Nor was this the worst; there were indications that Miss Van Harlem, who had refused the noble names and titles of two or three continental nobles, and the noble name unaccompanied by a title of the younger son of an English earl, without mentioning the half-dozen "nice"American claimants--Miss Van Harlem was not angry.
The day this staggering blow fell on her, Mrs. Carriswood was in her dressing-room, peacefully watching Derry unpack a box from Paris, in anticipation of a state dinner. And Miss Van Harlem, in a bewitching wrapper, sat on the lounge and admired.
Upon this scene of feminine peace and happiness enter the Destroyer, in the shape of a note from Tommy Fitzmaurice! Were they going on Beatoun's little excursion to Alexandria? If they were, he would move heaven and earth to put off a committee meeting, in order to join them.
By the way, he was to get the floor for his speech that afternoon.
Wouldn't Mrs. Carriswood come to inspire him? Perhaps Miss Van Harlem would not be bored by a little of it.
It was a well-worded note; as Mrs. Carriswood read it she realized for the first time how completely Tommy was acclimated in society.
She remembered his plaint years ago, and his awe of "oil paintings"and "people of culture;" and she laughed half-sadly as she passed the note over to Miss Van Harlem.
"I presume it is the Alexandria excursion that the Beatouns were talking about yesterday," she said, languidly.
"He wants to show that young Irishman that we have a mild flavor of antiquity, ourselves. We are to see Alexandria and have a real old Virginian dinner, including one of the famous Beatoun hams and some of the '69 Cha-teau Yquem and the sacred '47 port.
I suppose he will have the four-in-hand buckboard. 'A small party '--1"Why do you always call Mr. Fitzmaurice Tommy?"--this interruption comes with a slight rise of color from young Margaret.
"Everybody calls him Tommy in his own town; a politician as popular as he with the boys is naturally Tommy or Jerry or Billy.
They slap him on the back or sit with an arm around his neck and concoct the ways to rule us.""I don't think anyone slaps Mr. Fitzmaurice on the back and calls him Tommy, NOW," says Margaret, with a little access of dignity.
"I dare say his poor old father and mother don't venture on that liberty;I wish you had seen them ----"
"He has told me about them," says Margaret.
And Mrs. Carriswood's dismay was such that for a second she simply gasped. Were things so far along that such confessions were made?
Tommy must be very confident to venture; it was shrewd, very shrewd, to forestall Mrs. Carriswood's sure revelations--oh, Tommy was not a politician for nothing!
"Besides," Margaret went on, with the same note of repressed feeling in her voice, "his is a good family, if they have decayed;his ancestor was Lord Fitzmaurice in King James's time.""She takes HIM seriously too!" thought Mrs. Carriswood, with inexpressible consternation; "what SHALL I say to her mother?"Strange to say, perhaps, considering that she was so frankly a woman of the world, her stub-bornest objection to Tommy was not an objection of expediency. She had insensibly grown to take his success for granted, like the rest of the Washington world;he would be a governor, a senator, he might be--anything!
And he was perfectly presentable, now; no, it would be on the whole an investment in the future that would pay well enough;his parents would be awkward, but they were old people, not likely to be too much _en evidence_.
Mrs. Carriswood, while not overjoyed, would not feel crushed by such a match, but she did view what she regarded as Tommy's moral instability, with a dubious and fearful eye. He was earnest enough for his new principles now; but what warrant was there of his sincerity? Margaret and her mother were high-minded women.
It was the gallant knight of her party and her political faith that the girl admired, the valiant fight, not the triumph!
No mere soldier of fortune, no matter how successful or how brilliant, could win her; if Tommy were the mercenary, not the knight, no worldly glory could compensate his wife.
Wherefore, after a bad quarter of an hour reflecting on these things, Mrs. Carriswood went to the Capitol, resolved to take her goddaughter away. She would not withdraw her acceptance of the Beatouns' invitation, no; let the Iowa congressman have every opportunity to display his social shortcomings in contrast with the accomplished Russian, and Jack Turner, the most elegant man in the army; the next day would be time enough for a telegram and a sudden flitting.
Yet in the midst of her plans for Tommy's discomfiture she was assailed by a queer regret and reluctance.
Tommy's fascination had affected even a professional critic of life; he had been so amusing, so willing, so trusting, so useful, that her chill interest had warmed into liking.
She felt a moving of the heart as the handsome black head arose, and the first notes of that resonant, thrilling voice swelled above the din on the floor.
It was the day of his great speech, the speech that made him, it was said.
As Mrs. Carriswood sank back, turning a little in an instinctive effort to repulse her own sympathy, she was aware of the presence near her of an elderly man and woman. The old man wore a shining silk hat and shining new black clothes. His expansive shirt-bosom was very white, but not glossy, and rumpled in places; and his collar was of the spiked and antique pattern known as a "dickey."His wrinkled, red face was edged by a white fringe of whisker.
He wore large gold-bowed spectacles, and his jaws worked incessantly.
The woman was a little, mild, wrinkled creature, with an anxious blue eye and snowy hair, smoothed down over her ears, under her fine bonnet.
She was richly dressed, but her silks and velvets ill suited the season.
Had she seen them anywhere else, Mrs. Carriswood might not have recognized them; but there, with Tommy before them, both of them feverishly absorbed in Tommy, she recognized them at a glance.
