Ruth’s course was vindicated now, and it certainly did not become Philip, who had nothing to offer but a future chance against the visible result of her determination and industry, to open an argument with her. Ruth was never more certain that she was right and that she was sufficient unto herself. She, may be, did not much heed the still small voice that sang in her maiden heart as she went about her work, and which lightened it and made it easy, “Philip has come.”
“I am glad for father’s sake,” she said to Philip, “that thee has come. I can see that he depends greatly upon what thee can do. He thinks women won’t hold out long,” added Ruth with the smile that Philip never exactly understood.
“And aren’t you tired sometimes of the struggle?”
“Tired? Yes, everybody is tired I suppose. But it is a glorious profession. And would you want me to be dependent, Philip?”
“Well, yes, a little,” said Philip, feeling his way towards what he wanted to say.
“On what, for instance, just now?” asked Ruth, a little maliciously Philip thought.
“Why, on — ” he couldn’t quite say it, for it occurred to him that he was a poor stick for any body to lean on in the present state of his fortune, and that the woman before him was at least as independent as he was.
“I don’t mean depend,” he began again. “But I love you, that’s all. Am I nothing — to you?” And Philip looked a little defiant, and as if he had said something that ought to brush away all the sophistries of obligation on either side, between man and woman.
Perhaps Ruth saw this. Perhaps she saw that her own theories of a certain equality of power, which ought to precede a union of two hearts, might be pushed too far. Perhaps she had felt sometimes her own weakness and the need after all of so dear a sympathy and so tender an interest confessed, as that which Philip could give. Whatever moved her — the riddle is as old as creation — she simply looked up to Philip and said in a low voice, “Everything.”
And Philip clasping both her hands in his, and looking down into her eyes, which drank in all his tenderness with the thirst of a true woman’s nature —
“Oh! Philip, come out here,” shouted young Eli, throwing the door wide open.
And Ruth escaped away to her room, her heart singing again, and now as if it would burst for joy, “Philip has come.”
That night Philip received a dispatch from Harry — ”The trial begins tomorrow.”
CHAPTER LI.
December 18 — , found Washington Hawkins and Col. Sellers once more at the capitol of the nation, standing guard over the University bill. The former gentleman was despondent, the latter hopeful. Washington’s distress of mind was chiefly on Laura’s account. The court would soon sit to try her case, he said, and consequently a great deal of ready money would be needed in the engineering of it. The University bill was sure to pass this time, and that would make money plenty, but might not the help come too late? Congress had only just assembled, and delays were to be feared.
“Well,” said the Colonel, “I don’t know but you are more or less right, there. Now let’s figure up a little on, the preliminaries. I think Congress always tries to do as near right as it can, according to its lights. A man can’t ask any fairer than that. The first preliminary it always starts out on, is to clean itself, so to speak. It will arraign two or three dozen of its members, or maybe four or five dozen, for taking bribes to vote for this and that and the other bill last winter.”
“It goes up into the dozens, does it?”
“Well, yes; in a free country likes ours, where any man can run for Congress and anybody can vote for him, you can’t expect immortal purity all the time — it ain’t in nature. Sixty or eighty or a hundred and fifty people are bound to get in who are not angels in disguise, as young Hicks the correspondent says; but still it is a very good average; very good indeed. As long as it averages as well as that, I think we can feel very well satisfied. Even in these days, when people growl so much and the newspapers are so out of patience, there is still a very respectable minority of honest men in Congress.”
“Why a respectable minority of honest men can’t do any good, Colonel.”
“Oh, yes it can, too”
“Why, how?”
“Oh, in many ways, many ways.”
“But what are the ways?”
“Well — I don’t know — it is a question that requires time; a body can’t answer every question right offhand. But it does do good. I am satisfied of that.”
“All right, then; grant that it does good; go on with the preliminaries.”
“That is what I am coming to. First, as I said, they will try a lot of members for taking money for votes. That will take four weeks.”
“Yes, that’s like last year; and it is a sheer waste of the time for which the nation pays those men to work — that is what that is. And it pinches when a body’s got a bill waiting.”
“A waste of time, to purify the fountain of public law? Well, I never heard anybody express an idea like that before. But if it were, it would still be the fault of the minority, for the majority don’t institute these proceedings. There is where that minority becomes an obstruction — but still one can’t say it is on the wrong side. — Well, after they have finished the bribery cases, they will take up cases of members who have bought their seats with money. That will take another four weeks.”
“Very good; go on. You have accounted for two-thirds of the session.”
“Next they will try each other for various smaller irregularities, like the sale of appointments to West Point cadetships, and that sort of thing — mere trifling pocket-money enterprises that might better be passed over in silence, perhaps, but then one of our Congresses can never rest easy till it has thoroughly purified itself of all blemishes — and that is a thing to be applauded.”
“How long does it take to disinfect itself of these minor impurities?”
“Well, about two weeks, generally.”
“So Congress always lies helpless in quarantine ten weeks of a session. That’s encouraging. Colonel, poor Laura will never get any benefit from our bill. Her trial will be over before Congress has half purified itself. — And doesn’t it occur to you that by the time it has expelled all its impure members there may not be enough members left to do business legally?”
“Why I did not say Congress would expel anybody.”
“Well won’t it expel anybody?”
“Not necessarily. Did it last year? It never does. That would not be regular.”
“Then why waste all the session in that tomfoolery of trying members?”
“It is usual; it is customary; the country requires it.”
“Then the country is a fool, I think.”
“Oh, no. The country thinks somebody is going to be expelled.”
“Well, when nobody is expelled, what does the country think then?”
“By that time, the thing has strung out so long that the country is sick and tired of it and glad to have a change on any terms. But all that inquiry is not lost. It has a good moral effect.”
“Who does it have a good moral effect on?”
“Well — I don’t know. On foreign countries, I think.