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An American Politician: A Novel

by F. Marion Crawford · English · Gutenberg #7374 · 482,760 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: An American Politician: A Novel

Author: F. Marion Crawford


        
Release date: January 1, 2005 [eBook #7374]
                Most recently updated: March 21, 2013

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN: A NOVEL ***




Produced by Tiffany Vergon, Marvin A. Hodges, Curtis A.
Weyant, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team










AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN

_A Novel_

BY

F. MARION CRAWFORD

AUTHOR OF "MR. ISAACS," "DR. CLAUDIUS,"
"A ROMAN SINGER," "TO LEEWARD,"
ETC.




TO MY DEAR FRIEND,
ELIZABETH CHRISTOPHERS HOBSON,
IN GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION, I DEDICATE THIS STORY.

CONSTANTINOPLE, _October 7,1884._




CHAPTER I.



Mrs. Sam Wyndham was generally at home after five o'clock. The established
custom whereby the ladies who live in Beacon Street all receive their
friends on Monday afternoon did not seem to her satisfactory. She was
willing to conform to the practice, but she reserved the right of seeing
people on other days as well.

Mrs. Sam Wyndham was never very popular. That is to say, she was not one
of those women who are seemingly never spoken ill of, and are invited as a
matter of course, or rather as an element of success, to every dinner,
musical party, and dance in the season.

Women did not all regard her with envy, all young men did not think she
was capital fun, nor did all old men come and confide to her the
weaknesses of their approaching second childhood. She was not invariably
quoted as the standard authority on dress, classical music, and Boston
literature, and it was not an unpardonable heresy to say that some other
women might be, had been, or could be, more amusing in ordinary
conversation. Nevertheless, Mrs. Sam Wyndham held a position in Boston
which Boston acknowledged, and which Boston insisted that foreigners such
as New Yorkers, Philadelphians and the like, should acknowledge also in
that spirit of reverence which is justly due to a descent on both sides
from several signers of the Declaration of Independence, and to the wife
of one of the ruling financial spirits of the aristocratic part of Boston
business.

As a matter of fact, Mrs. Wyndham was about forty years of age, as all her
friends of course knew; for it is as easy for a Bostonian to conceal a
question of age as for a crowned head. In a place where one half of
society calls the other half cousin, and went to school with it, every one
knows and accurately remembers just how old everybody else is. But Mrs.
Wyndham might have passed for younger than she was among the world at
large, for she was fresh to look at, and of good figure and complexion.
Her black hair showed no signs of turning gray, and her dark eyes were
bright and penetrating still. There were lines in her face, those
microscopic lines that come so abundantly to American women in middle age,
speaking of a certain restless nervousness that belongs to them
especially; but on the whole Mrs. Sam Wyndham was fair to see, having a
dignity of carriage and a grace of ease about her that at once gave the
impression of a woman thoroughly equal to the part she had to play in the
world, and not by any means incapable of enjoying it.

For the rest, Mrs. Sam led a life very much like the lives of many rich
Americans. She went abroad frequently, wandered about the continent with
her husband, went to Egypt and Algiers, stayed in England, where she had a
good many friends, avoided her countrymen and countrywomen when away from
home, and did her duty in the social state to which she was called in
Boston.

She read the books of the period, and generally pronounced them
ridiculous; she believed in her husband's politics, and aristocratically
approved the way in which he abstained from putting theory into practice,
from voting, and in a general way from dirtying his fingers with anything
so corrupt as government, or so despicable as elections; she understood
Boston business to some extent, and called it finance, but she despised
the New York Stock Market and denounced its doings as gambling. She made
fine distinctions, but she was a woman of sense, and was generally more
likely to be right than wrong when she had a definite opinion, or
expressed a definite dislike. Her religious views were simple and
unobtrusive, and never changed.

Her custom of being at home after five o'clock was perhaps the only
deviation she allowed herself from the established manners of her native
city, and since two or three other ladies had followed her example, it had
come to be regarded as a perfectly harmless idiosyncrasy for which she
could not properly be blamed. The people who came to see her were chiefly
men, except, of course, on the inevitable Monday.

A day or two before Christmas, then, Mrs. Sam Wyndham was at home in the
afternoon. The snow lay thick and hard outside, and the sleigh bells
tinkled unceasingly as the sleighs slipped by the window, gleaming and
glittering in the deep red glow of the sunset. The track was well beaten
for miles away, down Beacon Street and across the Milldam to the country,
and the pavements were strewn with ashes to give a foothold for
pedestrians.

For the frost was sharp and lasting. But within, Mrs. Wyndham sat by the
fire with a small table before her, and one companion by her side, for
whom she was pouring tea.

"Tell me all about your summer, Mr. Vancouver," said she, teasing the
flame of the spirit-lamp into better shape with a small silver instrument.

Mr. Pocock Vancouver leaned back in his corner of the sofa and looked at
the fire, then at the window, and finally at his hostess, before he
answered. He was a pale man and slight of figure, with dark eyes, and his
carefully brushed hair, turning gray at the temples and over his forehead,
threw his delicate, intelligent face into relief.

"I have not done much," he answered, rather absently, as though trying to
find something interesting in his reminiscences; and he watched Mrs.
Wyndham as she filled a cup. He was not the least anxious to talk, it
seemed, and he had an air of being thoroughly at home.

"You were in England most of the time, were you not?"

"Yes--I believe I was. Oh, by the bye, I met Harrington in Paris; I
thought he meant to stay at home."

"He often goes abroad," said Mrs. Wyndham indifferently. "One lump of
sugar?"

"Two, if you please--no cream--thanks. Does he go to Paris to convert the
French, or to glean materials for converting other people?" inquired Mr.
Vancouver languidly.

"I am sure I cannot tell you," answered the lady, still indifferently.
"What do you go to Paris for?"

"Principally to renew my acquaintance with civilized institutions and
humanizing influences. What does anybody go abroad for?"

"You always talk like that when you come home, Mr. Vancouver," said Mrs.
Wyndham. "But nevertheless you come back and seem to find Boston bearable.
It is not such a bad place after all, is it?"

"If it were not for half a dozen people here, I would never come back at
all," said Mr. Vancouver. "But then, I am not originally one of you, and I
suppose that makes a difference."

"And pray, who are the half dozen people who procure us the honor of your
presence?"

"You are one of them, Mrs. Wyndham," he answered, looking at her.

"I am much obliged," she replied, demurely. "Any one else?"

"Oh--John Harrington," said Vancouver with a little laugh.

"Really?" said Mrs. Wyndham, innocently; "I did not know you were such
good friends."

Mr. Vancouver sipped his tea in silence for a moment and stared at the
fire.

"I have a great respect for Harrington," he said at last. "He interests me
very much, and I like to meet him." He spoke seriously, as though
thoroughly in earnest. The faintest look of amusement came to Mrs.
Wyndham's face for a moment.

"I am glad of that," she said; "Mr. Harrington is a very good friend of
mine. Do you mind lighting those candles? The days are dreadfully short."

Pocock Vancouver rose with alacrity and performed the service required.

"By the way," said Mrs. Wyndham, watching him, "I have a surprise for
you."

"Indeed?"

"Yes, an immense surprise. Do you remember Sybil Brandon?"

"Charlie Brandon's daughter? Very well--saw her at Newport some time ago.
Lily-white style--all eyes and hair."

"You ought to remember her. You used to rave about her, and you nearly
ruined yourself in roses. You will have another chance; she is going to
spend the winter with me."

"Not really?" ejaculated Mr. Vancouver, in some surprise, as he again sat
down upon the sofa.

"Yes; you know she is all alone in the world now."

"What? Is her mother dead too?"

"She died last spring, in Paris. I thought you knew."

"No," said Vancouver, thoughtfully. "How awfully sad!"

"Poor girl," said Mrs. Wyndham; "I thought it would do her good to be
among live people, even if she does not go out."

"When is she coming?" There was a show of interest about the question.
"She is here now," answered Mrs. Sam.

"Dear me!" said Vancouver. "May I have another cup?" His hostess began the
usual series of operations necessary to produce a second cup of tea.

"Mrs. Wyndham," began Vancouver again after a pause, "I have an idea--do
not laugh, it is a very good one, I am sure."

"I am not laughing."

"Why not marry Sibyl Brandon to John Harrington?"

Mrs. Wyndham stared for a moment.

"How perfectly ridiculous!" she cried at last.

"Why?"

"They would starve, to begin with."

"I doubt it," said Vancouver.

"Why, I am sure Mr. Harrington never had more than five thousand a year in
his life. You could not marry on that, you know--possibly."

"No; but Miss Brandon is very well off--rich, in fact."

"I thought she had nothing."

"She must have thirty or forty thousand a year from her mother, at the
least. You know Charlie never did anything in his life; he lived on his
wife's money, and Miss Brandon must have it all."

Mrs. Wyndham did not appear surprised at the information; she hardly
seemed to think it of any importance.

"I knew she had something," she repeated; "but I am glad if you are right.
But that does not make it any more feasible to marry her to Mr.
Harrington."

"I thought that starvation was your objection," said Vancouver.

"Oh, no; not that only. Besides, he would not marry her."

"He would be very foolish not to, if he had the chance," remarked
Vancouver.

"Perhaps he might not even have the chance--perhaps she would not marry
him," said Mrs. Wyndham, thoughtfully. "Besides, I do not think John
Harrington ought to marry yet; he has other things to do."

Mr. Vancouver seemed about to say something in answer, but he checked
himself; possibly he did not speak because he saw some one enter the room
at that moment, and was willing to leave the discussion of John Harrington
to a future time.

In fact, the person who entered the room should have been the very last to
hear the conversation that was taking place, for it was Miss Brandon
herself, though Mr. Vancouver had not recognized her at once.

There were greetings and hand-shakings, and then Miss Brandon sat down by
the fire and spread out her hands as though to warm them. She looked white
and cold.

There are women in the world, both young and old, who seem to move among
us like visions from another world, a world that is purer and fairer, and
more heavenly than this one in which the rest of us move. It is hard to
say what such women have that marks them so distinctly; sometimes it is
beauty, sometimes only a manner, often it is both. It is very certain that
we know and feel their influence, and that many men fear it as something
strange and contrary to the common order of things, a living reproach and
protest against all that is base and earthly and badly human.

Most people would have said first of Sybil Brandon that she was cold, and
many would have added that she was beautiful. Ill-natured people sometimes
said she was deathly. No one ever said she was pretty. Vancouver's
description--lily-white, all eyes and hair--certainly struck the principal
facts of her appearance, for her skin was whiter than is commonly natural,
her eyes were very deep and large and blue, and her soft brown hair seemed
to be almost a burden to her from its great quantity. She was dressed
entirely in black, and being rather tall and very slight of figure, the
dress somewhat exaggerated the ethereal look that was natural to her. She
seemed cold, and spread out her delicate hands to the bright flame of the
blazing wood-fire. Mrs. Wyndham and Pocock Vancouver looked at her in
silence for a moment. Then Mrs. Wyndham rose with a cup of tea in her
hand, and crossed to the other side of the fireplace where Sybil was
sitting and offered it to her.

"Poor Sybil, you are so cold. Drink some tea." The elder woman sat down by
the young girl, and lightly kissed her cheek. "You must not be sad,
darling," she whispered sympathetically.

"I am not sad at all, really," answered Miss Brandon aloud, quite
naturally, but pressing Mrs. Wyndham's hand a little, as though in
acknowledgment of her sympathy.

"No one can be sad in Boston," said Vancouver, putting in a word. "Our
city is altogether too wildly gay." He laughed a little.

"You must not make fun of us to visitors, Mr. Vancouver," answered Mrs.
Wyndham, still holding Sybil's hand.

"It is Mr. Vancouver's ruling passion, though he never acknowledges it,"
said Miss Brandon, calmly. "I remember it of old."

"I am flattered at being remembered," said Mr. Vancouver, whose delicate
features betrayed neither pleasure nor interest, however. "But," he
continued, "I am not particularly flattered at being called a scoffer at
my own people--"

"I did not say that," interrupted Miss Brandon.

"Well, you said my ruling passion was making fun of Boston to visitors; at
least, you and Mrs. Wyndham said it between you. I really never do that,
unless I give the other side of the question as well."

"What other side?" asked Mrs. Sam, who wanted to make conversation.

"Boston," said Vancouver with some solemnity. "It is not more often
ridiculous than other great institutions."

"You simply take one's breath away, Mr. Vancouver," said Mrs. Wyndham,
with a good deal of emphasis. "The idea of calling Boston 'an
institution!'"

"Why, certainly. The United States are only an institution after all. You
could not soberly call us a nation. Even you could not reasonably be moved
to fine patriotic phrases about your native country, if your ancestors had
signed twenty Declarations of Independence. We live in a great
institution, and we have every right to flatter ourselves on the success
of its management; but in the long run this thing will not do for a
nation."

Miss Brandon looked at Vancouver with a sort of calm incredulity. Mrs.
Wyndham always quarreled with him on points like the one now raised, and
accordingly took up the cudgels.

"I do not see how you can congratulate yourself on the management of your
institution, as you call it, when you know very well you would rather die
than have anything to do with it."

"Very true. But then, you always say that gentlemen should not touch
anything so dirty as politics, Mrs. Wyndham," retorted Vancouver.

"Well, that just shows that it is not an institution at all, and that you
are quite wrong, and that we are a great nation supported and carried on
by real patriotism."

"And the Irish and German votes," added Vancouver, with that scorn which
only the true son of freedom can exhibit in speaking of his fellow-citizens.

"Oh, the Irish vote! That is always the last word in the argument,"
answered Mrs. Sam.

"I do not see exactly what the Irish have to do with it," remarked Miss
Brandon, innocently. She did not understand politics.

Vancouver glanced at the clock and took his hat.

"It is very simple," he said, rising to go. "It is the bull in the china
shop--the Irish bull amongst the American china--dangerous, you know. Good
evening, Mrs. Wyndham; good evening, Miss Brandon." And he took his leave.
Miss Brandon watched his slim figure disappear through the heavy curtains
of the door.

"He has not changed much since I knew him," she said, turning again to the
fire. "I used to think he was clever."

"And have you changed your mind?" asked Mrs. Wyndham, laughing.

"Not quite, but I begin to doubt. He has very good manners, and looks
altogether like a gentleman."

"Of course," said Mrs. "Wyndham." His mother was a Shaw, although his
father came from South Carolina. But he is really very bright; Sam always
says he is one of the ablest men in Boston."

"In what way?" inquired Sybil.

"Oh, he is a lawyer, don't you know?--great railroad man."

"Oh," ejaculated Miss Brandon, and relapsed into silence.

Mrs. Wyndham rose and stood before the fire, and pushed a log back with
her small foot. Miss Brandon watched her, half wondering whether the
flames would not catch her dress.

"I have been to see that Miss Thorn," said Sybil presently.

"Oh," exclaimed Mrs. Sam, with sudden interest, "tell me all about her
this minute, dear. Is not she the most extraordinary creature?"

"I rather like her," answered Miss Brandon. "She is very pretty."

"What style? Dark?"

"No; not exactly. Brown hair, and lots of eyebrows. She is a little thing,
but very much alive, you know."

"Awfully English, of course," suggested Mrs. Sam.

"Well--yes, I suppose so. She is wild about horses, and says she shoots.
But I like her--I am sure I shall like her very much. She does not seem
very pleased with her aunt."

"I do not wonder," said Mrs. Sam. "Poor little thing--she has nobody else
belonging to her, has she?"

"Oh, yes," answered Sybil, with a little tremor in her voice; "she has a
mother in England."

"I want to see her ever so much," said Mrs. Sam. "Bring her to luncheon."

"You will see her to-night, I think; she said she was going to that
party."

"I hate to leave you alone," said Mrs. Wyndham. "I really think I had
better not go."

"Dear Mrs. Wyndham," said Sybil, rising, and laying her hands on her
hostess's shoulders, half affectionately, half in protest, "this idea must
be stopped from the first, and I mean to stop it. You are not to give up
any party, or any society, or anything at all for me. If you do I will go
away again. Promise me, will you not?"

"Very well, dear. But you know you are the dearest girl in the world." And
so they kissed, and agreed that Mrs. Wyndham should go out, and that Sybil
should stay at home.

Mrs. Wyndham was really a very kind-hearted woman and a loving friend.
That might be the reason why she was never popular. Popularity is a
curious combination of friendliness and indifference, but very popular
people rarely have devoted friends, and still more rarely suffer great
passions. Everybody's friend is far too apt to be nobody's, for it is
impossible to rely on the support of a person whose devotion is liable to
be called upon a hundred times a day, from a hundred different quarters.
The friendships that mean anything mean sacrifice for friendship's sake;
and a man or a woman really ready to make sacrifices for a considerable
number of people is likely to be asked to do it very often, and to be soon
spent in the effort to be true to every one.

But popularity makes no great demands. The popular man is known to be so
busy in being popular that his offenses of omission are readily pardoned.
His engagements are legion, his obligations are innumerable, and far more
than he can fulfill. But, meet him when you will, his smile is as bright,
his greeting as cordial, and his sayings as universally good-natured and
satisfactory as ever. He has acquired the habit of pleasing, and it is
almost impossible for him to displease. He enjoys it all, is agreeable to
every one, and is never expected to catch cold in attending a friend's
funeral, or otherwise to sacrifice his comfort, because he is quite
certain to have important engagements elsewhere, in which the world always
believes. There is probably no individual more absolutely free and
untrammeled than the thoroughly popular man.




CHAPTER II.



Fate, the artist, mixes her own colors. She grinds them with a pestle in
the fashion of the old masters, and out of the most strange pigments she
produces often only soft neutral tints for background and shadow, kneading
a vast deal of bright colors away among the grays and browns; but now and
then she takes a palette loaded with strong paint, and a great brush, and
splashes a startling full length portrait upon the canvas, without much
regard for drawing or general composition, but with very startling effect.
To paint well needs life-long study; to paint so as merely to attract
attention needs courage and a heart hardened against artistic
sensitiveness.

John Harrington was a high light against the mezzotint of his
surroundings. He was a constant source of interest, and not infrequently
of terror, to the good town of Boston. True, he was a Bostonian himself, a
chip of the old block, whose progenitors had lived in Salem, and whose
very name breathed Pilgrim memories. He even had a teapot that had come
over in the Mayflower. This was greatly venerated, and whenever John
Harrington said anything more than usually modern, his friends brandished
the teapot, morally speaking, in his defense, and put it in the clouds as
a kind of rainbow--a promise that Puritan blood could not go wrong.
Nevertheless, John Harrington continued to startle his fellow-townsmen by
his writings and sayings, so that many of the grave sort shook their heads
and swore that he sympathized with the Irish and believed in Chinese
labor.

As a matter-of-fact, he did not mince matters. Endowed with unbounded
courage and an extraordinary command of language, when he got upon his
feet he spoke his mind in a way that was good to hear. Moreover, he had
the strong oratorical temperament that forces attention and commands men
in a body. He said that things were wrong and should be put right; and
when he had said so for half an hour to a couple of thousand people, most
of them were ready to follow him out of the hall and go and put things
right on the spot, with their own hands. As yet the opportunity had not
offered for proceeding in so simple a manner, but the aforesaid Bostonians
of the graver sort said that John Harrington would some day be seen
heading a desperate mob of socialists in an assault upon the State House.
What he had to do with socialism, or to what end he should thus fiercely
invade the headquarters of all earthly respectability, was not exactly
apparent, but the picture thus evoked in the minds of the solemn burghers
satisfactorily defined for them the personality of the man, and they said
it and said it again.

It was somewhat remarkable that he had never been called clever. At first
he was regarded as a fool by most of his own class, though he always had
friends who believed in him. By and by, as it came to be seen that he had
a purpose and would be listened to while he stated it, Boston said there
was something in him; but he was never said to be clever or "bright"--he
was John Harrington, neither more nor less. He was never even called
"Jack."

He was a friend of Mrs. Wyndham's; her keen instincts had long ago
recognized the true metal in the man, and of all who came and went in her
house there was none more welcome than he. Sam Wyndham utterly disagreed
with him in politics, but always defended him in private, saying that he
would "calm down a lot when he got older," and that meanwhile he was "a
very good fellow if you did not stir him up."

He was therefore very intimate at the Sam Wyndham establishment; in fact,
at the very hour when Pocock Vancouver was drinking Mrs. Sam's tea, John
had intended to be enjoying the same privilege. Unfortunately for his
intention he was caught elsewhere and could not get away. He was drinking
tea, it is true, but the position in which he found himself was not
entirely to his taste.

Old Miss Schenectady, whose niece, Miss Josephine Thorn, had lately come
over from England to pass the winter, had asked John Harrington to call
that afternoon. The old lady believed in John on account of the Mayflower
teapot, and consequently thought him a desirable acquaintance for her
niece. Accordingly, John went to the house, and met Miss Sybil Brandon
just as she was leaving it; which he regretted, suspecting that her
society would have been more interesting than that of Miss Thorn. As it
turned out, he was right, for his first impression of the young English
girl was not altogether agreeable; and he found himself obliged to stay
and talk to her until an ancient lady, who had come to gossip with Miss
Schenectady, and was fully carrying out her intentions, should go away and
make it possible for him to take his leave without absolutely abandoning
Miss Thorn in the corner of the room she had selected for the _tête-à-tête_.

"All that, of course, you know," said Miss Thorn, in answer to some remark
of John's, "but what sort of things do you really care for?"

"People," answered John without hesitation.

"Of course," returned his companion, "everybody likes people. It is not
very original. One could not live without lots of society, could one?"

"That depends on the meaning of society."

"Oh, I am not in the least learned about meanings," answered Miss Thorn.
"I mean what one means by society, you know. Heaps of men and women, and
tea-parties, and staying in the country, and that."

"That is a sketch indeed," said John, laughing. "But then it is rather
different here. We do not relapse into the country as you do in England,
and then come back to town like lions refreshed with sleep."

"Why not?"

"Because once in society here one is always in it. At least, most people
are. As soon as heat begins Boston goes to New York; and by-and-by New
York goes to Saratoga, and takes Boston with it; and then all three go to
Newport, and the thing begins again, until there is a general rush to
Lenox, to see the glories of the autumn; and by the time the glories are
getting a little thin it is time to be in Beacon Street again."

"But when do people shoot and ride?--do they ever hunt?" asked Miss Thorn,
opening her wide brown eyes in some astonishment at John Harrington's
description of society life in America.

"Oh yes, they hunt at Newport with a drag and a bagged fox. They do it in
July and August, when it is as hot as it can be, and the farmers turn out
with pitchforks and stones to warn them off the growing crops."

"How ridiculous!" exclaimed Miss Josephine.

"It is absurd, of course," said Harrington, "and cruel. But I must say
they ride as though there were no hereafter, and it is a stiff country."

"They must, I should think; no one who believed in a hereafter would hunt
in summer."

"I will wager that if you go to Newport this summer you will hunt, just
like everybody else," said John boldly.

Josephine Thorn knew in her heart that it was true, but she did not like
the tone in which John said it. There was an air of certainty about his
way of talking that roused her opposition.

"I would do nothing so foolish," said she. "You do not know me. And do you
mean to tell me that you like these people who rush madly about the
country and hunt in summer, and those sort of things?"

"No," said John, "not always."

"But you said you liked people. How awfully inconsistent you are!"

"Excuse me, I think not. I meant that I liked people and having to do with
them--with men and women--better than I like things."

"What are 'things'?" inquired Josephine, sarcastically. "You are not very
clear in your way of expressing yourself."

"I will be as clear as you please," answered John, looking across the room
at Miss Schenectady and her ancient friend, and devoutly wishing he could
get away. "I mean by 'things' the study of the inanimate part of creation,
of such sciences as are not directly connected with man's thoughts and
actions, and such pursuits as hunting, shooting, and sporting of all
kinds, which lead only to the amusement of the individual. I mean also the
production of literature for literature's sake, and of works of art for
the mere sake of themselves. When I say I like 'people,' I mean men and
women, their opinions and their relations to each other."

"I should think you would get very tired of them," said Miss Thorn
scornfully. "They are all dreadfully alike."

She never forgot the look Harrington turned upon her as he answered. His
calm, deep-set gray eyes gazed steadily at her, and his square features
assumed an air of gravity that almost startled her.

"I am never tired of men and women," he said. "Has it ever struck you,
Miss Thorn, that the study of men and women means the study of government,
and that a knowledge of men and women may give the power to influence the
destiny of mankind?"

"I never thought of it like that," said Josephine, very quietly. She was
surprised at his manner, and she suddenly felt that he was no ordinary
man.

To tell the truth, her aunt had informed her that John Harrington was
coming that afternoon, and had told her he was an exceedingly able man, a
statement which at once roused Josephine's opposition to its fiercest
pitch. She thoroughly hated to be warned about people, to be primed as it
were with a dose of their superiority beforehand. It always prepared her
to dislike the admirable individual when he appeared. It seemed as though
it were taken for granted that she herself had not enough intelligence to
discover wit in others, and needed to be told of it with great
circumstance in order to be upon her good behavior. Consequently Josephine
began by disliking John. She thought he was a Philistine; his hair was too
straight, and besides, it was red; he shaved all his face, whereas the men
she liked always had beards; she liked men with black eyes, or blue--John's were gray and hard; he spoke quietly, without expression, and she
liked men who were enthusiastic. After all, too, the things he said were
not very clever; anybody could have said them.

She meant to show her Boston aunt that she had no intention of accepting
Boston genius on faith. It was not her way; she liked to find out for
herself whether people were able or not, without being told, and if she
ascertained that John Harrington enjoyed a fictitious reputation for
genius it would amuse her to destroy it--or at all events to write a long
letter home to a friend, expressing her supreme opinion on that and other
matters.

John, on his part, did not very much care what impression he produced. He
never did on such occasions, and just now he was rendered doubly
indifferent by the fact that he was wishing himself somewhere else. True,
there was a certain novelty in being asked point-blank questions about his
tastes. Boston people knew what he liked, and generally only asked him
about what he did. Perhaps, if he had met Josephine by daylight, instead
of in the dim shadows of Miss Schenectady's front drawing-room, he might
have been struck by her appearance and interested by her manner. As it
was, he was merely endeavoring to get through his visit with a proper
amount of civility, in the hope that he might get away in time to see Mrs.
Sam Wyndham before dinner.

Josephine thought John dull, probably well informed, and utterly without
interest in anything. She felt inclined to do something desperate--to
throw the cushions at him, to do anything, in short, to rouse him from his
calmness. Then he made that remark about government, and his voice
deepened, and his gray eyes shone, and she was aware that he had a great
and absorbing interest in life, and that he could be roused in one
direction at least. To do her justice, she had quick perceptions, and the
impression on her mind was instantaneous.

"I never thought of it like that," she said. "Do you know?" she added in a
moment, "I should not have thought you took much interest in anything at
all."

John laughed. He was amused at the idea that he, who knew himself to be
one of the most enthusiastic of mortals, should be thought indifferent;
and he was amused at the outspoken frankness of the girl's remark.

"You know that is just like me," continued Miss Thorn quickly. "I always
say what I think, you know. I cannot help it a bit."

"What a pity all the world is not like you!" said John. "It would save a
great deal of trouble, I am sure."

"The frump is going at last," said Josephine, in an undertone, as the
ancient friend rose and showed signs of taking leave of Miss Schenectady.

"There is certainly no mistake about the frankness of that speech," said
John, rising to his feet and laughing again.

"There is no mistaking its truth," answered Josephine. "She is the real
thing--the real old-fashioned frump--we have lots of them at home."

"You remind me of Heine," said John. "He said he called a spade a spade,
and Herr Schmidt an ass."

Miss Thorn laughed. "Exactly," she answered, "that is the knowledge of men
which you say leads to power."

She rose also, and there was a little stir as the old lady departed.
Josephine watched John as he bowed and opened the door of the room to let
the visitor out. She wondered vaguely whether she would like him, whether
he might not really be a remarkable man--a fact she doubted in proportion
as her aunt assured her of its truth; she liked his looks and tried to
determine whether he was handsome or not, and she watched closely for any
awkwardness or shyness of manner, that being the fault in a man which she
never pardoned.

He was very different from the men she had generally known, and most
completely different from those she had known as her admirers. In fact she
had never admired her admirers at all,--except dear Ronald, of course.
They competed with her on her own ground, and she knew well enough she was
more than a match for any of them. Ronald was different; she had known him
all her life. But all those other men! They could ride--but she rode as
well, or better. They could shoot, but so could she, and allowing for the
disadvantages of a woman in field sports, she was as good a shot as they.
She knew she could do anything they could do, and understood most things
they understood. All in all, she did not care for the average young
Englishman. He was great fun in his own way, but there were probably more
interesting things in the world than pheasants and fences. Politics would
be interesting, she thought; she had known three or four men who were
young and already prominent in Parliament, and they were undeniably
interesting; but they were generally either ugly or clumsy,--the
unpardonable sin,--or perhaps they were vain. Josephine could not bear
vain men. John Harrington probably had some one or more of these defects.
He was certainly no "beauty man," to begin with, nevertheless, she
wondered whether he might not be called handsome by stretching a point.
She rather hoped, inwardly and unconsciously, that her ultimate judgment
would decide in favor of his good looks. She always judged; it was the
first thing she did, and she was surprised, on the present occasion, to
find her judgment so slow. People who pride themselves on being critical
are often annoyed when they find themselves uncertain of their own
opinion. As for his accomplishments, they were doubtful, to say the least.
Miss Thorn was not used to considering American men as manly. She had read
a great many books which made game of them, and showed how unused they
were to all those good things which make up the life of an English country
gentleman; she had met one or two Americans who turned up their noses in
impotent scorn of all field sports except horse-racing, which they
regarded from a financial point of view. Probably John Harrington had
never killed a pheasant in his life. Lastly, he might be vain. A man with
such a reputation for ability would most likely be conceited.

And yet, despite probability, she could not help thinking John
interesting. That one speech of his about government had meant something.
He was a man with a strong personality, with a great interest in the world
led by a dominant aspiration of some sort; and Josephine, in her heart,
loved power and admired those who possessed it. Political power especially
had that charm for her which it has for most English people of the upper
class. There is some quality in the English race which breeds an
inordinate admiration for all kinds of superiority: it is certain that if
one class of English society can be justly accused of an over-great
veneration for rank, the class which is rank itself is not behindhand in
doing homage to the political stars of the day. In favor of this
peculiarity of English people it may fairly be said that they love to
associate with persons of rank and power from a disinterested love of
those things themselves, whereas in most other countries the society of
noble and influential persons is chiefly sought from the most cynical
motives of personal advantage.

Politics--that is, the outward and appreciable manifestations of political
life--must always furnish abundant food for the curiosity of the many and
the intelligent criticism of the few. There is no exception to that rule,
be the state great or small. But politics in England and politics in
America, so far as the main points are concerned, are as different as it
is possible for any two social functions to be. Roughly, Government and
the doings of Government are centripetal in England, and centrifugal in
America. In England the will of the people assists the workings of
Providence, whereas in America devout persons pray that Providence may on
occasion modify the will of the people. In England men believe in the
Queen, the Royal Family, the Established Church, and Belgravia first, and
in themselves afterwards. Americans believe in themselves devoutly, and a
man who could "establish" upon them a church, a royalty, or a peerage,
would be a very clever fellow.

Josephine Thorn and John Harrington were fair examples of their
nationalities. Josephine believed in England and the English; John
Harrington believed in America and the Americans. How far England and
America are ever likely to believe in each other, however, is a question
of future history and not of past experience, and any reasonable amount of
doubt may be cast upon the possibility of such mutual confidence.

But as Josephine stood watching John Harrington while he opened the
drawing-room door for the visitor to go out, she thought of none of these
things. She certainly did not consider herself a type of her nation--a
distinction to which few English people aspire--and she as certainly would
have denied that the man before her was a type of the modern American.

John remained standing when the lady was gone.

"Do sit down," said Miss Schenectady, settling herself once more in her
corner.

"Thank you, I think I must be going now," answered John. "It is late." As
he spoke he turned toward Miss Thorn, and for the first time saw her under
the bright light of the old-fashioned gas chandelier.

The young girl was perhaps not what is called a great beauty, but she was
undeniably handsome, and she possessed that quality which often goes with
quick perceptions and great activity, and which is commonly defined by the
expression "striking." Short, rather than tall, she was yet so
proportioned between strength and fineness as to be very graceful, and her
head sat proudly on her shoulders--too proudly sometimes, for she could
command and she could be angry. Her wide brown eyes were bright and
fearless and honest. The faint color came and went under the clear skin as
freely as the heart could send it, and though her hair was brown and soft,
there were ruddy tints among the coils, that flashed out unexpectedly here
and there like threads of red gold twined in a mass of fine silk.

John looked at her in some astonishment, for in his anxiety to be gone and
in the dimness of the corner where they had sat, he had not realized that
Josephine was any more remarkable in her appearance than most of the
extremely young women who annually make their entrance into society, with
the average stock of pink and white prettiness. They call them "buds" in
Boston--an abbreviation for rosebuds.

Fresh young roses of each opening year, fresh with the dew of heaven and
the blush of innocence, coming up in this wild garden of a world, what
would the gardener do without you? Where would all beauty and sweetness be
found among the thorny bushes and the withering old shrubs and the rotting
weeds, were it not for you? Maidens with clean hands and pure hearts, in
whose touch there is something that heals the ills and soothes the pains
of mortality, roses whose petals are yet unspotted by dust and rain, and
whose divine perfume the hot south wind has not scorched, nor the east
wind nipped and frozen--you are the protest, set every year among us,
against the rottenness of the world's doings, the protest of the angelic
life against the earthly, of the eternal good against the eternal bad.

John Harrington looked at Miss Thorn, and looked at her with pleasure, for
he saw that she was fair--but in spite of her newly discovered beauty he
resisted Miss Schenectady's invitation to sit down again, and departed.
Any other man would have stayed, under the circumstances.

"Well, Josephine," said Miss Schenectady, when he was gone, "now you have
seen John Harrington."

Josephine looked at her aunt and laughed a little; it seemed to her a very
self-evident fact, since John had just gone.

"Exactly," said she. "Won't you call me Joe, aunt Zoruiah? They all do at
home--even Ronald."

"Joe? Boy's name. Well, if you insist upon it. As I was saying, you have
seen John Harrington, now."

"Exactly," repeated Joe.

"But I mean, how does he strike you?"

"Clever I should think," answered the young lady. "Clever, you know--that
sort of thing. Not bad looking, either."

"I told you so," said Miss Schenectady.

"Yes--but I expected ever so much more from what you said," returned Joe,
kneeling on the rug before the fire and poking the coals with the tongs.
Miss Schenectady looked somewhat offended at the slight cast upon her late
guest.

"You are very _difficile_, Josephi--I mean Joe, I forgot."

"Ye--es, very diffyseal--that sort of thing," repeated Josephine,
mimicking her aunt's pronunciation of the foreign word, "I know I am, I
can't possibly help it, you know." A dashing thrust with the tongs finally
destroyed the equilibrium of the fire, and the coals came tumbling down
upon the hearth.

"Goodness gracious me!" exclaimed the old lady in great anxiety, "you will
have the house on fire in no time! Give me the tongs right away, my dear.
You do not understand American fires!"




CHAPTER III.



"Dear Ronald,--You can't imagine what a funny place Boston is. I wish you
were here, it would be so nice to talk about them together--I mean the
people, of course, for they are much funnier than the place they live in.
But I think they are very nice, too, particularly some of the men. I don't
understand the women in the least--they go in awfully for sets, if you
understand that kind of thing--and art, too, and literature. The other day
at a lunch party--that is what they call it here--they sat and talked
about pictures for ever so long. I wonder what you would have said if you
had been there! but then there were no men, and so you couldn't have been,
could you? And the sets, too. The girls who come out together, all in a
batch, like a hive of bees swarming, spend the rest of their lives
together; and they have what they call sewing circles, that go on all
their lives. There are sewing circles of old frumps sixty years old who
have never been parted since they all went to their first ball together.
They sew for the poor; they don't sew so very much, you know; but then
they have a tremendous lunch afterwards. I sewed for the poor the other
day, because one of the sewing circles asked me to their meeting. I sewed
two buttons on to the end of something, and then I ate six kinds of salad,
and went to drive with Mr. Vancouver. I dare say it does a lot of good in
its way, but I think the poor must be awfully good-natured.

"It is quite too funny about driving, too. You may go out with a man in a
sleigh, but you couldn't possibly go with him on wheels--on the same road,
at the same hour, same man, same everything, except the wheels. You agree
to go out next week in a sleigh with Mr. Vancouver; but when the day
comes, if it has happened to thaw and there is no snow, and he comes in a
buggy, you couldn't possibly go with him, because it would be quite too
improper. But I mean to, some day, just to see what they will say. I wish
you would come! We would do a lot of driving together, and by and by, in
the spring, they say one can ride here, but only along the roads, for
everything else is so thick with steam-engines and Irishmen that one could
not possibly go across country.

"But although they are so funny, they are really very nice, and awfully
clever. I don't think there are nearly so many clever men anywhere else in
society, when once you have got over their Americanisms. Most of them
would be in Parliament at home; but nobody goes into Parliament here,
except Mr. Harrington--that is, into Congress, which is the same thing,
you know. They say politics in America are not at all fit for gentlemen,
and they spend an hour or two every day in abusing all the politicians,
instead of turning them out and managing things themselves. But Mr.
Harrington is going to be a senator as soon as he can, and he is so clever
that I am sure he will make a great reform.

"I don't think of anything else to say just now, but if I do I will write
again--only it's unfeminine to write two letters running, so you must
answer at once. And if you should want to travel this winter you can come
here; they will treat you ever so much better than you deserve. So good-by. Yours ever sincerely,

"JOE THORN."

The precise nature of the friendship that existed between Josephine Thorn
and Ronald Surbiton could not be accurately inferred from the above
specimen of correspondence; and indeed the letter served rather to confuse
than to enlighten the recipient as to the nature of his relations with the
writer. He was, of course, very much in love with Joe Thorn; he knew it,
because he had always been in love with her since they were children
together, so there could be no possible doubt in the matter. But whether
she cared a jot for him and his feelings he could not clearly make out,
from the style of the hurried, ungrammatical sentences, crammed with
abbreviations and unpermissible elisions. True, she said three times that
she hoped he would come to America; but America was a long way off, and
she very likely reckoned on his laziness and dislike to foreign traveling.
It is so easy for a young woman writing from Boston to say to a young man
residing in Scotland, "Do come over for a few days"--Surbiton thought it
would be a good joke to take her at her word and go. The idea of seeing
her again so much sooner than he had expected was certainly uppermost in
his mind as he began to make his resolution; but it was sustained and
strengthened by a couple of allusions Joe had made to men of her
acquaintance in Boston, not to say by the sweeping remark that there were
more clever men in Boston society than anywhere else, which made his
vanity smart rather unpleasantly. When Josephine used to tell him, half in
earnest, half in jest, that he was "so dreadfully stupid," he did not feel
much hurt; but it was different when she took the trouble to write all the
way from America to tell him that the men there were much cleverer than at
home. He had a great mind to go and see for himself whether it were true.
Nevertheless, the hunting was particularly good just at the time when he
got the letter, and being rather prudent of counsel, Ronald determined to
wait until a hard frost should spoil his temper and give the necessary
stimulus to his activity, before he packed his boxes for a western voyage.

As for Josephine, it was very natural that she should feel a little
homesick, and wish to have some one of her own people with her. In spite
of the favorable views she expressed about America, Boston, and her new
acquaintances, her position was not without some drawbacks in her own
eyes. She felt herself out of her natural element, and the very great
admiration she received in society, though pleasant enough in itself, was
not to her so entirely satisfactory as it would have been to a woman older
or younger than she, or to a more thorough flirt. An older woman would
have enjoyed more keenly the flattery of it; a younger girl would have
found it more novel and fresh, and the accomplished professional society
flirt--there is no other word to express her--would have rejoiced
exceedingly over a great holocaust of victims.

In writing to Surbiton and suggesting to him to come to Boston, Joe had no
intention of fanning his hopes into flame. She never thought much about
Ronald. She had long been used to him, and regarded him in the light of a
marriage fixture, though she had never exactly promised to marry him; she
had been brought up to suppose she would, and that was all. When or where
the marriage would actually take place was a question she did not care to
raise, and if ever Surbiton raised it she repressed him ruthlessly. For
the present she would look about the world, seeing she had been
transported into a new part of it, and she found it amusing. Only she
would like to have a companion to whom she could talk. Ronald would be so
convenient, and after all it was a great advantage to be able to make use
of the man to whom she was engaged. She never had known any other girl who
could do that, and she rather prided herself on the fact that she was not
ridiculous, although she was in the most traditionally absurd position,
that of betrothal. She would like to compare Ronald with the men she had
met lately.

The desire for comparison had increased of late. A fortnight had passed
since she had first met John Harrington, and she had made up her mind. He
was handsome, though his hair was red and he had no beard, and she liked
him; she liked him very much; it was quite different from her liking for
Ronald. She liked Ronald, she said to herself that she loved him dearly,
partly because she expected to marry him, and partly because he was so
good and so much in love with herself. He would take any amount of trouble
for anything she wanted. But John was different. She knew very well that
she was thinking much more of him than he of her, if indeed he thought of
her at all. But she was a little ashamed of it, and in order to justify
herself in her own eyes she was cold and sarcastic in her manner to him,
so that people noticed it, and even John Harrington himself, who never
thought twice whether his acquaintances liked him or disliked him,
remarked one day to Mrs. Wyndham that he feared he had offended Miss
Thorn, as she took such particular pains to treat him differently from
others. On the other hand Joe was always extremely candid to Pocock
Vancouver.

It was on a Monday that John made the aforesaid remark. All Boston was at
Mrs. Wyndham's, excepting all the other ladies who lived in Beacon Street,
and that is a very considerable portion of Boston, as every schoolboy
knows. John was standing near the tea-table talking to Mrs. Sam, when Joe
entered the room and came up to the hostess, who welcomed her warmly. She
nodded coldly to John without shaking hands, and joined a group of young
girls near by.

"It is very strange," said John to Mrs. Wyndham. "I wonder whether I can
have done anything Miss Thorn resents. I am not sensitive, but it is
impossible to mistake people when they look at one like that. She always
does it just in that way."

Mrs. Wyndham looked inquiringly at John for a moment, and the quick smile
of ready comprehension played on her sensitive mouth.

"Are you really quite sure you have not offended her?" she asked.

"Quite sure," John answered, in a tone of conviction. "Besides, I never
offend any one, certainly not ladies. I never did such a thing in my whole
life."

"Not singly," said Mrs. Wyndham, laughing. "You offend people in large
numbers when you do it at all, especially newspaper people. Sam read that
ridiculous article in the paper to me last night."

"Which paper?" asked John, smiling. "They have most of them been at me
this week."

"_The_ paper," answered Mrs. Sam, "the _horrid_ paper. You do
not suppose I would mention such a publication in my house?"

"Oh, my old enemy," laughed John. "I do not mind that in the least. One
might almost think those articles were written by Miss Thorn."

"Perhaps they are," answered Mrs. Wyndham. "Really," she added, glancing
at Josephine, whom Pocock Vancouver had just detached from her group of
girls, "really you may not be so very, very far wrong." John's glance
followed the direction of her eyes, and he saw Vancouver. He looked
steadily at the man's delicate pale features and intellectual head, and at
the end of half a minute he and Mrs. Wyndham looked at each other again.
She probably regretted the hint she had carelessly dropped, but she met
Harrington's gaze frankly.

"I did not mean to say it," she said, for John looked so grave that she
was frightened. "It was only a guess."

"But have you any reason to think it might be the truth?" asked John.

"None whatever--really none, except that he differs so much from you in
every way, politically speaking."

She knew very well that Vancouver hated John, and she had often thought it
possible that the offensive articles in question came from the pen of the
former. There was a tone of superior wit and a ring of truer English in
them than are generally met with in the average office work of a daily
newspaper.

"I do not believe Vancouver writes them," said John, slowly. "He is not
exactly a friend, but he is not an enemy either."

Mrs. Wyndham, who knew better than that, held her peace. She was not a
mischief-maker, and moreover she liked both the men too well to wish a
quarrel between them. She busied herself at the tea-table for a moment,
and John stood near her, watching the moving crowd. Now and then his eyes
rested on Josephine Thorn's graceful figure, and he noticed how her
expressive features lighted up in the conversation. John could hear
something of their conversation, which was somewhat noisy. They were
talking in that strain of objectless question and answer which may be
stupid to idiocy or clever to the verge of wit, according to the talkers.
Joe called it "chaff."

"I have learned America," said Joe.

"Indeed!" said Vancouver. "You have not been long about it; but then, you
will say there is not much to learn."

"I never believe in places till I have lived in them," said Joe.

"Nor in people till you have seen them, I suppose," returned Vancouver.
"But now that you have learned America, of course you believe in us all
without exception. We are the greatest nation on earth--I suppose you have
heard that?"

"Yes; you told me so the other day; but it needs all the faith I have in
your judgment to believe it. If any one else had said it, you know, I
should have thought there was some mistake."

"Oh no; it is pretty true, taking it all round," returned Vancouver, with
a smile. "But I am tremendously flattered at the faith you put in my
sayings."

"Oh, are you? That is odd, you know, because if you are so much flattered
at my believing you, you would not be much disappointed if I doubted you."

"I beg to differ. Excuse me"--

"Not at all," answered Joe, laughing. "Only we have old-fashioned
prejudices at home. We begin by expecting to be believed, and are
sometimes a good deal annoyed if any one says we are telling fibs."

"Of course, if you put it in that way," said Vancouver. "But I suppose it
is not a very bad fib to say one's country is the greatest on earth. I am
sure you English say it quite as often and as loudly as we do, and, you
see, we cannot both be right, possibly."

"No, not exactly. But suppose two men, any two, like you and Mr.
Harrington for instance, each made a point of telling every one you met
that you were the greatest man on earth."

"It is conceivable that we might both be wrong," said Vancouver, laughing
at the idea.

"But one of you might be right," objected Joe.

"No--that is not conceivable," retorted Vancouver.

"No? Let us ask Mr. Harrington. Mr. Harrington!"

Joe turned towards John and called him. He was only a step from her, and
joined the two instantly. He looked from one to the other inquiringly.

"Here is a great question to be decided, Mr. Harrington," said Joe. "I was
saying to Mr. Vancouver that, supposing each of you asserted that he was
the greatest man on earth, it would--I mean, how could the point be
settled?" John stared for a moment.

"If you insist upon raising such a very remarkable point of precedence,
Miss Thorn," he answered calmly, "I am sure Vancouver will agree with me
to leave the decision to you also."

Joe looked slightly annoyed. She had brought the retort on herself.

"Pardon me," said Vancouver, quickly, "I object to the contest. The match
is not a fair one. Mr. Harrington means to be the greatest man on earth,
or in the water under the earth, whereas I have no such aspiration."

Instead of being grateful to Vancouver for coming to her rescue in the
rather foolish position in which she was placed, Joe felt unaccountably
annoyed. She was willing to make sure of John herself, if she could, but
she was not prepared to allow that privilege to any one else. Accordingly
she turned upon Vancouver before John could answer.  "The question began
in a foolish comparison, Mr. Vancouver," she said coldly. "I think you are
inclined to make it personal?"

"I believe it became personal from the moment you hit upon Mr. Harrington
and me as illustrations of what you were saying, Miss Thorn," retorted
Vancouver, very blandly, but with a disagreeable look in his eyes. He was
angry at Joe's rebuke.

John stood calmly by without exhibiting the least shade of annoyance. The
chaff of a mere girl, and the little satirical thrusts of a lady's man
like Vancouver, did not seem to him of much importance. Joe, however, did
not vouchsafe any answer to Vancouver's last remark, and it devolved on
John to say something to relieve the awkwardness of the situation.

"Have you become reconciled to our methods of amusement, Miss Thorn?" he
asked, "or shall we devise something different from the everlasting
sleighing and five o'clock tea, and dinner parties and 'dancing classes'?"

"Oh, do not remind me of all that," said Joe. "I did not mean half of it,
you know." She turned to John, and Vancouver moved away in pursuit of
Sybil Brandon, who had just entered the room.

"Tell me," said Joe, when Pocock was gone, "do you like Mr. Vancouver? You
are great friends, are you not?" John looked at her inquiringly.

"I should not say we were very great friends," he answered, "because we
are not intimate; but we have always been on excellent terms, as far as I
know. Vancouver is a very clever fellow."

"Yes," said Joe, thoughtfully, "I fancy he is. You do not mind my having
asked, do you?"

"Not in the least," said John, quietly. His face had grown very grave
again, and he seemed suddenly absorbed by some thought. "Let us sit down,"
he said presently, and the two installed themselves on a divan in a
corner.

"You are not in the least inquisitive," remarked Joe, as soon as they were
settled.

"What makes you say that?" asked John.

"It was such a silly thing, you know, and you never asked what it was all
about."

"When you called me? No--I did not hear what led up to it, and I supposed
from what you said afterwards that I understood."

"Did you? What did you think?" asked Joe.

"I thought from the question about Vancouver that you wanted to put us
into an awkward position in order to find out whether we were friends."

"No," said Joe, with a little laugh, "I am not so clever as that. It was
pure silliness--chaff, you know--that sort of thing."

"Oh," ejaculated John, still quite unmoved, "then it was not of any
importance."

"Very silly things sometimes turn out to be very important. Saul, you
know--was not it he?--was looking for asses and he found a kingdom."

John laughed suddenly. "And so it is clear which part Vancouver and I
played in the business," he said. "But where is the kingdom?"

"I did not mean that," said Joe, seriously. "I am not making fun any more.
I have not been successful in my chaff to-day. I should think that in your
career it would be very important for you to know who are your friends. Is
it not?"

"Certainly," said John, looking at her curiously. "It is very important;
but I think political life is generally much simpler than people suppose.
It is rather like fighting. The man who hits you is your enemy. The man
who does not is practically your friend. Do you mean in regard to
Vancouver?"

"Yes."

"Vancouver never hit me, that I can swear," said John, "and I am very sure
I never hit him."

"I dare say I am mistaken," said Joe. "You ought to know best. Let us
leave him alone."

"With all my heart," answered John.

"Tell me what you have been doing, Mr. Harrington," said Joe, after a
moment's pause; "all the papers are full of you."

"Yes, I have been rather in the passive mood during the last week. I have
been standing up to be shot at."

"Without shooting back? What are they so angry about?"

"The truth," said John, calmly. "They do not like to hear it."

"What is truth--in this instance?"

"Apparently something so unpleasant that the mere mention of it has roused
the bile of every penny-a-liner in the Republican press. I undertook to
demonstrate that one of the fifteen millions of the 'ablest men in the
country,' whom you are always hearing about, is a swindler. He is, but he
does not like to be told so."

"I suppose not," said Joe. "I wonder if any one likes unpleasant truths.
But what do you mean to do now? Are you going to fight it out? I hope so!"

"Of course, in good time. One can hardly retire from such a position as
mine; they would make an end of me in a week and quarrel over my bones.
But the real fight will be fought by and by, when the elections come on."

"How exciting it must all be," said Joe. "I wish I were a man!"

"And an American?" asked John, smiling. "How are the mighty fallen! You
were laughing at us and our politics the day before yesterday, and now you
are wishing you were one of us yourself. I think you must be naturally
fond of fighting"--

"Fond of a row?" suggested Miss Thorn, with a laugh. "Yes, I fancy I am. I
am fond of all active things. Are not you?"

"I do not know," said John. "I never thought much about it. But I suppose
I should be called rather an active person."

"Is not she beautiful?" ejaculated Miss Thorn, looking across the room at
Sybil Brandon, whose fair head was just visible between two groups of
people.

"Who?" asked John, who was looking at his companion.

"Miss Brandon," said Joe. "Look at her, over there. I think she is the
most beautiful thing I ever saw."

"Yes," said John, "she is very beautiful."




CHAPTER IV.



All sorts and conditions of men and women elbowed and crowded each other
under the dim gaslight at the three entrances to the Boston Music Hall.
The snow was thick on the ground outside, and it had been thawing all the
afternoon. The great booby sleighs slid and slipped and rocked through the
wet stuff, the policemen vociferated, the horse-car drivers on Tremont
Street rang their bells furiously, and a great crowd of pedestrians
stumbled and tumbled about in the mud and slush and snow of the crossings,
all bent on getting inside the Music Hall in time for the beginning of the
lecture.

The affair was called a "lecture" in accordance with the time-honored
custom of Boston, and unless it were termed an oration, it would be hard
to find a better name for it. A "meeting" implies a number of orators, or
at least a well-filled row of chairs upon the platform. A "lecture," on
the other hand, does not convey to the ordinary mind the idea of a
political speech, and critical persons with a taste for etymology say that
the word means something which is read.

John Harrington had determined to speak in public on certain subjects
connected with modern politics, and had caused the fact to be extensively
made known. His name alone would have sufficed to draw a large audience,
but the great attention he had attracted by his doings for some time past,
and the severe criticisms lately made upon him by the local press,
rendered the interest even greater than it would otherwise have been.
Moreover, the lecture was free. Harrington was a poor man, as fortunes go
in Boston, but it was his chiefest principle that a man had no right to be
paid for speaking the truth, even though it might sometimes be just that
people should pay something for hearing it. Accordingly the lecture was
free, and at the appointed hour the house was full to overflowing.

In the front row of the first gallery sat old Miss Schenectady, and by her
side was Josephine Thorn. A little colony of "Beacon Street" had collected
there, and Pocock Vancouver was not far off. It is not often that Beacon
Street goes to such lectures, but John was one of themselves, and had too
many friends and enemies among them not to be certain of a large
attendance.

Miss Schenectady was there, partly because she believed in John
Harrington, and partly because Joe insisted upon going; and, generally
speaking, what Joe insisted upon was done. The old lady did not understand
why her niece was so very anxious to be present, but as the proposition
fell in with her own desires, she made no objection. The fact was that
Joe's interest in John had very greatly increased of late, and her
curiosity to hear the man she met so often speak to a great audience was
excited to its highest pitch. She fancied, too, from many things she had
heard said, that a large proportion of his audience would be hostile to
him, and that she would see him roused to his greatest strength and
eloquence. She did not consider her impulse in the least, for though she
felt a stronger interest in Harrington than she had ever before felt in
any individual, it had not struck her that she was beginning to care
overmuch for the sight of his face and the sound of his voice. She could
not have believed she was beginning to love him; and if any secret voice
had suggested to her conscience that it was so, she could have silenced it
at once to her own satisfaction by merely remembering the coldness with
which she generally treated him. She had got into the habit of treating
him in that way from the first, when she had been prejudiced against him
and the annoyance she often felt at his indifference made her think that
she ought to be consistent and never allow her formal manner to change.
Unfortunately she now and then forgot herself, as she had done after the
little skirmish with Vancouver at Mrs. Wyndham's, and then she talked to
him and asked him questions of himself almost as though he were an
intimate friend.

John, who was a man of the world as well as a man of talent, thought she
was capricious, and since he was infinitely removed from falling in love
with her, or indeed with any other woman, he found it agreeable to talk to
her when she was in a good humor, and when she was ungracious he merely
kept out of her way. If he had deliberately made up his mind to attract
her attention and interest, he could have chosen no surer way than this.
But although he admired her beauty and vivacity, and now and then took a
real pleasure in her conversation, his mind was too full of other matters
to receive any lasting impression of such a kind. Besides, she was
capricious, and he hated mere caprice.

And now there was a hush in the house, and then a short burst of applause,
and Josephine, looking down, saw John standing alone upon the platform in
front of the great bronze statue of Beethoven. He looked exactly as he did
when she met him in society; there was no change in the even color of his
face, nor any awkwardness or self-consciousness in his easy attitude as he
stood there, broad-shouldered and square, his strong hand just resting on
the plain desk that had been placed in the middle of the stage. He waited
a few seconds for silence in the audience, and then began to speak. His
voice sounded as natural and his accent as unaffected as though he were
talking alone with a friend, saving only that every syllable he uttered
was audible in the furthest gallery. Josephine leaned forward upon the red
leather cushion of the railing before her, watching and listening
intently.

She did not understand the subject well. John Harrington was a reformer,
she knew; or, to speak more accurately, he desired to be one. He believed
great changes were necessary. He believed in an established Civil Service,
in something which, if not exactly Free Trade, was much nearer to it than
the existing tariff. Above all, he believed in truth and freedom instead
of lying and bribery. As he spoke and cleared the way to his main points,
his voice never quavered or faltered. He was perfectly sure of himself,
and he reserved all his strength for the time when it should be most
required. For a quarter of an hour he proceeded, and the people sat in
dead silence before him. Then he paused a moment, and shifted his position
a little, moving a step forward as though to gain a better hearing.

"I am coming to the point," he said,--"the point that I must come to
sooner or later. I am a Democrat, as perhaps some of you know."

Here there was an uneasy movement in the house. "Yes, I guess you are!"
cried a voice from somewhere, in a tone of high nasal irony. Some one
laughed, and some one hissed, and then there was silence again.

"Exactly," continued John, unmoved by the interruption. "I am a Democrat,
and though the sight does not astonish you so much as it might have done
twenty years ago, it is worthy of remark, nevertheless. But I have a
peculiarity which I think you will allow to be extremely novel.
I do not begin by saying that salvation is only to be found with
Democrats, and I will not believe any man who says it belongs exclusively
to Republicans. If we were suddenly put in great danger of any kind, war,
famine, or revolution, I think that in some way or other we should manage
to save the country between us, Republicans and Democrats, for the common
good."

"That's so!" said more than one voice.

"Of course we should. Is there any one among us all who would not give up
his individual views about a local election rather than see the country go
to pieces? Would any man be such a coward as to be afraid to change his
mind in order to prevent another Rebellion, another Civil War? No, no, we
are more civilized than that. We want our own men in Congress, our own
friends in office, just so long as they are serviceable--just so long as
the country can stand it, if you like it in that way. But if it comes to
be a question between the public good and having your cousin made
postmaster in a country village, I think there is enough patriotism in the
average Democrat or Republican to send the country cousin about his
business. If worst comes to worst, we can save the country between us,
depend upon it. We have done it before."

Here there was a burst of willing applause. It is a great point to bring
an audience into the position of applauding themselves.

Joe watched John's every gesture, and listened intently to every word. His
voice rang clear and strong through the great hall, and he was beginning
to be roused. He had gained a decided advantage in the success of his last
words, and as he gathered his strength for the real effort which was to
come, his cheek paled and his gray eyes grew brighter. He spoke out again
through the subsiding clamor.

"Now I say that the country is in danger. It is in very great danger, the
greatest danger that can threaten any community. The institutions of a
nation are like the habits of a man, except that they are harder to
improve and easier to spoil. We have got into bad habits, and if we do not
mend them they will take us to a more certain destruction than revolution,
famine, or war,--or all three together. It is easier to fight a thing that
has a head to it and a name, than a thing that is everywhere and has no
name, because no one has the courage to christen it.

"We are like a man who has grown from being a peddler of tape and buttons
to be the greatest dry-goods-man in his town, and then to being a great
dealer for many towns. When he was a peddler he could carry the profit and
loss on his buttons and tape in his head, because the profits were
literally in his pocket, and the losses were literally out of it. But when
he has grown into a great merchant he must keep books, and he must keep a
great many of them, and they must be kept accurately, or he will get into
trouble and go to ruin. That is true, is it not? And when he was a peddler
he could buy his stock-in-trade himself, and be sure that it was what he
wanted; but when he is one of the great merchants he must employ other
people to help him, and unless they are the right people and understand
the business, he will be ruined. Nobody can deny that.

"Very well. We began in a small way as a nation, without much stock-in-trade, and we kept our accounts by rule of thumb. But it seems to me we
are doing a pretty large business as a nation just now."

There was a laugh, and sundry remarks to the effect that the audience
understood what John was driving at.

"Yes, we are doing a great business, and to all intents and purposes we
are doing it on false business principles, and with an absolutely
incompetent staff of clerks. What would you think of a merchant who
dismissed all his book-keepers every four years, and engaged a set of
shoemakers, or tailors, or artists, or musicians to fill up the
vacancies?"

A low murmur ran through the hall, a murmur of disapprobation. Probably a
large number out of the three thousand men and women present had cousins
in country post offices. But John did not pause; his voice grew full and
clear, ringing high above the dull sounds in the house. From her place in
the gallery Josephine looked down, never taking her eyes from the face of
the orator. She too was pale with excitement; had she been willing to
acknowledge it, it was fear. That deep-toned beginning of a protest from
the great concourse was like an omen of failure to her sensitive ear. She
longed to see John Harrington succeed and carry his hearers with him into
an access of enthusiasm. John expected no such thing. He only wanted the
people to understand thoroughly what he meant, for he was sure that if
once they knew the truth clearly they would feel for it as he himself did.

"Nevertheless," he continued, "I tell you that is what we are doing, what
we have been doing for years, from the very beginning. And if we go on
doing it we shall get into trouble. We choose schoolboys to do the work of
men, we expect that by the mere signature of the head of the executive any
man can be turned into an accomplished public officer fit to be compared
with one whose whole life has been spent in the public service. We wish to
be represented abroad among foreign nations in a way becoming to our
dignity and very great power, and we select as our ministers a number of
gentlemen who in most cases have never read a diplomatic dispatch in their
lives, and who sometimes are not even acquainted with any language save
their own. Perhaps you will say that our dignity is not of much importance
provided our power is great enough. I do not think you will say it, but
there are communities in our country where it would most certainly be
said. Very well, so be it. But where do you think our power comes from? Do
you think there is a boundless store of some natural product called power,
of which we need only take as much as we want in order to stand a head and
shoulders higher than any other nation in the world? What is power? Can a
man be strong if he has an internal disease, or is his strength any use to
him if his arms and legs are out of joint? Would you believe in the
strength of a great firm that hired a company of actors from a theatre,
and made the tragedian cashier and the low-comedy man head book-keeper?

"The sick man may live for years with his sickness, and the man whose
limbs are all distorted may still deal a formidable blow with his head, if
it is thick enough. The firm may prosper for a time with its staff of
theatrical clerks, provided there is enough business to pay for all their
mistakes and leave a margin of profit. But the sick man does not live
because he is diseased, but in spite of it. The distorted joints of the
cripple do not help him to fight. The firm is not rich because its
business is done by tragedians and walking-gentlemen, but in spite of
them. If the doctor fails to give his medicine, if the fighting grows too
rough for the cripple, if business grows slack, or if some good business
man with competent assistants starts a strong opposition--what happens?
What must inevitably happen? Why, the sick man dies, the cripple gets the
worst of it, and the theatrical firm of merchants goes straight into
bankruptcy.

"And so I tell you that we are in danger. We are sick with the foul
disease of office seeking; we are crippled hand and foot not only for
fighting but for working, because our public officers are inexperienced
men who spend four years in learning a trade not theirs, and are very
generally turned out before they have half learnt it; we are doing a
political business which will succeed fairly well just so long as we are
rich enough to provide funds for any amount of extravagance and keep
enough in our pockets to buy bread and cheese with afterwards. Just so
long.

"When we have been lanced here in Boston and the blood is running freely,
we can still cut a slice out of the West and use it like court-plaster to
stop the bleeding. Some day there will be no more slices to be had. It
will be a bad day in State Street."

This remark raised a laugh and a good deal of noise for a moment. But the
audience were soon silent again. Whether they meant to approve or
disapprove, they kept their opinions to themselves. Miss Thorn did not
comprehend the allusion, but she was listening with all her ears.

"You understand that," John went on. "Then understand it about the rest of
the country as well. Understand that we are all the time patching our
income with our capital; and it answers pretty well because there is a
good deal of capital and not so very many of ourselves, as yet. There will
be twice as many of us in a few years, and very much less than half as
much capital. Understand above all that we are getting into bad habits--habits we should despise in a corporation, and condemn by very bad names
in any individual man of our acquaintance.

"And when you have understood it, look at matters as they stand. Look at
the incompetence of our public officers, look at our ruined carrying
trade, at those vile enactions of fools, and worse than fools, the
Navigation Laws of the United States, and tell me whether things are as
they should be. Tell me what has become of liberty if you cannot buy a
ship where you can get her best and cheapest, and hoist your own flag upon
her, and call her your own? You may pay for her and bring her home with
you, but though she were ten times paid for, you cannot hoist the American
flag, nor register her in your own port, nor claim the protection of your
country for your own property--because, forsooth, the ship was not built
on American stocks, where she would cost three times her value, and put a
job into the hands of a set of builders of river steamboats and harbor
mudscows."

Loud murmurs ran through the audience, and cries of "That's so!" and
counter cries of "Freetrader!" were heard on all sides. John's great voice
rang out like a trumpet. He knew the sensitiveness of his townsmen on the
point.

"I am not speaking against protection," he said, and at the magic word
"protection" a dead silence again fell over the vast crowd. "I say to you,
'Protect!' Protect, all of you, merchants, tradesmen, the great body of
the commerce of this country; protect whatever you all decide together
needs protection. But by the greatness and the power you have, by the
Heaven that gave us this land of ours to till and to enjoy, protect also
yourselves and your liberties."

A patriotic phrase in the mouth of a man who has the golden gift of
speech, coupled with the statement of a principle popular with his
audience, is a sure point in an oration. Something in John's tone and
gesture touched the sympathetic chord, and the house broke out in a great
cry of applause.

An orator cannot always talk in strict logical sequence. He must search
about for the right nail till he has found it, and then drive it home.

"Aye, that is the point," he said. "You men of Boston here, look to your
harbors, crowded with English craft, and think of what is gone, lost to
you forever, unless you will strike a blow for it. Many of you are old
enough to remember how it used to be. Look at Salem Harbor, at Marblehead.
Where are the fleets of noble ships that lay side by side along the great
docks, the ships that did half the carrying trade of the world? Where are
the great merchantmen that used to sail so grandly away to the East and
that came home so richly laden? They are sunk or gone to pieces, or sold
as old timber and copper and nails to the gentlemen who build mudscows.
What are the great merchants doing who owned those fleets? They are
employing their time in building railroads with English iron and foreign
labor into desolate deserts in the West, which they hope to sell for a
handsome profit, and probably will. But when there are no more desolate
deserts and English iron and foreign labor to be had, they will wish they
had their ships again, and that in all these years they had got possession
of the carrying trade of the world, as they might have done.

"That is what I am here to say. The time is come to give up the shifts and
unstable expedients that we needed, or thought we needed, in our early
beginnings. Let us pull down all these scaffoldings and stages that have
helped us to build, and let us see whether our fabric will stand upon its
base, erect, without the paltry support of a few rotting timbers. Let us
substitute the permanent for the transitory, the stable for the unstable,
and the reality for the sham. Let us have a Civil Service in fact as well
as in name, a service of men trained to their duties, and who shall spend
their lives in fulfilling them; a service of competent men to represent us
abroad, and a service of honest men to do the country's business at home,
instead of making the country do theirs and being paid for it into the
bargain. Let us put men into Congress who will cover the seas with our
ships again, as well as make our harbors impassable with a competition of
cheap ferry-boats. Begin here, as you began here more than a hundred years
ago, and as you succeeded then you will succeed now.

"Begin, and go on, and God prosper you; and when the work is done, when
bribery and extortion and all corruption are crushed forever out of our
public life, when the Navigation Act is a thing of the past, and you are
again the carriers of the world's commerce as well as the greatest sharers
in it, then it will be time enough to give a name to the men who shall
have done all these things, Republicans and Democrats together, a new
party, the last and the greatest of all parties that the country has ever
seen. You will find a name, surely enough, that will answer the purpose
then; but whatever that name may be, it will not be forgotten that, for
the third time in the history of our land, Massachusetts has struck the
first and the strongest blow in the struggle for liberty, honor, and
truth."

Few men in public life had as good a right as John Harrington to denounce
all manner of dishonesty. Many a speaker would have raised a sneering
laugh by that last phrase, but even John's enemies admitted that his hands
were clean. Coming from one of themselves it was a strong appeal, and the
applause was long and loud. With a courteous inclination John turned and
left the platform through the door at the back.

He was well enough satisfied. His hearers had been moved for a moment to
enthusiasm. They would go home and on mature reflection would not agree
with him; but a blow struck is a point in the fight so long as it is felt
at all, and John was well pleased at the reception he had met with. He had
avoided every detail, and had confined himself to the widest generalities,
but his homely illustrations would not be forgotten, and his strong
individuality had created a sincere desire in many who had been there that
night to hear him speak again.

For some minutes after John had left the platform, Josephine sat unmoved
in her seat beside her aunt, lost in thought as she watched the surging
crowd below.

"Well," said Miss Schenectady, "you have heard John Harrington now." Joe
started. She had grown used to the implied interrogation her aunt usually
conveyed in that way.

"He is a great man, Aunt Zoë," she said quietly, and looked round. There
was a moisture in her beautiful brown eyes that told of great excitement.
She was very pale too, and looked tired.

"Yes, my dear," said Aunt Zoruiah. "But we had better go home right away,
Joe darling. You are so pale, I suppose you must be a good deal used up."

"Allow me to see you to your carriage," said Pocock Vancouver in dulcet
tones, coming up to the two ladies as they rose.




CHAPTER V.



"Why can't you get in, Mr. Vancouver?" inquired Miss Schenectady, when she
and Joe were at last packed into the deep booby. It was simply a form of
invitation. There was no reason why Mr. Vancouver should not get in, and
with a word of thanks he did so. Ten minutes later the three were seated
round the fire in Miss Schenectady's drawing-room.

"It was very fine, was it not, Miss Thorn?" said Vancouver.

"Yes," said Joe, staring at the fire.

"There are some people," said Miss Schenectady, "it does not seem to make
much difference what they say, but it is always fine."

"Is that ironical?" asked Vancouver.

"Why, goodness gracious no! Of course not! I am John Harrington's very
best friend. I only mean to say."

"What, Aunt Zoë?" inquired Joe, not yet altogether accustomed to the
peculiar implications of her aunt's language.

"Why, what I said, of course; it sounds very fine."

"Then you do not believe it all?" asked Vancouver.

"I don't understand politics," said the old lady. "You might ring the
bell, Joe, and ask Sarah for some tea."

"Nobody understands politics," said Vancouver. "When people do, there will
be an end of them. Politics consist in one half of the world trying to
drive paradoxes down the throats of the other half."

Joe laughed a little.

"I do not know anything about politics here," she said, "though I do at
home, of course. I must say, though, Mr. Harrington did not seem so very
paradoxical."

"Oh no," answered Vancouver, blandly, "I did not mean in this case.
Harrington is very much in earnest. But it is like war, you see. When
every one understands it thoroughly, it will stop by universal consent.
Did you ever read Bulwer's 'Coming Race'?"

"Yes," said Joe. "I always read those books. _Vril_, and that sort of
thing, you mean? Oh yes."

"Approximately," answered Vancouver. "It was an allegory, you know. A
hundred years hence people will write a book to explain what Bulwer meant.
_Vril_ stands for the cumulative power of potential science, of
course."

"I think Bulwer's word shorter, and a good deal easier to understand,"
said Joe, laughing.

"It is a great thing to be great," remarked Miss Schenectady. "Sarah, I
think you might bring us some tea, please, and ask John if he couldn't
stir the furnace a little. And then to have people explain you. Goethe
must be a good deal amused, I expect, when people write books to prove
that Byron was Euphorion." Miss Schenectady was fond of German literature,
and the extent of her reading was a constant surprise to her niece.

"What a lot of things you know, Aunt Zoë!" said Joe. "But what had Bulwer
to do with war, Mr. Vancouver?"

"Oh, in the book--the 'Coming Race,' you know--they abolished war because
they could kill each other so easily."

"How nice that would be!" exclaimed Joe, looking at him.

"Why, you perfectly shock me, Joe," cried Miss Schenectady.

"I mean, to have no war," returned Joe, sweetly.

"Oh; I belonged to the Peace Conference myself," said her aunt,
immediately pacified. "Well, yes. Perhaps you could bring us a little
cake, Sarah? War is a terrible thing, my dear, as Mr. Vancouver will tell
you."

Vancouver, however, was silent. He probably did not care to have it
remembered that he was old enough to carry a musket in the Rebellion. Joe
understood and asked no Questions about it, and Vancouver was grateful for
her tact. She rose and began to pour out some tea.

"You began talking about Mr. Harrington's speech," said she presently,
"but we got away from the subject. Is it all true?"

"That is scarcely a fair question, Miss Thorn," answered Vancouver. "You
see, I belong to the opposite party in politics."

"But Mr. Harrington said he wanted both parties to combine. Besides, you
do not take any active part in it all."

"I have very strong opinions, nevertheless," replied Pocock.

"Strong opinions and activity ought to go together," said Joe.

"Not always."

"But if you have strong opinions and disagree with Mr. Harrington,"
persisted Miss Thorn, "then you have a strong opinion against your two
parties acting together for the common good."

"Not exactly that," said Vancouver, embarrassed between the directness of
Joe's question and a very strong impression that he had better not say
anything against John Harrington.

"Then what do you believe? Will you please give this cup to Miss
Schenectady?"

Vancouver rose quickly to escape.

"Cream and sugar, Miss Schenectady?" he said. "Ah, Miss Thorn has already
put them in. It is such celebrated tea of yours! Do you know, I always
look forward to a cup of it as one of the greatest pleasures in life!"

"When you have quite done praising the tea, will you please tell me what
you believe about Mr. Harrington's speech?" said the inexorable Joe,
drowning her aunt's reply to Vancouver's polite remark.

Thus cornered, Vancouver faced the difficulty.

"I believe it was a very good speech," he said mildly.

"Do you believe what he said was true?"

"A great deal of it was true, but I assure you that Harrington is very
enthusiastic. Much of it was extremely imaginative."

"I dare say; all that about making a Civil Service, I suppose?"

"Well, not exactly. I think all good Republicans hope to have a regular
Civil Service some day. It is necessary, or will be so before long."

"But then it is what he said about that ridiculous Navigation Act that you
object to?" pursued Joe, without mercy.

"Really, I think it would be an advantage to repeal it. It is only kept up
for the sake of a few builders who have influence."

"Ah, I see," exclaimed Joe triumphantly, "you think the hope he expressed
that bribery and that sort of thing might be suppressed was altogether
imaginary?"

"I hope not, Miss Thorn. But I am sure there is not nearly so much of it
as he made out. It was a very great exaggeration."

"Was there? Really, he only used the word once in the most general way. I
remember very well, at the end; he said, 'when bribery, corruption, and
all extortion are crushed forever;' anybody might say that!"

"You make out a wonderfully good case, Miss Thorn," said Vancouver, who
was not altogether pleased; "was the speech printed before Harrington
spoke it this evening?"

"No!" exclaimed Joe. "I have a very good memory, in that way, just to
remember what I hear. I could repeat word for word everything he said, and
everything you have said since during the evening."

"What a terrible person you are!" said Vancouver, smiling pleasantly.
"Well, then, now that you have proved every word of Harrington's speech
out of an opponent's evidence, I will tell you frankly how it is that I do
not agree with him. He is a Democrat, I am a Republican. That is the whole
story. I do not believe, nor shall I ever believe, that any large number
of the two parties can work together. I cannot help my belief in the
least; it is a matter of conscience. Nevertheless, I have a very great
respect for Harrington, and as I take no active part whatever in any
political contest, my opinion of his politics will never interfere with my
personal feeling for him."

Frankness seemed to be Mr. Vancouver's strong point. Joe was obliged to
admit that he spoke clearly, even if she did not greatly respect his
logic. During all this time, Miss Schenectady had been sipping her tea in
silence.

"Joe," she said at last, "you are a perfect Socrates for questions. You
ought to have been a lawyer."

"I wish I were," said Joe, laughing, "or Socrates himself."

"Yes, you ought to have been. Here you know nothing at all about this
thing, and you have been talking like anything for half an hour. I think
Socrates was perfectly horrid."

"So do I," said Vancouver, laughing aloud.

"Why?" Joe asked, turning to her aunt.

"To be always stopping people in the street, and button-holing them with
his questions. Of course it was very clever, as Plato makes it out; but I
do wish he could have met me--when I was young, my dear. I would have
answered him once and for all!"

"Try me, Aunt Zoë, for practice," said Joe, "until you meet him."

"Really, I expect you would do almost as well. Look at Mr. Vancouver, he
is quite used up."

The case was not so serious with Mr. Vancouver as the old lady made it out
to be. He was silent and to all intents vanquished for the present, but it
was not long before he turned the conversation to other things, and
succeeded in making himself very agreeable. He admired Josephine very
much, and though she occasionally made him feel very uncomfortable, he
always returned to the charge with renewed intelligence and sweetness. Joe
liked him too, in spite of an unfounded suspicion she felt that he was
dangerous. He was always ready when she needed anything at a party; he
never bored her, but whenever he saw she was wearied by any one else he
came up and saved her, clearing a place for himself at her side with an
ease that bespoke long and constant experience of the world. Women,
especially young women, always like men of that description; they are
flattered at the attention of a man who is so evidently able to choose,
and they enjoy the immunity from all annoyance and weariness that such men
are able to carry with them.

Consequently Joe accepted the attentions of Pocock Vancouver with a
certain amount of satisfaction, and she had not been displeased that he
should come to Miss Schenectady's house for tea. The evening passed
quickly, and Vancouver took his leave. As he opened the front door to let
himself out he nearly fell over a small telegraph messenger.

"Thorn here?" inquired the boy, laconically.

"Yes, I'll take it in," said Vancouver quickly. He went back with the
telegram, and the boy stood inside the door waiting for the receipt. He
noticed the stamp of the Cable Office on the envelope.

"Miss Thorn," said Vancouver, entering the drawing-room again, hat in
hand, "I just met this telegram on the steps, so I brought it in. It may
need an answer, you know."

"Thanks, so much," said Joe, tearing open the pale yellow cover. She was
startled, not being accustomed to receive telegrams. Her brow contracted
as she read the contents, and she tapped her small foot on the carpet
impatiently.

    THORN, care Schenectady,
    Beacon, Boston.
    Sailed to-day.
    RONALD.

Josephine crushed the paper in her hand and signed the receipt with the
pencil Vancouver offered her.

"Thanks, so much," she said again, but in a different tone of voice.

"Any answer?" suggested Vancouver.

"Thanks, no," answered Joe. "Good-night again."

"Good-night." And Vancouver departed, wondering what the message could
have been.

Miss Schenectady had looked on calmly throughout the little scene, and
nodded to Pocock as he left the room; her peculiarities were chiefly those
of diction; she was a well-bred old lady, not without wisdom.

"Nothing wrong, Joe?" she inquired, when alone with her niece.

"I hardly know," answered Joe. "Ronald has just sailed from England. I
suppose he will be here in ten days."

"Business here?" asked Miss Schenectady.

"Oh dear, no! He knows nothing about business. I wish he would stay at
home. What a bore!"

It was evident that Joe had changed her mind since she had written to
Ronald a fortnight before. It seemed to her now, when she looked forward
to Surbiton's coming, that he would not find his place in Boston society
so easily as she had done. Of course he would expect to see her every day,
and to spend all his leisure hours at Miss Schenectady's house. Whatever
she happened to be doing, it would always be necessary to take Ronald into
consideration, and the prospect did not please her at all.

Ronald was a dear good fellow, of course, and she meant to marry him in
the end--at least, she probably would. But then, she intended to marry him
at a more convenient season, some time in the future. She knew him well,
and she was certain that when he saw her surrounded by her Boston
acquaintances, his British nature would assert itself, and he would claim
her, or try to claim her, and persuade her to go away. She bid Miss
Schenectady good night, and went to her room; and presently, when she was
sure every one was in bed in the house, she stole down to the drawing-room
again, and sat alone by the remains of the coal-fire, thinking what she
should do.

Josephine Thorn was young and more full of life and activity than most
girls of her age. She enjoyed what came in her way to enjoy with a
passionate zest, and she had the reputation of being somewhat capricious
and changeable. But she was honest in all her thoughts, and very clear-sighted. People often said she spoke her mind too freely, and was not
enough in awe of the veiled deity known in society as "The  Thing." How
she hated it! How many times she had been told that what she said and did
was not quite "The Thing." She knew now what Ronald would say when he
came, if he found her worshiped on all sides by Pocock Vancouver and his
younger and less accomplished compeers. Ronald would say "it was rather
rough, you know."

She sat by the fire and thought the matter over, and when she came to
formulating in her mind the exact words that Ronald would say, she paused
to think of him and how he would look. He was handsome--far handsomer than
Vancouver or--or John Harrington. He was very nice; much nicer than
Vancouver. John Harrington was different, "nice" did not describe him; but
Ronald was nicer than all the other men she knew. He would make a charming
husband. At the thought Joe started.

"My husband!" she repeated aloud to herself in the silence. Then she rose
quickly to her feet and leaned against the smooth white marble
mantelpiece, and buried her face in her small white hands for an instant.

"Oh no, no, no, no!" she cried aloud. "It is impossible; oh no! never! I
never really meant it; did I?" She stared at herself in the glass for a
few seconds, and her face was very pale. Then she bent over her hands
again, and the tears came and wetted them a little, and at last she sat
down as she had sat before, and stared vacantly at the fire.

It would be very wrong to break Ronald's heart, she thought. He would come
to her so full of hope and gladness; how could she tell him she did not
love him?

But how was it possible that in all these years she had never before
understood that she could not marry him? It had always seemed so natural
to marry Ronald. And yet she must have always really felt just as she did
to-night; only she had never realized it, never at all. Why had it come
over her so suddenly too? It would have been so much better if she could
have seen the truth at home, before she parted from him; for it would be
so hard for him to bear it now, after coming across the ocean to see
her--so cruelly hard. Dear Ronald; and yet he must be told.

Yes, there was no doubt about it, the very first meeting must explain it
to him. He would say--what would he say? He would tell her she liked some
one else better.

Some one else! Some one who had stolen away her heart; of course he would
say that. But he would be wrong, for there was no one else, not one of all
these men she had seen, who had so much as breathed a word of love to her.
None whom she liked nearly so much as Ronald, no, not one.

For a long time she sat very quietly, following a train of thought that
was half unconscious. Her lips moved now and then, as though she were
repeating something to herself, and gradually the pained and anxious
expression of her face melted away into a look of peace.

The old gilt clock upon the chimney-piece struck twelve in its shrill
steel tones. Josephine started at the sound, and passed one hand over her
eyes as though to rouse herself, and at the same time a deep blush spread
over her delicate cheek. For with the voice of midnight there was also the
voice of a man ringing in her ears, and she heard the two together, so
that it seemed as though all the world must hear them also, and her gentle
maiden's soul was shamed at the thought.

So it is that our loves are always with us, and though we search ourselves
diligently to find them and rebuke them, we find them not; but if we give
up searching they come upon us unawares, and speak very soft words. Love
also is a gentle thing, full of sweetness and peace, when he comes to us
so; and though the maiden blushes at his speaking, she would not stop the
ears of her heart against him for all the world; and although the boy
trembles and turn pale, and forgets to be boyish when, the fit is on him,
nevertheless he goes near and worships, and loses his heart in learning a
new language. So kind and soft is love, so tender and sweet-spoken, that
you would think he would not so much as ruffle the leaf of a rose, nor
breathe too sharply on a violet, lest he should hurt the flower-soul
within; and if you treat him hospitably he is kind to the last, so that
when he is gone there is still a sweet savor of him left. But if you would
drive him roughly away with scorn and rude language, he will stand at your
door and will not leave you. Then his wings drop from him, and he grows
strong and fierce, and deadly and beautiful, as the fallen archangel of
heaven, crying aloud bitter things to you by day and night; till at the
last he will break down bolt and bar and panel, and enter your chamber,
and drag you out with him to your death in the wild darkness.

But Josephine blushed deeply there in the old-fashioned drawing-room at
midnight, and as she turned away she wondered at herself, for she could
not believe nor understand what was happening.

Poor girl! She had talked of love so often as an abstract thing, she had
seen so many love-makings of others, and so many men had tried to make
love to her in her short brilliant life, and she had always thought it
could not come near her, because, of course, she really loved Ronald. She
had marveled, indeed, at what people were willing to do, and at what they
were ready to sacrifice, for a feeling that seemed to her of such little
importance as that. It had been an illusion, and the waking had come at
last very suddenly. Whoever it might be whom she was destined to take, it
was not Ronald. It was madness to think she could be bound forever to him,
however much she might admire him and desire him as a friend.

When the clock struck she was thinking of John, and the words he had said
that night to his great audience were ringing again in her ears. She
blushed indeed at the idea that she was thinking so much of him, but it
was not that she believed she loved him. If as yet she really did, she was
herself most honestly unconscious of it; and so the blush was not
accounted for in the reckoning she made.

She lay awake long, trying to determine what was best to be done, but she
could not. One thing she must do; she must explain to Ronald, when he
came, that she could never, never marry him.

If only she had a sister, or some one! Dear Aunt Zoruiah was so horrid
about such things that it was impossible to talk to her!




CHAPTER VI.



"Do you know how to skate?" Sybil Brandon asked of Joe as the two young
girls, clad in heavy furs, walked down the sunny side of Beacon Street two
days later. They were going from Miss Schenectady's to a "lunch party"--one of those social institutions of Boston which had most surprised Joe on
her first arrival.

"Of course," answered Joe. "I do not know anything, but I can do
everything."

"How nice!" said Sybil. "Then you can go with us to-night. That will be
too lovely!"

"What is it?"

"We are all going skating on Jamaica Pond. Nobody has skated for so long
here that it is a novelty. I used to be so fond of it."

"We always skate at home, when there is ice," said Joe. "It will be
enchanting though, with the full moon and all. What time?"

"Mrs. Sam Wyndham will arrange that," said Sybil. "She is going to
matronize us."

"How dreadful, to have to be chaperoned!" ejaculated Joe. "But Mrs.
Wyndham is very jolly after all, so it does not much matter."

"I believe they used to have Germans here without any mothers," remarked
Sybil, "but they never do now."

"Poor little things, how awfully lonely for them!" laughed Joe.

"Who?"

"The Germans--without their mothers. Oh, I forgot the German was the
cotillon. You mean cotillons, without tapestry, as we say."

"Yes, exactly. But about the skating party. It will be very select, you
know; just ourselves. You know I never go out," Sybil added rather sadly,
"but I do love skating so."

"Who are 'ourselves'--exactly?"

"Why, you and I, and the Sam Wyndhams, and the Aitchison girls, and Mr.
Topeka, and Mr. Harrington, and Mr. Vancouver--let me see--and Miss St.
Joseph, and young Hannibal. He is very nice, and is very attentive to Miss
St. Joseph."

"Is it nice, like that, skating about in couples?" asked Joe.

"No; that is the disagreeable part; but the skating is delicious."

"Let us stay together all the time," said Joe spontaneously, "it will be
ever so much pleasanter. I would not exactly like to be paired off with
any of those men, you know."

Sybil looked at Joe, opening her wide blue eyes in some astonishment. She
did not think Joe was exactly one of those young women who object to a
moonlight _tête-à-tête_, if properly chaperoned.

"Yes, if you like, dear," she said. "I would like it much better myself,
of course."

"Do you know, Sybil," said Joe, looking up at her taller companion, "I
should not think you would care for skating and that sort of thing."

"Why?" asked Sybil.

"You do not look strong enough. You are not a bit like me, brought up on
horseback."

"Oh, I am very strong," answered Sybil, "only I am naturally pale, you
see, and people think I am delicate."

But the north wind kissed her fair face and the faint color came beneath
the white and through it, so that Joe looked at her and thought she was
the fairest woman in the world that day.

"When I was a little girl," said Joe, "mamma used to tell me a story about
the beautiful Snow Angel: she must have been just like you, dear."

"What is the story?" asked Sybil, the delicate color in her cheek
deepening a little.

"I will tell you to-night when we are skating, we have not time now. Here
we are." And the two girls went up the steps of the house where they were
going to lunch.

On the other side of the street Pocock Vancouver and John Harrington met,
and stopped to speak just as Joe and Sybil had rung the bell, and stood
waiting at the head of the steps.

"Don't let us look at each other so long as we can look at them," said
Vancouver, shaking hands with John, but looking across the street at the
two girls. John looked too, and both men bowed.

"They are pretty enough for anything, are they not?" continued Vancouver.

"Yes," said John, "they are very pretty."

With a nod and a smile Joe and Sybil disappeared into the house.

"Why don't you marry her?" asked Vancouver.

"Which? The English girl?"

"No; Sybil Brandon."

"Thank you, I am not thinking of being married," said John, a half-comic,
half-contemptuous look in his strong face. "Miss Brandon could do better
than marry a penniless politician, and besides, even if I wanted it, I
care too much for Miss Brandon's friendship to risk losing it by asking
her to marry me."

"Nonsense, my dear fellow," said Vancouver, "she would accept you straight
off. So would the other."

"You ought to know," said John, eyeing his companion calmly.

Vancouver looked away; it was generally believed that he had been refused
by Miss Brandon more than a year previous.

"Well, you can take my word for it, you could not do better," he answered,
ambiguously. "There is no knowing how the moonlight effects on Jamaica
Pond may strike you this evening. I say, though, you were pretty lucky in
having such warm weather the night before last."

"Yes," said John. "The house was full. Were you there?"

"Of course. If I were not a Republican I would congratulate you on your
success. It is a long time since any one has made a Boston audience listen
to those opinions. You did it surprisingly well; that sentence about
protection was a masterpiece. I wish you were one of us."

"It is of no use arguing with you," said John. "If it were, I could make a
Democrat of you in an afternoon."

"I make a pretty good thing of arguing, though," answered the other. "It's
my trade, you see, and it is not yours. You lay down the law; it is my
business to make a living out of it."

"I wish I _could_ lay it down, as you say, and lay it down according
to my own ideas," said John. "I would have something to say to you
railroad men."

"As for that, I should not care. Railroad law is stronger than iron and
more flexible than india-rubber, and the shape of it is of no importance
whatever. So long as there is enough of it to work with, you can twist it
and untwist it as much as you please."

John laughed.

"It would simplify matters to untwist it and cut it up into lengths," he
said. "But then your occupation would be gone."

"I think my occupation will last my life-time," answered Vancouver,
laughing in his turn.

"Not if I can help it," returned John. "But we can provide you with
another. Good-by. I am going to Cambridge."

They shook hands cordially, and John Harrington turned down Charles
Street, while Vancouver pursued his way up the hill. He had been going in
the opposite direction when he met Harrington, but he seemed to have
changed his mind. He was not seen again that day until he went to dine
with Mrs. Sam Wyndham.

There was no one there but Mr. Topeka and young John C. Hannibal, well-dressed men of five-and-thirty and five-and-twenty respectively, belonging
to good families of immense fortune, and educated regardless of expense.
No homely Boston phrase defiled their anglicized lips, their great collars
stood up under their chins in an ecstasy of stiffness, and their shirt-fronts bore two buttons, avoiding the antiquity of three and the vulgarity
of one. Well-bred Anglo-maniacs both, but gentlemen withal, and courteous
to the ladies. Mr. Topeka was a widower, John C. Hannibal was understood
to be looking for a wife.

They came, they dined, and they retired to Sam Wyndham's rooms to don
their boots and skating clothes. At nine o'clock the remaining ladies
arrived, and then the whole party got into a great sleigh and were driven
rapidly out of town over the smooth snow to Jamaica Pond. John Harrington
had not come, and only three persons missed him--Joe Thorn, Mrs. Sam, and
Pocock Vancouver.

The ice had been cut away in great quantities for storing and the thaw had
kept the pond open for a day or two. Then came the sharpest frost of the
winter, and in a few hours the water was covered with a broad sheet of
black ice that would bear any weight. It was a rare piece of good fortune,
but the fashion of skating had become so antiquated that no one took
advantage of the opportunity; and as the party got out of the sleigh and
made their way down the bank, they saw that there was but one skater
before them, sweeping in vast solitary circles out in the middle of the
pond, under the cold moonlight. The party sat on the bank in the shadow of
some tall pine trees, preparing for the amusement, piling spare coats and
shawls on the shoulders of a patient groom, and screwing and buckling
their skates on their feet.

"What beautiful ice!" exclaimed Joe, when Vancouver had done his duty by
the straps and fastenings. She tapped the steel blade twice or thrice on
the hard black surface, still leaning on Vancouver's arm, and then,
without a word of warning, shot away in a long sweeping roll. The glorious
vitality in her was all alive, and her blood thrilled and beat wildly in
utter enjoyment. She did not go far at first, but seeing the others were
long in their preparations, she turned and faced them, skating away
backwards, leaning far over to right and left on each changing stroke, and
listening with intense pleasure to the musical ring of the clanging steel
on the clean ice. Some pride she felt, too, at showing the little knot of
Bostonians how thoroughly at home she was in a sport they seemed to
consider essentially American.

Joe had not noticed the solitary skater, and thought herself alone, but in
a few moments she was aware of a man in an overcoat bowing before her as
he slackened his speed. She turned quickly to one side and stopped
herself, for the man was John Harrington.

"Why, where did you come from, Mr. Harrington?" she asked in some
astonishment. "You were not hidden under the seats of the sleigh, were
you?"

"Not exactly," said John, looking about for the rest of the party. "I was
belated in Cambridge this afternoon, so I borrowed a pair of skates and
walked over. Splendid ice, is it not?"

"I am so glad you came," said Joe. She was in such high spirits and was so
genuinely pleased at meeting John that she forgot to be cold to him. "It
would have been a dreadful pity to have missed this."

"It would indeed," said John, skating slowly by her side.

For down by the pine trees two or three figures began to move on the ice.

"I want to thank you, Mr. Harrington," said Joe.

"What for, Miss Thorn?" he asked.

"For the pleasure you gave me the other night," she answered. "I have not
seen you since to speak to. It was splendid!"

"Thanks," said John. "I saw you there, in the gallery on my left."

"Yes; but how could you have time to look about and recognize people? You
must have splendid eyes."

"It is all a habit," said John. "When one has been before an audience a
few times one does not feel nervous, and so one has time to look about. Do
you care for that sort of thing, Miss Thorn?"

"Oh, ever so much. But I was frightened once, when they began to grumble."

"There was nothing to fear," said John, laughing. "Audiences of that kind
do not punctuate one's speeches with cabbages and rotten eggs."

"They do sometimes in England," said Joe. "But here come the others!"

Two and two, in a certain grace of order, the little party came out from
the shore into the moonlight. The women's faces looked white and waxen
against their rich furs, and the moonbeams sparkled on their ornaments. A
very pretty sight is a moonlight skating party, and Pocock Vancouver knew
what he was saying when he hinted at the mysterious and romantic
influences that are likely to be abroad on such occasions. Indeed, it was
not long before young Hannibal was sliding away hand in hand with Miss St.
Joseph at a pace that did not invite competition. And Mr. Topeka decided
which of the Aitchison girls he preferred, and gave her his arm, so that
the other fell to the lot of Sam Wyndham, while Mrs. Sam and Sybil Brandon
came out escorted by Vancouver, who noticed with some dismay that the
party was "a man short." The moment he saw Joe talking to the solitary
skater, he knew that the latter must be Harrington, who had gone to
Cambridge and come across. John bowed to every one and shook hands with
Mrs. Wyndham. Joe eluded Vancouver and put her arm through Sybil's, as
though to take possession of her.

Joe would have been well enough pleased at first to have been left with
John, but the sight of Vancouver somehow reminded her of the compact she
had made in the morning with Sybil, and in a few moments the two girls
were away together, talking so persistently to each other that Vancouver,
who at first followed them and tried to join their conversation, was fain
to understand that he was not wanted, so that he returned to Mrs. Wyndham.

"I want so much to talk to you," Joe began, when they were alone.

"Yes, dear?" said Sybil half interrogatively, as they moved along. "We can
talk here charmingly, unless Mr. Vancouver comes after us again. But you
do skate beautifully, you know. I had no idea you could."

"Oh, I told you I could do everything," said Joe, with some pride. "Where
_did_ you get that beautiful fur, my dear? It is magnificent. You are
just like the Snow Angel now."

"In Russia. Everybody wears white fur there, you know. We were in St.
Petersburg some time."

"I know. We cannot get it in England. If one could I would have told
Ronald to bring me some when he comes."

"Who is Ronald?" asked Sybil innocently.

"Oh, he is the dearest boy," said Joe, with a little sigh, "but I do so
wish he were not coming!"

"Because he has not got the white fur?" suggested Sybil.

"Oh no! But because"--Joe lowered her voice and spoke demurely, at the
same time linking her arm more closely in Sybil's. "You see, dear, he
wants to marry me, and I am afraid he is coming to say so."

"And you do not want to marry him? Is that it?"

Joe's small mouth closed tightly, and she merely nodded her head gravely,
looking straight before her. Sybil pressed her arm sympathetically and was
silent, expecting more.

"It was such a long time ago, you see," said Joe, after a while. "I was
not out when it was arranged, and it seemed so natural. But now--it is
quite different."

"But of course, if you do not love him, you must not think of marrying
him," said Sybil, simply.

"I won't," answered Joe, with sudden emphasis. "But I shall have to tell
him, you know," she added despondently.

"It is very hard to say those things," said Sybil, in a tone of
reflection. "But of course it must be done--if you were really engaged,
that is."

"Yes, almost really," said Joe.

"Not quite?" suggested Sybil.

"I think not quite; but I know he thinks it is quite quite, you know."

"Well, but perhaps he is not so certain, after all. Do you know, I do not
think men really care so much; do you?"

"Oh, of course not," said Joe scornfully. "But it does not seem quite
honest to let a man think you are going to marry him if you do not mean
to."

"But you did mean to, dear, until you found out you did not care for him
enough. And just think how dreadful it would be to be married if you did
not care enough!"

"Yes, that is true," answered Joe. "It would be dreadful for him too."

"When is he coming?" asked Sybil.

"I think next week. He sailed the day before yesterday."

"Then there is plenty of time to settle on what you want to say," said
Sybil. "If you make up your mind just how to put it, you know, it will be
ever so much easier."

"Oh no!" cried Joe. "I will trust to luck. I always do; it is much
easier."

"Excuse me, Miss Brandon," said the voice of Vancouver, who came up behind
them at a great pace, and holding his feet together let himself slide
rapidly along beside the two girls,--"excuse me, but do you not think you
are very unsociable, going off in this way?"

"May I give you my arm, Miss Thorn?" asked Harrington, coming up on the
other side.

Without leaving each other Joe and Sybil took the proffered arms of the
two men, and the four skated smoothly out into the middle of the ice, that
rang again in the frosty air under their joint weight. Mrs. Wyndham had
insisted that Vancouver and Harrington should leave her and follow the
young girls, and they had obeyed in mutual understanding.

"Which do you like better, Miss Brandon, boating in Newport or skating on
Jamaica Pond?" asked Vancouver.

"This is better than the Music Hall, is it not?" remarked John to Miss
Thorn.

"Oh, Jamaica Pond, by far," Sybil answered, and her hold on Joe's arm
relaxed a very little.

"Oh no! I would a thousand times rather be in the Music Hall!" exclaimed
Joe, and her hand slipped away from Sybil's white fur. And so the four
were separated into couples, and went their ways swiftly under the
glorious moonlight. As they parted Sybil turned her head and looked after
Joe, but Joe did not see her.

"I would rather be here," said John quietly.

"Why?" asked Joe.

"There is enough fighting in life to make peace a very desirable thing
sometimes," John answered.

"A man cannot be always swinging his battle-axe." There was a very slight
shade of despondency in the tone of his voice. Joe noticed it at once.

Women do not all worship success, however much they may wish their
champion to win when they are watching him fight. In the brilliant,
unfailing, all-conquering man, the woman who loves him feels pride; if she
be vain and ambitious, she feels wholly satisfied, for the time. But
woman's best part is her gentle sympathy, and where there is no room at
all for that, there is very often little room for love. In the changing
hopes and fears of uncertain struggles, a woman's love well given and
truly kept may turn the scale for a man, and it is at such times, perhaps,
that her heart is given best, and most loyally held by him who has it.

"I wish I could do anything to help him to succeed," thought Joe, in the
innocent generosity of her half-conscious devotion.

"Has anything gone wrong?" she asked aloud.




CHAPTER VII.



"Has anything gone wrong?"  There was so much of interest and sympathy in
her tone, as Joe put the simple question, that John turned and looked into
her face. The magic of moonlight softens the hardest features, makes
interest look like friendship, and friendship like love; but it can harden
too at times, and make a human face look like carved stone.

"No, there is nothing wrong," John answered presently; "what made you
think so?"

"You spoke a little regretfully," answered Joe.

"Did I? I did not mean to. Perhaps one is less gay and less hopeful at
some times than at others. It has nothing to do with success or failure."

"I know," answered Joe. "One can be dreadfully depressed when one is
enjoying one's self to any extent. But I should not have thought you were
that sort of person. You seem always the same."

"I try to be. That is the great difference between people who live to work
and people who live to amuse and be amused."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean," said John, "that people who work, especially people who have to
do with large ideas and great movements, need to be more or less
monotonous. The men who succeed are the men of one idea or at least they
are the men who only have one idea at a time."

"Whereas people who live to amuse and be amused must have as many ideas as
possible."

"Yes, to play with," said John, completing the sentence. "Their life is
play, their ideas are their playthings, and so soon as they have spoiled
one toy they must have another. The people who supply ideas to an idle
public are very valuable, and may have great power."

"Novel-writers, and that sort of people," suggested Joe.

"All producers of light literature and second-rate poetry, and a very
great variety of other people besides. A man who amuses others may often
be a worker himself. He raises a laugh or excites a momentary interest by
getting rid of his superfluous ideas and imaginations, reserving to
himself all the time the one idea in which he believes."

"Not at all a bad theory," said Joe.

"There are more men of that sort with you in Europe than with us. You need
more amusement, and you will generally give more for it. You English, who
are uncommonly fond of doing nothing, give yourselves vast trouble in the
pursuit of pleasure. We Americans, who are ill when we are idle, are
content to surround ourselves with the paraphernalia of pleasure when
office hours are over; but we make very little use of our opportunities
for amusement, being tired out at the end of the day with other things
which we think more important. The result is that we have no such thing as
what you denominate 'Society,' because we lack the prime element of
aristocratic social intercourse, the ingrained determination to be idle."

"You are very hard on us," remarked Joe.

"Excuse me," returned John, "you are compensated by having what we have
not. Europeans are the most agreeable people in the world, wherever mutual
and daily conversation and intercourse are to be considered. The majority
of you, of polite European society, are not troubled with any very large
ideas, but you have an immense number of very charming and attractive
small ones. In America there are only two ideas that practically affect
society, but they are very big ones indeed."

"What?" asked Joe laconically, growing interested in John's queer lecture.

"Money and political influence," answered John Harrington. "They are the
two great motors of our machine. All men who are respected among us are in
pursuit of one or the other, or have attained to one or the other by their
own efforts. The result is, that European society is amusing and
agreeable; whereas Americans of the same class are more interesting, less
polished, better acquainted with the general laws that govern the
development of nations."  "Really, Mr. Harrington," said Joe, "you are
making us out to be very insignificant. And I think it would be very dull
if we all had to understand ever so many general laws. Besides, I do not
agree with you."

"About what, Miss Thorn?"

"About Americans. They talk better than Englishmen, as a rule."

"But I am comparing Americans with the whole mass of Europeans," John
objected. "The English are a rather silent race, I should say."

"Cold, you think?" suggested Joe.

"No, not cold. Perhaps less cold than we are; but less demonstrative."

"I like that," answered Joe. "I like people to feel more than they show."

"Why?" asked John. "Why should not people be perfectly natural, and show
when they feel anything, or be cold when they do not?"  "I think when you
know some one feels a great deal and hides it, that gives one the idea of
reserved strength."

They had reached a distant part of the ice, and were slowly skating round
the limits of a little bay, where the slanting moonbeams fell through tall
old trees upon the glinting black surface. They were quite alone, only in
the distance they could hear the long-drawn clang and ring of the other
skaters, echoing all along the lake with a tremulous musical sound in the
still bright night.  "You must be very cold yourself, Mr. Harrington," Joe
began again after a pause, stopping and looking at him.

John laughed a little.

"I?" he cried. "No, indeed, I am the most enthusiastic man alive."

"You are when you are speaking in public," said Joe. "But that may be all
comedy, you know. Orators always study their speeches, with all the
gestures and that, before a glass, don't they?"

"I do not know," said John. "Of course I know by heart what I am going to
say, when I make a speech like that of the other evening, but I often
insert a great deal on the spur of the moment. It is not comedy. I grow
very much excited when I am speaking."

"Never at any other time?" asked Joe.

"Seldom; why should I? I do not feel other things or situations so
strongly."

"In other words," replied Joe, "it is just as I said; you are generally
very cold."

"I suppose so," John acquiesced, "since you will not allow the occasions
when I am not cold to be counted."

Joe looked down as she stood, and moved her skates slowly on the ice; the
shadows hid her face.

"Do you know," she said presently, "you lose a great deal; you must, you
cannot help it. You only like people in a body, so as to see what you can
do with them. You only care for things on a tremendously big scale, so
that you may try to influence them. When you have not a crowd to talk to,
or a huge scheme to argue about, you are bored to extinction."

"No," said John; "I am not bored at present, by any means."

"Because you are talking about big things. Most men in your place would be
talking about the moonlight, and quoting Shelley."

"To oblige you, Miss Thorn, I could quote a little now and then," said
John, laughing. "Would it please you? I dare say you have seen elephants
stand upon their hind legs and their heads alternately. I should feel very
much like one; but I will do anything to oblige you."

"That is frivolous," said Joe, who did not smile.

"Of course it is. I am heavy by nature. You may teach me all sorts of
tricks, but they will not be at all pretty."

"No, you are very interesting as you are," said Joe quietly. "But I do not
think you will be happy."

"It is not a question of happiness."

"What is it then?"

"Usefulness," said John.

"You do not care to be happy, you only care to be useful?" Joe asked.

"Yes. But my ideas of usefulness include many things. Some of the people
who listen to me would be very much astonished if they knew what I dream."

"Nothing would astonish me," said Joe, thoughtfully. "Of course you must
think of everything in a large way--it is your nature. You will be a great
man."

John looked at his companion. She had struck the main chord of his nature
in her words, and he felt suddenly that thrill of pleasure which comes
from the flattery of our pride and our hopes. John was not a vain man, but
he was capable of being intoxicated by the grandeur of a scheme when the
possibility of its realization was suddenly thrust before him. Like all
men of exceptional gifts who are constantly before the public, he could
estimate very justly the extent of the results he could produce on any
given occasion, but his enthusiastic belief in his ideas could see no
limit to the multiplication of those results. His strong will and natural
modesty about himself constantly repressed any desire he might have to
speak over-confidently of ultimate success, so that the prediction of
ultimate success by some one else was doubly sweet to him. We Americans
have said of ourselves that we are the only nation who accomplish what we
have boasted of. Rash speech and rash action are our national
characteristics, and lead us into all manner of trouble, but in so far as
such qualifications or defects imply a positive conviction of success,
they contribute largely to the realization of great schemes. No one can
succeed who does not believe in himself, nor can any scheme be realized
which has not gained the support of a sufficient number of men who believe
in it and in themselves.

John was gratified by Miss Thorn's speech, for he saw that it was
spontaneous.

"I will try to be great," he said, "for the sake of what I think is
great."

There was a short pause, and the pair by common consent skated slowly out
of the shadow into the broad moonlight.

"Not that I believe you will be happy if you think of nothing else," said
Joe presently.

"In order to do anything well, one must think of nothing else," answered
John.

"Many great men find time to be great and to do many other things," said
Joe. "Look at Mr. Gladstone; he has an immense private correspondence
about things that interest him, quite apart from the big things he is
always doing."

"When a man has reached that point he may find plenty of time to spare,"
answered Harrington. "But until he has accomplished the main object of his
life he must not let anything take him from his pursuit. He must form no
ties, he must have no interests, that do not conduce to his success. I
think a man who enters on a political career must devote himself to it as
exclusively as a missionary Jesuit attacks the conversion of unbelievers,
as wholly as a Buddhist ascetic gives himself to the work of uniting his
individual intelligence with the immortal spirit that gives it life."

"I do not agree with you," said Joe decisively, and in her womanly
intelligence of life she understood the mistake John made. "I cannot agree
with you. You are mixing up political activity, which deals with the
government of men, with spiritual ideas and immortality, and that sort of
thing."

"How so?" asked John, in some surprise.

"I am quite sure," said Joe, "that to govern man a man must be human, and
the imaginary politician you tell me of is not human at all."

"And yet I aspire to be that imaginary politician," said John.

"Do not think me too dreadfully conceited," Joe answered, "in talking
about such things. Of course I do not pretend to understand them, but I am
quite sure people must be like other people--I mean in good ways--or other
people will not believe in them, you know. You are not vexed, are you?"
She looked up into John's face with a little timid smile that might have
done wonders to persuade a less prejudiced person than Harrington.

"No indeed! why should I be vexed? But perhaps some day you will believe
that I am right."

"Oh no, never!" exclaimed Joe, in a tone of profound conviction. "You will
never persuade me that people are meant to shut themselves from their
fellow-creatures, and not be human, and that."

"And yet you were so good as to say that you thought I might attain
greatness," said John, smiling.

"Yes, I think you will. But you will change your mind about a great many
things before you do."

John's strong face grew thoughtful, and the white moonlight made his
features seem harder and sterner than ever. Slowly the pair glided over
the polished black ice, now marked here and there with clean white curves
from the skates, and in a few minutes they were once more within hail of
the remainder of their party.




CHAPTER VIII.



Eight days after the skating party, Ronald Surbiton telegraphed from New
York that he would reach Boston the next morning, and Josephine Thorn knew
that the hour had come. She was not afraid of the scene that must take
place, but she wished with all her heart that it were over.

As Sybil Brandon had told her, there had been time to think of what she
should say, and although she had answered recklessly that she would "trust
to luck," she knew when the day was come that she had in reality thought
intensely of the very words which must be spoken. To Miss Schenectady she
had said nothing, but on the other hand she had become very intimate with
Sybil, and to tell the truth, she hoped inwardly for the support and
sympathy of her beautiful friend.

Meanwhile, since her long evening with John Harrington on the ice, she had
made every effort to avoid his society. Like many very young women with a
vivid love of enjoyment and a fairly wide experience, she was something of
a fatalist. That is to say, she believed that her evil destiny might
spring upon her unawares at any moment, and she felt something when she
was with Harrington that warned her. For the first time in her life she
knew what it was to have moods of melancholy; she caught herself asking
what was really the end and object of her gay life, whether it amounted to
anything worthy in comparison with the trouble one had to take to amuse
one's self, whether it would not be far better in the end to live like
Miss Schenectady, reading and studying and caring nothing for the world.

Not that Josephine admired Miss Schenectady, or thought that she herself
could ever be like her. The old lady was a type of her class; intelligent
and well versed in many subjects--even learned she might have been called
by some. But to Joe's view, essentially European by nature and education,
it seemed as though her aunt, like many Bostonians, judged everything--literature, music, art of all kinds, history and the doings of great men--by one invariable standard. Her comments on what she heard and read were
uniformly delivered from the same point of view, in the same tone of
practical judgment, and with the same assumption of original superiority.
It was the everlasting "Carthago delenda" of the Roman orator. Whatever
the world wrote, sang, painted, thought, or did, the conviction remained
unshaken in Miss Schenectady's mind that Beacon Street was better than
those things, and that of all speeches and languages known and spoken in
the world's history, the familiar dialect of Boston was the one best
calculated by Providence and nature to express and formulate all manner of
wisdom.

It is a strange thing that where criticism is on the whole so fair, and
cultivation of the best faculties so general, the manner of expressing a
judgment and of exhibiting acquired knowledge should be such as to jar
unpleasantly on the sensibilities of Europeans. Where is the real
difference? It probably lies in some subtle point of proportion in the
psychic chemistry of the Boston mind, but the analyst who shall express
the formula is not yet born; though there be those who can cast the
spectrum of Boston existence and thought upon their printed screens with
matchless accuracy.

Joe judged but did not analyze. She said Miss Schenectady was always
right, but that the way she was right was "horrid." Consequently she did
not look to her aunt for sympathy or assistance, and though they had more
than once talked of Ronald Surbiton since receiving his cable from
England, Joe had not said anything of her intentions regarding him. When
the second telegram arrived from New York, saying that he would be in
Boston on the following morning, Joe begged that Miss Schenectady would be
at home to receive him when he came.

"Well, if you insist upon it, I expect I shall have to," said Miss
Schenectady. She did not see why her niece should require her presence at
the interview; young men may call on young ladies in Boston without
encountering the inevitable chaperon, or being obliged to do their talking
in the hearing of a police of papas, mammas, and aunts. But as Joe
"insisted upon it," as the old lady said, she "expected there were no two
ways about it." Her expectations were correct, for Joe would have refused
absolutely to receive Ronald alone.

"I know the value of a stern aunt, my dear," she had said to Sybil the day
previous. When matters were arranged, therefore, they went to bed, and in
the morning Miss Schenectady sat in state in the front drawing-room,
reading the life of Mr. Ticknor until Ronald should arrive. Joe was up-stairs writing a note to Sybil Brandon, wherein the latter was asked to
lunch and to drive in the afternoon. Ronald could not come before ten
o'clock with any kind of propriety, and they could have luncheon early and
then go out; after which the bitterness of death would be past.

It was not quite ten o'clock when Ronald Surbiton rang the bell, and was
turned into the drawing-room to face an American aunt for the first time
in his life.

"Miss Schenectady?" said he, taking the proffered hand of the old lady and
then bowing slightly. He pronounced her name Schenectady, with a strong
accent on the penultimate syllable.

"Sche_nec_tady," corrected his hostess. "I expect you are Mr.
Surbiton."

"A--exactly so," said Ronald, in some embarrassment.

"Well, we are glad to see you in Boston, Mr. Surbiton." Miss Schenectady
resumed her seat, and Ronald sat down beside her, holding his hat in his
hand.

"Put your hat down," said the old lady. "What sort of a journey did you
have?"

"Very fair, thanks," said Ronald, depositing his hat on the floor beside
him, "in fact I believe we came over uncommonly quick for the time of
year. How is"--

"What steamer did you come by?" interrupted Miss Schenectady.

"The Gallia. She is one of the Cunarders. But as I was going to ask"--

"Yes, an old boat, I expect. So you came on right away from New York
without stopping?"

"Exactly," answered Ronald. "I took the first train. The fact is, I was so
anxious--so very anxious to"--

"What hotel are you at here?" inquired Miss Schenectady, without letting
him finish.

"Brunswick. How is Miss Thorn?" Ronald succeeded at last in putting the
question he so greatly longed to ask--the only one, he supposed, which
would cause a message to be sent to Joe announcing his arrival.

"Joe? She is pretty well. I expect she will be down in a minute. Are you
going to stay some while, Mr. Surbiton?"

Ronald thought Miss Schenectady the most pitiless old woman he had ever
met. In reality she had not the most remote intention of being anything
but hospitable. But her idea of hospitality at a first meeting seemed to
consist chiefly in exhibiting a great and inquisitive interest in the
individual she wished to welcome. Besides, Joe would probably come down
when she was ready, and so it was necessary to talk in the mean time. At
last Ronald succeeded in asking another question.

"Excuse the anxiety I show," he said simply, "but may I ask whether Miss
Thorn is at home?"

"Perhaps if you rang the bell I could send for her," remarked the old lady
in problematic answer.

"Oh, certainly!" exclaimed Ronald, springing to his feet, and searching
madly round the room for the bell. Miss Schenectady watched him calmly.

"I think if you went to the further side of the fire-place you would find
it--back of the screen," she suggested.

"Thanks; here it is," cried Ronald, discovering the handle in the wall.

"Yes, you have found it now," said Miss Schenectady with much
indifference. "Perhaps you find it cold here?" she continued, observing
that Ronald lingered near the fire-place.

"Oh dear, no, thanks, quite the contrary," he answered.

"Because if it is you might--Sarah, I think you could tell Miss Josephine
that Mr. Surbiton is in the parlor, could not you?"

"Oh, if it is any inconvenience"--Ronald began, misunderstanding the form
of address Miss Schenectady used to her handmaiden.

"Why?" asked Miss Schenectady, in some astonishment.

"Nothing," said Ronald, looking rather confused; "I did not quite catch
what you said."

There was a silence, and the old lady and the young man looked at each
other.

Ronald was a very handsome man, as Joe knew. He was tall and straight and
deep-chested. His complexion was like a child's, and his fine moustache
like silk. His thick fair hair was parted accurately in the middle, and
his smooth, white forehead betrayed no sign of care or thought. His eyes
were blue and very bright, and looked fearlessly at every one and
everything, and his hands were broad and clean-looking. He was perfectly
well dressed, but in a fashion far less extreme than that affected by Mr.
Topeka and young John C. Hannibal. There was less collar and more shoulder
to him, and his legs were longer and straighter than theirs. Nevertheless,
had he stood beside John Harrington, no one would have hesitated an
instant in deciding which was the stronger man. With all his beauty and
grace, Ronald Surbiton was but one of a class of handsome and graceful
men. John Harrington bore on his square brow and in the singular
compactness of his active frame the peculiar sign-manual of an especial
purpose. He would have been an exception in any class and in any age. It
was no wonder Joe had wished to compare the two.

In a few moments the door opened, and Joe entered the drawing-room. She
was pale, and her great brown eyes had a serious expression in them that
was unusual. There was something prim in the close dark dress she wore,
and the military collar of most modern cut met severely about her throat.
If Ronald had expected a very affectionate welcome he was destined to
disappointment; Joe had determined not to be affectionate until all was
over. To prepare him in some measure for what was in store, she had
planned that he should be left alone for a time with Miss Schenectady,
who, she thought, would chill any suitor to the bone.

"My dear Ronald," said Joe, holding out her hand, "I am so glad to see
you." Her voice was even and gentle, but there was no gladness in it.

"Not half so glad as I am to see you," said Ronald, holding her hand in
his, his face beaming with delight. "It seems such an age since you left!"

"It is only two months, though," said Joe, with a faint smile. "I ought to
apologize, but I suppose you have introduced yourself to Aunt Zoë." She
could not call her Aunt Zoruiah, even for the sake of frightening Ronald.

"What did you think when you got my telegram?" asked the latter.

"I thought it was very foolish of you to run away just when the hunting
was so good," answered Joe with decision.

"But you are glad, are you not?" he asked, lowering his voice, and looking
affectionately at her. Miss Schenectady was again absorbed in the life of
Mr. Ticknor.

"Yes," said Joe, gravely. "It is as well that you have come, because I
have something to say to you, and I should have had to write it. Let us go
out. Would you like to go for a walk?"

Ronald was delighted to do anything that would give him a chance of
escaping from Aunt Zoruiah and being alone with Joe.

"I think you had best be back to lunch," remarked Miss Schenectady as they
left the room.

"Of course, Aunt Zoë," answered Joe. "Besides, Sybil is coming, you know."
So they sallied forth.

It was a warm day; the snow had melted from the brick pavement, and the
great icicles on the gutters and on the trees were running water in the
mid-day sun. Joe thought a scene would be better to get over in the
publicity of the street than in private. Ronald, all unsuspecting of her
intention, walked calmly by her side, looking at her occasionally with a
certain pride, mixed with a good deal of sentimental benevolence.

"Do you know," Joe began presently, "when your cable came I felt very
guilty at having written to you that you might come?"

"Why?" asked Ronald, innocently. "You know I would come from the end of
the world to see you. I have, in fact."

"Yes, I know," said Joe wearily, wishing she knew exactly how to say what
she was so thoroughly determined should be said.

"What is the matter, Joe?" asked Ronald, suddenly. He smiled rather
nervously, but his smooth brow was a little contracted. He anticipated
mischief.

"There is something the matter, Ronald," she said at last, resolved to
make short work of the revelation of her feelings. "There is something
very much the matter."

"Well?" said Surbiton, beginning to be alarmed.

"You know, Ronald dear, somehow I think you have thought--honestly, I know
you have thought for a long time that you were to marry me."

"Yes," said Ronald with a forced laugh, for he was frightened. "I have
always thought so; I think so now."

"It is of no use to think it, Ronald dear," said Joe, turning very pale.
"I have thought of it too--thought it all over. I cannot possibly marry
you, dear boy. Honestly, I cannot." Her voice trembled violently. However
firmly she had decided within herself, it was a very bitter thing to say;
she was so fond of him.

"What?" asked Ronald hoarsely. But he turned red instead of pale. It was
rather disappointment and anger that he felt at the first shock than
sorrow or deep pain.

"Do not make me say it again," said Joe, entreatingly. She was not used to
entreating so much as to commanding, and her voice quavered uncertainly.

"Do you mean to say," said Ronald, speaking loudly in his anger, and then
dropping his voice as he remembered the passers-by,--"do you mean to tell
me, Joe, after all this, when I have come to America just because you told
me to, that you will not marry me? I do not believe it. You are making fun
of me."

"No, Ronald," Joe answered sorrowfully, but regaining her equanimity in
the face of Surbiton's wrath, "I am in earnest. I am very, very fond of
you, but I do not love you at all, and I never can marry you."

Ronald was red in the face, and he trod fast and angrily, tapping the
pavement with his stick. He was very angry, but he said nothing.

"It is much better to be honest about it," said Joe, still very pale; and
when she had spoken, her little mouth closed tightly.

"Oh, yes," said Ronald, who was serious by this time; "it is much better
to be honest, now that you have brought me three thousand miles to hear
what you have to say--much better. By all means."

"I am very sorry, Ronald," Joe answered. "I really did not mean you to
come, and I am very sorry,--oh, more sorry than I can tell you,--but I
cannot do it, you know."

"If you won't, of course you can't," he said. "Will you please tell me who
he is?"

"Who?--what?" asked Joe, coldly. She was offended at the tone.

"The fellow you have pitched upon in my place," he said roughly.

Joe looked up into his face with an expression that frightened him. Her
dark eyes flashed with an honest fire, He stared angrily at her as they
walked slowly along.

"I made a mistake," she said slowly. "I am not sorry. I am glad. I would
be ashamed to marry a man who could speak like that to any woman. I am
sorry for you, but I am glad for myself." She looked straight into his
eyes, until he turned away. For some minutes they went on in silence.

"I beg your pardon, Joe," said Ronald presently, in a subdued tone.

"Never mind, Ronald dear, I was angry," Joe answered. But her eyes were
full of tears, and her lips quivered.

Again they went on in silence, but for a longer time than before. Joe felt
that the blow was struck, and there was nothing to be done but to wait the
result. It had been much harder than she had expected, because Ronald was
so angry; she had expected he would be pained. He, poor fellow, was really
startled out of all self-control. The idea that Joe could ever ultimately
hesitate about marrying him had never seemed to exist, even among the
remotest possibilities. But he was a gentleman in his way, and so he
begged her pardon, and chewed the cud of his wrath in silence for some
time.

"Joe," he said at last, with something of his usual calm, though he was
still red, "of course you are really perfectly serious? I mean, you have
thought about it?"

"Yes," said Joe; "I am quite sure."

"Then perhaps it is better we should go home," he continued.

"Perhaps so," said Joe. "Indeed, it would be better."

"I would like to see you again, Joe," he said in a somewhat broken
fashion. "I mean, by and by, when I am not angry, you know."

Joe smiled at the simple honesty of the proposition.

"Yes, Ronald dear, whenever you like. You are very good, Ronald," she
added.

"No, I am not good at all," said Ronald sharply, and they did not speak
again until he left her at Miss Schenectady's door. Then she gave him her
hand.

"I shall be at home until three o'clock," said she.

"Thanks," he answered; so they parted.

Joe had accomplished her object, but she was very far from happy. The
consciousness of having done right did not outweigh the pain she felt for
Ronald, who was, after all, her very dear friend. They had grown up
together from earliest childhood, and so it had been settled; for Ronald
was left an orphan when almost a baby, and had been brought up with his
cousin as a matter of expediency. Therefore, as Joe said, it had always
seemed so very natural. They had plighted vows when still in pinafores
with a ring of grass, and later they had spoken more serious things, which
it hurt Joe to remember, and now they were suffering the consequence of it
all, and the putting off childish illusions was bitter.

It was not long before Sybil Brandon came in answer to Joe's invitation.
She knew what trouble her friend was likely to be in, and was ready to do
anything in the world to make matters easier for her. Besides, though
Sybil was so white and fair, and seemingly cold, she had a warm heart, and
had conceived a very real affection for the impulsive English girl. Miss
Schenectady had retired to put on another green ribbon, leaving the life
of Mr. Ticknor open on the table, and the two girls met in the drawing-room. Joe was still pale, and the tears seemed ready to start from her
eyes.

"Dear Sybil--it is so good of you to come," said she.

Sybil kissed her affectionately and put her arm round her waist. They
stood thus for a moment before the fire.

"You have seen him?" Sybil asked presently. Joe had let her head rest
wearily against her friend's shoulder, and nodded silently in answer.
Sybil bent down and kissed her soft hair, and whispered gently in her
ear,--"Was it very hard, dear?"

"Oh, yes--indeed it was!" cried Joe, hiding her face on Sybil's breast.
Then, as though ashamed of seeming weak, she stood up boldly, turning
slightly away as she spoke. "It was dreadfully hard," she continued; "but
it is all over, and it is very much better--very, very much, you know."

"I am so glad," said Sybil, looking thoughtfully at the fire. "And now we
will go out into the country and forget all about it--all about the
disagreeable part of it."

"Perhaps," said Joe, who had recovered her equanimity, "Ronald may come
too. You see he is so used to me that after a while it will not seem to
make so very much difference after all."

"Of course, if he would," said Sybil, "it would be very nice. He will have
to get used to the idea, and if he does not begin at once, perhaps he
never may."

"He will be just the same as ever when he gets over his wrath," answered
Joe confidently.

"Was he very angry?"

"Oh, dreadfully! I never saw him so angry."

"It is better when men are angry than when they are sorry," said Sybil.
"Something like this once happened to me, and he got over it very well. I
think it was much more my fault, too," she added thoughtfully.

"Oh, I am sure you never did anything bad in your life," said Joe
affectionately. "Nothing half so bad as this--my dear Snow Angel!" And so
they kissed again and went to lunch.

"I suppose you went to walk," remarked Miss Schenectady, when they met at
table.

"Yes," said Joe, "we walked a little."

"Well, all Englishmen walk, of course," continued her aunt.

"Most of them can," said Joe, smiling.

"I mean, it is a great deal the right thing there. Perhaps you might pass
me the pepper."

Before they had finished their meal the door opened, and Ronald Surbiton
entered the room.

"Oh--excuse me," he began, "I did not know"--

"Oh, I am so glad you have come, Ronald," cried Joe, rising to greet him,
and taking his hand. "Sybil, let me introduce Mr. Surbiton--Miss Brandon."

Sybil smiled and bent her head slightly. Ronald bowed and sat down between
Sybil and Miss Schenectady.




CHAPTER IX.



Josephine Thorn never read newspapers, partly because she did not care for
the style of literature known as journalistic, and partly, too, because
the papers always came at such exceedingly inconvenient hours. If she had
possessed and practiced the estimable habit of "keeping up with the
times," she would have observed an article which appeared on the morning
after the skating party, and which dealt with the speech John Harrington
had made in the Music Hall two days previous. Miss Schenectady had read
it, but she did not mention it to Joe, because she believed in John
Harrington, and wished Joe to do likewise, wherefore she avoided the
subject; for the article treated him roughly. Nevertheless, some unknown
person sent Joe a copy of the paper through the post some days later, with
a bright red pencil mark at the place, and Joe, seeing what the subject
was, read it with avidity. As she read, her cheek flushed, her small mouth
closed like a vise, and she stamped her little foot upon the floor.

It was evident that the writer was greatly incensed at the views expressed
by John, and he wrote with an ease and a virulence which proclaimed a
practiced hand. "The spectacle of an accomplished Democrat," said the
paper, "is always sufficiently unusual to attract attention: but to find
so rare a bird among ourselves is indeed a novel delight. The orator who
alternately enthralled and insulted a considerable audience at the Music
Hall, two nights ago, laid a decided claim both to accomplishment and to
democracy. He himself informed his hearers that he was a Democrat; and,
indeed, it was necessary that he should state his position, for it would
have been impossible to decide from the tone and quality of his opinions
whether he were a socialist, a reformer, a conservative, or an Irishman.
Perchance he has discovered the talisman by which it is possible for a man
to be all four, and yet to be a man, Furthermore, he claims to be an
orator. No one could listen to the manifold intonations of his voice, or
witness the declamatory evolutions of his body, without feeling an inward
conviction that the gentleman on the platform intended to present himself
to us as an orator.

"Lest we be accused of partiality and prejudice, we will at once state
that we believe it possible for a man to be singular in his manner and
quaint in his mode of phrasing, and yet to utter an opinion in some one
direction which, if neither novel nor interesting, nor even tenable, shall
yet have the one redeeming merit of representing a conceivable point of
view. But when a man begins by stating that he belongs to the Democrats
and then claims as his own the views of his political opponents, winding
up by demanding the sympathy and support of a third party, the obvious
conclusion is that he is either a lunatic, a charlatan, or both. A man
cannot serve God and Mammon, neither can any man serve both the Irish and
Chinese.

"Mr. John Harrington has made a great discovery. He has discovered that we
require a Civil Service. This is apparently the ground on which he states
himself to be a Democrat. If we remember rightly, the Civil Service
Convention, which sat in discussion of the subject in the summer of 1881,
was presided over by a prominent member of the Republican party. As some
time has elapsed since then, and the gentlemen connected with the movement
are as active and as much interested in it as ever, our orator will pardon
us for questioning his right of discovery on the one hand, and his claim
to be considered a Democrat on the strength of it, on the other. A Civil
Service is doubtless a good thing, even a very good thing, and in due time
we shall certainly have it; but that the Constitution of the United States
is on the verge of dissolution at the hands of our corrupt public
officers, that our finance is only another name for imminent bankruptcy,
or that the new millennium of Washington morals will be organized by Mr.
John Harrington--these things we deny _in toto_, from beginning to
end. So wide and deep is our skepticism, that we even doubt whether 'war,
famine, revolution, or all three together' would have instantly ensued if
Mr. John Harrington had not delivered his speech on Wednesday evening.

"In illustration--or rather, in the futile attempt to illustrate--Mr.
Harrington put forth a series of similes that should make any dead orator
turn in his grave. The nation was successively held up to our admiration
in the guise of a sick man, a cripple, a banker, a theatrical company, and
a peddler of tape and buttons. We were bankrupt, diseased; and our bones,
like those of the Psalmist, were all out of joint; and if our hearts did
not become like melting wax in the midst of our bodies, it was not the
fault of Mr. John Harrington, but rather was it due to the hardening of
those organs against the voice of the charmer.

"The Navigation Act called down the choicest of the orator's vessels of
wrath. Fools had made it, worse than fools submitted to it, and the reason
why the Salem docks were no longer crowded with the shipping of the
Peabody family was that there were ferry-boats in Boston harbor, a train
of reasoning that must be clear to the mind of the merest schoolboy. Mr.
Harrington further stated that these same ferry-boats--not to mention
certain articles he terms 'mudscows,' with which we have no acquaintance--are built of old timber, copper, and nails, obtained by breaking tip the
fleets of the Peabody family, which is manifestly a fraud on the nation.
As far as the ferry-boats are concerned, we believe we are in a position
to state that they are not built of old material; as regards the aforesaid
'mudscows' we can give no opinion, not having before heard of the article,
which we presume is not common in commerce, and may therefore be regarded
as an exception to the universal rule that things in general should not be
made of old timber, copper, and rusty nails.

"We will not weary our readers with any further attempt at unraveling the
opinions, illustrations, and rhetoric of Mr. John Harrington, Democrat and
orator. The possession of an abundant vocabulary without any especial use
for it in the shape of an idea will not revolutionize modern government,
whatever may be the opinion of the individual so richly gifted; nor will
any accomplished Democrat find a true key to success in following a course
of politics which consists in one half of the world trying to drive
paradoxes down the throat of the other half. It will not do, and Mr.
Harrington will find it out. He will find out also that the differences
which exist between the Republican and the Democratic parties are far
deeper and wider than he suspects, and do not consist in such things as
the existence or non-existence of a Civil Service, free trade, or
mudscows; and when these things are forever crushed out of his imagination
it will be time enough to give him a name, seeing he is neither Republican
nor Democrat, nor Tammany, nor even a Stalwart, nor a three-hundred-and-sixer--seeing, in fact, that he is not an astronomical point in any
political heaven with which the world is acquainted, but only the most
nebulous of nebulae which have yet come within our observation."

Joe read the article rapidly, and then read the last paragraph again and
threw the paper aside. She sat by the fire after breakfast, and Miss
Schenectady had come into the room several times and had gone out again,
busied with much housekeeping. For Miss Schenectady belonged to the elder
school of Boston women, who "see to things" themselves in the intervals of
literature, gossip, and transcendental philosophy. But Joe sat still for
nearly half an hour after she had done reading and nursed her wrath, while
she toasted her little feet at the fire. At last she made up her mind and
rose.

"I am going to see Sybil, Aunt Zoë," she said, meeting the old lady at the
door.

"Well, if she is up at this time of day," answered Miss Schenectady.

"Oh, I fancy so," said Joe.

Mrs. Sam Wyndham's establishment was of the modern kind, and nobody was
expected to attend an early breakfast of fish, beefsteaks, buckwheat
cakes, hot rolls, tea, coffee, and chocolate at eight o'clock in the
morning. Visitors did as they pleased, and so did Mrs. Sam, and they met
at luncheon, a meal which Sam Wyndham himself was of course unable to
attend. Joe knew this, and knew she was certain to find Sybil alone. It
was Sybil she wanted to see, and not Mrs. Wyndham. But as she walked down
Beacon Street the aspect of affairs changed in her mind.

Joe had not exaggerated when she said to Vancouver that she had a very
good memory, and it would have been better for him if he had remembered
the fact. Joe had not forgotten the conversation with him in the evening
after Harrington's speech, and in reading the article that had been sent
to her she instantly recognized a phrase, word for word as Vancouver had
uttered it. In speaking to her he had said that politics "consisted in one
half of the world trying to drive paradoxes down the throat of the other
half." It was true that in the article John Harrington was warned that he
would discover the fallacy of this proposition, but in Joe's judgment this
did not constitute an objection. Vancouver had written the article, and
none other; Vancouver, who professed a boundless respect for John, and who
constantly asserted that he took no active part whatever in politics. It
was inconceivable that the coincidence of language should be an accident.
Vancouver had made the phrase when making conversation, and had used it in
his article; Joe was absolutely certain of that, and being full of her
discovery and of wrath, she was determined to consult with her dearest
friend as to the best way of revenging the offense on its author.

But as she walked down Beacon Street she reflected on the situation. She
was sure Sybil would not understand why she cared so much, and Sybil would
form hasty ideas as to the interest Joe took in Harrington. That would
never do. It would be better to speak to Mrs. Sam Wyndham, who was herself
so fond of John that she would seize with avidity on the information, from
whatever source it came. But then Mrs. Wyndham was fond of Vancouver also.
No, she was not. When Joe thought of it she was sure that though Vancouver
was devoted to Mrs. Sam, Mrs. Sam did not care for him excepting as an
agreeable person of even temper, who was useful in society. But for
Harrington she had a real friendship. If it came to the doing of a
service, Mrs. Wyndham would do it. Joe's perceptions were wonderfully
clear and just.

But when she reached the house she was still uncertain, and she passed on,
intending to turn back and go in as soon as she had made up her mind. In
spite of all that she could argue to herself it seemed unsafe--unwise, at
least. Sybil might laugh at her, after all; Mrs. Wyndham might possibly
tell Vancouver instead of telling John. It would be better to tell John
herself; she remembered having once spoken to him about Vancouver, and she
could easily remind him of the conversation. She would probably see him
that evening at a party she was going to; and yet it was so hard to have
to keep it all to herself for so many hours, instead of telling.
Nevertheless she would go and see Sybil, taking care, of course, to say
nothing about the article.

At the time Joe was walking up and down Beacon Street in the effort to
come to a decision, John Harrington found himself face to face with a very
much more formidable problem. He stood before the fire-place in his rooms
in Charles Street, with an extinguished cigar between his teeth, his face
paler than usual, and a look of uncertainty on his features that was oddly
out of keeping with his usual mood. He wore an ancient shooting coat, and
his feet were trust into a pair of dingy leather slippers; his hands were
in his pockets, and he was staring vacantly at the clock.

On the oak writing-table that filled the middle of the room lay an open
telegram. It was dated from Washington, and conveyed the simple
information that Senator Caleb Jenkins had died at five o'clock that
morning. It was signed by an abbreviation that meant nothing except to
John himself. The name of the senator was itself fictitious, and stood for
another which John knew.

The table was covered with Government reports, for when the message came
John was busy studying a financial point of importance to him. The
telegram had lain on the table for half an hour, and John still stood
before the fire-place, staring at the clock.

The senator had not been expected to live, in fact it was remarkable that
he should have lived so long. But when a man has been preparing for a
struggle during many months, he is apt to feel that the actual moment of
the battle is indefinitely far off. But now the senator was dead, and John
meant to stand in his place. The battle was begun.  No one who has not
seen some of the inside workings of political life can have any idea of
what a man feels who is about to stand as a candidate in an election for
the first time in his life. For months, perhaps for years, he has been
engaged with political matters; his opinions have been formed by himself
or by others into a very definite shape; it may be that, like Harrington,
he has frequently spoken to large audiences with more or less success; he
may have written pamphlets and volumes upon questions of the day, and his
writings may have roused the fiercest criticism and the most loyal
support. All this he may have done, and done it well, but when the actual
moment arrives for him to stand upon his feet and address his
constituents, no longer for the purpose of making them believe in his
opinions, but in order to make them believe in himself, he is more than
mortal if he does not feel something very unpleasantly resembling fear.

It is one thing to express a truth, it is another to set one's self upon a
pedestal and declare that one represents it, and is in one's own person
the living truth itself. John was too honest and true a man not to feel a
positive reluctance to singing his own praises, and yet that is what most
electioneering consists in.

But to be elected a senator in Massachusetts is a complicated affair. A
man who intends to succeed in such an enterprise must not let the grass
grow under his feet. In a few hours the whole machinery of election must
be at work, and before night he would have to receive all sorts and
conditions of men and electioneering agents. The morning papers did not
contain any notice of the senator's death, as they had already gone to
press when the news reached them, if indeed it was as yet public property.
But other papers appeared at mid-day, and by that time the circumstances
would undoubtedly be known. John struck a match and relit his cigar. The
moment of hesitation was over, the last breathing-space before the fight,
and all his activity returned. Half an hour later he went out with a
number of written telegrams in his hand, and proceeded to the central
telegraph office.

The case was urgent. In the first place the governor of the state would,
according to law and custom, immediately appoint a senator _pro
tempore_ to act until the legislature should elect the new senator in
place of the one deceased. Secondly, the legislature, which meets once a
year, was already in session, and the election would therefore take place
immediately, unless some unusual delay were created, and this was
improbable.

In spite of the article which had so outraged Josephine Thorn's sense of
justice, there were many who believed in John Harrington as the prophet of
the new faith, as the senator of reform and the orator of the future, and
his friends were numerous and powerful, both in the electing body and
among the non-official mass of prominent persons who make up the aggregate
of public opinion. It had long been known that John Harrington would be
brought forward at the next vacancy, which, in the ordinary course of
things, would have occurred in about a year's time, at the expiration of
the senior senator's term of office, but which had now been suddenly
caused by the death of his colleague. John was therefore aware that his
success must depend almost immediately upon the present existing opinion
of him that prevailed, and as he made his way through the crowded streets
to the telegraph office, he realized that no effort of his own would be
likely to make a change in that opinion at such short notice. At first it
had seemed to him as though he were on a sudden brought face to face with
a body of men whom he must persuade to elect him as their representative,
and in spite of his great familiarity with political proceedings, the idea
was extremely disagreeable to him. But on more mature reflection it was
clear to him that he was in the hands of his friends, that he had said his
say and had done all he would now be able to do in the way of public
speaking or public writing, and that his only possible sphere of present
action lay in exerting such personal influence as he possessed.

John Harrington was ambitious, or, to speak more accurately, he was wholly
ruled by a dominant aspiration. He was convinced by his own study and
observation, as well as by a considerable amount of personal experience,
that great reforms were becoming necessary in the government of the
country, and he was equally sure that a man was needed who should be
willing to make any sacrifice for the sake of creating a party to
inaugurate such changes. In his opinion the surest step towards obtaining
influence in the affairs of the country was a seat in the senate, and with
an unhesitating belief in the truth and honesty of the principles he
desired to make known, he devoted every energy he possessed to the
attainment of his object.

To him government seemed the most important function of society, the
largest, the broadest, and the noblest; to help, if possible, to be a
leader in the establishment of what was good for the country, and to be
the very foremost in destroying that which was bad, were in his view the
best objects and aims for a strong man to follow. And John Harrington knew
himself to be strong, and believed himself to be right, and thus armed he
was prepared for any struggle.

The quality of vanity exists in all men, not least in those whose chief
profession is modesty; and seeing that it is a universal element, created
and inherent in every one, it is impossible to say it is bad in itself.
For it is impossible to conceive any human creature without it. A recent
philosopher of reputation has taught that by vanity, by the desire to
appear attractive to the other sex, man has changed his own person from
the form of a beast to the image of God. Vanity is a mighty power and
incentive, as great as hunger and thirst, and much more generally active
in the affairs of civilized humanity. And yet its very name means
hollowness. "The hollowness of hollowness, all things are hollowness,"
said the preacher, and his translators have put the word vanity in his
mouth, because it means the same thing. But in itself, being hollow, it is
neither bad nor good; its badness or goodness lies in those things whereof
a man makes choice to fill the void, the inexpressible and indefinable
craving within his soul; as also hunger is only bad when it is satisfied
by bad things, or not satisfied at all, so that in the one case it leads
to disease, and in the other to the committing of crimes in the desire for
satisfaction. Many a poor fellow was hung by the neck in old times for
stealing a loaf to stop his hunger, and many a man of wit goes to the mad-house nowadays because the void of his vanity is unfilled.

But vanity is called by yet another name when its disagreeable side is
hidden, and when its emptiness has come to crave for great things. It is
pride, then honorable pride, then ambition, and perhaps at the last it is
called heroic sacrifice. Vanity is an unsatisfied desire, hollow in
itself, but capable of holding both bad and good. It is not identical with
self-complacency, nor yet with conceit.

Probably John Harrington had originally possessed as much of this
mysterious quality as most men who are conscious of strength and talent.
It had never manifested itself in small things, and its very extent had
made many things seem small which were of the highest importance to other
men. He had worked as a boy at all manner of studies like other boys, but
the idea of laboring in distasteful matters for the sake of being first
among his companions seemed utterly absurd to him. From the time he had
begun to think for himself--and he was young when he reached that stage--he had formed a rooted determination to be first in his country, to be a
great reformer or a great patriot, and he cared to study nothing that was
not connected with this idea. When his name was first heard in public
life, it was as the author of a pamphlet advocating certain sweeping
measures of which no one else had ventured to dream as yet. He would have
smiled now had he taken the trouble to read again some of those earlier
productions of his. It had seemed so easy to move the world then, and it
seemed so hard now. But nevertheless he meant to move it, and as each year
brought him increased strength and wider experience, it brought with it
also the conviction of ultimate success. He had long forgotten to hope for
the sudden and immediate power to stir the world, for he had discovered
that it was a labor of years, the work of a lifetime; but if he had ever
had any doubts as to the result of that work, he had forgotten them also.

And now his strength, his aspirations, his vanity, and his intellect were
roused together to the highest activity of which they were capable, the
hour having come for which he had longed through half his lifetime, and
though it was but the first trial, in which he might fail, it had for him
all the importance of the supreme crisis of his existence.  No wonder that
his face was pale and his lips set as he walked back to his lodgings from
the telegraph office. As he walked down the hill by the railings of the
Common he came upon Josephine Thorn, standing at the entrance of one of
the boarded walks, as though hesitating whether to go in. He was close to
her as he bowed, and something in her face made him stop.

"Good morning, Miss Thorn," he said. She nodded gravely and hesitated. He
was about to go on, thinking she was in one of those moods which he called
capricious. But she stopped him.

"Mr. Harrington, I want to speak to you," she said quickly, seeing that
her opportunity was on the point of slipping away.

"Yes?" said John, smiling faintly.

"Mr. Harrington--did you read that article about you, the day after the
skating party?"

"Yes," said John. "It was not complimentary, if I remember."

"It was vile," said Joe, the angry color rising to her temples again. "It
was abominable. It was written by Mr. Vancouver."

John started slightly.

"I think you must be mistaken," he said.

"No, I am not mistaken. There were things in it, word for word as he said
them to me just after the speech. I am perfectly sure."

John looked very gravely at Joe, as though to be sure of her honesty.
There was no mistaking the look in her eyes.

"Miss Thorn," John said, "Vancouver may have said those very things to
some one else, who wrote them and printed them. But in any case, I am
exceedingly obliged to you for the information"--

"You are not angry?" Joe began, already repenting.

"No--how could I be? It may be important. The junior senator for
Massachusetts died this morning, and there may be an election at any
moment. I have not told any one else, but it will be known everywhere in
an hour's time. Good-by, and many thanks."

"You will be senator, of course?" said Joe, in great excitement.

"I cannot tell," John answered. "Are you going down the hill?"

"No--thanks--I am going home," said Joe. "Good-by."




CHAPTER X.



Joe had been mistaken in thinking that Ronald would be less well received
than herself. There was of course the usual amount of gossip concerning
him, but as he refrained from eccentricities of dress when asked to
dinner, and did not bet that he would ride his horse into the smoking-room
of the Somerset Club, the gossip soon lost ground against the list of his
good qualities. Moreover, he was extremely good-looking, and his manner
was modesty itself. He admired everything he saw, partly because it was
new to him, and partly because there was a good deal to admire.

For a day or two after the final scene with Joe he had avoided seeing her.
He had not been able to resist the temptation to go back on the same day,
and he had spent some hours in considering that human affairs are
extremely mutable. But the scenes about him were too new, and very many of
the faces he saw were too attractive, to allow of his brooding for long
over his misfortune. His first impulse had been to go away again on the
very evening of his arrival. He had gone to see Joe, arriving during
luncheon, in the expectation of seeing her alone again. There would be a
scene of solemn farewell, in which he would bid her be happy in her own
way, in a tone of semi-paternal benevolence, after which he would give her
his blessing, and bid farewell to the pomps and vanities of society. He
would naturally retire gloomily from the gay world, and end his miserable
existence in the approved Guy Livingstone fashion of life, between
cavendish tobacco, deep drinking, and high play. Joe would then repent of
the ruin she had caused, and that would be a great satisfaction. There was
once a little boy in Boston whose hands were very cold as he went to
school. But he blew on them savagely, saying, "I am glad of it! It serves
my father right for not buying me my gloves." That was Ronald's state of
mind. He had led the most sober of lives, and the wildest dissipation he
remembered was the Lord Mayor's supper to the Oxford and Cambridge crews,
when he himself had been one of the winners. But surely, for a
disappointed lover there could be no course so proper as a speedy death by
dissipation--which would serve Joe right. Therefore, on his return to his
hotel, he ordered whiskey, in a sepulchral tone of voice. He tasted it,
and thought it detestable.

On reflection, he would put off the commencement of his wild career until
the evening after he had seen Joe again. The ravages of drink would not be
perceptible so soon, after all. He changed his tie for one of a darker
hue, ate sparingly of a beefsteak, and went back to bid Joe a last
farewell.

Sybil Brandon and Miss Schenectady were elements in the solemn leave-taking which Ronald had not anticipated. Sybil, moreover, made a great
effort, for she was anxious to help Joe as much as possible in her
difficulties. She talked to Ronald with a vivacity that was unusual, and
Joe herself was astonished at the brilliance of her conversation. She had
always thought Sybil very reserved, if not somewhat shy.

Perhaps Sybil pitied Ronald a little. He was very quiet in his manner,
though after the first few minutes he found himself talking much as usual.
True, he often looked at Joe, and then was silent; but then again he
looked at Sybil, and his tongue was unloosed. He was grateful after a
time, and he was also flattered. Besides, he could not help noticing that
his new acquaintance was extremely beautiful. His conscience smote him as
he realized that he was thinking of her appearance, and he immediately
quieted the qualm by saying that it was but natural admiration for an
artistic object. Ronald did not know much about artists and that sort of
people, but the expression formed itself conveniently in his mind.

The consequence was that he accepted an invitation to drive with the two
girls after luncheon, and when they left him at his hotel, a proceeding
against which he vehemently protested on the score of propriety, he
reluctantly acknowledged to himself that he had enjoyed the afternoon very
much.

"Come and see us after five o'clock," said Sybil. "I will present you to
Mrs. Wyndham. Nine hundred and thirty-six, Beacon Street," she added,
laughing.

"With great pleasure--thanks," said Ronald.

"Good-by, Ronald dear," said Joe pleasantly.

"Good-by," he answered in a doubtful tone of voice, as he raised his hat;
and the two girls drove away.

Sybil was apparently in very good spirits.

"Do not be frightened, Joe dearest," she said. "We will manage it very
well. He is not hurt in the least."

"Really, I do not believe he is--so very much, you know," Joe answered.
But she was thoughtful, and did not speak again for some time.

It was on the morning after this that Joe read the article on John's
speech, and met him by the Common. Ronald did not call during the day, and
in the evening Joe went to her party as she had intended; but neither
Sybil nor John Harrington were there. Sybil did not go to parties, and
John probably had too much to do. But at supper Joe chanced to be standing
near Mrs. Sam Wyndham.

"Oh, I so much wanted to see you, Miss Thorn," said the latter. "I wanted
to tell you how much we like your cousin, Mr. Surbiton. He came today, and
I have asked him to dinner to-morrow."

"Yes?" said Joe, turning a shade paler. "I am so glad you like him. He is
a very nice boy."

"He is perfectly lovely," said Mrs. Sam, enthusiastically. "And he is so
natural, you would not know he was English at all."

"Really?" said Joe, raising her eyebrows a little, but laughing at the
same time.

"Oh my dear," said Mrs. Wyndham, "I always forget you are not one of us.
Besides, you are, you see."

Mrs. Wyndham rarely said a tactless thing, but this evening she was in
such good spirits that she said what came uppermost in her thoughts. Joe
was not offended; she was only bored.

"Will you not come and dine too, to-morrow night?" asked Mrs. Wyndham, who
was anxious to atone.

"Thanks, awfully," said Joe, "but I have to dine with the Aitchisons."

Pocock Vancouver, pale and exquisite as ever, came up to the two ladies.

"Can I get you anything, Mrs. Wyndham?" he inquired, after a double bow.

"No, thank you. Johnny Hannibal is taking care of me," answered Mrs. Sam,
coldly.

"Miss Thorn, what can I get you?" he asked, turning to Joe.

"Nothing, thanks," said Joe, "Mr. Biggielow is getting me something." She
did not look at Vancouver as she answered, and the angry color began to
rise to her temples. Vancouver, who was not used to repulses such as
these, and was too old a soldier to give up a situation so easily, stood a
moment playing with his coat tails. A sudden thought passed through Joe's
mind. It struck her that, considering the situation of affairs, it would
be unwise to break off her acquaintance with Vancouver at the present
time. Her first honest impulse was to cut him and never speak to him
again. But it was better to act with more deliberation. In the first
place, there might be more to be learnt which might be of service to John;
secondly, people would talk about it if she cut him, and would invent some
story to the effect that he had proposed to marry her, or that she had
proposed to marry him. It was contrary to her nature to pretend anything
she did not feel, but it would nevertheless be a mistake to quarrel openly
with Vancouver.

"On second thoughts--if you would get me a glass of water"--she said,
speaking to him. He instantly disappeared; but even in the moment before
he departed to execute her command he had time to express by his look a
sense of injury forgiven, which did not escape Joe.

"What a hypocrite the man is!" she thought.

Vancouver on his part could form no conception of the cause of the
coldness the two ladies had shown him. He could not know that Joe had
discovered in him the writer of the article, still less could he have
guessed that Joe had told John, and that John had told Mrs. Sam. He could
only suppose that the two had been talking of something, and were annoyed
at being interrupted.

When he came back with the glass of water Mr. Biggielow had just brought
Joe some salad. The usual struggle began between the two men. Mr. Bonamy
Biggielow was a little poet.

"I ought to thank you, Miss Thorn, instead of you thanking me," said
Vancouver, in a seductive voice, on one side of Joe.

"Is it not the most crowded supper you ever saw?" remarked Mr. Biggielow
on the other side.

"Why?" said Joe, eating her salad and looking straight before her.

"I thought you were going to send me away. I was so glad when you
condescended to make use of me," answered Vancouver.

Mr. Biggielow also answered Joe's interrogation.

"Well," he said, "I mean it is thronged with people. There is a decided
'sound of revelry by night'."

"Youth and beauty? That sort of thing?" said Joe to Biggielow. Then
turning to Vancouver, she added, "Why should I send you away?"

"I hope there is no reason," he said gravely. "In fact, I am sure there is
none, except that you would of course always do exactly as you pleased
about that and everything else."

"Yes, indeed," Joe answered, and her lip curled a little proudly, "you are
quite right about that. But then, you know, I did not send you away."

"Thanks, again," said Vancouver.

"Do let me get you something more, Miss Thorn," suggested Mr. Biggielow.
"No? There is any amount of _pâtés_. You always like"--

"Of course you have heard about Harrington?" said Vancouver in a low voice
close to Josephine's ear.

"No, really," she answered. "Will you take my plate? And the glass--thanks." Mr. Bonamy Biggielow was obliged to retire. "You mean about the
senatorship?" asked Joe.

"Yes. The senator died this morning. Harrington will make a fight for it.
He has many friends."

"Among whom you count yourself, doubtless," remarked Joe.

"Not politically, of course. I take no active part"--

"Yes, I know." Joe knew the remainder of the sentence by heart. "Then you
will have a glorious opportunity for maintaining an armed neutrality."

"Oh, if it comes to that," said Vancouver mildly, "I would rather see
Harrington senator than some of our own men. At all events, he is honest."

"At all events!" Joe repeated. "You think, perhaps, that some man of your
own party may be elected who will not turn out to be honest?"

"Well, the thing is possible. You see, politics are such a dirty
business--all kinds of men get in."

Joe laughed in a way that made Vancouver nervous. He was beginning to know
her, and he could tell when some sharp thrust was coming by the way she
laughed. Nevertheless, he was fascinated by her.

"It is not long since you told me that Mr. Harrington's very mild remark
about extinguishing bribery and corruption was a piece of gross
exaggeration," said Joe. "Why do you say politics are dirty work?"

"There is a great difference," answered Vancouver.

"What difference? Between what?"

"Between saying that the business of politics is not clean, and saying
that all public officers are liars, like the Cretans."

"Who is exaggerating now?" asked Joe scornfully.

"Of course it is I," answered Vancouver, submissively. "If it is not a
rude question, did not that dress come from Egypt?"

"Yes." The garment in question was made of a kind of soft white, fluted
material over a rose-colored silk ground. The raised flutings followed the
exquisite lines of Joe's figure, and had the double merit of accentuating
its symmetry, and of so leading the eye as to make her height seem greater
than it really was. Cut square at the neck, it showed her dazzling throat
at its best advantage, and a knot of pink lilies at the waist harmonized
delicately with the color of the whole.

"It is just like you," said Vancouver, "to have something different from
everybody else. I admire Eastern things so much, and one gets so tired of
the everlasting round of French dresses."

"I am glad you like it," said Joe, indifferently.

"I am so anxious to meet your cousin, Miss Thorn," said Vancouver, trying
a new subject. "I hear there is to be a dinner for him to-morrow night at
Mrs. Sam Wyndham's. But of course I am not asked."

"Why 'of course'?" inquired Joe quickly.

"I believe Mrs. Wyndham thinks I dislike Englishmen," said Vancouver at
random. "But she is really very much mistaken."

"Really?"

"Yes--I should be willing to like any number of Englishmen for the sake of
being liked by one Englishwoman." He looked at Joe expressively as he
spoke.

"Really?"

"Indeed, yes. Do you not believe me?"

"Oh, yes," said Joe. "Why should I not believe you?" Her voice was calm,
but that same angry flush that had of late so often shown itself began to
rise slowly at her temples. Vancouver saw it, and thought she was blushing
at what he said.

"I trust you will," said Vancouver. "I trust that some day you will let me
tell you who that Englishwoman is."

It was horrible; he was making love to her, this wretch, whom she
despised. She turned her head away to hide the angry look in her eyes.

"Thanks--no, if you do not mind," said she. "I do not care to receive
confidences,--I always forget to forget them." It was not in order that
Pocock Vancouver might make love to her that she had sent away Bonamy
Biggielow, the harmless little poet. She wished him back again, but he was
embarked in an enterprise to dispute with Johnny Hannibal a place near
Miss St. Joseph. Mrs. Wyndham had long since disappeared.

"Will you please take me back to my aunt?" said Joe. As they passed from
the supper-room they suddenly came upon John Harrington, who was wandering
about in an unattached fashion, apparently looking for some one. He bowed
and stared a little at seeing Joe on Vancouver's arm, but she gave him a
look of such earnest entreaty that he turned and followed her at a
distance to see what would happen. Seeing her sit down by her aunt, he
came up and spoke to her, almost thrusting Vancouver aside with his broad
shoulders. Vancouver, however, did not dispute the position, but turned on
his heel and went away.

"Oh, I am so glad," said Joe, with a sigh of relief. "I thought I should
never get away from him!"

It is amazing what a difference the common knowledge of a secret will make
in the intimacy of two people.

"I was rather taken aback at seeing you with him," said John. "Not that it
can make any difference to you," he added quickly, "only you seemed so
angry at him this morning."

"But it does"--Joe began, impulsively. "That is, I began by meaning to cut
him, and then I thought it would be a mistake to make a scandal."

"Yes," said John, "it would be a great mistake. Besides, I would not for
all the world have you take a part in this thing. It would do no good, and
it might do harm."

"I think I have taken a part already," said Joe, somewhat hurt.

"Yes, I know. I am very grateful, but I hope you will not think any more
about it, nor allow it to influence you in any way."

"But what is the use of friends if they do not take a part in one's
quarrels?" asked Joe.

John looked at her earnestly for a few seconds, and saw that she was
perfectly sincere. He had grown to like Josephine of late, and he was
grateful to her for her friendship. Her manner that morning, when she told
him of her discovery, had made a deep impression on him.

"My dear Miss Thorn," he said earnestly, in a low voice, "you are too good
and kind, and I thank you very heartily for your friendship. But I think
you were very wise not to cut Vancouver, and I hope you will not quarrel
with anybody for any matter so trivial." The color came to Joe's face, but
not for anger this time.

"Trivial!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, trivial," John repeated. "Remember that it is the policy of that
paper to abuse me, and that if Vancouver had not written the article, the
editor could have found some one else easily enough who would have done
it."

"But it is such a dastardly thing!" said Joe. "He always says to every one
that he has the greatest respect for you, and then he does a thing like
this. If I were you I would kill him--I am sure I would."

"That would not be the way to win an election nowadays," said John,
laughing.

"Oh, I would not care about that," said Joe, hotly. "But I dare say it is
very silly of me," she added. "You do not seem to mind it at all."

"It is not worth while to lose one's temper or one's soul for the
iniquities of Mr. Pocock Vancouver," said John. "The man may do me harm,
but as I never expected his friendship or help, he neither falls nor rises
in my estimation on that account. Blessed are they who expect nothing!"

"Blessed indeed," said Joe. "But one cannot help expecting men who have
the reputation of being gentlemen to behave decently."

"Vancouver has a right to his political opinions, and a perfect right to
express them in any way he sees fit," said John.

"Oh, of course," said Joe, impatiently. "This is a free country, and that
sort of thing. But if he means to express political opinions he should not
cry aloud at every tea-party in town that he is neutral and takes no
active part in politics. I think that writing violent articles in a
newspaper is a very active part indeed. And he should not go about saying
that he has the highest reverence for a man, and then call him a lunatic
and a charlatan in print, unless he is willing to sign his name to it, and
take the consequences. Should he? I think it is vile, and horrid, and
abominable, and nasty, and I hate him."

"With the exception of the peroration to that speech," said John, who was
very much amused, "I am afraid I must agree with you. A man certainly
ought not to do any of those things."

"Then why do you defend him?" asked Joe, with flashing eyes.

"Because, on general principles, I do not think a man is so much worse
than his fellows because he does things they would very likely do in his
place. There are things done every day, all over the world, quite as bad
as that, and no one takes much notice of them. Almost every businessman is
trying to get the better of some other business man by fair means or
foul."

"You do not seem to have a very exalted idea of humanity," said Joe.

"A large part of humanity is sick," said John, "and it is as well to be
prepared for the worst in any illness."

"I wish you were not so tremendously calm, you know," said Joe, looking
thoughtfully into John's face. "I am afraid it will injure you."

"Why in the world should it injure me?" asked John, much astonished at the
remark.

"I have a presentiment"--she checked herself suddenly. "I do not like to
tell you," she added.

"I would like to hear what you think, if you will tell me," said John,
gravely.

"Well, do not be angry. I have a presentiment that you will not be made
senator. Are you angry?"

"No indeed. But why?"

"Just for that very reason; you are too calm. You are not enough of a
partisan. Every one is a partisan here."

John was silent, and his face was grave and thoughtful. The remark was
profound in its way, and showed a far deeper insight into political
matters than he imagined Joe possessed. He had long regarded Mrs. Wyndham
as a woman of fine sense and judgment, and had often asked her opinion on
important questions. But in all his experience she had never said anything
that seemed to strike so deeply at the root of things as this simple
remark of Josephine's.

"I am afraid you are angry," said Joe, seeing that he was grave and
silent.

"You have set me thinking, Miss Thorn," he answered.

"You think I may be right?" she said.

"The idea is quite new to me, I think it is perhaps the best definition of
the fact that I ever heard. But it is not what ought to be."

"Of course not," Joe answered. "Nothing is just what it ought to be. But
one has to take things as they are."

"And make them what they should be," added John, and the look of strong
determination came into his face.

"Ah, yes," said Joe, softly. "Make things what they should be. That is the
best thing a man can live for."

"Perhaps we might go home, Joe," said Miss Schenectady, who had been
conversing for a couple of hours with another old lady of literary tastes.

"Yes, Aunt Zoë," said Joe, rousing herself, "I think we might."

"Shall I see you to-morrow night at Mrs. Wyndham's dinner?" asked John, as
they parted.

"No, I refused. Good-night."

As Joe sat by 

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