Mrs. Hopkinson looked as dignifiedly at Gashwiler as was consistent with five feet three (the extra three inches being a pyramidal structure of straw-colored hair), a frond of faint curls, a pair of laughing blue eyes, and a small belted waist. Then she said, with a casting down of her lids:
"You forget that my husband loves me." And for once the minx appeared to look penitent. It was becoming; but as it had been originally practiced in a simple white dress, relieved only with pale-blue ribbons, it was not entirely in keeping with be-flounced lavender and rose-colored trimmings. Yet the woman who hesitates between her moral expression and the harmony of her dress is lost.
And Mrs. Hopkinson was victrix by her very audacity.
Mr. Gashwiler was flattered. The most dissolute man likes the appearance of virtue. "But graces and accomplishments like yours, dear Mrs. Hopkinson," he said oleaginously, "belong to the whole country." Which, with something between a courtesy and a strut, he endeavored to represent. "And I shall want to avail myself of all," he added, "in the matter of the Castro claim. A little supper at Welcker's, a glass or two of champagne, and a single flash of those bright eyes, and the thing is done."
"But," said Mrs. Hopkinson, "I've promised Josiah that I would give up all those frivolities, and although my conscience is clear, you know how people talk! Josiah hears it. Why, only last night, at a reception at the Patagonian Minister's, every woman in the room gossiped about me because I led the german with him. As if a married woman, whose husband was interested in the Government, could not be civil to the representative of a friendly power?"
Mr. Gashwiler did not see how Mr. Hopkinson's late contract for supplying salt pork and canned provisions to the army of the United States should make his wife susceptible to the advances of foreign princes; but he prudently kept that to himself. Still, not being himself a diplomat, he could not help saying:
"But I understood that Mr. Hopkinson did not object to your interesting yourself in this claim, and you know some of the stock--"
The lady started, and said:
"Stock! Dear Mr. Gashwiler, for Heaven's sake don't mention that hideous name to me. Stock, I am sick of it! Have you gentlemen no other topic for a lady?"
She punctuated her sentence with a mischievous look at her interlocutor. For a second time I regret to say that Mr. Gashwiler succumbed. The Roman constituency at Remus, it is to be hoped, were happily ignorant of this last defection of their great legislator. Mr. Gashwiler instantly forgot his theme,--began to ply the lady with a certain bovine-like gallantry, which it is to be said to her credit she parried with a playful, terrier-like dexterity, when the servant suddenly announced, "Mr. Wiles."
Gashwiler started. Not so Mrs. Hopkinson, who, however, prudently and quietly removed her own chair several inches from Gashwiler's.
"Do you know Mr. Wiles?" she asked pleasantly.
"No! That is, I--ah--yes, I may say I have had some business relations with him," responded Gashwiler rising.
"Won't you stay?" she added pleadingly. "Do!"
Mr. Gashwiler's prudence always got the better of his gallantry.
"Not now," he responded in some nervousness. "Perhaps I had better go now, in view of what you have just said about gossip. You need not mention my name to this-er--this--Mr. Wiles." And with one eye on the door, and an awkward dash of his lips at the lady's fingers, he withdrew.
There was no introductory formula to Mr. Wiles's interview. He dashed at once in medias res. "Gashwiler knows a woman that, he says, can help us against that Spanish girl who is coming here with proofs, prettiness, fascination, and what not! You must find her out."
"Why?" asked the lady laughingly.
"Because I don't trust that Gashwiler. A woman with a pretty face and an ounce of brains could sell him out; aye, and US with him."
"Oh, say TWO ounces of brains. Mr. Wiles, Mr. Gashwiler is no fool."
"Possibly, except when your sex is concerned, and it is very likely that the woman is his superior."
"I should think so," said Mrs. Hopkinson with a mischievous look.
"Ah, you know her, then?"
"Not so well as I know him," said Mrs. H. quite seriously. "I wish I did."
"Well, you'll find out if she's to be trusted! You are laughing,--it is a serious matter! This woman--"
Mrs. Hopkinson dropped him a charming courtesy and said, "C'est moi!"
