Perhaps he meant to take advantage of the occasion to say some very serious things. His love for Ruth was no secret to Mrs. Bolton, and he felt almost sure that he should have no opposition in the family. Mrs. Bolton had been cautious in what she said, but Philip inferred everything from her reply to his own questions, one day, “Has thee ever spoken thy mind to Ruth?”
Why shouldn’t he speak his mind, and end his doubts? Ruth had been more tricksy than usual that day, and in a flow of spirits quite inconsistent, it would seem, in a young lady devoted to grave studies.
Had Ruth a premonition of Philip’s intention, in his manner? It may be, for when the girls came down stairs, ready to walk to the cars; and met Philip and Harry in the hall, Ruth said, laughing,
“The two tallest must walk together” and before Philip knew how it happened Ruth had taken Harry’s arm, and his evening was spoiled. He had too much politeness and good sense and kindness to show in his manner that he was hit. So he said to Harry,
“That’s your disadvantage in being short.” And he gave Alice no reason to feel during the evening that she would not have been his first choice for the excursion. But he was none the less chagrined, and not a little angry at the turn the affair took.
The Hall was crowded with the fashion of the town. The concert was one of those fragmentary drearinesses that people endure because they are fashionable; tours de force on the piano, and fragments from operas, which have no meaning without the setting, with weary pauses of waiting between; there is the comic basso who is so amusing and on such familiar terms with the audience, and always sings the Barber; the attitudinizing tenor, with his languishing “Oh, Summer Night;” the soprano with her “Batti Batti,” who warbles and trills and runs and fetches her breath, and ends with a noble scream that brings down a tempest of applause in the midst of which she backs off the stage smiling and bowing. It was this sort of concert, and Philip was thinking that it was the most stupid one he ever sat through, when just as the soprano was in the midst of that touching ballad, “Comin’ thro’ the Rye” (the soprano always sings “Comin’ thro’ the Rye” on an encore) — the Black Swan used to make it irresistible, Philip remembered, with her arch, “If a body kiss a body” there was a cry of “Fire!”
The hall is long and narrow, and there is only one place of egress. Instantly the audience was on its feet, and a rush began for the door. Men shouted, women screamed, and panic seized the swaying mass. A second’s thought would have convinced every one that getting out was impossible, and that the only effect of a rush would be to crash people to death. But a second’s thought was not given. A few cried:
“Sit down, sit down,” but the mass was turned towards the door. Women were down and trampled on in the aisles, and stout men, utterly lost to self-control, were mounting the benches, as if to run a race over the mass to the entrance.
Philip who had forced the girls to keep their seats saw, in a flash, the new danger, and sprang to avert it. In a second more those infuriated men would be over the benches and crushing Ruth and Alice under their boots. He leaped upon the bench in front of them and struck out before him with all his might, felling one man who was rushing on him, and checking for an instant the movement, or rather parting it, and causing it to flow on either side of him. But it was only for an instant; the pressure behind was too great, and, the next Philip was dashed backwards over the seat.
And yet that instant of arrest had probably saved the girls, for as Philip fell, the orchestra struck up “Yankee Doodle” in the liveliest manner. The familiar tune caught the ear of the mass, which paused in wonder, and gave the conductor’s voice a chance to be heard — ”It’s a false alarm!”
The tumult was over in a minute, and the next, laughter was heard, and not a few said, “I knew it wasn’t anything.” “What fools people are at such a time.”
The concert was over, however. A good many people were hurt, some of them seriously, and among them Philip Sterling was found bent across the seat, insensible, with his left arm hanging limp and a bleeding wound on his head.
When he was carried into the air he revived, and said it was nothing. A surgeon was called, and it was thought best to drive at once to the Bolton’s, the surgeon supporting Philip, who did not speak the whole way. His arm was set and his head dressed, and the surgeon said he would come round all right in his mind by morning; he was very weak. Alice who was not much frightened while the panic lasted in the hall, was very much unnerved by seeing Philip so pale and bloody. Ruth assisted the surgeon with the utmost coolness and with skillful hands helped to dress Philip’s wounds. And there was a certain intentness and fierce energy in what she did that might have revealed something to Philip if he had been in his senses.
But he was not, or he would not have murmured “Let Alice do it, she is not too tall.”
It was Ruth’s first case.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Washington’s delight in his beautiful sister was measureless. He said that she had always been the queenliest creature in the land, but that she was only commonplace before, compared to what she was now, so extraordinary was the improvement wrought by rich fashionable attire.
“But your criticisms are too full of brotherly partiality to be depended on, Washington. Other people will judge differently.”
“Indeed they won’t. You’ll see. There will never be a woman in Washington that can compare with you. You’ll be famous within a fortnight, Laura. Everybody will want to know you. You wait — you’ll see.”
Laura wished in her heart that the prophecy might come true; and privately she even believed it might — for she had brought all the women whom she had seen since she left home under sharp inspection, and the result had not been unsatisfactory to her.
During a week or two Washington drove about the city every day with her and familiarized her with all of its salient features. She was beginning to feel very much at home with the town itself, and she was also fast acquiring ease with the distinguished people she met at the Dilworthy table, and losing what little of country timidity she had brought with her from Hawkeye. She noticed with secret pleasure the little start of admiration that always manifested itself in the faces of the guests when she entered the drawing-room arrayed in evening costume: she took comforting note of the fact that these guests directed a very liberal share of their conversation toward her; she observed with surprise, that famous statesmen and soldiers did not talk like gods, as a general thing, but said rather commonplace things for the most part; and she was filled with gratification to discover that she, on the contrary, was making a good many shrewd speeches and now and then a really brilliant one, and furthermore, that they were beginning to be repeated in social circles about the town.
Congress began its sittings, and every day or two Washington escorted her to the galleries set apart for lady members of the households of Senators and Representatives. Here was a larger field and a wider competition, but still she saw that many eyes were uplifted toward her face, and that first one person and then another called a neighbor’s attention to her; she was not too dull to perceive that the speeches of some of the younger statesmen were delivered about as much and perhaps more at her than to the presiding officer; and she was not sorry to see that the dapper young Senator from Iowa came at once and stood in the open space before the president’s desk to exhibit his feet as soon as she entered the gallery, whereas she had early learned from common report that his usual custom was to prop them on his desk and enjoy them himself with a selfish disregard of other people’s longings.
Invitations began to flow in upon her and soon she was fairly “in society.” “The season” was now in full bloom, and the first select reception was at hand — that is to say,