“I never imagined that you wished it or I would have been very glad to make myself happy in that way. — But one seldom gets an opportunity to say more than a sentence to you in a place like that. You are always the centre of a group — a fact which you may have noticed yourself. But if one might come here — ”
“Indeed you would always find a hearty welcome, Mr. Buckstone. I have often wished you would come and tell me more about Cairo and the Pyramids, as you once promised me you would.”
“Why, do you remember that yet, Miss Hawkins? I thought ladies’ memories were more fickle than that.”
“Oh, they are not so fickle as gentlemen’s promises. And besides, if I had been inclined to forget, I — did you not give me something by way of a remembrancer?”
“Did I?”
“Think.”
“It does seem to me that I did; but I have forgotten what it was now.”
“Never, never call a lady’s memory fickle again! Do you recognize this?”
“A little spray of box! I am beaten — I surrender. But have you kept that all this time?”
Laura’s confusion was very pretty. She tried to hide it, but the more she tried the more manifest it became and withal the more captivating to look upon. Presently she threw the spray of box from her with an annoyed air, and said:
“I forgot myself. I have been very foolish. I beg that you will forget this absurd thing.”
Mr. Buckstone picked up the spray, and sitting down by Laura’s side on the sofa, said:
“Please let me keep it, Miss Hawkins. I set a very high value upon it now.”
“Give it to me, Mr. Buckstone, and do not speak so. I have been sufficiently punished for my thoughtlessness. You cannot take pleasure in adding to my distress. Please give it to me.”
“Indeed I do not wish to distress you. But do not consider the matter so gravely; you have done yourself no wrong. You probably forgot that you had it; but if you had given it to me I would have kept it — and not forgotten it.”
“Do not talk so, Mr. Buckstone. Give it to me, please, and forget the matter.”
“It would not be kind to refuse, since it troubles you so, and so I restore it. But if you would give me part of it and keep the rest — ”
“So that you might have something to remind you of me when you wished to laugh at my foolishness?”
“Oh, by no means, no! Simply that I might remember that I had once assisted to discomfort you, and be reminded to do so no more.”
Laura looked up, and scanned his face a moment. She was about to break the twig, but she hesitated and said:
“If I were sure that you — ” She threw the spray away, and continued: “This is silly! We will change the subject. No, do not insist — I must have my way in this.”
Then Mr. Buckstone drew off his forces and proceeded to make a wily advance upon the fortress under cover of carefully-contrived artifices and stratagems of war. But he contended with an alert and suspicious enemy; and so at the end of two hours it was manifest to him that he had made but little progress. Still, he had made some; he was sure of that.
Laura sat alone and communed with herself;
“He is fairly hooked, poor thing. I can play him at my leisure and land him when I choose. He was all ready to be caught, days and days ago — I saw that, very well. He will vote for our bill — no fear about that; and moreover he will work for it, too, before I am done with him. If he had a woman’s eyes he would have noticed that the spray of box had grown three inches since he first gave it to me, but a man never sees anything and never suspects. If I had shown him a whole bush he would have thought it was the same. Well, it is a good night’s work: the committee is safe. But this is a desperate game I am playing in these days — a wearing, sordid, heartless game. If I lose, I lose everything — even myself. And if I win the game, will it be worth its cost after all? I do not know. Sometimes I doubt. Sometimes I half wish I had not begun. But no matter; I have begun, and I will never turn back; never while I live.”
Mr. Buckstone indulged in a reverie as he walked homeward:
“She is shrewd and deep, and plays her cards with considerable discretion — but she will lose, for all that. There is no hurry; I shall come out winner, all in good time. She is the most beautiful woman in the world; and she surpassed herself tonight. I suppose I must vote for that bill, in the end maybe; but that is not a matter of much consequence the government can stand it. She is bent on capturing me, that is plain; but she will find by and by that what she took for a sleeping garrison was an ambuscade.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Now this surprising news caus’d her fall in ‘a trance,
Life as she were dead, no limbs she could advance,
Then her dear brother came, her from the ground he took
And she spake up and said, O my poor heart is broke.
The Barnardcastle Tragedy.
“Don’t you think he is distinguished looking?”
“What! That gawky looking person, with Miss Hawkins?”
“There. He’s just speaking to Mrs. Schoonmaker. Such high-bred negligence and unconsciousness. Nothing studied. See his fine eyes.”
“Very. They are moving this way now. Maybe he is coming here. But he looks as helpless as a rag baby. Who is he, Blanche?”
“Who is he? And you’ve been here a week, Grace, and don’t know? He’s the catch of the season. That’s Washington Hawkins — her brother.”
“No, is it?”
“Very old family, old Kentucky family I believe. He’s got enormous landed property in Tennessee, I think. The family lost everything, slaves and that sort of thing, you know, in the war. But they have a great deal of land, minerals, mines and all that. Mr. Hawkins and his sister too are very much interested in the amelioration of the condition of the colored race; they have some plan, with Senator Dilworthy, to convert a large part of their property to something another for the freedmen.”
“You don’t say so? I thought he was some guy from Pennsylvania. But he is different from others. Probably he has lived all his life on his plantation.”
It was a day reception of Mrs. Representative Schoonmaker, a sweet woman, of simple and sincere manners. Her house was one of the most popular in Washington. There was less ostentation there than in some others, and people liked to go where the atmosphere reminded them of the peace and purity of home. Mrs. Schoonmaker was as natural and unaffected in Washington society as she was in her own New York house, and kept up the spirit of home-life there, with her husband and children. And that was the reason, probably, why people of refinement liked to go there.
Washington is a microcosm, and one can suit himself with any sort of society within a radius of a mile. To a large portion of the people who frequent Washington or dwell there, the ultra fashion, the shoddy, the jobbery are as utterly distasteful as they would be in a refined New England City. Schoonmaker was not exactly a leader in the House, but he was greatly respected for his fine talents and his honesty. No one would have thought of offering to carry National Improvement Directors Relief stock for him.
These day receptions