swim
up around me some sort of amber shadow, edged with purple--the shadow,
as I figured it then, being this perfume, curious and alluring!

It was wet, there in the street. Why should I rebel at this stealing
charm of color or fragrance--let those name it better who can. At least
I sat, smiling to myself in my purple-amber shadow, now in no very
special hurry. And now again she smiled, thoughtfully, rather approving
my own silence, as I guessed; perhaps because it showed no unmanly
perturbation--my lack of imagination passing for aplomb.

At last I could not, in politeness, keep this up further.

"_How may I serve the Baroness?_" said I.

She started back on the seat as far as she could go.

"How did you know?" she asked. "And who are _you_?"

I laughed. "I did not know, and did not guess until almost as I began to
speak; but if it comes to that, I might say I am simply an humble
gentleman of Washington here. I might be privileged to peep in at
ambassadors' balls--through the windows, at least."

"But you were not there--you did not see me? I never saw you in my life
until this very moment--how, then, do you know me? Speak! At once!" Her
satins rustled. I knew she was tapping a foot on the carriage floor.

"Madam," I answered, laughing at her; "by this amber purple shadow, with
flecks of scarlet and pink; by this perfume which weaves webs for me
here in this carriage, I know you. The light is poor, but it is good
enough to show one who can be no one else but the Baroness von Ritz."

I was in the mood to spice an adventure which had gone thus far. Of
course she thought me crazed, and drew back again in the shadow; but
when I turned and smiled, she smiled in answer--herself somewhat
puzzled.

"The Baroness von Ritz can not be disguised," I said; "not even if she
wore her domino."

She looked down at the little mask which hung from the silken cord, and
flung it from her.

"Oh, then, very well!" she said. "If you know who I am, who are _you_,
and why do you talk in this absurd way with me, a stranger?"

"And why, Madam, do you take me up, a stranger, in this absurd way, at
midnight, on the streets of Washington?--I, who am engaged on business
for my chief?"

She tapped again with her foot on the carriage floor. "Tell me who you
are!" she said.

"Once a young planter from Maryland yonder; sometime would-be lawyer
here in Washington. It is my misfortune not to be so distinguished in
fame or beauty that my name is known by all; so I need not tell you my
name perhaps, only assuring you that I am at your service if I may be
useful."

"Your name!" she again demanded.

I told her the first one that came to my lips--I do not remember what.
It did not deceive her for a moment.

"Of course that is not your name," she said; "because it does not fit
you. You have me still at disadvantage."

"And me, Madam? You are taking me miles out of my way. How can I help
you? Do you perhaps wish to hunt mushrooms in the Georgetown woods when
morning comes? I wish that I might join you, but I fear--"

"You mock me," she retorted. "Very good. Let me tell you it was not your
personal charm which attracted me when I saw you on the pavement! `Twas
because you were the only man in sight."

I bowed my thanks. For a moment nothing was heard save the steady patter
of hoofs on the ragged pavement. At length she went on.

"I am alone. I have been followed. I was followed when I called to
you--by another carriage. I asked help of the first gentleman I saw,
having heard that Americans all are gentlemen."

"True," said I; "I do not blame you. Neither do I blame the occupant of
the other carriage for following you."

"I pray you, leave aside such chatter!" she exclaimed.

"Very well, then, Madam. Perhaps the best way is for us to be more
straightforward. If I can not be of service I beg you to let me descend,
for I have business which I must execute to-night."

This, of course, was but tentative. I did not care to tell her that my
business was with herself. It seemed almost unbelievable to me that
chance should take this turn.

She dismissed this with an impatient gesture, and continued.

"See, I am alone," she said. "Come with me. Show me my way--I will
pay--I will pay anything in reason." Actually I saw her fumble at her
purse, and the hot blood flew to my forehead.

"What you ask of me, Madam, is impossible," said I, with what courtesy I
could summon. "You oblige me now to tell my real name. I have told you
that I am an American gentleman--Mr. Nicholas Trist. We of this country
do not offer our services to ladies for the sake of pay. But do not be
troubled over any mistake--it is nothing. Now, you have perhaps had some
little adventure in which you do not wish to be discovered. In any case,
you ask me to shake off that carriage which follows us. If that is all,
Madam, it very easily can be arranged."

"Hasten, then," she said. "I leave it to you. I was sure you knew the
city."

I turned and gazed back through the rear window of the carriage. True,
there was another vehicle following us. We were by this time nearly at
the end of Washington's limited pavements. It would be simple after
that. I leaned out and gave our driver some brief orders. We led our
chase across the valley creeks on up the Georgetown hills, and soon as
possible abandoned the last of the pavement, and took to the turf, where
the sound of our wheels was dulled. Rapidly as we could we passed on up
the hill, until we struck a side street where there was no paving. Into
this we whipped swiftly, following the flank of the hill, our going,
which was all of earth or soft turf, now well wetted by the rain. When
at last we reached a point near the summit of the hill, I stopped to
listen. Hearing nothing, I told the driver to pull down the hill by the
side street, and to drive slowly. When we finally came into our main
street again at the foot of the Georgetown hills, not far from the
little creek which divided that settlement from the main city, I could
hear nowhere any sound of our pursuer.

"Madam," said I, turning to her; "I think we may safely say we are
alone. What, now, is your wish?"

"Home!" she said.

"And where is home?"

She looked at me keenly for a time, as though to read some thought which
perhaps she saw suggested either in the tone of my voice or in some
glimpse she might have caught of my features as light afforded. For the
moment she made no answer.

"Is it here?" suddenly I asked her, presenting to her inspection the
sealed missive which I bore.

"I can not see; it is quite dark," she said hurriedly.

"Pardon me, then--" I fumbled for my case of lucifers, and made a faint
light by which she might read. The flare of the match lit up her face
perfectly, bringing out the framing roll of thick dark hair, from which,
as a high light in a mass of shadows, the clear and yet strong features
of her face showed plainly. I saw the long lashes drooped above her dark
eyes, as she bent over studiously. At first the inscription gave her no
information. She pursed her lips and shook her head.

"I do not recognize the address," said she, smiling, as she turned
toward me.

"Is it this door on M Street, as you go beyond this other street?" I
asked her. "Come--think!"

Then I thought I saw the flush deepen on her face, even as the match
flickered and failed.

I leaned out of the door and called to the negro driver. "Home, now,
boy--and drive fast!"

She made no protest.




CHAPTER V

ONE OF THE WOMEN IN THE CASE

     There is a woman at the beginning of all great things.
                                           --_Lamartine_.

A quarter of an hour later, we slowed down on a rough brick pavement,
which led toward what then was an outlying portion of the town--one not
precisely shabby, but by no means fashionable. There was a single lamp
stationed at the mouth of the narrow little street. As we advanced, I
could see outlined upon our right, just beyond a narrow pavement of
brick, a low and not more than semi-respectable house, or rather, row of
houses; tenements for the middle class or poor, I might have said. The
neighborhood, I knew from my acquaintance with the city, was respectable
enough, yet it was remote, and occupied by none of any station.
Certainly it was not to be considered fit residence for a woman such as
this who sat beside me. I admit I was puzzled. The strange errand of my
chief now assumed yet more mystery, in spite of his forewarnings.

"This will do," said she softly, at length. The driver already had
pulled up.

So, then, I thought, she had been here before. But why? Could this
indeed be her residence? Was she incognita here? Was this indeed the
covert embassy of England?

There was no escape from the situation as it lay before me. I had no
time to ponder. Had the circumstances been otherwise, then in loyalty to
Elisabeth I would have handed my lady out, bowed her farewell at her own
gate, and gone away, pondering only the adventures into which the
beckoning of a white hand and the rustling of a silken skirt betimes
will carry a man, if he dares or cares to go. Now, I might not leave. My
duty was here. This was my message; here was she for whom it was
intended; and this was the place which I was to have sought alone. I
needed only to remember that my business was not with Helena von Ritz
the woman, beautiful, fascinating, perhaps dangerous as they said of
her, but with the Baroness von Ritz, in the belief of my chief the ally
and something more than ally of Pakenham, in charge of England's
fortunes on this continent. I did remember my errand and the gravity of
it. I did not remember then, as I did later, that I was young.

I descended at the edge of the narrow pavement, and was about to hand
her out at the step, but as I glanced down I saw that the rain had left
a puddle of mud between the carriage and the walk.

"Pardon, Madam," I said; "allow me to make a light for you--the footing
is bad."

I lighted another lucifer, just as she hesitated at the step. She made
as though to put out her right foot, and withdrew it. Again she shifted,
and extended her left foot. I faintly saw proof that nature had carried
out her scheme of symmetry, and had not allowed wrist and arm to
forswear themselves! I saw also that this foot was clad in the daintiest
of white slippers, suitable enough as part of her ball costume, as I
doubted not was this she wore. She took my hand without hesitation, and
rested her weight upon the step--an adorable ankle now more frankly
revealed. The briefness of the lucifers was merciful or merciless, as
you like.

"A wide step, Madam; be careful," I suggested. But still she hesitated.

A laugh, half of annoyance, half of amusement, broke from her lips. As
the light flickered down, she made as though to take the step; then, as
luck would have it, a bit of her loose drapery, which was made in the
wide-skirted and much-hooped fashion of the time, caught at the hinge of
the carriage door. It was a chance glance, and not intent on my part,
but I saw that her other foot was stockinged, but not shod!

"I beg Madam's pardon," I said gravely, looking aside, "but she has
perhaps not noticed that her other slipper is lost in the carriage."

"Nonsense!" she said. "Allow me your hand across to the walk, please. It
is lost, yes."

"But lost--where?" I began.

"In the other carriage!" she exclaimed, and laughed freely.

Half hopping, she was across the walk, through the narrow gate, and up
at the door before I could either offer an arm or ask for an
explanation. Some whim, however, seized her; some feeling that in
fairness she ought to tell me now part at least of the reason for her
summoning me to her aid.

"Sir," she said, even as her hand reached up to the door knocker; "I
admit you have acted as a gentleman should. I do not know what your
message may be, but I doubt not it is meant for me. Since you have this
much claim on my hospitality, even at this hour, I think I must ask you
to step within. There may be some answer needed."

"Madam," said I, "there _is_ an answer needed. I am to take back that
answer. I know that this message is to the Baroness von Ritz. I guess it
to be important; and I know you are the Baroness von Ritz."

"Well, then," said she, pulling about her half-bared shoulders the light
wrap she wore; "let me be as free with you. If I have missed one shoe, I
have not lost it wholly. I lost the slipper in a way not quite planned
on the program. It hurt my foot. I sought to adjust it behind a curtain.
My gentleman of Mexico was in wine. I fled, leaving my escort, and he
followed. I called to you. You know the rest. I am glad you are less in
wine, and are more a gentleman."

"I do not yet know my answer, Madam."

"Come!" she said; and at once knocked upon the door.

I shall not soon forget the surprise which awaited me when at last the
door swung open silently at the hand of a wrinkled and brown old
serving-woman--not one of our colored women, but of some dark foreign
race. The faintest trace of surprise showed on the old woman's face, but
she stepped back and swung the door wide, standing submissively, waiting
for orders.

We stood now facing what ought to have been a narrow and dingy little
room in a low row of dingy buildings, each of two stories and so shallow
in extent as perhaps not to offer roof space to more than a half dozen
rooms. Instead of what should have been, however, there was a wide
hall--wide as each building would have been from front to back, but
longer than a half dozen of them would have been! I did not know then,
what I learned later, that the partitions throughout this entire row had
been removed, the material serving to fill up one of the houses at the
farthest extremity of the row. There was thus offered a long and narrow
room, or series of rooms, which now I saw beyond possibility of doubt
constituted the residence of this strange woman whom chance had sent me
to address; and whom still stranger chance had thrown in contact with me
even before my errand was begun!

She stood looking at me, a smile flitting over her features, her
stockinged foot extended, toe down, serving to balance her on her
high-heeled single shoe.

"Pardon, sir," she said, hesitating, as she held the sealed epistle in
her hand. "You know me--perhaps you follow me--I do not know. Tell me,
are you a spy of that man Pakenham?"

Her words and her tone startled me. I had supposed her bound to Sir
Richard by ties of a certain sort. Her bluntness and independence
puzzled me as much as her splendid beauty enraptured me. I tried to
forget both.

"Madam, I am spy of no man, unless I am such at order of my chief, John
Calhoun, of the United States Senate--perhaps, if Madam pleases, soon of
Mr. Tyler's cabinet."

In answer, she turned, hobbled to a tiny marquetry table, and tossed the
note down upon it, unopened. I waited patiently, looking about me
meantime. I discovered that the windows were barred with narrow slats
of iron within, although covered with heavy draperies of amber silk.
There was a double sheet of iron covering the door by which we had
entered.

"Your cage, Madam?" I inquired. "I do not blame England for making it so
secret and strong! If so lovely a prisoner were mine, I should double
the bars."

The swift answer to my presumption came in the flush of her cheek and
her bitten lip. She caught up the key from the table, and half motioned
me to the door. But now I smiled in turn, and pointed to the unopened
note on the table. "You will pardon me, Madam," I went on. "Surely it is
no disgrace to represent either England or America. They are not at war.
Why should we be?" We gazed steadily at each other.

The old servant had disappeared when at length her mistress chose to
pick up my unregarded document. Deliberately she broke the seal and
read. An instant later, her anger gone, she was laughing gaily.

"See," said she, bubbling over with her mirth; "I pick up a stranger,
who should say good-by at my curb; my apartments are forced; and this is
what this stranger asks: that I shall go with him, to-night, alone, and
otherwise unattended, to see a man, perhaps high in your government, but
a stranger to me, at his own rooms-alone! Oh, la! la! Surely these
Americans hold me high!"

"Assuredly we do, Madam," I answered. "Will it please you to go in your
own carriage, or shall I return with one for you?"

She put her hands behind her back, holding in them the opened message
from my chief. "I am tired. I am bored. Your impudence amuses me; and
your errand is not your fault. Come, sit down. You have been good to me.
Before you go, I shall have some refreshment brought for you."

I felt a sudden call upon my resources as I found myself in this
singular situation. Here, indeed, more easily reached than I had dared
hope, was the woman in the case. But only half of my errand, the easier
half, was done.




CHAPTER VI

THE BOUDOIR OF THE BARONESS

     A woman's counsel brought us first to woe.--_Dryden_.


"Wait!" she said. "We shall have candles." She clapped her hands
sharply, and again there entered the silent old serving-woman, who,
obedient to a gesture, proceeded to light additional candles in the
prism stands and sconces. The apartment was now distinct in all its
details under this additional flood of light. Decently as I might I
looked about. I was forced to stifle the exclamation of surprise which
rose to my lips.

We were plain folk enough in Washington at that time. The ceremonious
days of our first presidents had passed for the democratic time of
Jefferson and Jackson; and even under Mr. Van Buren there had been
little change from the simplicity which was somewhat our boast.
Washington itself was at that time scarcely more than an overgrown
hamlet, not in the least to be compared to the cosmopolitan centers
which made the capitals of the Old World. Formality and stateliness of a
certain sort we had, but of luxury we knew little. There was at that
time, as I well knew, no state apartment in the city which in sheer
splendor could for a moment compare with this secret abode of a woman
practically unknown. Here certainly was European luxury transferred to
our shores. This in simple Washington, with its vast white unfinished
capitol, its piecemeal miles of mixed residences, boarding-houses,
hotels, restaurants, and hovels! I fancied stern Andrew Jackson or plain
John Calhoun here!

The furniture I discovered to be exquisite in detail, of rosewood and
mahogany, with many brass chasings and carvings, after the fashion of
the Empire, and here and there florid ornamentation following that of
the court of the earlier Louis. Fanciful little clocks with carved
scrolls stood about; Cupid tapestries had replaced the original tawdry
coverings of these common walls, and what had once been a dingy
fireplace was now faced with embossed tiles never made in America. There
were paintings in oil here and there, done by master hands, as one could
tell. The curtained windows spoke eloquently of secrecy. Here and there
a divan and couch showed elaborate care in comfort. Beyond a
lace-screened grille I saw an alcove--doubtless cut through the original
partition wall between two of these humble houses--and within this
stood a high tester bed, its heavy mahogany posts beautifully carved,
the couch itself piled deep with foundations of I know not what of down
and spread most daintily with a coverlid of amber satin, whose edges
fringed out almost to the floor. At the other extremity, screened off as
in a distinct apartment, there stood a smaller couch, a Napoleon bed,
with carved ends, furnished more simply but with equal richness.
Everywhere was the air not only of comfort, but of ease and luxury,
elegance and sensuousness contending. I needed no lesson to tell me that
this was not an ordinary apartment, nor occupied by an ordinary owner.

One resented the liberties England took in establishing this manner of
ménage in our simple city, and arrogantly taking for granted our
ignorance regarding it; but none the less one was forced to commend the
thoroughness shown. The ceilings, of course, remained low, but there was
visible no trace of the original architecture, so cunningly had the
interior been treated. As I have said, the dividing partitions had all
been removed, so that the long interior practically was open, save as
the apartments were separated by curtains or grilles. The floors were
carpeted thick and deep. Silence reigned here. There remained no trace
of the clumsy comfort which had sufficed the early builder. Here was no
longer a series of modest homes, but a boudoir which might have been
the gilded cage of some favorite of an ancient court. The breath and
flavor of this suspicion floated in every drapery, swam in the faint
perfume which filled the place. My first impression was that of
surprise; my second, as I have said, a feeling of resentment at the
presumption which installed all this in our capital of Washington.

I presume my thought may have been reflected in some manner in my face.
I heard a gentle laugh, and turned about. She sat there in a great
carved chair, smiling, her white arms stretched out on the rails, the
fingers just gently curving. There was no apology for her situation, no
trace of alarm or shame or unreadiness. It was quite obvious she was
merely amused. I was in no way ready to ratify the rumors I had heard
regarding her.

She had thrown back over the rail of the chair the rich cloak which
covered her in the carriage, and sat now in the full light, in the
splendor of satin and lace and gems, her arms bare, her throat and
shoulders white and bare, her figure recognized graciously by every line
of a superb gowning such as we had not yet learned on this side of the
sea. Never had I seen, and never since have I seen, a more splendid
instance of what beauty of woman may be.

She did not speak at first, but sat and smiled, studying, I presume, to
find what stuff I was made of. Seeing this, I pulled myself together
and proceeded briskly to my business.

"My employer will find me late, I fear, my dear baroness," I began.

"Better late than wholly unsuccessful," she rejoined, still smiling.
"Tell me, my friend, suppose you had come hither and knocked at my
door?"

"Perhaps I might not have been so clumsy," I essayed.

"Confess it!" she smiled. "Had you come here and seen the exterior only,
you would have felt yourself part of a great mistake. You would have
gone away."

"Perhaps not," I argued. "I have much confidence in my chief's
acquaintance with his own purposes and his own facts. Yet I confess I
should not have sought madam the baroness in this neighborhood. If
England provides us so beautiful a picture, why could she not afford a
frame more suitable? Why is England so secret with us?"

She only smiled, showing two rows of exceedingly even white teeth. She
was perfect mistress of herself. In years she was not my equal, yet I
could see that at the time I did scarcely more than amuse her.

"Be seated, pray," she said at last. "Let us talk over this matter."

Obedient to her gesture, I dropped into a chair opposite to her, she
herself not varying her posture and still regarding me with the laugh
in her half-closed eyes.

"What do you think of my little place?" she asked finally.

"Two things, Madam," said I, half sternly. "If it belonged to a man, and
to a minister plenipotentiary, I should not approve it. If it belonged
to a lady of means and a desire to see the lands of this little world, I
should approve it very much."

She looked at me with eyes slightly narrowed, but no trace of
perturbation crossed her face. I saw it was no ordinary woman with whom
we had to do.

"But," I went on, "in any case and at all events, I should say that the
bird confined in such a cage, where secrecy is so imperative, would at
times find weariness--would, in fact, wish escape to other employment.
You, Madam"--I looked at her directly--"are a woman of so much intellect
that you could not be content merely to live."

"No," she said, "I would not be content merely to live."

"Precisely. Therefore, since to make life worth the living there must be
occasionally a trifle of spice, a bit of adventure, either for man or
woman, I suggest to you, as something offering amusement, this little
journey with me to-night to meet my chief. You have his message. I am
his messenger, and, believe me, quite at your service in any way you may
suggest. Let us be frank. If you are agent, so am I. See; I have come
into your camp. Dare you not come into ours? Come; it is an adventure to
see a tall, thin old man in a dressing-gown and a red woolen nightcap.
So you will find my chief; and in apartments much different from these."

She took up the missive with its broken seal. "So your chief, as you
call him, asks me to come to him, at midnight, with you, a stranger?"

"Do you not believe in charms and in luck, in evil and good fortune,
Madam?" I asked her. "Now, it is well to be lucky. In ordinary
circumstances, as you say, I could not have got past yonder door. Yet
here I am. What does it augur, Madam?"

"But it is night!"

"Precisely. Could you go to the office of a United States senator and
possible cabinet minister in broad daylight and that fact not be known?
Could he come to your apartments in broad daylight and that fact not be
known? What would 'that man Pakenham' suspect in either case? Believe
me, my master is wise. I do not know his reason, but he knows it, and he
has planned best to gain his purpose, whatever it may be. Reason must
teach you, Madam, that night, this night, this hour, is the only time in
which this visit could be made. Naturally, it would be impossible for
him to come here. If you go to him, he will--ah, he will reverence you,
as I do, Madam. Great necessity sets aside conventions, sets aside
everything. Come, then!"

But still she only sat and smiled at me. I felt that purple and amber
glow, the emanation of her personality, of her senses, creeping around
me again as she leaned forward finally, her parted red-bowed lips again
disclosing her delicate white teeth. I saw the little heave of her
bosom, whether in laughter or emotion I could not tell. I was young.
Resenting the spell which I felt coming upon me, all I could do was to
reiterate my demand for haste. She was not in the least impressed by
this.

"Come!" she said. "I am pleased with these Americans. Yes, I am not
displeased with this little adventure."

I rose impatiently, and walked apart in the room. "You can not evade me,
Madam, so easily as you did the Mexican gentleman who followed you. You
have him in the net also? Is not the net full enough?"

"Never!" she said, her head swaying slowly from side to side, her face
inscrutable. "Am I not a woman? Ah, am I not?"

"Madam," said I, whirling upon her, "let me, at least, alone. I am too
small game for you. I am but a messenger. Time passes. Let us arrive at
our business."

"What would you do if I refused to go with you?" she asked, still
smiling at me. She was waiting for the spell of these surroundings, the
spirit of this place, to do their work with me, perhaps; was willing to
take her time with charm of eye and arm and hair and curved fingers,
which did not openly invite and did not covertly repel. But I saw that
her attitude toward me held no more than that of bird of prey and some
little creature well within its power. It made me angry to be so rated.

"You ask me what I should do?" I retorted savagely. "I shall tell you
first what I _will_ do if you continue your refusal. I will _take_ you
with me, and so keep my agreement with my chief. Keep away from the bell
rope! Remain silent! Do not move! You should go if I had to carry you
there in a sack--because that is my errand!"

"Oh, listen at him threaten!" she laughed still. "And he despises my
poor little castle here in the side street, where half the time I am so
lonely! What would Monsieur do if Monsieur were in my place--and if I
were in Monsieur's place? But, bah! you would not have me following
_you_ in the first hour we met, boy!"

I flushed again hotly at this last word. "Madam may discontinue the
thought of my boyhood; I am older than she. But if you ask me what I
would do with a woman if I followed her, or if she followed me, then I
shall tell you. If I owned this place and all in it, I would tear down
every picture from these walls, every silken cover from yonder couches!
I would rip out these walls and put back the ones that once were here!
You, Madam, should be taken out of luxury and daintiness--"

"Go on!" She clapped her hands, for the first time kindling, and
dropping her annoying air of patronizing me. "Go on! I like you now.
Tell me what Americans do with women that they love! I have heard they
are savages."

"A house of logs far out in the countries that I know would do for you,
Madam!" I went on hotly. "You should forget the touch of silk and lace.
No neighbor you should know until I was willing. Any man who followed
you should meet _me_. Until you loved me all you could, and said so, and
proved it, I would wring your neck with my hands, if necessary, until
you loved me!"

"Excellent! What then?"

"Then, Madam the Baroness, I would in turn build you a palace, one of
logs, and would make you a most excellent couch of the husks of corn.
You should cook at my fireplace, and for _me!_"

She smiled slowly past me, at me. "Pray, be seated," she said. "You
interest me."

"It is late," I reiterated. "Come! Must I do some of these things--force
you into obedience--carry you away in a sack? My master can not wait."

"Don Yturrio of Mexico, on the other hand," she mused, "promised me not
violence, but more jewels. Idiot!"

"Indeed!" I rejoined, in contempt. "An American savage would give you
but one gown, and that of your own weave; you could make it up as you
liked. But come, now; I have no more time to lose."

"Ah, also, idiot!" she murmured. "Do you not see that I must reclothe
myself before I could go with you--that is to say, if I choose to go
with you? Now, as I was saying, my ardent Mexican promises thus and so.
My lord of England--ah, well, they may be pardoned. Suppose I might
listen to such suits--might there not be some life for me--some life
with events? On the other hand, what of interest could America offer?"

"I have told you what life America could give you."

"I imagined men were but men, wherever found," she went on; "but what
you say interests me, I declare to you again. A woman is a woman, too, I
fancy. She always wants one thing--to be all the world to one man."

"Quite true," I answered. "Better that than part of the world to one--or
two? And the opposite of it is yet more true. When a woman is all the
world to a man, she despises him."

"But yes, I should like that experience of being a cook in a cabin, and
being bruised and broken and choked!" She smiled, lazily extending her
flawless arms and looking down at them, at all of her splendid figure,
as though in interested examination. "I am alone so much--so bored!" she
went on. "And Sir Richard Pakenham is so very, very fat. Ah, God! You
can not guess how fat he is. But you, you are not fat." She looked me
over critically, to my great uneasiness.

"All the more reason for doing as I have suggested, Madam; for Mr.
Calhoun is not even so fat as I am. This little interview with my chief,
I doubt not, will prove of interest. Indeed"--I went on seriously and
intently--"I venture to say this much without presuming on my station:
the talk which you will have with my chief to-night will show you things
you have never known, give you an interest in living which perhaps you
have not felt. If I am not mistaken, you will find much in common
between you and my master. I speak not to the agent of England, but to
the lady Helena von Ritz."

"He is old," she went on. "He is very old. His face is thin and
bloodless and fleshless. He is old."

"Madam," I said, "his mind is young, his purpose young, his ambition
young; and his country is young. Is not the youth of all these things
still your own?"

She made no answer, but sat musing, drumming lightly on the chair arm.
I was reaching for her cloak. Then at once I caught a glimpse of her
stockinged foot, the toe of which slightly protruded from beneath her
ball gown. She saw the glance and laughed.

"Poor feet," she said. "Ah, _mes pauvres pieds la_! You would like to
see them bruised by the hard going in some heathen country? See you have
no carriage, and mine is gone. I have not even a pair of shoes. Go look
under the bed beyond."

I obeyed her gladly enough. Under the fringe of the satin counterpane I
found a box of boots, slippers, all manner of footwear, daintily and
neatly arranged. Taking out a pair to my fancy, I carried them out and
knelt before her.

"Then, Madam," said I, "since you insist on this, I shall choose.
America is not Europe. Our feet here have rougher going and must be shod
for it. Allow me!"

Without the least hesitation in the world, or the least immodesty, she
half protruded the foot which still retained its slipper. As I removed
this latter, through some gay impulse, whose nature I did not pause to
analyze, I half mechanically thrust it into the side pocket of my coat.

"This shall be security," said I, "that what you speak with my master
shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

There was a curious deeper red in her cheek. I saw her bosom beat the
faster rhythm.

"Quite agreed!" she answered. But she motioned me away, taking the stout
boot in her own hand and turning aside as she fastened it. She looked
over her shoulder at me now and again while thus engaged.

"Tell me," she said gently, "what security do _I_ have? You come, by my
invitation, it is true, but none the less an intrusion, into my
apartments. You demand of me something which no man has a right to
demand. Because I am disposed to be gracious, and because I am much
disposed to be _ennuyé_, and because Mr. Pakenham is fat, I am willing
to take into consideration what you ask. I have never seen a thin
gentleman in a woolen nightcap, and I am curious. But no gentleman plays
games with ladies in which the dice are loaded for himself. Come, what
security shall _I_ have?"

I did not pretend to understand her. Perhaps, after all, we all had been
misinformed regarding her? I could not tell. But her spirit of
_camaraderie_, her good fellowship, her courage, quite aside from her
personal charm, had now begun to impress me.

"Madam," said I, feeling in my pocket; "no heathen has much of this
world's goods. All my possessions would not furnish one of these rooms.
I can not offer gems, as does Señor Yturrio--but, would this be of
service--until to-morrow? That will leave him and me with a slipper
each. It is with reluctance I pledge to return mine!"

By chance I had felt in my pocket a little object which I had placed
there that very day for quite another purpose. It was only a little
trinket of Indian manufacture, which I had intended to give Elisabeth
that very evening; a sort of cloak clasp, originally made as an Indian
blanket fastening, with two round discs ground out of shells and
connected by beaded thongs. I had got it among the tribes of the far
upper plains, who doubtless obtained the shells, in their strange savage
barter, in some way from the tribes of Florida or Texas, who sometimes
trafficked in shells which found their way as far north as the
Saskatchewan. The trinket was curious, though of small value. The
baroness looked at it with interest.

"How it reminds me of this heathen country!" she said. "Is this all that
your art can do in jewelry? Yet it _is_ beautiful. Come, will you not
give it to me?"

"Until to-morrow, Madam."

"No longer?"

"I can not promise it longer. I must, unfortunately, have it back when I
send a messenger--I shall hardly come myself, Madam."

"Ah!" she scoffed. "Then it belongs to another woman?"

"Yes, it is promised to another."

"Then this is to be the last time we meet?"

"I do not doubt it."

"Are you not sorry?"

"Naturally, Madam!"

She sighed, laughing as she did so. Yet I could not evade seeing the
curious color on her cheek, the rise and fall of the laces over her
bosom. Utterly self-possessed, satisfied with life as it had come to
her, without illusion as to life, absorbed in the great game of living
and adventuring--so I should have described her. Then why should her
heart beat one stroke the faster now? I dismissed that question, and
rebuked my eyes, which I found continually turning toward her.

She motioned to a little table near by. "Put the slipper there," she
said. "Your little neck clasp, also." Again I obeyed her.

"Stand there!" she said, motioning to the opposite side of the table;
and I did so. "Now," said she, looking at me gravely, "I am going with
you to see this man whom you call your chief--this old and ugly man,
thin and weazened, with no blood in him, and a woolen nightcap which is
perhaps red. I shall not tell you whether I go of my own wish or because
you wish it. But I need soberly to tell you this: secrecy is as
necessary for me as for you. The favor may mean as much on one side as
on the other--I shall not tell you why. But we shall play fair until,
as you say, perhaps to-morrow. After that--"

"After that, on guard!"

"Very well, on guard! Suppose I do not like this other woman?"

"Madam, you could not help it. All the world loves her."

"Do you?"

"With my life."

"How devoted! Very well, _on guard_, then!"

She took up the Indian bauble, turning to examine it at the nearest
candle sconce, even as I thrust the dainty little slipper of white satin
again into the pocket of my coat. I was uncomfortable. I wished this
talk of Elisabeth had not come up. I liked very little to leave
Elisabeth's property in another's hands. Dissatisfied, I turned from the
table, not noticing for more than an instant a little crumpled roll of
paper which, as I was vaguely conscious, now appeared on its smooth
marquetry top.

"But see," she said; "you are just like a man, after all, and an
unmarried man at that! I can not go through the streets in this costume.
Excuse me for a moment."

She was off on the instant into the alcove where the great amber-covered
bed stood. She drew the curtains. I heard her humming to herself as she
passed to and fro, saw the flare of a light as it rose beyond. Once or
twice she thrust a laughing face between the curtains, held tight
together with her hands, as she asked me some question, mocking me,
still amused--yet still, as I thought, more enigmatic than before.

"Madam," I said at last, "I would I might dwell here for ever, but--you
are slow! The night passes. Come. My master will be waiting. He is ill;
I fear he can not sleep. I know how intent he is on meeting you. I beg
you to oblige an old, a dying man!"

"And you, Monsieur," she mocked at me from beyond the curtain, "are
intent only on getting rid of me. Are you not adventurer enough to
forget that other woman for one night?"

In her hands--those of a mysterious foreign woman--I had placed this
little trinket which I had got among the western tribes for Elisabeth--a
woman of my own people--the woman to whom my pledge had been given, not
for return on any morrow. I made no answer, excepting to walk up and
down the floor.

At last she came out from between the curtains, garbed more suitably for
the errand which was now before us. A long, dark cloak covered her
shoulders. On her head there rested a dainty up-flared bonnet, whose
jetted edges shone in the candle light as she moved toward me. She was
exquisite in every detail, beautiful as mind of man could wish; that
much was sure, must be admitted by any man. I dared not look at her. I
called to mind the taunt of those old men, that I was young! There was
in my soul vast relief that she was not delaying me here longer in this
place of spells--that in this almost providential way my errand had met
success.

She paused for an instant, drawing on a pair of the short gloves of the
mode then correct. "Do you know why I am to go on this heathen errand?"
she demanded. I shook my head.

"Mr. Calhoun wishes to know whether he shall go to the cabinet of your
man Tyler over there in that barn you call your White House. I suppose
Mr. Calhoun wishes to know how he can serve Mr. Tyler?"

I laughed at this. "Serve him!" I exclaimed. "Rather say _lead_ him,
_tell_ him, _command_ him!"

"Yes," she nodded. I began to see another and graver side of her nature.
"Yes, it is of course Texas."

I did not see fit to make answer to this.

"If your master, as you call him, takes the portfolio with Tyler, it is
to annex Texas," she repeated sharply. "Is not that true?"

Still I would not answer. "Come!" I said.

"And he asks me to come to him so that he may decide--"

This awoke me. "No man decides for John Calhoun, Madam," I said. "You
may advance facts, but _he_ will decide." Still she went on.

"And Texas not annexed is a menace. Without her, you heathen people
would not present a solid front, would you?"

"Madam has had much to do with affairs of state," I said.

She went on as though I had not spoken:

"And if you were divided in your southern section, England would have
all the greater chance. England, you know, says she wishes slavery
abolished. She says that--"

"England _says_ many things!" I ventured.

"The hypocrite of the nations!" flashed out this singular woman at me
suddenly. "As though diplomacy need be hypocrisy! Thus, to-night Sir
Richard of England forgets his place, his protestations. He does not
even know that Mexico has forgotten its duty also. Sir, you were not at
our little ball, so you could not see that very fat Sir Richard paying
his bored _devoirs_ to Doña Lucrezia! So I am left alone, and would be
bored, but for you. In return--a slight jest on Sir Richard to-night!--I
will teach him that no fat gentleman should pay even bored attentions to
a lady who soon will be fat, when his obvious duty should call him
otherwhere! Bah! 'tis as though I myself were fat; which is not true."

"You go too deep for me, Madam," I said. "I am but a simple messenger."
At the same time, I saw how admirably things were shaping for us all. A
woman's jealousy was with us, and so a woman's whim!

"There you have the measure of England's sincerity," she went on, with
contempt. "England is selfish, that is all. Do you not suppose I have
something to do besides feeding a canary? To read, to study--that is my
pleasure. I know your politics here in America. Suppose you invade
Texas, as the threat is, with troops of the United States, before Texas
is a member of the Union? Does that not mean you are again at war with
Mexico? And does that not mean that you are also at war with England?
Come, do you not know some of those things?"

"With my hand on my heart, Madam," I asserted solemnly, "all I know is
that you must go to see my master. Calhoun wants you. America needs you.
I beg you to do what kindness you may to the heathen."

"_Et moi?_"

"And you?" I answered. "You shall have such reward as you have never
dreamed in all your life."

"How do you mean?"

"I doubt not the reward for a soul which is as keen and able as your
heart is warm, Madam. Come, I am not such a fool as you think, perhaps.
Nor are you a fool. You are a great woman, a wonderful woman, with head
and heart both, Madam, as well as beauty such as I had never dreamed.
You are a strange woman, Madam. You are a genius, Madam, if you please.
So, I say, you are capable of a reward, and a great one. You may find it
in the gratitude of a people."

"What could this country give more than Mexico or England?" She smiled
quizzically.

"Much more, Madam! Your reward shall be in the later thought of many
homes--homes built of logs, with dingy fireplaces and couches of husks
in them--far out, all across this continent, housing many people, many
happy citizens, men who will make their own laws, and enforce them, man
and man alike! Madam, it is the spirit of democracy which calls on you
to-night! It is not any political party, nor the representative of one.
It is not Mr. Calhoun; it is not I. Mr. Calhoun only puts before you the
summons of--"

"Of what?"

"Of that spirit of democracy."

She stood, one hand ungloved, a finger at her lips, her eyes glowing. "I
am glad you came," she said. "On the whole, I am also glad I came upon
my foolish errand here to America."

"Madam," said I, my hand at the fastening of the door, "we have
exchanged pledges. Now we exchange places. It is you who are the
messenger, not myself. There is a message in your hands. I know not
whether you ever served a monarchy. Come, you shall see that our
republic has neither secrets nor hypocrisies."

On the instant she was not shrewd and tactful woman of the world, not
student, but once more coquette and woman of impulse. She looked at me
with mockery and invitation alike in her great dark eyes, even as I
threw down the chain at the door and opened it wide for her to pass.

"Is that my only reward?" she asked, smiling as she fumbled at a glove.

In reply, I bent and kissed the fingers of her ungloved hand. They were
so warm and tender that I had been different than I was had I not felt
the blood tingle in all my body in the impulse of the moment to do more
than kiss her fingers.

Had I done so--had I not thought of Elisabeth--then, as in my heart I
still believe, the flag of England to-day would rule Oregon and the
Pacific; and it would float to-day along the Rio Grande; and it would
menace a divided North and South, instead of respecting a strong and
indivisible Union which owns one flag and dreads none in the world.




CHAPTER VII

REGARDING ELISABETH

     Without woman the two extremities of this life would be destitute
     of succor and the middle would be devoid of pleasure.--_Proverb_.


In some forgotten garret of this country, as I do not doubt, yellowed
with age, stained and indistinguishable, lost among uncared-for relics
of another day, there may be records of that interview between two
strange personalities, John Calhoun and Helena von Ritz, in the
arrangement of which I played the part above described. I was not at
that time privileged to have much more than a guess at the nature of the
interview. Indeed, other things now occupied my mind. I was very much in
love with Elisabeth Churchill.

Of these matters I need to make some mention. My father's plantation was
one of the old ones in Maryland. That of the Churchills lay across a low
range of mountains and in another county from us, but our families had
long been friends. I had known Elisabeth from the time she was a tall,
slim girl, boon companion ever to her father, old Daniel Churchill; for
her mother she had lost when she was still young. The Churchills
maintained a city establishment in the environs of Washington itself,
although that was not much removed from their plantation in the old
State of Maryland. Elmhurst, this Washington estate was called, and it
was well known there, with its straight road approaching and its great
trees and its wide-doored halls--whereby the road itself seemed to run
straight through the house and appear beyond--and its tall white pillars
and hospitable galleries, now in the springtime enclosed in green. I
need not state that now, having finished the business of the day, or,
rather, of the night, Elmhurst, home of Elisabeth, was my immediate
Mecca.

I had clad myself as well as I could in the fashion of my time, and
flattered myself, as I looked in my little mirror, that I made none such
bad figure of a man. I was tall enough, and straight, thin with long
hours afoot or in the saddle, bronzed to a good color, and if health did
not show on my face, at least I felt it myself in the lightness of my
step, in the contentedness of my heart with all of life, in my general
assurance that all in the world meant well toward me and that everything
in the world would do well by me. We shall see what license there was
for this.

As to Elisabeth Churchill, it might have been in line with a
Maryland-custom had she generally been known as Betty; but Betty she
never was called, although that diminutive was applied to her aunt,
Jennings, twice as large as she, after whom she had been named. Betty
implies a snub nose; Elisabeth's was clean-cut and straight. Betty runs
for a saucy mouth and a short one; Elisabeth's was red and curved, but
firm and wide enough for strength and charity as well. Betty spells
round eyes, with brows arched above them as though in query and
curiosity; the eyes of Elisabeth were long, her brows long and straight
and delicately fine. A Betty might even have red hair; Elisabeth's was
brown in most lights, and so liquid smooth that almost I was disposed to
call it dense rather than thick. Betty would seem to indicate a nature
impulsive, gay, and free from care; on the other hand, it was to be said
of Elisabeth that she was logical beyond her kind--a trait which she got
from her mother, a daughter of old Judge Henry Gooch, of our Superior
Court. Yet, disposed as she always was to be logical in her conclusions,
the great characteristic of Elisabeth was serenity, consideration and
charity.

With all this, there appeared sometimes at the surface of Elisabeth's
nature that fire and lightness and impulsiveness which she got from her
father, Mr. Daniel Churchill. Whether she was wholly reserved and
reasonable, or wholly warm and impulsive, I, long as I had known and
loved her, never was quite sure. Something held me away, something
called me forward; so that I was always baffled, and yet always eager,
God wot. I suppose this is the way of women. At times I have been
impatient with it, knowing my own mind well enough.

At least now, in my tight-strapped trousers and my long blue coat and my
deep embroidered waistcoat and my high stock, my shining boots and my
tall beaver, I made my way on my well-groomed horse up to the gates of
old Elmhurst; and as I rode I pondered and I dreamed.

But Miss Elisabeth was not at home, it seemed. Her father, Mr. Daniel
Churchill, rather portly and now just a trifle red of face, met me
instead. It was not an encounter for which I devoutly wished, but one
which I knew it was the right of both of us to expect ere long. Seeing
the occasion propitious, I plunged at once _in medias res_. Part of the
time explanatory, again apologetic, and yet again, I trust, assertive,
although always blundering and red and awkward, I told the father of my
intended of my own wishes, my prospects and my plans.

He listened to me gravely and, it seemed to me, with none of that
enthusiasm which I would have welcomed. As to my family, he knew enough.
As to my prospects, he questioned me. My record was not unfamiliar to
him. So, gaining confidence at last under the insistence of what I knew
were worthy motives, and which certainly were irresistible of
themselves, so far as I was concerned, I asked him if we might not soon
make an end of this, and, taking chances as they were, allow my wedding
with Elisabeth to take place at no very distant date.

"Why, as to that, of course I do not know what my girl will say," went
on Mr. Daniel Churchill, pursing up his lips. He looked not wholly
lovable to me, as he sat in his big chair. I wondered that he should be
father of so fair a human being as Elisabeth.

"Oh, of course--that," I answered; "Miss Elisabeth and I--"

"The skeesicks!" he exclaimed. "I thought she told me everything."

"I think Miss Elisabeth tells no one quite everything," I ventured. "I
confess she has kept me almost as much in the dark as yourself, sir. But
I only wanted to ask if, after I have seen her to-day, and if I should
gain her consent to an early day, you would not waive any objections on
your own part and allow the matter to go forward as soon as possible?"

In answer to this he arose from his chair and stood looking out of the
window, his back turned to me. I could not call his reception of my
suggestion enthusiastic; but at last he turned.

"I presume that our two families might send you young people a sack of
meal or a side of bacon now and then, as far as that is concerned," he
said.

I could not call this speech joyous.

"There are said to be risks in any union, sir," I ventured to say. "I
admit I do not follow you in contemplating any risk whatever. If either
you or your daughter doubts my loyalty or affection, then I should say
certainly it were wise to end all this; but--" and I fancied I
straightened perceptibly--"I think that might perhaps be left to Miss
Elisabeth herself."

After all, Mr. Dan Churchill was obliged to yield, as fathers have been
obliged from the beginning of the world. At last he told me I might take
my fate in my own hands and go my way.

Trust the instinct of lovers to bring them together! I was quite
confident that at that hour I should find Elisabeth and her aunt in the
big East Room at the president's reception, the former looking on with
her uncompromising eyes at the little pageant which on reception days
regularly went forward there.

My conclusion was correct. I found a boy to hold my horse in front of
Gautier's café. Then I hastened off across the intervening blocks and
through the grounds of the White House, in which presently, having edged
through the throng in the ante-chambers, I found myself in that inane
procession of individuals who passed by in order, each to receive the
limp handshake, the mechanical bow and the perfunctory smite of
President Tyler--rather a tall, slender-limbed, active man, and of very
decent presence, although his thin, shrunken cheeks and his cold
blue-gray eye left little quality of magnetism in his personality.

It was not new to me, of course, this pageant, although it never lacked
of interest. There were in the throng representatives of all America as
it was then, a strange, crude blending of refinement and vulgarity, of
ease and poverty, of luxury and thrift. We had there merchants from
Philadelphia and New York, politicians from canny New England and not
less canny Pennsylvania. At times there came from the Old World men
representative of an easier and more opulent life, who did not always
trouble to suppress their smiles at us. Moving among these were ladies
from every state of our Union, picturesque enough in their wide flowered
skirts and their flaring bonnets and their silken mitts, each rivalling
the other in the elegance of her mien, and all unconsciously outdone in
charm, perhaps, by some demure Quakeress in white and dove color,
herself looking askance on all this form and ceremony, yet unwilling to
leave the nation's capital without shaking the hand of the nation's
chief. Add to these, gaunt, black-haired frontiersmen from across the
Alleghanies; politicians from the South, clean-shaven, pompous,
immaculately clad; uneasy tradesmen from this or the other corner of
their commonwealth. A motley throng, indeed!

A certain air of gloom at this time hung over official Washington, for
the minds of all were still oppressed by the memory of that fatal
accident--the explosion of the great cannon "Peacemaker" on board the
war vessel _Princeton_--which had killed Mr. Upshur, our secretary of
state, with others, and had, at one blow, come so near to depriving this
government of its head and his official family; the number of prominent
lives thus ended or endangered being appalling to contemplate. It was
this accident which had called Mr. Calhoun forward at a national
juncture of the most extreme delicacy and the utmost importance. In
spite of the general mourning, however, the informal receptions at the
White House were not wholly discontinued, and the administration,
unsettled as it was, and fronted by the gravest of diplomatic problems,
made such show of dignity and even cheerfulness as it might.

I considered it my duty to pass in the long procession and to shake the
hand of Mr. Tyler. That done, I gazed about the great room, carefully
scan-fling the different little groups which were accustomed to form
after the ceremonial part of the visit was over. I saw many whom I
knew. I forgot them; for in a far corner, where a flood of light came
through the trailing vines that shielded the outer window, my anxious
eyes discovered the object of my quest--Elisabeth.

It seemed to me I had never known her so fair as she was that morning in
the great East Room of the White House. Elisabeth was rather taller than
the average woman, and of that splendid southern figure, slender but
strong, which makes perhaps the best representative of our American
beauty. She was very bravely arrayed to-day in her best pink-flowered
lawn, made wide and full, as was the custom of the time, but not so
clumsily gathered at the waist as some, and so serving not wholly to
conceal her natural comeliness of figure. Her bonnet she had removed. I
could see the sunlight on the ripples of her brown hair, and the shadows
which lay above her eyes as she turned to face me, and the slow pink
which crept into her cheeks.

Dignified always, and reserved, was Elisabeth Churchill. But now I hope
it was not wholly conceit which led me to feel that perhaps the warmth,
the glow of the air, caught while riding under the open sky, the sight
of the many budding roses of our city, the scent of the blossoms which
even then came through the lattice--the meeting even with myself, so
lately returned--something at least of this had caused an awakening in
her girl's heart. Something, I say, I do not know what, gave her
greeting to me more warmth than was usual with her. My own heart, eager
enough to break bounds, answered in kind. We stood--blushing like
children as our hands touched--forgotten in that assemblage of
Washington's pomp and circumstance.

"How do you do?" was all I could find to say. And "How do you do?" was
all I could catch for answer, although I saw, in a fleeting way, a
glimpse of a dimple hid in Elisabeth's cheek. She never showed it save
when pleased. I have never seen a dimple like that of Elisabeth's.

Absorbed, we almost forgot Aunt Betty Jennings--stout, radiant,
snub-nosed, arch-browed and curious, Elisabeth's chaperon. On the whole,
I was glad Aunt Betty Jennings was there. When a soldier approaches a
point of danger, he does not despise the cover of natural objects. Aunt
Betty appeared to me simply as a natural object at the time. I sought
her shelter.

"Aunt Betty," said I, as I took her hand; "Aunt Betty, have we told you,
Elisabeth and I?"

I saw Elisabeth straighten in perplexity, doubt or horror, but I went
on.

"Yes, Elisabeth and I--"

"You _dear_ children!" gurgled Aunt Betty.

"Congratulate us both!" I demanded, and I put Elisabeth's hand, covered
with my own, into the short and chubby fingers of that estimable lady.
Whenever Elisabeth attempted to open her lips I opened mine before, and
I so overwhelmed dear Aunt Betty Jennings with protestations of my
regard for her, my interest in her family, her other nieces, her
chickens, her kittens, her home--I so quieted all her questions by
assertions and demands and exclamations, and declarations that Mr.
Daniel Churchill had given his consent, that I swear for the moment even
Elisabeth believed that what I had said was indeed true. At least, I can
testify she made no formal denial, although the dimple was now
frightened out of sight.

Admirable Aunt Betty Jennings! She forestalled every assertion I made,
herself bubbling and blushing in sheer delight. Nor did she lack in
charity. Tapping me with her fan lightly, she exclaimed: "You rogue! I
know that you two want to be alone; that is what you want. Now I am
going away--just down the room. You will ride home with us after a time,
I am sure?"

Adorable Aunt Betty Jennings! Elisabeth and I looked at her comfortable
back for some moments before I turned, laughing, to look Elisabeth in
the eyes.

"You had no right--" began she, her face growing pink.

"Every right!" said I, and managed to find a place for our two hands
under cover of the wide flounces of her figured lawn as we stood, both
blushing. "I have every right. I have truly just seen your father. I
have just come from him."

She looked at me intently, glowingly, happily.

"I could not wait any longer," I went on. "Within a week I am going to
have an office of my own. Let us wait no longer. I have waited long
enough. Now--"

I babbled on, and she listened. It was strange place enough for a
betrothal, but there at least I said the words which bound me; and in
the look Elisabeth gave me I saw her answer. Her eyes were wide and
straight and solemn. She did not smile.

As we stood, with small opportunity and perhaps less inclination for
much conversation, my eyes chanced to turn toward the main entrance door
of the East Room. I saw, pushing through, a certain page, a young boy of
good family, who was employed by Mr. Calhoun as messenger. He knew me
perfectly well, as he did almost every one else in Washington, and with
precocious intelligence his gaze picked me out in all that throng.

"Is that for me?" I asked, as he extended his missive.

"Yes," he nodded. "Mr. Calhoun told me to find you and to give you this
at once."

I turned to Elisabeth. "If you will pardon me?" I said. She made way for
me to pass to a curtained window, and there, turning my back and using
such secrecy as I could, I broke the seal.

The message was brief. To be equally brief I may say simply that it
asked me to be ready to start for Canada that night on business
connected with the Department of State! Of reasons or explanations it
gave none.

I turned to Elisabeth and held out the message from my chief. She looked
at it. Her eyes widened. "Nicholas!" she exclaimed.

I looked at her in silence for a moment. "Elisabeth," I said at last, "I
have been gone on this sort of business long enough. What do you say to
this? Shall I decline to go? It means my resignation at once."

I hesitated. The heart of the nation and the nation's life were about
me. Our state, such as it was, lay there in that room, and with it our
problems, our duties, our dangers. I knew, better than most, that there
were real dangers before this nation at that very hour. I was a lover,
yet none the less I was an American. At once a sudden plan came into my
mind.

"Elisabeth," said I, turning to her swiftly, "I will agree to nothing
which will send me away from you again. Listen, then--" I raised a hand
as she would have spoken. "Go home with your Aunt Betty as soon as you
can. Tell your father that to-night at six I shall be there. Be ready!"

"What do you mean?" she panted. I saw her throat flutter.

"I mean that we must be married to-night before I go. Before eight
o'clock I must be on the train."

"When will you be back?" she whispered.

"How can I tell? When I go, my wife shall wait there at Elmhurst,
instead of my sweetheart."

She turned away from me, contemplative. She, too, was young. Ardor
appealed to her. Life stood before her, beckoning, as to me. What could
the girl do or say?

I placed her hand on my arm. We started toward the door, intending to
pick up Aunt Jennings on our way. As we advanced, a group before us
broke apart. I stood aside to make way for a gentleman whom I did not
recognize. On his arm there leaned a woman, a beautiful woman, clad in a
costume of flounced and rippling velvet of a royal blue which made her
the most striking figure in the great room. Hers was a personality not
easily to be overlooked in any company, her face one not readily to be
equalled. It was the Baroness Helena von Ritz!

We met face to face. I presume it would have been too much to ask even
of her to suppress the sudden flash of recognition which she showed. At
first she did not see that I was accompanied. She bent to me, as
though to adjust her gown, and, without a change in the expression of
her face, spoke to me in an undertone no one else could hear.

[Illustration: "Wait!" she murmured "There is to be a meeting--" Page
79]

"Wait!" she murmured. "There is to be a meeting--" She had time for no
more as she swept by.

Alas, that mere moments should spell ruin as well as happiness! This new
woman whom I had wooed and found, this new Elisabeth whose hand lay on
my arm, saw what no one else would have seen--that little flash of
recognition on the face of Helena von Ritz! She heard a whisper pass.
Moreover, with a woman's uncanny facility in detail, she took in every
item of the other's costume. For myself, I could see nothing of that
costume now save one object--a barbaric brooch of double shells and
beaded fastenings, which clasped the light laces at her throat.

The baroness had perhaps slept as little as I the night before. If I
showed the ravages of loss of sleep no more than she, I was fortunate.
She was radiant, as she passed forward with her escort for place in the
line which had not yet dwindled away.

"You seem to know that lady," said Elisabeth to me gently.

"Did I so seem?" I answered. "It is professional of all to smile in the
East Room at a reception," said I.

"Then you do not know the lady?"

"Indeed, no. Why should I, my dear girl?" Ah, how hot my face was!

"I do not know," said Elisabeth. "Only, in a way she resembles a certain
lady of whom we have heard rather more than enough here in Washington."

"Put aside silly gossip, Elisabeth," I said. "And, please, do not
quarrel with me, now that I am so happy. To-night--"

"Nicholas," she said, leaning just a little forward and locking her
hands more deeply in my arm, "don't you know you were telling me one
time about the little brooch you were going to bring me--an Indian
thing--you said it should be my--my wedding present? Don't you remember
that? Now, I was thinking--"

I stood blushing red as though detected in the utmost villainy. And the
girl at my side saw that written on my face which now, within the very
moment, it had become her _right_ to question! I turned to her suddenly.

"Elisabeth," said I, "you shall have your little brooch to-night, if you
will promise me now to be ready and waiting for me at six. I will have
the license."

It seemed to me that this new self of Elisabeth's--warmer, yielding,
adorable--was slowly going away from me again, and that her old self,
none the less sweet, none the less alluring, but more logical and
questioning, had taken its old place again. She put both her hands on my
arm now and looked me fairly in the face, where the color still
proclaimed some sort of guilt on my part, although my heart was clean
and innocent as hers.

"Nicholas," she said, "come to-night. Bring me my little jewel--and
bring--"

"The minister! If I do that, Elisabeth, you will marry me then?"

"Yes!" she whispered softly.

Amid all the din and babble of that motley throng I heard the word, low
as it was. I have never heard a voice like Elisabeth's.

An instant later, I knew not quite how, her hand was away from my arm,
in that of Aunt Betty, and they were passing toward the main door,
leaving me standing with joy and doubt mingled in my mind.




CHAPTER VIII

MR. CALHOUN ACCEPTS

     A woman's tongue is her sword, that she never lets rust.
                                           --_Madam Necker_.

I struggled among three courses. The impulses of my heart, joined to
some prescience of trouble, bade me to follow Elisabeth. My duty ordered
me to hasten to Mr. Calhoun. My interest demanded that I should tarry,
for I was sure that the Baroness von Ritz would make no merely idle
request in these circumstances. Hesitating thus, I lost sight of her in
the throng. So I concluded I would obey the mandate of duty, and turned
toward the great doors. Indeed, I was well toward the steps which led
out into the grounds, when all at once two elements of my problem
resolved themselves into one. I saw the tall figure of Mr. Calhoun
himself coming up the walk toward me.

"Ah," said he briefly, "then my message found you?"

"I was starting for you this moment, sir" I replied.

"Wait for a moment. I counted on finding you here. Matters have
changed."

I turned with him and we entered again the East Room, where Mr. Tyler
still prolonged the official greeting of the curious, the obsequious, or
the banal persons who passed. Mr. Calhoun stood apart for a time,
watching the progress of this purely American function. It was some time
ere the groups thinned. This latter fact usually would have ended the
reception, since it is not etiquette to suppose that the president can
lack an audience; but to-day Mr. Tyler lingered. At last through the
thinning throng he caught sight of the distinctive figure of Mr.
Calhoun. For the first time his own face assumed a natural expression.
He stopped the line for an instant, and with a raised hand beckoned to
my chief.

At this we dropped in at the tail of the line, Mr. Calhoun in passing
grasping almost as many hands as Mr. Tyler. When at length we reached
the president's position, the latter greeted him and added a whispered
word. An instant later he turned abruptly, ending the reception with a
deep bow, and retired into the room from which he had earlier emerged.

Mr. Calhoun turned now to me with a request to follow him, and we passed
through the door where the president had vanished. Directed by
attendants, we were presently ushered into yet another room, which at
that time served the president as his cabinet room, a place for meeting
persons of distinction who called upon business.

As we entered I saw that it was already occupied. Mr. Tyler was grasping
the hand of a portly personage, whom I knew to be none other than Mr.
Pakenham. So much might have been expected. What was not to have been
expected was the presence of another--none less than the Baroness von
Ritz! For this latter there was no precedent, no conceivable explanation
save some exigent emergency.

So we were apparently to understand that my lady was here as open friend
of England! Of course, I needed no word from Mr. Calhoun to remind me
that we must seem ignorant of this lady, of her character, and of her
reputed relations with the British Foreign Office.

"I pray you be seated, Mr. Pakenham," said Mr. Tyler, and he gestured
also to us others to take chairs near his table. Mr. Pakenham, in rather
a lofty fashion, it seemed to me, obeyed the polite request, but
scarcely had seated himself ere he again rose with an important clearing
of his throat. He was one who never relished the democratic title of
"Mr." accorded him by Mr. Tyler, whose plain and simple ways, not much
different now from those of his plantation life, were in marked
contrast to the ceremoniousness of the Van Buren administration, which
Pakenham also had known.

"Your _Excellency_," said he, "her Majesty the Queen of England's wish
is somewhat anticipated by my visit here to-day. I hasten only to put in
the most prompt and friendly form her Majesty's desires, which I am sure
formally will be expressed in the first mails from England. We deplore
this most unhappy accident on your warship _Princeton_, which has come
so near working irremediable injury to this country. Unofficially, I
have ventured to make this personal visit under the flag of this
enlightened Republic, and to the center of its official home, out of a
friendship for Mr. Upshur, the late secretary of state, a friendship as
sincere as is that of my own country for this Republic."

"Sir," said Mr. Tyler, rising, with a deep bow, "the courtesy of your
personal presence is most gratifying. Allow me to express that more
intimate and warmer feeling of friendship for yourself which comes
through our long association with you. This respect and admiration are
felt by myself and my official family for you and the great power which
you represent. It goes to you with a special sincerity as to a gentleman
of learning and distinction, whose lofty motives and ideals are
recognized by all."

Each having thus delivered himself of words which meant nothing, both
now seated themselves and proceeded to look mighty grave. For myself, I
stole a glance from the tail of my eye toward the Baroness von Ritz. She
sat erect in her chair, a figure of easy grace and dignity, but on her
face was nothing one could read to tell who she was or why she was here.
So far from any external _gaucherie_, she seemed quite as much at home
here, and quite as fit here, as England's plenipotentiary.

"I seize upon this opportunity, Mr. Pakenham," said Mr. Tyler presently,
with a smile which he meant to set all at ease and to soften as much as
possible the severity of that which was to follow, "I gladly take this
opportunity to mention in an informal way my hope that this matter which
was already inaugurated by Mr. Upshur before his untimely death may come
to perfectly pleasant consummation. I refer to the question of Texas."

"I beg pardon, your Excellency," rejoined Mr. Pakenham, half rising.
"Your meaning is not perfectly clear to me."

The same icy smile sat upon Mr. Tyler's face as he went on: "I can not
believe that your government can wish to interfere in matters upon this
continent to the extent of taking the position of open ally of the
Republic of Mexico, a power so recently at war upon our own borders with
the brave Texans who have left our flag to set up, through fair
conquest, a republic of their own."

The mottled face of Mr. Pakenham assumed a yet deeper red. "As to that,
your Excellency," said he, "your remark is, as you say, quite informal,
of course--that is to say, as I may state--"

"Quite so," rejoined Mr. Tyler gravely. "The note of my Lord Aberdeen to
us, none the less, in the point of its bearing upon the question of
slavery in Texas, appears to this government as an expression which
ought to be disavowed by your own government. Do I make myself quite
clear?" (With John Calhoun present, Tyler could at times assume a
courage though he had it not.)

Mr. Pakenham's face glowed a deeper red. "I am not at liberty to discuss
my Lord Aberdeen's wishes in this matter," he said. "We met here upon a
purely informal matter, and--"

"I have only ventured to hope," rejoined Mr. Tyler, "that the personal
kindness of your own heart might move you in so grave a matter as that
which may lead to war between two powers."

"War, sir, _war_?" Mr. Pakenham went wholly purple in his surprise, and
sprang to his feet. "War!" he repeated once more. "As though there could
be any hope--"

"Quite right, sir," said Mr. Tyler grimly. "As though there could be any
hope for us save in our own conduct of our own affairs, without any
interference from any foreign power!"

I knew it was John Calhoun speaking these words, not Mr. Tyler. I saw
Mr. Calhoun's keen, cold eyes fixed closely upon the face of his
president. The consternation created by the latter's words was plainly
visible.

"Of course, this conversation is entirely irregular--I mean to say,
wholly unofficial, your Excellency?" hesitated Pakenham. "It takes no
part in our records?"

"Assuredly not," said Mr. Tyler. "I only hope the question may never
come to a matter of record at all. Once our country knows that dictation
has been attempted with us, even by England herself, the North will join
the South in resentment. Even now, in restiveness at the fancied
attitude of England toward Mexico, the West raises the demand that we
shall end the joint occupancy of Oregon with Great Britain. Do you
perchance know the watchword which is now on the popular tongue west of
the Alleghanies? It bids fair to become an American _Marseillaise_."

"I must confess my ignorance," rejoined Mr. Pakenham.

"Our backwoodsmen have invented a phrase which runs _Fifty-four Forty or
Fight_!"

"I beg pardon, I am sure, your Excellency?"

"It means that if we conclude to terminate the very unsatisfactory
muddle along the Columbia River--a stream which our mariners first
explored, as we contend--and if we conclude to dispute with England as
well regarding our delimitations on the Southwest, where she has even
less right to speak, then we shall contend for _all_ that territory, not
only up to the Columbia, but north to the Russian line, the parallel of
fifty-four degrees and forty minutes! We claim that we once bought Texas
clear to the Rio Grande, from Napoleon, although the foolish treaty with
Spain in 1819 clouded our title--in the belief of our Whig friends, who
do not desire more slave territory. Even the Whigs think that we own
Oregon by virtue of first navigation of the Columbia. Both Whigs and
Democrats now demand Oregon north to fifty-four degrees, forty minutes.
The alternative? My Lord Aberdeen surely makes no deliberate bid to hear
it!"

"Or fight!" exclaimed Pakenham. "God bless my soul! Fight _us_?"

Mr. Tyler flushed. "Such things have been," said he with dignity.

"That is to say," he resumed calmly, "our rude Westerners are egotistic
and ignorant. I admit that we are young. But believe me, when the
American people say _fight_, it has but one meaning. As their servant, I
am obliged to convey that meaning. In this democracy, the will of the
people rules. In war, we have no Whigs, no Democrats, we have only _the
people_!"

At this astounding speech the British minister sat dumfounded. This air
of courage and confidence on the part of Mr. Tyler himself was something
foreign to his record. I knew the reason for his boldness. John Calhoun
sat at his right hand.

At least, the meaning of this sudden assault was too much for England's
representative. Perhaps, indeed, the Berserker blood of our frontier
spoke in Mr. Tyler's gaze. That we would fight indeed was true enough.

"It only occurs to us, sir," continued the president, "that the great
altruism of England's heart has led her for a moment to utter sentiments
in a form which might, perhaps, not be sanctioned in her colder
judgment. This nation has not asked counsel. We are not yet agreed in
our Congress upon the admission of Texas--although I may say to you,
sir, with fairness, that such is the purpose of this administration.
There being no war, we still have Whigs and Democrats!"

"At this point, your Excellency, the dignity of her Majesty's service
would lead me to ask excuse," rejoined Mr. Pakenham formally, "were it
not for one fact, which I should like to offer here. I have, in short,
news which will appear full warrant for any communication thus far made
by her Majesty's government. I can assure you that there has come into
the possession of this lady, whose able services I venture to enlist
here in her presence, a communication from the Republic of Texas to the
government of England. That communication is done by no less a hand than
that of the attaché for the Republic of Texas, Mr. Van Zandt himself."

There was, I think, no other formal invitation for the Baroness von Ritz
to speak; but now she arose, swept a curtsey first to Mr. Tyler and then
to Mr. Pakenham and Mr. Calhoun.

"It is not to be expected, your Excellency and gentlemen," said she,
"that I can add anything of value here." Her eyes were demurely
downcast.

"We do not doubt your familiarity with many of these late events,"
encouraged Mr. Tyler.

"True," she continued, "the note of my Lord Aberdeen is to-day the
property of the streets, and of this I have some knowledge. I can see,
also, difficulty in its reception among the courageous gentlemen of
America. But, as to any written communication from Mr. Van Zandt, there
must be some mistake!"

"I was of the impression that you would have had it last night,"
rejoined Pakenham, plainly confused; "in fact, that gentleman advised me
to such effect."

The Baroness Helena von Ritz looked him full in the face and only
gravely shook her head. "I regret matters should be so much at fault,"
said she.

"Then let me explain," resumed Pakenham, almost angrily. "I will
state--unofficially, of course--that the promises of Mr. Van Zandt were
that her Majesty might expect an early end of the talk of the annexation
of Texas to the United States. The greater power of England upon land or
sea would assure that weak Republic of a great and enlightened ally--in
his belief."

"An ally!" broke out Mr. Calhoun. "And a document sent to that effect by
the attaché of Texas!" He smiled coldly. "Two things seem very apparent,
Mr. President. First, that this gentle lady stands high in the respect
of England's ministry. Second, that Mr. Van Zandt, if all this were
true, ought to stand very low in ours. I would say all this and much
more, even were it a state utterance, to stand upon the records of this
nation!"

"Sir," interrupted Mr. Tyler, swiftly turning to Mr. Calhoun, "_may I
not ask you that it be left as a state utterance?_"

Mr. Calhoun bowed with the old-time grace habitual to him, his hand upon
his heart, but he made no answer. The real reason might have been read
in the mottled face of Pakenham, now all the colors of the rainbow, as
he looked from one to the other.

"Mr. Calhoun," continued the president, "you know that the office of
our secretary of state is vacant. There is no one living would serve in
that office more wisely than yourself, no one more in accordance with my
own views as to these very questions which are before us. Since it has
come to that point, I offer you now that office, and do so officially. I
ask your answer."

The face of England's minister now for the first time went colorless. He
knew what this meant.

As for John Calhoun, he played with both of them as a cat would with a
mouse, sneeringly superior. His answer was couched in terms suited to
his own purposes. "This dignity, Mr. President," said he, bowing deeply
again, "so unexpected, so onerous, so responsible, is one which at least
needs time for proper consideration. I must crave opportunity for
reflection and for pondering. In my surprise at your sudden request, I
find no proper answer ready."

Here, then, seemed an opportunity for delay, which Mr. Pakenham was
swift to grasp. He arose and bowed to Mr. Tyler. "I am sure that Mr.
Calhoun will require some days at least for the framing of his answer to
an invitation so grave as this."

"I shall require at least some moments," said Mr. Calhoun, smiling.
"That _Marseillaise_ of '44, Mr. President, says _Fifty-four Forty or
Fight_. That means 'the Rio Grande or fight,' as well."

A short silence fell upon us all. Mr. Tyler half rose and half frowned
as he noticed Mr. Pakenham shuffling as though he would depart.

"It shall be, of course, as you suggest," said the president to
Pakenham. "There is no record of any of this. But the answer of Mr.
Calhoun, which I await and now demand, is one which will go upon the
records of this country soon enough, I fancy. I ask you, then, to hear
what Mr. Calhoun replies."

Ah, it was well arranged and handsomely staged, this little comedy, and
done for the benefit of England, after all! I almost might have believed
that Mr. Calhoun had rehearsed this with the president. Certainly, the
latter knew perfectly well what his answer was to be. Mr. Calhoun
himself made that deliberately plain, when presently he arose.

"I have had some certain moments for reflection, Mr. President," said
he, "and I have from the first moment of this surprising offer on your
part been humbly sensible of the honor offered so old and so unfit a
man.

"Sir, my own record, thank God, is clear. I have stood for the South. I
stand now for Texas. I believe in her and her future. She belongs to us,
as I have steadfastly insisted at all hours and in all places. She will
widen the southern vote in Congress, that is true. She will be for
slavery. That also is true. I myself have stood for slavery, but I am
yet more devoted to democracy and to America than I am to the South and
to slavery. So will Texas be. I know what Texas means. She means for us
also Oregon. She means more than that. She means also a democracy
spreading across this entire continent. My attitude in that regard has
been always clear. I have not sought to change it. Sir, if I take this
office which you offer, I do so with the avowed and expressed purpose of
bringing Texas into this Union, in full view of any and all
consequences. I shall offer her a treaty of annexation _at once!_ I
shall urge annexation at every hour, in every place, in all ways within
my means, and in full view of the consequences!" He looked now gravely
and keenly at the English plenipotentiary.

"That is well understood, Mr. Calhoun," began Mr. Tyler. "Your views are
in full accord with my own."

Pakenham looked from the one to the other, from the thin, vulpine face
to the thin, leonine one. The pity Mr. Tyler felt for the old man's
visible weakness showed on his face as he spoke.

"What, then, is the answer of John Calhoun to this latest call of his
country?"

That answer is one which is in our history.

"John Calhoun accepts!" said my master, loud and clear.




CHAPTER IX

A KETTLE OF FISH

     Few disputes exist which have not had their origin in
     women--_Juvenal_.


I saw the heavy face of Mr. Pakenham go pale, saw the face of the
Baroness von Ritz flash with a swift resolution, saw the eyes of Mr.
Calhoun and Mr. Tyler meet in firmness. An instant later, Mr. Tyler rose
and bowed our dismissal. Our little play was done. Which of us knew all
the motives that had lain behind its setting?

Mr. Pakenham drew apart and engaged in earnest speech with the lady who
had accompanied him; so that meantime I myself found opportunity for a
word with Mr. Calhoun.

"Now," said I, "the fat certainly is all in the fire!"

"What fat, my son?" asked Calhoun serenely; "and what fire?"

"At least"--and I grinned covertly, I fear--"it seems all over between
my lady and her protector there. She turned traitor just when he had
most need of her! Tell me, what argument did you use with her last
night?"

Mr. Calhoun took snuff.

"You don't know women, my son, and you don't know men, either." The thin
white skin about his eyes wrinkled.

"Certainly, I don't know what arts may have been employed in Mr.
Calhoun's office at half-past two this morning." I smiled frankly now at
my chief, and he relaxed in turn.

"We had a most pleasant visit of an hour. A delightful woman, a charming
woman, and one of intellect as well. I appealed to her heart, her brain,
her purse, and she laughed, for the most part. Yet she argued, too, and
seemed to have some interest--as you see proved now. Ah, I wish I could
have had the other two great motives to add to my appeal!"

"Meaning--?"

"Love--and curiosity! With those added, I could have won her over; for
believe me, she is none too firmly anchored to England. I am sure of
that, though it leaves me still puzzled. If you think her personal hold
on yonder gentleman will be lessened, you err," he added, in a low
voice. "I consider it sure that he is bent on her as much as he is on
England. See, she has him back in hand already! I would she were _our_
friend!"

"Is she not?" I asked suddenly.

"We two may answer that one day," said Calhoun enigmatically.

Now I offered to Mr. Calhoun the note I had received from his page.

"This journey to-night," I began; "can I not be excused from making
that? There is a very special reason."

"What can it be?" asked Calhoun, frowning.

"I am to be married to-night, sir," said I, calmly as I could.

It was Calhoun's turn now to be surprised. "_Married?_ Zounds! boy, what
do you mean? There is no time to waste."

"I do not hold it quite wasted, sir," said I with dignity. "Miss
Elisabeth Churchill and I for a long time--"

"Miss Elisabeth! So the wind is there, eh? My daughter's friend. I know
her very well, of course. Very well done, indeed, for you. But there can
be no wedding to-night."

I looked at him in amazement. He was as absorbed as though he felt
empowered to settle that matter for me. A moment later, seeing Mr.
Pakenham taking his leave, he stepped to the side of the baroness. I saw
him and that mysterious lady fall into a conversation as grave as that
which had but now been ended. I guessed, rather than reasoned, that in
some mysterious way I came into their talk. But presently both
approached me.

"Mr. Trist," said Mr. Calhoun, "I beg you to hand the Baroness von Ritz
to her carriage, which will wait at the avenue." We were then standing
near the door at the head of the steps.

"I see my friend Mr. Polk approaching," he continued, "and I would like
to have a word or so with him."

We three walked in company down the steps and a short distance along the
walk, until presently we faced the gentleman whose approach had been
noted. We paused in a little group under the shade of an avenue tree,
and the gentlemen removed their hats as Mr. Calhoun made a somewhat
formal introduction.

At that time, of course, James K. Polk, of Tennessee, was not the
national figure he was soon to become at the Baltimore convention. He
was known best as Speaker of the House for some time, and as a man
experienced in western politics, a friend of Jackson, who still
controlled a large wing of the disaffected; the Democratic party then
being scarce more than a league of warring cliques. Although once
governor of Tennessee, it still was an honor for Mr. Polk to be sought
out by Senator John Calhoun, sometime vice-president, sometime cabinet
member in different capacities. He showed this as he uncovered. A rather
short man, and thin, well-built enough, and of extremely serious mien,
he scarce could have been as wise as he looked, any more than Mr.
Daniel Webster; yet he was good example of conventional politics,
platitudes and all.

"They have adjourned at the House, then?" said Calhoun.

"Yes, and adjourned a bear pit at that," answered the gentleman from
Tennessee. "Mr. Tyler has asked me to come across town to meet him. Do
you happen to know where he is now?"

"He was here a few moments ago, Governor. We were but escorting this
lady to her carriage, as she claims fatigue from late hours at the ball
last night."

"Surely so radiant a presence," said Mr. Polk gallantly, "means that she
left the ball at an early hour."

"Quite so," replied that somewhat uncertain lady demurely. "Early hours
and a good conscience are advised by my physicians."

"My dear lady, Time owns his own defeat in you," Mr. Polk assured her,
his eyes sufficiently admiring.

"Such pretty speeches as these gentlemen of America make!" was her gay
reply. "Is it not so, Mr. Secretary?" She smiled up at Calhoun's serious
face.

Polk was possessed of a political nose which rarely failed him. "_Mr.
Secretary?_" he exclaimed, turning to Calhoun.

The latter bowed. "I have just accepted the place lately filled by Mr.
Upshur," was his comment.

A slow color rose in the Tennesseean's face as he held out his hand. "I
congratulate you, Mr. Secretary," said he. "Now at last we shall see an
end of indecision and boasting pretense."

"Excellent things to end, Governor Polk!" said Calhoun gravely.

"I am but an humble adviser," rejoined the man from Tennessee; "but
assuredly I must hasten to congratulate Mr. Tyler. I have no doubt that
this means Texas. Of course, my dear Madam, we talk riddles in your
presence?"

"Quite riddles, although I remain interested," she answered. I saw her
cool eyes take in his figure, measuring him calmly for her mental
tablets, as I could believe was her wont. "But I find myself indeed
somewhat fatigued," she continued, "and since these are matters of which
I am ignorant--"

"Of course, Madam," said Mr. Calhoun. "We crave your pardon. Mr.
Trist--"

So now I took the lady's sunshade from her hand, and we two, making
adieux, passed down the shaded walk toward the avenue.

"You are a good cavalier," she said to me. "I find you not so fat as Mr.
Pakenham, nor so thin as Mr. Calhoun. My faith, could you have seen that
gentleman this morning in a wrapper--and in a red worsted nightcap!"

"But what did you determine?" I asked her suddenly. "What has my chief
said to cause you to fail poor Mr. Pakenham as you did? I pitied the
poor man, in such a grueling, and wholly without warning!"

"Monsieur is droll," she replied evasively. "As though I had changed! I
will say this much: I think Sir Richard will care more for Mexico and
less for Mexicans after this! But you do not tell me when you are coming
to see me, to bring back my little shoe. Its mate has arrived by special
messenger, but the pair remains still broken. Do you come to-night--this
afternoon?"

"I wish that I might," said I.

"Why be churlish with me?" she demanded. "Did I not call at your request
upon a gentleman in a red nightcap at two in the morning? And for your
sake--and the sake of sport--did I not almost promise him many things?
Come now, am I not to see you and explain all that; and hear you explain
all this?" She made a little _moue_ at me.

"It would be my delight, Madam, but there are two reasons--"

"One, then."

"I am going to Montreal to-night, for one."

She gave me a swift glance, which I could not understand.

"So?" she said. "Why so soon?"

"Orders," said I briefly. "But perhaps I may not obey orders for once.
There is another reason."

"And that one?"

"I am to be married at six."

I turned to enjoy her consternation. Indeed, there was an alternate
white and red passed across her face! But at once she was in hand.

"And you allowed me to become your devoted slave," she said, "even to
the extent of calling upon a man in a red nightcap; and then, even upon
a morning like this, when the birds sing so sweetly and the little
flowers show pink and white--now you cast down my most sacred feelings!"

The mockery in her tone was perfect. I scarce had paused to note it. I
was absorbed in one thought--of Elisabeth. Where one fire burns high and
clear upon the altar of the heart, there is small room for any other.

"I might have told you," said I at Last, "but I did not myself know it
until this morning."

"My faith, this country!" she exclaimed with genuine surprise. "What
extraordinary things it does! I have just seen history made between the
lightings of a cigarette, as it were. Now comes this man and announces
that since midnight he has met and won the lady who is to rule his
heart, and that he is to marry her at six!"

"Then congratulate me!" I demanded.

"Ah," she said, suddenly absorbed; "it was that tall girl! Yes, yes, I
see, I see! I understand! So then! Yes!"

"But still you have not congratulated me."

"Ah, Monsieur," she answered lightly, "one woman never congratulates a
man when he has won another! What of my own heart? Fie! Fie!" Yet she
had curious color in her face.

"I do not credit myself with such fatal charms," said I. "Rather say
what of my little clasp there. I promised that to the tall girl, as you
know."

"And might I not wear it for an hour?"

"I shall give you a dozen better some time," said I; "but to-night--"

"And my slipper? I said I must have that back, because I can not hop
along with but one shoe all my life."

"That you shall have as soon as I can get to my rooms at Brown's Hotel
yonder. A messenger shall bring it to you at once. Time will indeed be
short for me. First, the slipper for Madam. Then the license for myself.
Then the minister. Then a friend. Then a carriage. Five miles to
Elmhurst, and the train for the North starts at eight. Indeed, as you
say, the methods of this country are sometimes hurried. Madam, can not
you use your wits in a cause so worthy as mine?"

I could not at the time understand the swift change of her features.
"One woman's wits against another's!" she flashed at me. "As for
that"--She made a swift motion to her throat. "Here is the trinket. Tell
the tall lady it is my present to you. Tell her I may send her a wedding
present--when the wedding really is to happen. Of course, you do not
mean what you have said about being married in such haste?"

"Every word of it," I answered. "And at her own home. 'Tis no runaway
match; I have the consent of her father."

"But you said you had her consent only an hour ago. Ah, this is better
than a play!"

"It is true," said I, "there has not been time to inform Miss
Churchill's family of my need for haste. I shall attend to that when I
arrive. The lady has seen the note from Mr. Calhoun ordering me to
Montreal."

"To Montreal? How curious!" she mused. "But what did Mr. Calhoun say to
this marriage?"

"He forbade the banns."

"But Monsieur will take her before him in a sack--and he will forbid
you, I am sure, to condemn that lady to a life in a cabin, to a couch of
husks, to a lord who would crush her arms and command her--"

I flushed as she reminded me of my own speech, and there came no answer
but the one which I imagine is the verdict of all lovers. "She is the
dearest girl in the world," I declared.

"Has she fortune?"

"I do not know."

"Have you fortune?"

"God knows, no!"

"You have but love-and this country?"

"That is all."

"It is enough," said she, sighing. "Dear God, it is enough! But
then"-she turned to me suddenly--"I don't think you will be married so
soon, after all. Wait."

"That is what Mr. Pakenham wanted Mr. Calhoun to do," I smiled.

"But Mr. Pakenham is not a woman."

"Ah, then you also forbid our banns?"

"If you challenge me," she retorted, "I shall do my worst."

"Then do your worst!" I said. "All of you do your joint worst. You can
not shake the faith of Elisabeth Churchill in me, nor mine in her. Oh,
yes, by all means do your worst!"

"Very well," she said, with a catch of her breath. "At least we both
said--'on guard!'

"I wish I could ask you to attend at our wedding," I concluded, as her
carriage approached the curb; "but it is safe to say that not even
friends of the family will be present, and of those not all the family
will be friends."

She did not seem to see her carriage as it paused, although she prepared
to enter when I opened the door. Her look, absorbed, general, seemed
rather to take in the sweep of the wide grounds, the green of the young
springtime, the bursting of the new white blossoms, the blue of the sky,
the loom of the distant capitol dome--all the crude promise of our young
and tawdry capital, still in the making of a world city. Her eyes passed
to me and searched my face without looking into my eyes, as though I
made part of her study. What sat on her face was perplexity, wonder,
amazement, and something else, I know not what. Something of her perfect
poise and confidence, her quality as woman of the world, seemed to drop
away. A strange and childlike quality came into her face, a pathos
unlike anything I had seen there before. She took my hand mechanically.

"Of course," said she, as though she spoke to herself, "it can not be.
But, dear God! would it not be enough?"

I did not understand her speech. I stood and watched her carriage as it
whirled away. Thinking of my great need for haste, mechanically I
looked at my watch. It was one o'clock. Then I reflected that it was at
eleven of the night previous that I had first met the Baroness von Ritz.
Our acquaintance had therefore lasted some fourteen hours.




CHAPTER X

MIXED DUTIES


     Most women will forgive a liberty, rather than a slight.
                                               --_Colton_.


When I crossed the White House grounds and found my way to the spot
where I had left my horse, I discovered my darky boy lying on his back,
fast asleep under a tree, the bridle reins hooked over his upturned
foot. I wakened him, took the reins and was about to mount, when at the
moment I heard my name called.

Turning, I saw emerge from the door of Gautier's little café, across the
street, the tall figure of an erstwhile friend of mine, Jack Dandridge,
of Tennessee, credited with being the youngest member in the House of
Representatives at Washington--and credited with little else.

Dandridge had been taken up by friends of Jackson and Polk and carried
into Congress without much plan or objection on either side. Since his
arrival at the capital he had been present at few roll-calls, and had
voted on fewer measures. His life was given up in the main to one
specialty, to-wit: the compounding of a certain beverage, invented by
himself, the constituent parts of which were Bourbon whiskey, absinthe,
square faced gin and a dash of _eau de vie_. This concoction, over which
few shared his own personal enthusiasm, he had christened the
Barn-Burner's Dream; although Mr. Dandridge himself was opposed to the
tenets of the political party thus entitled--which, by the way, was to
get its whimsical name, possibly from Dandridge himself, at the
forthcoming Democratic convention of that year.

Jack Dandridge, it may be said, was originally possessed of a splendid
constitution. Nearly six feet tall, his full and somewhat protruding eye
was as yet only a trifle watery, his wide lip only a trifle loose, his
strong figure only a trifle portly. Socially he had been well received
in our city, and during his stay east of the mountains he had found
occasion to lay desperate suit to the hand of none other than Miss
Elisabeth Churchill. We had been rivals, although not enemies; for Jack,
finding which way the wind sat for him, withdrew like a man, and
cherished no ill will. When I saw him now, a sudden idea came to me, so
that I crossed the street at his invitation.

"Come in," said he. "Come in with me, and have a Dream. I have just
invented a new touch for it; I have, 'pon my word."

"Jack," I exclaimed, grasping him by the shoulder, "you are the man I
want. You are the friend that I need--the very one."

"Certainly, certainly," he said; "but please do not disarrange my
cravat. Sir, I move you the previous question. Will you have a Dream
with me? I construct them now with three additional squirts of the
absinthe." He locked his arm in mine.

"You may have a Dream," said I; "but for me, I need all my head to-day.
In short, I need both our heads as well."

Jack was already rapping with the head of his cane upon the table, to
call an attendant, but he turned to me. "What is the matter? Lady, this
time?"

"Two of them."

"Indeed? One apiece, eh?"

"None apiece, perhaps. In any case, you lose."

"Then the names--or at least one?"

I flushed a bit in spite of myself. "You know Miss Elisabeth Churchill?"

He nodded gravely. "And about the other lady?"

"I can not tell you much about her," said I; "I have but little
knowledge myself. I mean the Baroness von Ritz."

"Oh, ho!" Jack opened his eyes, and gave a long whistle. "State secrets,
eh?"

I nodded, and looked him square in the eye.

"Well, why should you ask me to help you, then? Calhoun is none too good
a friend of Mr. Polk, of my state. Calhoun is neither Whig nor Democrat.
He does not know where he stands. If you train with him, why come to our
camp for help?"

"Not that sort, jack," I answered. "The favor I ask is personal."

"Explain."

He sipped at the fiery drink, which by this time had been placed before
him, his face brightening.

"I must be quick. I have in my possession--on the bureau in my little
room at my quarters in Brown's Hotel--a slipper which the baroness gave
me last night--a white satin slipper--"

Jack finished the remainder of his glass at a gulp. "Good God!" he
remarked.

"Quite right," I retorted hotly. "Accuse me Anything you like! But go to
my headquarters, get that slipper, go to this address with it"--I
scrawled on a piece of paper and thrust it at him--"then get a carriage
and hasten to Elmhurst drive, where it turns in at the road. Wait for me
there, just before six."

He sat looking at me with amusement and amazement both upon his face, as
I went on:

"Listen to what I am to do in the meantime. First I go post haste to Mr.
Calhoun's office. Then I am to take his message, which will send me to
Canada, to-night. After I have my orders I hurry back to Brown's and
dress for my wedding."

The glass in his hand dropped to the floor in splinters.

"Your wedding?"

"Yes, Miss Elisabeth and I concluded this very morning not to wait. I
would ask you to help me as my best man, if I dare."

"You do dare," said he. "You're all a-fluster. Go on; I'll get a
parson--how'll Doctor Halford do?--and I'd take care of the license for
you if I could--Gad! sorry it's not my own!"

"You are the finest fellow in the world, Jack. I have only one thing
more to ask"--I pointed to the splintered glass upon the floor--"Don't
get another."

"Of course not, of course not!" he expostulated. His voice was just a
trifle thickened. We left now together for the license clerk, and I
intrusted the proper document in my friend's hands. An instant later I
was outside, mounted, and off for Calhoun's office at his residence in
Georgetown.

At last, as for the fourth time I flung down the narrow walk and looked
down the street, I saw his well-known form approaching. He walked
slowly, somewhat stooped upon his cane. He raised a hand as I would
have begun to speak. His customary reserve and dignity held me back.

"So you made it out well with the lady," he began.

"Yes," I answered, flushing. "Not so badly for the time that offered."

"A remarkable woman," he said. "Most remarkable!" Then he went on: "Now
as to your own intended, I congratulate you. But I suggest that you keep
Miss Elisabeth Churchill and the Baroness von Ritz pretty well
separated, if that be possible."

"Sir," I stammered; "that certainly is my personal intent. But now, may
I ask--"

"You start to Canada to-night," said Calhoun sharply--all softness gone
from his voice.

"I can not well do that," I began. His hand tapped with decision.

"I have no time to choose another messenger," he said. "Time will not
wait. You must not fail me. You will take the railway train at eight.
You will be joined by Doctor Samuel Ward, who will give you a sealed
paper, which will contain your instructions, and the proper moneys. He
goes as far as Baltimore."

"You would be the better agent," he added presently, "if this love
silliness were out of your head. It is not myself you are serving, and
not my party. It is this country you are serving."

"But, sir--" I began.

His long thin hand was imperative. "Go on, then, with your wedding, if
you will, and if you can; but see that you do not miss the train at
eight!"

Half in a daze, I left him; nor did I see him again that day, nor for
many after.




CHAPTER XI

WHO GIVETH THIS WOMAN

     Woman is a miracle of divine contradictions.--_Jules Michelet_.


On my return to my quarters at Brown's I looked at the top of my bureau.
It was empty. My friend Dandridge had proved faithful. The slipper of
the baroness was gone! So now, hurriedly, I began my toilet for that
occasion which to any gentleman should be the one most exacting, the
most important of his life's events.

Elisabeth deserved better than this unseemly haste. Her sweetness and
dignity, her adherence to the forms of life, her acquaintance with the
elegancies, the dignities and conventions of the best of our society,
bespoke for her ceremony more suited to her class and mine. Nothing
could excuse these hurly burly ways save only my love, our uncertainty
regarding my future presence, and the imperious quality of my duties.

I told none about my quarters anything of my plans, but arranged for my
portmanteaus to be sent to the railway station for that evening's train
north. We had not many outgoing and incoming trains in those days in
Washington. I hurried to Bond's jewelry place and secured a ring--two
rings, indeed; for, in our haste, betrothal and wedding ring needed
their first use at the same day and hour. I found a waiting carriage
which served my purpose, and into it I flung, urging the driver to carry
me at top speed into Elmhurst road. Having now time for breath, I sat
back and consulted my watch. There were a few moments left for me to
compose myself. If all went well, I should be in time.

As we swung down the road I leaned forward, studying with interest the
dust cloud of an approaching carriage. As it came near, I called to my
driver. The two vehicles paused almost wheel to wheel. It was my friend
Jack Dandridge who sprawled on the rear seat of the carriage! That is to
say, the fleshly portion of Jack Dandridge. His mind, his memory, and
all else, were gone.

I sprang into his carriage and caught him roughly by the arm. I felt in
all his pockets, looked on the carriage floor, on the seat, and pulled
up the dust rug. At last I found the license.

"Did you see the baroness?" I asked, then.

At this he beamed upon me with a wide smile.

"Did I?" said he, with gravity pulling down his long buff waistcoat.
"Did I? Mos' admi'ble woman in all the worl'! Of course, Miss 'Lis'beth
Churchill also mos' admi'ble woman in the worl'," he added politely,
"but I didn't see _her_. Many, many congrash'lations. Mos' admi'ble girl
in worl'--whichever girl she is! I want do what's right!"

The sudden sweat broke out upon my forehead. "Tell me, what have you
done with the slipper!"

He shook his head sadly. "Mishtaken, my friend! I gave mos' admi'ble
slipper in the worl', just ash you said, just as baroness said, to Mish
Elisabeth Churchill--mos' admi'ble woman in the worl'! Proud
congrash'late you both, m' friend!"

"Did you see her?" I gasped. "Did you see her father--any of her
family?"

"God blesh me, no!" rejoined this young statesman. "Feelings delicacy
prevented. Realized having had three--four--five--Barn Burners; washn't
in fit condition to approach family mansion. Alwaysh mos' delicate. Felt
m'self no condition shtan' up bes' man to mosh admi'ble man and mosh
admi'ble girl in worl'. Sent packazh in by servant, from gate--turned
round--drove off--found you. Lo, th' bridegroom cometh! Li'l late!"

My only answer was to spring from his carriage into my own and to order
my driver to go on at a run. At last I reached the driveway of Elmhurst,
my carriage wheels cutting the gravel as we galloped up to the front
door. My approach was noted. Even as I hurried up the steps the tall
form of none other than Mr. Daniel Churchill appeared to greet me. I
extended my hand. He did not notice it. I began to speak. He bade me
pause.

"To what may I attribute this visit, Mr. Trist?" he asked me, with
dignity.

"Since you ask me, and seem not to know," I replied, "I may say that I
am here to marry your daughter, Miss Elisabeth! I presume that the
minister of the gospel is already here?"

"The minister is here," he answered. "There lacks one thing--the bride."

"What do you mean?"

He put out his arm across the door.

"I regret that I must bar my door to you. But you must take my word, as
coming from my daughter, that you are not to come here to-night."

I looked at him, my eyes staring wide. I could not believe what he said.

"Why," I began; "how utterly monstrous!"

A step sounded in the hall behind him, and he turned back. We were
joined by the tall clerical figure of the Reverend Doctor Halford, who
had, it seemed, been at least one to keep his appointment as made. He
raised his hand as if to silence me, and held out to me a certain
object. It was the slipper of the Baroness Helena von Ritz--white,
delicate, dainty, beribboned. "Miss Elisabeth does not pretend to
understand why your gift should take this form; but as the slipper
evidently has been worn by some one, she suggests you may perhaps be in
error in sending it at all." He spoke in even, icy tones.

"Let me into this house!" I demanded. "I must see her!"

There were two tall figures now, who stood side by side in the wide
front door.

"But don't you see, there has been a mistake, a horrible mistake?" I
demanded.

Doctor Halford, in his grave and quiet way, assisted himself to snuff.
"Sir," he said, "knowing both families, I agreed to this haste and
unceremoniousness, much against my will. Had there been no objection
upon either side, I would have undertaken to go forward with the wedding
ceremony. But never in my life have I, and never shall I, join two in
wedlock when either is not in that state of mind and soul consonant with
that holy hour. This ceremony can not go on. I must carry to you this
young lady's wish that you depart. She can not see you."

There arose in my heart a sort of feeling of horror, as though something
was wrong, I could not tell what. All at once I felt a swift revulsion.
There came over me the reaction, an icy calm. I felt all ardor leave me.
I was cold as stone.

"Gentlemen," said I slowly, "what you tell me is absolutely impossible
and absurd. But if Miss Elisabeth really doubts me on evidence such as
this, I would be the last man in the world to ask her hand. Some time
you and she may explain to me about this. It is my right. I shall exact
it from you later. I have no time to argue now. Good-by!"

They looked at me with grave faces, but made no reply. I descended the
steps, the dainty, beribboned slipper still in my hand, got into my
carriage and started back to the city.




CHAPTER XII

THE MARATHON

     As if two gods should play some heavenly match, and on this wager
     lay two earthly women.--_Shakespeare_.


An automaton, scarcely thinking, I gained the platform of the station.
There was a sound of hissing steam, a rolling cloud of sulphurous smoke,
a shouting of railway captains, a creaking of the wheels. Without
volition of my own, I was on my northward journey. Presently I looked
around and found seated at my side the man whom I then recollected I was
to meet--Doctor Samuel Ward. I presume he took the train after I did.

"What's wrong, Nicholas?" he asked. "Trouble of any kind?"

I presume that the harsh quality of my answer surprised him. He looked
at me keenly.

"Tell me what's up, my son," said he.

"You know Miss Elisabeth Churchill--" I hesitated.

He nodded. "Yes," he rejoined; "and damn you, sir! if you give that girl
a heartache, you'll have to settle with me!"

"Some one will have to settle with me!" I returned hotly.

"Tell me, then."

So, briefly, I did tell him what little I knew of the events of the last
hour. I told him of the shame and humiliation of it all. He pondered for
a minute and asked me at length if I believed Miss Elisabeth suspected
anything of my errand of the night before.

"How could she?" I answered. "So far as I can recollect I never
mentioned the name of the Baroness von Ritz."

Then, all at once, I did recollect! I did remember that I had mentioned
the name of the baroness that very morning to Elisabeth, when the
baroness passed us in the East Room! I had not told the truth--I had
gone with a lie on my lips that very day, and asked her to take vows
with me in which no greater truth ought to be heard than the simple
truth from me to her, in any hour of the day, in any time of our two
lives!

Doctor Ward was keen enough to see the sudden confusion on my face, but
he made no comment beyond saying that he doubted not time would clear it
all up; that he had known many such affairs.

"But mind you one thing," he added; "keep those two women apart."

"Then why do you two doddering old idiots, you and John Calhoun, with
life outworn and the blood dried in your veins, send me, since you
doubt me so much, on an errand of this kind? You see what it has done
for me. I am done with John Calhoun. He may get some other fool for his
service."

"Where do you propose going, then, my friend?"

"West," I answered. "West to the Rockies--"

Doctor Ward calmly produced a tortoise shell snuffbox from his left-hand
waistcoat pocket, and deliberately took snuff. "You are going to do
nothing of the kind," said he calmly. "You are going to keep your
promise to John Calhoun and to me. Believe me, the business in hand is
vital. You go to Canada now in the most important capacity you have ever
had."

"I care nothing for that," I answered bitterly.

"But you are the agent of your country. You are called to do your
country's urgent work. Here is your trouble over one girl. Would you
make trouble for a million American girls--would you unsettle thousands
and thousands of American homes because, for a time, you have known
trouble? All life is only trouble vanquished. I ask you now to be a man;
I not only expect it, but demand it of you!"

His words carried weight in spite of myself. I began to listen. I took
from his hand the package, looked at it, examined it. Finally, as he sat
silently regarding me, I broke the seal.

"Now, Nicholas Trist," resumed Doctor Ward presently, "there is to be
at Montreal at the date named in these papers a meeting of the directors
of the Hudson Bay Company of England. There will be big men there--the
biggest their country can produce; leaders of the Hudson Bay Company,
many, public men even of England. It is rumored that a brother of Lord
Aberdeen, of the British Ministry, will attend. Do you begin to
understand?"

Ah, did I not? Here, then, was further weaving of those complex plots
which at that time hedged in all our history as a republic. Now I
guessed the virtue of our knowing somewhat of England's secret plans, as
she surely did of ours. I began to feel behind me the impulse of John
Calhoun's swift energy.

"It is Oregon!" I exclaimed at last.

Doctor Ward nodded. "Very possibly. It has seemed to Mr. Calhoun very
likely that we may hear something of great importance regarding the far
Northwest. A missed cog now may cost this country a thousand miles of
territory, a hundred years of history."

Doctor Ward continued: "England, as you know," said he, "is the enemy of
this country as much to-day as ever. She claims she wishes Texas to
remain free. She forgets her own record--forgets the burning cities of
Rohilkhand, the imprisoned princesses of Oudh! Might is her right. She
wants Texas as a focus of contention, a rallying point of sectionalism.
If she divides us, she conquers us. That is all. She wants the chance
for the extension of her own hold on this continent, which she will push
as far, and fast as she dare. She must have cotton. She would like land
as well."

"That means also Oregon?"

He nodded. "Always with the Texas question comes the Oregon question.
Mr. Calhoun is none too friendly to Mr. Polk, and yet he knows that
through Jackson's influence with the Southern democracy Polk has an
excellent chance for the next nomination for the presidency. God knows
what folly will come then. But sometime, one way or another, the joint
occupancy of England and the United States in the Oregon country must
end. It has been a waiting game thus far, as you know; but never think
that England has been idle. This meeting in Montreal will prove that to
you."

In spite of myself, I began to feel the stimulus of a thought like this.
It was my salvation as a man. I began to set aside myself and my own
troubles.

"You are therefore," he concluded, "to go to Montreal, and find your own
way into that meeting of the directors of the Hudson Bay Company. There
is a bare chance that in this intrigue Mexico will have an emissary on
the ground as well. There is reason to suspect her hostility to all our
plans of extension, southwest and northwest. Naturally, it is the card
of Mexico to bring on war, or accept it if we urge; but only in case she
has England as her ally. England will get her pay by taking Texas, and
what is more, by taking California, which Mexico does not value. She
owes England large sums now. That would leave England owner of the
Pacific coast; for, once she gets California, she will fight us then for
_all_ of Oregon. It is your duty to learn all of these matters--who is
there, what is done; and to do this without making known your own
identity."

I sat for a moment in thought. "It is an honor," said I finally; "an
honor so large that under it I feel small."

"Now," said Doctor Ward, placing a gnarled hand on my shoulder, "you
begin to talk like a Marylander. It's a race, my boy, a race across this
continent. There are two trails--one north and one mid-continent. On
these paths two nations contend in the greatest Marathon of all the
world. England or the United States--monarchy or republic--aristocracy
or humanity'? These are some of the things which hang on the issue of
this contest. Take then your duty and your honor, humbly and
faithfully."

"Good-by," he said, as we steamed into Baltimore station. I turned, and
he was gone.




CHAPTER XIII

ON SECRET SERVICE

     If the world was lost through woman, she alone can save it.--_Louis
     de Beaufort._


In the days of which I write, our civilization was, as I may say, so
embryonic, that it is difficult for us now to realize the conditions
which then obtained. We had great men in those days, and great deeds
were done; but to-day, as one reflects upon life as it then was, it
seems almost impossible that they and their deeds could have existed in
a time so crude and immature.

The means of travel in its best form was at that time at least curious.
We had several broken railway systems north and south, but there were
not then more than five thousand miles of railway built in America. All
things considered, I felt lucky when we reached New York less than
twenty-four hours out from Washington.

From New York northward to Montreal one's journey involved a choice of
routes. One might go up the Hudson River by steamer to Albany, and
thence work up the Champlain Lake system, above which one might employ
a short stretch of rails between St. John and La Prairie, on the banks
of the St. Lawrence opposite Montreal. Or, one might go from Albany west
by rail as far as Syracuse, up the Mohawk Valley, and so to Oswego,
where on Lake Ontario one might find steam or sailing craft.

Up the Hudson I took the crack steamer _Swallow_, the same which just
one year later was sunk while trying to beat her own record of nine
hours and two minutes from New York to Albany. She required eleven hours
on our trip. Under conditions then obtaining, it took me a day and a
half more to reach Lake Ontario. Here, happily, I picked up a frail
steam craft, owned by an adventurous soul who was not unwilling to risk
his life and that of others on the uncertain and ice-filled waters of
Ontario. With him I negotiated to carry me with others down the St.
Lawrence. At that time, of course, the Lachine Canal was not completed,
and the Victoria Bridge was not even conceived as a possibility. One
delay after another with broken machinery, lack of fuel, running ice and
what not, required five days more of my time ere I reached Montreal.

I could not be called either officer or spy, yet none the less I did not
care to be recognized here in the capacity of one over-curious. I made
up my costume as that of an innocent free trader from the Western fur
country of the states, and was able, from my earlier experiences, to
answer any questions as to beaver at Fort Hall or buffalo on the
Yellowstone or the Red. Thus I passed freely in and about all the public
places of the town, and inspected with a certain personal interest all
its points of interest, from the Gray Nunneries to the new cathedrals,
the Place d'Armes, the Champ de Mars, the barracks, the vaunted brewery,
the historic mountain, and the village lying between the arms of the two
rivers--a point where history for a great country had been made, and
where history for our own now was planning.

As I moved about from day to day, making such acquaintance as I could, I
found in the air a feeling of excitement and expectation. The hotels,
bad as they were, were packed. The public places were noisy, the private
houses crowded. Gradually the town became half-military and half-savage.
Persons of importance arrived by steamers up the river, on whose expanse
lay boats which might be bound for England--or for some of England's
colonies. The Government--not yet removed to Ottawa, later capital of
Ontario--was then housed in the old Château Ramezay, built so long
before for the French governor, Vaudreuil.

Here, I had reason to believe, was now established no less a personage
than Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson Bay Company. Rumor had
it at the time that Lord Aberdeen of England himself was at Montreal.
That was not true, but I established without doubt that his brother
really was there, as well as Lieutenant William Peel of the Navy, son of
Sir Robert Peel, England's prime minister. The latter, with his
companion, Captain Parke, was one time pointed out to me proudly by my
inn-keeper--two young gentlemen, clad in the ultra fashion of their
country, with very wide and tall bell beavers, narrow trousers, and
strange long sack-coats unknown to us in the States--of little shape or
elegance, it seemed to me.

There was expectancy in the air, that was sure. It was open secret
enough in England, as well as in Montreal and in Washington, that a
small army of American settlers had set out the foregoing summer for the
valley of the Columbia, some said under leadership of the missionary
Whitman. Britain was this year awakening to the truth that these men had
gone thither for a purpose. Here now was a congress of Great Britain's
statesmen, leaders of Great Britain's greatest monopoly, the Hudson Bay
Company, to weigh this act of the audacious American Republic. I was not
a week in Montreal before I learned that my master's guess, or his
information, had been correct. The race was on for Oregon!

All these things, I say, I saw go on about me. Yet in truth as to the
inner workings of this I could gain but little actual information. I
saw England's ships, but it was not for me to know whether they were to
turn Cape Hope or the Horn. I saw Canada's _voyageurs_, but they might
be only on their annual journey, and might go no farther than their
accustomed posts in the West. In French town and English town, among
common soldiers, _voyageurs_, inn-keepers and merchants, I wandered for
more than one day and felt myself still helpless.

That is to say, such was the case until there came to my aid that
greatest of all allies, Chance.




CHAPTER XIV

THE OTHER WOMAN

     The world is the book of women.--_Rousseau_.


I needed not to be advised that presently there would be a meeting of
some of the leading men of the Hudson Bay Company at the little gray
stone, dormer-windowed building on Notre Dame Street. In this old
building--in whose vaults at one time of emergency was stored the entire
currency of the Canadian treasury--there still remained some government
records, and now under the steep-pitched roof affairs were to be
transacted somewhat larger than the dimensions of the building might
have suggested. The keeper of my inn freely made me a list of those who
would be present--a list embracing so many scores of prominent men whom
he then swore to be in the city of Montreal that, had the old Château
Ramezay afforded twice its room, they could not all have been
accommodated. For myself, it was out of the question to gain admittance.

In those days all Montreal was iron-shuttered after nightfall,
resembling a series of jails; and to-night it seemed doubly screened and
guarded. None the less, late in the evening, I allowed seeming accident
to lead me in a certain direction. Passing as often as I might up and
down Notre Dame Street without attracting attention, I saw more than one
figure in the semi-darkness enter the low château door. Occasionally a
tiny gleam showed at the edge of a shutter or at the top of some little
window not fully screened. As to what went on within I could only guess.

I passed the château, up and down, at different times from nine o'clock
until midnight. The streets of Montreal at that time made brave pretense
of lighting by virtue of the new gas works; at certain intervals
flickering and wholly incompetent lights serving to make the gloom more
visible. None the less, as I passed for the last time, I plainly saw a
shaft of light fall upon the half darkness from a little side door.
There emerged upon the street the figure of a woman. I do not know what
led me to cast a second glance, for certainly my business was not with
ladies, any more than I would have supposed ladies had business there;
but, victim of some impulse of curiosity, I walked a step or two in the
same direction as that taken by the cloaked figure.

Careless as I endeavored to make my movements, the veiled lady seemed to
take suspicion or fright. She quickened her steps. Accident favored me.
Even as she fled, she caught her skirt on some object which lay hidden
in the shadows and fell almost at full length. This I conceived to be
opportunity warranting my approach. I raised my hat and assured her that
her flight was needless.

She made no direct reply to me, but as she rose gave utterance to an
expression of annoyance. "_Mon Dieu!_" I heard her say.

I stood for a moment trying to recall where I had heard this same voice!
She turned her face in such a way that the light illuminated it. Then
indeed surprise smote me.

"Madam Baroness," said I, laughing, "it is wholly impossible for you to
be here, yet you are here! Never again will I say there is no such thing
as chance, no such thing as fate, no such thing as a miracle!"

She looked at me one brief moment; then her courage returned.

"Ah, then, my idiot," she said, "since it is to be our fortune always to
meet of dark nights and in impossible ways, give me your arm."

I laughed. "We may as well make treaty. If you run again, I shall only
follow you."

"Then I am again your prisoner?"

"Madam, I again am yours!"

"At least, you improve!" said she. "Then come."

"Shall I not call a _calèche?_--the night is dark."

"No, no!" hurriedly.

We began a midnight course that took us quite across the old French
quarter of Montreal. At last she turned into a small, dark street of
modest one-story residences, iron-shuttered, dark and cheerless. Here
she paused in front of a narrow iron gate.

"Madam," I said, "you represent to me one of the problems of my life.
Why does your taste run to such quarters as these? This might be that
same back street in Washington!"

She chuckled to herself, at length laughed aloud. "But wait! If you
entered my abode once," she said, "why not again? Come."

Her hand was at the heavy knocker as she spoke. In a moment the door
slowly opened, just as it had done that night before in Washington. My
companion passed before me swiftly. As she entered I saw standing at the
opening the same brown and wrinkled old dame who had served that night
before in Washington!

For an instant the light dazzled my eyes, but, determined now to see
this adventure through, I stepped within. Then, indeed, I found it
difficult to stifle the exclamation of surprise which came to my lips.
Believe it or not, as you like, we _were_ again in Washington!

I say that I was confronted by the identical arrangement, the identical
objects of furnishing, which had marked the luxurious boudoir of Helena
von Ritz in Washington! The tables were the same, the chairs, the
mirrors, the consoles. On the mantel stood the same girandoles with
glittering crystals. The pictures upon the walls, so far as I could
remember their themes, did not deviate in any particular of detail or
arrangement. The oval-backed chairs were duplicates of those I had seen
that other night at midnight. Beyond these same amber satin curtains
stood the tall bed with its canopy, as I could see; and here at the
right was the same low Napoleon bed with its rolled ends. The figures of
the carpets were the same, their deep-piled richness, soft under foot,
the same. The flowered cups of the sconces were identical with those I
had seen before. To my eye, even as it grew more studious, there
appeared no divergence, no difference, between these apartments and
those I had so singularly visited--and yet under circumstances so
strangely akin to these--in the capital of my own country!

"You are good enough to admire my modest place," said a laughing voice
at my shoulder. Then indeed I waked and looked about me, and saw that
this, stranger than any mirage of the brain, was but a fact and must
later be explained by the laborious processes of the feeble reason.

I turned to her then, pulling myself together as best I could. Yes, she
too was the same, although in this case costumed somewhat differently.
The wide ball gown of satin was gone, and in its place was a less
pretentious robing of some darker silk. I remembered distinctly that the
flowers upon the white satin gown I first had seen were pink roses. Here
were flowers of the crocus, cunningly woven into the web of the gown
itself. The slippers which I now saw peeping out as she passed were not
of white satin, but better foot covering for the street. She cast over
the back of a chair, as she had done that other evening, her light
shoulder covering, a dark mantle, not of lace now, but of some thin
cloth. Her jewels were gone, and the splendor of her dark hair was free
of decoration. No pale blue fires shone at her white throat, and her
hands were ringless. But the light, firm poise of her figure could not
be changed; the mockery of her glance remained the same, half laughing
and half wistful. The strong curve of her lips remained, and I recalled
this arch of brow, the curve of neck and chin, the droop of the dark
locks above her even forehead. Yes, it was she. It could be no one else.

She clapped her hands and laughed like a child as she turned to me.
"Bravo!" she said. "My judgment, then, was quite correct."

"In regard to what?"

"Yourself!"

"Pardon me?"

"You do not show curiosity! You do not ask me questions! Good! I think
I shall ask you to wait. I say to you frankly that I am alone here. It
pleases me to live--as pleases me! You are alone in Montreal. Why should
we not please ourselves?"

In some way which I did not pause to analyze, I felt perfectly sure that
this strange woman could, if she cared to do so, tell me some of the
things I ought to know. She might be here on some errand identical with
my own. Calhoun had sent for her once before. Whose agent was she now? I
found chairs for us both.

An instant later, summoned in what way I do not know, the old
serving-woman again reappeared. "Wine, Threlka," said the baroness;
"service for two--you may use this little table. Monsieur," she added,
turning to me, "I am most happy to make even some slight return for the
very gracious entertainment offered me that morning by Mr. Calhoun at
his residence. Such a droll man! Oh, la! la!"

"Are you his friend, Madam?" I asked bluntly.

"Why should I not be?"

I could frame neither offensive nor defensive art with her. She mocked
me.

In a few moments the weazened old woman was back with cold fowl, wine,
napery, silver.

"Will Monsieur carve?" At her nod the old woman filled my glass, after
my hostess had tasted of her own. We had seated ourselves at the table
as she spoke.

"Not so bad for a black midnight, eh?" she went on, "--in a strange
town--and on a strange errand? And again let me express my approbation
of your conduct."

"If it pleases you, 'tis more than I can say of it for myself," I began.
"But why?"

"Because you ask no questions. You take things as they come. I did not
expect you would come to Montreal."

"Then you know--but of course, I told you."

"Have you then no question?" she went on at last. Her glass stood half
full; her wrists rested gently on the table edge, as she leaned back,
looking at me with that on her face which he had needed to be wiser than
myself, who could have read.

"May I, then?"

"Yes, now you may go on."

"I thank you. First, of course, for what reason do you carry the secrets
of my government into the stronghold of another government? Are you the
friend of America, or are you a spy upon America? Are you my friend, or
are we to be enemies to-night?"

She flung back her head and laughed delightedly. "That is a good
beginning," she commented.

"You must, at a guess, have come up by way of the lakes, and by batteau
from La Prairie?" I ventured.

She nodded again. "Of course. I have been here six days."

"Indeed?--you have badly beaten me in our little race."

She flashed on me a sudden glance. "Why do you not ask me outright _why_
I am here?"

"Well, then, I do! I do ask you that. I ask you how you got access to
that meeting to-night--for I doubt not you were there?"

She gazed at me deliberately again, parting her red lips, again smiling
at me. "What would you have given to have been there yourself?"

"All the treasures those vaults ever held."

"So much? What will you give me, then, to tell you what I know?"

"More than all that treasure, Madam. A place--"

"Ah! a 'place in the heart of a people!' I prefer a locality more
restricted."

"In my own heart, then; yes, of course!"

She helped herself daintily to a portion of the white meat of the fowl.
"Yes," she went on, as though speaking to herself, "on the whole, I
rather like him. Yet what a fool! Ah, such a droll idiot!"

"How so, Madam?" I expostulated. "I thought I was doing very well."

"Yet you can not guess how to persuade me?"

"No; how could that be?"

"Always one gains by offering some equivalent, value for
value--especially with women, Monsieur."

She went on as though to herself. "Come, now, I fancy him! He is
handsome, he is discreet, he has courage, he is not usual, he is not
curious; but ah, _mon Dieu_, what a fool!"

"Admit me to be a fool, Madam, since it is true; but tell me in my folly
what equivalent I can offer one who has everything in the world--wealth,
taste, culture, education, wit, learning, beauty?"

"Go on! Excellent!"

"Who has everything as against my nothing! _What_ value, Madam?"

"Why, gentle idiot, to get an answer ask a question, always."

"I have asked it."

"But you can not guess that _I_ might ask one? So, then, one answer for
another, we might do--what you Americans call some business--eh? Will
you answer _my_ question?"

"Ask it, then."

"_Were you married_--that other night?"

So, then, she was woman after all, and curious! Her sudden speech came
like a stab; but fortunately my dull nerves had not had time to change
my face before a thought flashed into my mind. Could I not make
merchandise of my sorrow? I pulled myself into control and looked her
fair in the face.

"Madam," I said, "look at my face and read your own answer."

She looked, searching me, while every nerve of me tingled; but at last
she shook her head. "No," she sighed. "I can not yet say." She did not
see the sweat starting on my forehead.

I raised my kerchief over my head. "A truce, then, Madam! Let us leave
the one question against the other for a time."

"Excellent! I shall get my answer first, in that case, and for nothing."

"How so?"

"I shall only watch you. As we are here now, I were a fool, worse than
you, if I could not tell whether or not you are married. None the less,
I commend you, I admire you, because you do not tell me. If you are
_not_, you are disappointed. If you _are_, you are eager!"

"I am in any case delighted that I can interest Madam."

"Ah, but you do! I have not been interested, for so long! Ah, the great
heavens, how fat was Mr. Pakenham, how thin was Mr. Calhoun! But
you--come, Monsieur, the night is long. Tell me of yourself. I have
never before known a savage."

"Value for value only, Madam! Will you tell me in turn of yourself?"

"All?" She looked at me curiously.

"Only so much as Madam wishes."

I saw her dark eyes study me once more. At last she spoke again. "At
least," she said, "it would be rather vulgar if I did not explain some
of the things which become your right to know when I ask you to come
into this home, as into my other home in Washington."

"In Heaven's name, how many of these homes have you, then? Are they all
alike?"

"Five only, now," she replied, in the most matter-of-fact manner in the
world, "and, of course, all quite alike."

"Where else?"

"In Paris, in Vienna, in London," she answered. "You see this one, you
see them all. 'Tis far cooler in Montreal than in Washington in the
summer time. Do you not approve?"

"The arrangement could not be surpassed."

"Thank you. So I have thought. The mere charm of difference does not
appeal to me. Certain things my judgment approves. They serve, they
suffice. This little scheme it has pleased me to reproduce in some of
the capitals of the world. It is at least as well chosen as the taste of
the Prince of Orleans, son of Louis Philippe, could advise."

This with no change of expression. I drew a long breath.

She went on as though I had spoken. "My friend," she said, "do not
despise me too early. There is abundant time. Before you judge, let the
testimony be heard. I love men who can keep their own tongues and their
own hands to themselves."

"I am not your judge, Madam, but it will be long before I shall think a
harsh thought of you. Tell me what a woman may. Do not tell me what a
secret agent may _not_. I ask no promises and make none. You are very
beautiful. You have wealth. I call you `Madam.' You are married?"

"I was married at fifteen."

"At fifteen! And your husband died?"

"He disappeared."

"Your own country was Austria?"

"Call me anything but Austrian! I left my country because I saw there
only oppression and lack of hope. No, I am Hungarian."

"That I could have guessed. They say the most beautiful women of the
world come from that country."

"Thank you. Is that all?"

"I should guess then perhaps you went to Paris?"

"Of course," she said, "of course! of course! In time reasons existed
why I should not return to my home. I had some little fortune, some
singular experiences, some ambitions of my own. What I did, I did. At
least, I saw the best and worst of Europe."

She raised a hand as though to brush something from before her face.
"Allow me to give you wine. Well, then, Monsieur knows that when I left
Paris I felt that part of my studies were complete. I had seen a little
more of government, a little more of humanity, a little more of life, a
little more of men. It was not men but mankind that I studied most. I
had seen much of injustice and hopelessness and despair. These made the
fate of mankind--in that world."

"I have heard vaguely of some such things, Madam," I said. "I know that
in Europe they have still the fight which we sought to settle when we
left that country for this one."

She nodded. "So then, at last," she went on, "still young, having
learned something and having now those means of carrying on my studies
which I required, I came to this last of the countries, America, where,
if anywhere, hope for mankind remains. Washington has impressed me more
than any capital of the world."

"How long have you been in Washington?" I asked.

"Now you begin to question--now you show at last curiosity! Well, then,
I shall answer. For more than one year, perhaps more than two, perhaps
more than three!"

"Impossible!" I shook my head. "A woman like you could not be
concealed--not if she owned a hundred hidden places such as this."

"Oh, I was known," she said. "You have heard of me, you knew of me?"

I still shook my head. "No," said I, "I have been far in the West for
several years, and have come to Washington but rarely. Bear me out, I
had not been there my third day before I found you!"

We sat silent for some moments, fixedly regarding each other. I have
said that a more beautiful face than hers I had never seen. There sat
upon it now many things--youth, eagerness, ambition, a certain defiance;
but, above all, a pleading pathos! I could not find it in my heart,
eager as I was, to question her further. Apparently she valued this
reticence.

"You condemn me?" she asked at length. "Because I live alone, because
quiet rumor wags a tongue, you will judge me by your own creed and not
by mine?"

I hesitated before I answered, and deliberated. "Madam, I have already
told you that I would not. I say once more that I accredit you with
living up to your own creed, whatever that may have been."

She drew a long breath in turn. "Monsieur, you have done yourself no ill
turn in that."

"It was rumored in diplomatic circles, of course, that you were in touch
with the ministry of England," I ventured. "I myself saw that much."

"Naturally. Of Mexico also! At least, as you saw in our little carriage
race, Mexico was desirous enough to establish some sort of communication
with my humble self!"

"Calhoun was right!" I exclaimed. "He was entirely right, Madam, in
insisting that I should bring you to him that morning, whether or not
you wished to go."

"Whim fits with whim sometimes. `Twas his whim to see me, mine to go."

"I wonder what the Queen of Sheba would have said had Solomon met her
thus!"

She chuckled at the memory. "You see, when you left me at Mr. Calhoun's
door in care of the Grand Vizier James, I wondered somewhat at this
strange country of America. The _entresol_ was dim and the Grand Vizier
was slow with candles. I half fell into the room on the right. There was
Mr. Calhoun bolt upright in his chair, both hands spread out on the
arms. As you promised, he wore a red nightcap and long gown of wool. He
was asleep, and ah! how weary he seemed. Never have I seen a face so sad
as his, asleep. He was gray and thin, his hair was gray and thin, his
eyes were sunken, the veins were corded at his temples, his hands were
transparent. He was, as you promised me, old. Yet when I saw him I did
not smile. He heard me stir as I would have withdrawn, and when he arose
to his feet he was wide-awake. Monsieur, he is a great man; because,
even so clad he made no more apology than you do, showed no more
curiosity; and he welcomed me quite as a gentleman unashamed--as a king,
if you please."

"How did he receive you, Madam?" I asked. "I never knew."

"Why, took my hand in both his, and bowed as though I indeed were queen,
he a king."

"Then you got on well?"

"Truly; for he was wiser than his agent, Monsieur. He found answers by
asking questions."

"Ah, you were kinder to him than to me?"

"Naturally."

"For instance, he asked--"

"What had been my ball gown that night--who was there--how I enjoyed
myself! In a moment we were talking as though we had been friends for
years. The Grand Vizier brought in two mugs of cider, in each a toasted
apple. Monsieur, I have not seen diplomacy such as this. Naturally, I
was helpless."

"Did he perhaps ask how you were induced to come at so impossible a
time? My own vanity, naturally, leads me to ask so much as that."

"No, Mr. Calhoun confined himself to the essentials! Even had he asked
me I could not have replied, because I do not know, save that it was to
me a whim. But at least we talked, over our cider and toasted apples."

"You told him somewhat of yourself?"

"He did not allow me to do that, Monsieur."

"But he told you somewhat of this country?"

"Ah, yes, yes! So then I saw what held him up in his work, what kept him
alive. I saw something I have not often seen--a purpose, a principle, in
a public man. His love for his own land touched even me, how or why I
scarcely know. Yes, we spoke of the poor, the oppressed, of the weary
and the heavy laden."

"Did he ask you what you knew of Mexico and England?"

"Rather what I knew of the poor in Europe. I told him some things I knew
of that hopeless land, that priest-ridden, king-ridden country--my own
land. Then he went on to tell me of America and its hope of a free
democracy of the people. Believe me, I listened to Mr. Calhoun. Never
mind what we said of Mr. Van Zandt and Sir Richard Pakenham. At least,
as you know, I paid off a little score with Sir Richard that next
morning. What was strangest to me was the fact that I forgot Mr.
Calhoun's attire, forgot the strangeness of my errand thither. It was as
though only our minds talked, one with the other. I was sorry when at
last came the Grand Vizier James to take Mr. Calhoun's order for his own
carriage, that brought me home--my second and more peaceful arrival
there that night. The last I saw of Mr. Calhoun was with the Grand
Vizier James putting a cloak about him and leading him by force from his
study to his bed, as I presume. As for me, I slept no more that night.
Monsieur, I admit that I saw the purpose of a great man. Yes; and of a
great country."

"Then I did not fail as messenger, after all! You told Mr. Calhoun what
he desired to know?"

"In part at least. But come now, was I not bound in some sort of honor
to my great and good friend, Sir Richard? Was it not treachery enough to
rebuke him for his attentions to the Doña Lucrezia?"

"But you promised to tell Mr. Calhoun more at a later time?"

"On certain conditions I did," she assented.

"I do not know that I may ask those?"

"You would be surprised if I told you the truth? What I required of Mr.
Calhoun was permission and aid still further to study his extraordinary
country, its extraordinary ways, its extraordinary ignorance of itself.
I have told you that I needed to travel, to study, to observe
mankind--and those governments invented or tolerated by mankind."

"Since then, Madam," I concluded, stepping to assist her with her chair,
as she signified her completion of our repast, "since you do not feel
now inclined to be specific, I feel that I ought to make my adieux, for
the time at least. It grows late. I shall remember this little evening
all my life. I own my defeat. I do not know why you are here, or for
whom."

"At what hotel do you stop?"

"The little place of Jacques Bertillon, a square or so beyond the Place
d'Armes."

"In that case," said she, "believe me, it would be more discreet for you
to remain unseen in Montreal. No matter which flag is mine, I may say
that much for a friend and comrade in the service."

"But what else?"

She looked about her. "Be my guest to-night!" she said suddenly. "There
is danger--"

"For me?" I laughed. "At my hotel? On the streets?"

"No, for me."

"Where?"

"Here."

"And of what, Madam?"

"Of a man; for the first time I am afraid, in spite of all."

I looked at her straight. "Are you not afraid of _me?_" I asked.

She looked at me fairly, her color coming. "With the fear which draws a
woman to a man," she said.

"Whereas, mine is the fear which causes a man to flee from himself!"

"But you will remain for my protection? I should feel safer. Besides, in
that case I should know the answer."

"How do you mean?"

"I should know whether or not you were married!"




CHAPTER XV

WITH MADAM THE BARONESS

     It is not for good women that men have fought battles, given their
     lives and staked their souls.--_Mrs. W.K. Clifford_.


"But, Madam--" I began.

She answered me in her own way. "Monsieur hesitates--he is lost!" she
said. "But see, I am weary. I have been much engaged to-day. I have made
it my plan never to fatigue myself. It is my hour now for my bath, my
exercise, my bed, if you please. I fear I must bid you good night, one
way or the other. You will be welcome here none the less, if you care to
remain. I trust you did not find our little repast to-night unpleasing?
Believe me, our breakfast shall be as good. Threlka is expert in
omelets, and our coffee is such as perhaps you may not find general in
these provinces."

Was there the slightest mocking sneer in her words? Did she despise me
as a faint-heart? I could not tell, but did not like the thought.

"Believe me, Madam," I answered hotly, "you have courage, at least. Let
me match it. Nor do I deny that this asks courage on my part too. If
you please, in these circumstances, _I shall remain_."

"You are armed?" she asked simply.

I inserted a finger in each waistcoat pocket and showed her the butts of
two derringers; and at the back of my neck--to her smiling amusement at
our heathen fashion--I displayed just the tip of the haft of a short
bowie-knife, which went into a leather case under the collar of my coat.
And again I drew around the belt which I wore so that she could see the
barrel of a good pistol, which had been suspended under cover of the
bell skirt of my coat.

She laughed. I saw that she was not unused to weapons. I should have
guessed her the daughter of a soldier or acquainted with arms in some
way. "Of course," she said, "there might be need of these, although I
think not. And in any case, if trouble can be deferred until to-morrow,
why concern oneself over it? You interest me. I begin yet more to
approve of you."

"Then, as to that breakfast _à la fourchette_ with Madam; if I remain,
will you agree to tell me what is your business here?"

She laughed at me gaily. "I might," she said, "provided that meantime I
had learned whether or not you were married that night."

I do not profess that I read all that was in her face as she stepped
back toward the satin curtains and swept me the most graceful curtsey I
had ever seen in all my life. I felt like reaching out a hand to
restrain her. I felt like following her. She was assuredly bewildering,
assuredly as puzzling as she was fascinating. I only felt that she was
mocking me. Ah, she was a woman!

I felt something swiftly flame within me. There arose about me that net
of amber-hued perfume, soft, enthralling, difficult of evasion.... Then
I recalled my mission; and I remembered what Mr. Calhoun and Doctor Ward
had said. I was not a man; I was a government agent. She was not a
woman; she was my opponent. Yes, but then--

Slowly I turned to the opposite side of this long central room. There
were curtains here also. I drew them, but as I did so I glanced back.
Again, as on that earlier night, I saw her face framed in the amber
folds--a face laughing, mocking. With an exclamation of discontent, I
threw down my heavy pistol on the floor, cast my coat across the foot of
the bed to prevent the delicate covering from being soiled by my boots,
and so rested without further disrobing.

In the opposite apartment I could hear her moving about, humming to
herself some air as unconcernedly as though no such being as myself
existed in the world. I heard her presently accost her servant, who
entered through some passage not visible from the central apartments.
Then without concealment there seemed to go forward the ordinary routine
of madam's toilet for the evening.

"No, I think the pink one," I heard her say, "and please--the bath,
Threlka, just a trifle more warm." She spoke in French, her ancient
serving-woman, as I took it, not understanding the English language.
They both spoke also in a tongue I did not know. I heard the rattling of
toilet articles, certain sighs of content, faint splashings beyond. I
could not escape from all this. Then I imagined that perhaps madam was
having her heavy locks combed by the serving-woman. In spite of myself,
I pictured her thus, even more beautiful than before.

For a long time I concluded that my presence was to be dismissed as a
thing which was of no importance, or which was to be regarded as not
having happened. At length, however, after what seemed at least half an
hour of these mysterious ceremonies, I heard certain sighings, long
breaths, as though madam were taking calisthenic movements, some
gymnastic training--I knew not what. She paused for breath, apparently
very well content with herself.

Shame on me! I fancied perhaps she stood before a mirror. Shame on me
again! I fancied she sat, glowing, beautiful, at the edge of the amber
couch.

At last she called out to me: "Monsieur!"

I was at my own curtains at once, but hers remained tight folded,
although I heard her voice close behind them. "_Eh bien?_" I answered.

"It is nothing, except I would say that if Monsieur feels especially
grave and reverent, he will find a very comfortable _prie-dieu_ at the
foot of the bed."

"I thank you," I replied, gravely as I could.

"And there is a very excellent rosary and crucifix on the table just
beyond!"

"I thank you," I replied, steadily as I could.

"And there is an English Book of Common Prayer upon the stand not far
from the head of the bed, upon this side!"

"A thousand thanks, my very good friend."

I heard a smothered laugh beyond the amber curtains. Presently she spoke
again, yawning, as I fancied, rather contentedly.

"_A la bonne heure, Monsieur!_"

"_A la bonne heure, Madame!_"




CHAPTER XVI

DÉJEÛNER À LA FOURCHETTE

     Woman is a creature between man and the angels.
                                    --_Honoré de Balzac_.


A government agent, it seems, may also in part be little more than a
man, after all. In these singular surroundings I found myself not wholly
tranquil.... At last toward morning, I must have slept. It was some time
after daybreak when I felt a hand upon my shoulder as I lay still partly
clad. Awakened suddenly, I arose and almost overthrew old Threlka, who
stood regarding me with no expression whatever upon her brown and
wrinkled countenance. She did no more than point the way to a door,
where presently I found a bath-room, and so refreshed myself and made
the best toilet possible under the circumstances.

My hostess I found awaiting me in the central room of the apartments.
She was clad now in a girdled peignoir of rich rose-color, the sleeves,
wide and full, falling hack from her round arms. Her dark hair was
coiled and piled high on her head this morning, regardless of current
mode, and confined in a heavy twist by a tall golden comb; so that her
white neck was left uncovered. She wore no jewelry, and as she stood,
simple and free from any trickery of the coquette, I thought that few
women ever were more fair. That infinite witchery not given to many
women was hers, yet dignity as well. She was, I swear, _grande dame_,
though young and beautiful as a goddess. Her brow was thoughtful now,
her air more demure. Faint blue shadows lay beneath her eyes. A certain
hauteur, it seemed to me, was visible in her mien, yet she was the soul
of graciousness, and, I must admit, as charming a hostess as ever
invited one to usual or unusual repast.

The little table in the center of the room was already spread. Madam
filled my cup from the steaming urn with not the slightest awkwardness,
as she nodded for me to be seated. We looked at each other, and, as I
may swear, we both broke into saving laughter.

So we sat, easier now, as I admit, and, with small concern for the
affairs of the world outside at the time, discussed the very excellent
omelet, which certainly did not allow the reputation of Threlka to
suffer; the delicately grilled bones, the crisp toasted rye bread, the
firm yellow butter, the pungent early cress, which made up a meal
sufficiently dainty even for her who presided over it.

Even that pitiless light of early morning, the merciless cross-light of
opposing windows, was gentle with her. Yes, she was young! Moreover, she
ate as a person of breeding, and seemed thoroughbred in all ways, if one
might use a term so hackneyed. Rank and breeding had been hers; she
needed not to claim them, for they told their own story. I wondered what
extraordinary history of hers remained untold--what history of hers and
mine and of others she might yet assist in making!

"I was saying," she remarked presently, "that I would not have you think
that I do not appreciate the suffering in which you were plunged by the
haste you found necessary in the wedding of your _jeune fille_."

But I was on my guard. "At least, I may thank you for your sympathy,
Madam!" I replied.

"Yet in time," she went on, gone reflective the next instant, "you will
see how very unimportant is all this turmoil of love and marriage."

"Indeed, there is, as you say, something of a turmoil regarding them in
our institutions as they are at present formed."

"Because the average of humanity thinks so little. Most of us judge life
from its emotions. We do not search the depths."

"If I could oblige Madam by abolishing society and home and humanity, I
should be very glad--because, of course, that is what Madam means!"

"At any cost," she mused, "that torture of life must be passed on to
coming generations for their unhappiness, their grief, their misery. I
presume it was necessary that there should be this plan of the general
blindness and intensity of passion."

"Yes, if, indeed, it be not the most important thing in the world for us
to marry, at least it is important that we should think so. Madam is
philosopher this morning," I said, smiling.

She hardly heard me. "To continue the crucifixion of the soul, to
continue the misapprehensions, the debasings of contact with human
life--yes, I suppose one must pay all that for the sake of the gaining
of a purpose. Yet there are those who would endure much for the sake of
principle, Monsieur. Some such souls are born, do you not think?"

"Yes, Sphinx souls, extraordinary, impossible for the average of us to
understand."

"That torch of _life_!" she mused. "See! It was only _that_ which you
were so eager to pass on to another generation! That was why you were so
mad to hasten to the side of that woman. Whereas," she mused still, "it
were so much grander and so much nobler to pass on the torch of a
_principle_ as well!"

"I do not understand."

"The general business of offspring goes on unceasingly in all the
nations," she resumed frankly. "There will be children, whether or not
you and I ever find some one wherewith to mate in the compromise which
folk call wedlock. But _principles_--ah! my friend, who is to give those
to others who follow us? What rare and splendid wedlock brings forth
_that_ manner of offspring?"

"Madam, in the circumstances," said I, "I should be happy to serve you
more omelet."

She shook her head as though endeavoring to dismiss something from her
mind.

"Do not philosophize with me," I said. "I am already distracted by the
puzzle you offer to me. You are so young and beautiful, so fair in your
judgment, so kind--"

"In turn, I ask you not to follow that," she remarked coldly. "Let us
talk of what you call, I think, business."

"Nothing could please me more. I have slept little, pondering on this
that I do call business. To begin with, then, you were there at the
Château Ramezay last night. I would have given all I had to have been
there for an hour."

"There are certain advantages a woman may have."

"But you were there? You know what went forward?"

"Certainly."

"Did they know you were present?"

"Monsieur is somewhat importunate!"

She looked me now directly in the eye, studying me mercilessly, with a
scrutiny whose like I should not care often to undergo.

"I should be glad if it were possible to answer you," she said at last
enigmatically; "but I have faith to keep with--others--with
you--with--myself."

Now my own eagerness ran away with me; I became almost rude. "Madam," I
exclaimed, "why beat about the bush? I do not care to deceive you, and
you must not deceive me. Why should we not be friends in every way, and
fair ones?"

"You do not know what you are saying," she said simply.

"Are you then an enemy of my country?" I demanded. "If I thought you
were here to prove traitress to my country, you should never leave this
room except with me. You shall not leave it now until you have told me
what you are, why you are here, what you plan to do!"

She showed no fear. She only made a pretty little gesture at the dishes
between us. "At my own table!" she pouted.

Again our eyes met directly and again hers did not lower. She looked at
me calmly. I was no match for her.

"My dear lady," I began again, "my relation to the affairs of the
American Republic is a very humble one. I am no minister of state, and I
know you deal with ministers direct. How, then, shall I gain your
friendship for my country? You are dangerous to have for an enemy. Are
you too high-priced to have for a friend--for a friend to our Union--a
friend of the principle of democracy? Come now, you enjoy large
questions. Tell me, what does this council mean regarding Oregon? Is it
true that England plans now to concentrate all her traders, all her
troops, and force them west up the Saskatchewan and into Oregon this
coming season? Come, now, Madam, is it to be war?"

Her curved lips broke into a smile that showed again her small white
teeth.

"Were you, then, married?" she said.

I only went on, impatient. "Any moment may mean everything to us. I
should not ask these questions if I did not know that you were close to
Mr. Calhoun."

She looked me square in the eye and nodded her head slowly. "I may say
this much, Monsieur, that it has pleased me to gain a little further
information."

"You will give my government that information?"

"Why should I?"

"Yet you spoke of others who might come here. What others? Who are they?
The representatives of Mexico? Some attaché of the British Embassy at
Washington? Some minister from England itself, sent here direct?"

She smiled at me again. "I told you not to go back to your hotel, did I
not?"

I got no further with her, it seemed.

"You interest me sometimes," she went on slowly, at last, "yet you seem
to have so little brain! Now, in your employment, I should think that
brain would be somewhat useful at times."

"I do not deny that suggestion, Madam."

"But you are unable to analyze. Thus, in the matter of yourself. I
suppose if you were told of it, you would only say that you forgot to
look in the toe of the slipper you had."

"Thus far, Baroness," I said soberly, "I have asked no special
privilege, at least. Now, if it affords you any pleasure, I _beg_ you, I
_implore_ you, to tell me what you mean!"

"Did you credit the attaché of Mexico with being nothing more than a
drunken rowdy, to follow me across town with a little shoe in his
carriage?"

"But you said he was in wine."

"True. But would that be a reason? Continually you show your lack of
brain in accepting as conclusive results which could not possibly have
occurred. _Granted_ he was in wine, _granted_ he followed me, _granted_
he had my shoe in his possession--what then? Does it follow that at the
ball at the White House he could have removed that shoe? Does Monsieur
think that 

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