“We may save it yet, sir,” Vassar interrupted cheerfully.
“Save it? Great Scott, man, have you been down Broadway lately? Look at the signs – Katzmeyers, Einsteins, Epsteins, Abrahams, Isaacs and Jacobs! It would rest your eyes to find a Fogarty or a Casey. By the eternal, an Irishman now seems like a Son of the American Revolution! The Congressman from this district, sir, is a damned Pole from Posen!”
Virginia burst into a fit of laughter.
“What’s the matter, Miss Troublemaker?” Holland growled.
“You didn’t get the name, father dear – this is Mr. John Vassar, the damned Pole Congressman to whom you have so graciously referred – ”
Holland frowned, searched his daughter’s face for the joke, and looked at Vassar helplessly.
“It’s not so!” he snorted. “I never saw a finer specimen of American manhood in my life, strong-limbed, clean-cut, clear-eyed, every inch a man and not a suffragette. It’s not so. You’re putting up a job on me, Virginia – ”
John Vassar smiled and bowed.
“For the high compliment you pay me, Mr. Holland, I forgive the hard words. I understand how the old boys feel who fought to make this country what it is today. And I love you for it. I don’t mind what you say– I know where to find your kind when the hour of trial comes – ”
“You are Congressman Vassar?” the old man gasped.
“Guilty!”
The mother joined in the laugh at his expense.
Holland extended his hand again and grasped Vassar’s.
“I have no friends in this house, sir! We make up. I apologize to Poland for your sake. If they’ve got any more like you, let ’em come on. But mind you – ” he lifted his finger in protest – “I stand by every word I said about the other fellows – every word!”
“I understand!” Vassar responded cheerfully.
“That will do now, Frank,” Mrs. Holland softly murmured.
“And you come in to see me again, young man – I want to talk to you some time when there are no women around. You’re in Congress. By Geeminy, I want to know why we’ve got no army while twenty million trained soldiers are fighting for the mastery of the world across the water. Just count me in on the fight, will you? By the eternal, I’d like to meet the traitor who’ll try to block your bill – ”
“I’ve important business with Mr. Vassar,” Virginia broke in. “Excuse us now, children – ”
“That’s the way a suffragette talks to her old daddy, Vassar – “ Holland cried. “I warn you against their wiles. Don’t let her bamboozle you. I’m lame, but I’m going to vote against ’em, if I have to crawl to the polls election day – so help me God!”
Mrs. Holland beamed her good night with a gentle inclination of her silver-crowned head.
“He barks very loudly, Mr. Vassar,” she called, “but he never bites – ”
Virginia led her guest upstairs into the quiet library in the front of the house.
Zonia and Billy were chattering in the parlor.
She pointed to a heavy armchair and sat down opposite, the oak table between them.
“Now, Mr. Congressman, what is it – peace or war?”
There was a ring of subtle defiance in her tones that both angered and charmed her opponent. He had met many beautiful women before. For the first time he had met one who commanded both his intellect and his consciousness of sex. The sensation was painful. He resented it. His ideals of life asked of women submission, tenderness, trust. Here sat before him the most charming, the most fascinatingly feminine woman he had ever met who refused to accept his opinions and had evidently determined to bend his mind and will to hers. To think of yielding was the height of absurdity. And yet he must meet her as his intellectual equal. He could meet her on no other ground. Her whole being said, “Come, let’s reason together.” He had no desire to reason. He only wished to tell her the truth about the impression she had made on him. He smiled to recall it. He had a perfectly foolish – an almost resistless – impulse to leap on the speaker’s stand, take her in his arms, kiss her and whisper:
“Dear little mate, this is silly – come away. I’ve something worth while to tell you – something big, something wonderful, something as old as eternity but always new – ”
He waked from his reverie with a start to find his antagonist holding him with a determined gaze that put sentiment to flight.
“Peace or war?” she firmly repeated.
“If I am to choose,” he fenced, “I assure you it will be peace – ”
He paused and studied her expression of serious concentration. In spite of every effort to fix his mind in politics he persisted in the silliest old-fashioned admiration of her wistful, appealing beauty. Confound it. She had no right to use such a power for the propaganda of crackbrained theories! He felt the foundations of the moral world tremble at the shock of this resistless, elemental force. The man who desires a woman will sell principle, country, right, God, for his desire. Was he going to be trapped by this ancient snare? Such a woman might play with a victim as a cat a mouse until her purpose was accomplished. Sex attraction is the one force that defies all logic and scoffs at reason. The government of a democracy was a difficult task under present conditions. What would it become when the decision on which the mightiest issues hung could be decided by the smile of a woman’s lips or the dimple in her cheek?
He felt the pull of this fascination with a sense of inward panic. What the devil was she laughing at a while ago as they crossed the street? He had forgotten it for the moment, and she hadn’t explained. He would fence a little for time before meeting the issue. He touched the tip of his mustache thoughtfully.
“Anyhow, suppose we shake hands before we begin the fight. It’s one of the rules of the game you know – ”
She leaned across the table with a puzzled expression.
“Shake hands?”
“Yes – spiritually, so to speak. I’d like to get on as friendly footing as possible to appeal to your mercy if I’m defeated. Would you mind telling me at what you were laughing when we crossed Second Avenue?”
An exquisite smile illumined her face and a twinkle of mischief played about the corners of her mouth.
“Shall I be perfectly frank?” she asked.
“Please – ”
“I laughed at the silly contradiction of allowing you to touch my arm in token of your superior strength as you drew about me the sheltering protection of chivalry. There were no plunging horses near – not even a pushcart in sight. The nearest street-car was five blocks away. Why did you think that I needed help in walking ten yards?”
He held her gaze steadily. She was charming – there was no doubt about it. He had to bite his lips to keep back a foolish compliment that might anger her. How should he bear himself toward such a woman? Her whole being breathed tenderness and femininity, yet there was a dangerous challenge of intellect about her that upset him.
“Why did you think I needed help?” she softly repeated.
“To tell you the truth,” he answered gravely, “I didn’t think at all. The act was instinctive – the inheritance of centuries – ”
“Exactly! Centuries of man’s patronage, of man’s tyranny, of his boasted superiority. As long as woman submits to be treated as a doll, a weakling, an incompetent, the supposed superior being must try to do the proper thing in an emergency – ”
“You resented it?” he broke in.
“No.