The President Part 18

"But I haven't the advantage of being a Russian n.o.bleman," returned Richard, with one of his cynical grins.

"Still you must ask Mrs. Hanway-Harley for Dorothy; and no later, mind you, than to-morrow night." Bess tossed her head as though a fiat had gone forth.

"Well," said Richard, drawing a deep breath, "if you have any such junk as a Joss about the house, I'd take it friendly if you would burn a handful of prayer-sticks in my interest." Then, with all love's softness, to Dorothy: "Your mother will say No; she will not entertain your views on poverty, little one."

Dorothy came behind Richard's chair and pressed her cheek to his.

"Whatever she may say, whatever anyone may say, you, and only you, dearest, shall have me," and Dorothy signed the promise after the fas.h.i.+on popular with lovers.

Storri came that evening to see Mrs. Hanway-Harley. Both parties were acting, Storri affecting melancholy while he was on fire with pa.s.sionate rage, and Mrs. Hanway-Harley a.s.suming the role of the mother who, although she regrets, is still tenderly unwilling to control those wrongly headstrong courses upon which her child is bent. There was a world of polite fencing between Mrs. Hanway-Harley and Storri, in which each bore testimony to the esteem in which the other was held. It was decided that Storri should continue those dinners with the Harleys; Dorothy might discover a final wisdom.

Storri told Mrs. Hanway-Harley that he feared Dorothy had given her heart to Richard. This admission was gall and wormwood to the self-love of Storri. He made it, however, and recalled Mrs. Hanway-Harley to Dorothy's chatter concerning the morning talks between Richard and Senator Hanway.

"That odious printer," said Storri, who called all newspaper people printers, "comes each day to get his budget of news from your ill.u.s.trious brother, madam; and, believe me, your daughter makes some sly pretext for being with them--with him, the odious printer! Bah! I wish we were in Russia; I would blow out the rogue's life like a candle!

Why, my Czar would laugh were so mean a being to succeed in obstructing the love of his Storri!"

Mrs. Hanway-Harley was struck by the suggestion that Richard was Dorothy's lover in the dark. She remembered Dorothy's teasing praises of Richard, and her talk of how sapiently he discoursed with "Uncle Pat."

The praises occurred on that evening when, from her wisdom, she, Mrs.

Hanway-Harley, had warned her innocent child against the error of entertaining one gentleman with the merits of another. Mrs.

Hanway-Harley even brought to mind the replies made by her innocent child to those warnings; and her own wrath began to stir as the suspicion grew that her innocent child had been secretly laughing at her. Like all shallow folk, Mrs. Hanway-Harley prided herself upon being as deep as the sea, and it did her self-esteem no good to think that she had been sounded, not to say charted, by her own daughter, who had gone steering in and out, keeping always the channel of her credulity, and never once running aground. Little lamps of anger lighted their evil wicks in Mrs. Hanway-Harley's eyes as she thus reflected.

And that morning armful of roses? No, Storri was not the moving cause of their fragrant appearance upon the Harley premises. Storri regretted that he had not once bethought him of this delicate attention. Mrs.

Hanway-Harley wrung her hands. It was Dorothy who first planted in her the belief that the flowers were from Storri. Oh, the artful jade! That was the cause of her timorous objections when Mrs. Hanway-Harley, with the fond yet honorable curiosity of a mother, spoke of mentioning those flowers to Storri. The perjured Dorothy was aware of their felon origin; doubtless, she even then encouraged the miserable Richard in his love.

As these lights burst one after the other upon Mrs. Hanway-Harley, she could have punished her own dullness by beating her head against the wall. However, she restrained herself, and closed by inviting Storri to dinner on the next day but one. Storri, still keeping up his tender melancholy, thanked Mrs. Hanway-Harley, accepted, and with many bows, and many sighs to impress upon Mrs. Hanway-Harley his stricken heart, backed himself out into the night.

When Storri was gone, Mrs. Hanway-Harley resolved on an instant talk with Dorothy--no more the innocent, but the artful one. She would make a last attempt to wring from her the name of that lover of the shadows.

Should it be Richard--and she was sure of it--that aspiring journalist must never again cross the Harley threshold.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley, who had the merit of expedition, repaired at once to Dorothy's room. That obdurate beauty was half undressed, and her maid had just finished arranging her hair in two raven braids--thick as a s.h.i.+p's cable, they were. As Mrs. Hanway-Harley entered, Dorothy glanced up with half-wistful eye. Poor child! she was hoping her mother might have softened from that granite att.i.tude of the morning! But no, there was nothing tender in the selfish, austere gaze; at that, the spirit of the old astronomical ancestor who, with his water-pans and gate-posts, knew the earth was flat, began to chafe within Dorothy's girlish bosom.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley came to a dignified halt in the middle of the room.

"Cora, you may go," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley.

The black maid gave a parting touch to the braids, in which she contrived to mingle sympathy and affection, for with the wisdom of her caste she knew of Dorothy's love and gave it her approval.

"Dorothy," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley, when they were alone, and speaking in a high, superior vein, "I have come for the name of that man."

"Mr. Storms," returned Dorothy, in tones which for steadiness matched Mrs. Hanway-Harley's.

It was not the name so much as the relentless frankness that furnished it, which overcame Mrs. Hanway-Harley. She sat down with an emphasis so sudden that it was as though her knees were gla.s.s and the blow had broken them. Once in the chair, she waggled her head dolorously, and moaned out against upstart vulgarians who, without a name or a s.h.i.+lling, insinuated themselves like vipers into households of honor, and, coiling themselves upon the very hearthstones, dealt death to fondest hopes.

Dorothy, who, for all the selfish shallowness of that relative, loved her mother, tried to take her hand. At a shadow of sympathy she would have laid before Mrs. Hanway-Harley the last secret her bosom hid. There was no sympathy, nothing of mother's love; Mrs. Hanway-Harley, in the narrowness of her egotism, could consider no feelings not her own.

"Don't; don't touch me!" she cried. "Don't add hypocrisy to your ingrat.i.tude!" Then, in tones that seemed to pillory Dorothy as reprobate and lost, she cried: "You have disgraced me--disgraced your father, your uncle, and me!"

"Another word," cried Dorothy, moving with a resentful swoop towards the bell, "and I'll call Uncle Pat to judge between us! Yes; he is in his study. Uncle Pat shall hear you!"

Mrs. Hanway-Harley, gla.s.s knees and all, got between Dorothy and the bell. Dorothy's uncle and Dorothy's father should know; but not then.

She had hoped that with reason she might rescue her daughter from a step so fatal as marriage with a hopeless beggar who could not live without the charity of his patron. These things and much more spake Mrs.

Hanway-Harley; but she might as well have remonstrated with a storm. The gate-post grandsire had charge of Dorothy.

"And what is to be the end of this intrigue?" asked Mrs. Hanway-Harley.

"It is no more an intrigue," protested Dorothy, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng, "than was your marriage to papa, or the marriage of Aunt Dorothy with Uncle Pat. Oh, mamma," she cried appealingly, "can't you see we love each other!"

Mrs. Hanway-Harley was a trifle touched, but it was her maternal duty to conceal it. She steadied herself to a severe sobriety, and, with the manner of one injured to the verge of martyrdom, said with a sigh:

"I shall see this person; I shall send for this Mr. Storms."

"It will be unnecessary," replied Dorothy, turning frigid; "Mr. Storms will call upon you to-morrow night."

"And does the puppy think that I'll give my consent?" demanded Mrs.

Hanway-Harley, angrily aghast at the insolence of Richard.

"Now I don't know what the 'puppy' thinks," returned Dorothy, from whom the anger of her mother struck sympathetic sparks, "but I told him I would marry him without it."

In a whirl of indignation, Mrs. Hanway-Harley burst in upon Senator Hanway. That ambitious gentleman was employed in abstruse calculations as to tariff schedules, and how far they might be expected to bear upon his chances in the coming National Convention. Senator Hanway was somewhat impressed by Mrs. Hanway-Harley's visit; his study had never been that lady's favorite lounge. Moreover, her face proclaimed her errand no common one.

"Why, I thought you were all in bed, Barbara," said Senator Hanway, by way of opening conversation.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley, as calmly as she might, told of Dorothy's "mad infatuation." She held back nothing except what portions of the tangle referred to Storri. That n.o.bleman's proposals she did not touch on. She spoke of Richard, and the disaster, not to say the disgrace, to the Harley name should he and Dorothy wed. Mrs. Hanway-Harley flowed on, sometimes eloquent, always severe, and closed in with a thunder-gust of tears.

Senator Hanway listened, first with wonder, then alarm; when she finished he sat with an air of helplessness. After rubbing his nose irresolutely with a pen-holder, he said:

"What can I do?"

"You can advise me."

"Well, then," observed Senator Hanway, looking right and left, being no one to face an angry woman, "why don't you let them marry?"

"Brother!"

Mrs. Hanway-Harley strove to bury Senator Hanway beneath a mountain of reproach with that one word.

"What can you do?" asked Senator Hanway defensively. "You say that Dorothy declares she will marry young Storms in the teeth of every opposition."

"Are we to permit the foolish girl to throw herself away?"

"But how will you restrain her?"

"One thing," exclaimed Mrs. Hanway-Harley, getting up to go; "that person, after to-morrow, shall never enter these doors! I shall have but one word; I shall warn him not to repeat his visits to this house."

The change that came over Senator Hanway struck Mrs. Hanway-Harley with dumb dismay. His eye, which had been prying about for an easiest way out of the dilemma, now filled with threatening interest.

"Barbara, sit down!" commanded Senator Hanway.