The President Part 19

Mrs. Hanway-Harley sat down; she was, with the last word, in awe of her eminent brother. Senator Hanway arose and towered above her with forbidding brow. The threat to bar the Harley doors to Richard had set him agog with angry apprehensions. What! should his best agent of politics, one who was at once the correspondent of that powerful influence the _Daily Tory_ and the authorized mouthpiece of the potential Mr. Gwynn who owned the Anaconda, nay, was the Anaconda, be insulted, and arrayed against him? And for what? Because of the baby heart of a girl scarce grown! Was a White House to be lost by such tawdry argument? Forbidding Richard the door might of itself appear a meager matter, but who was to say what results might not spring from it?

Senator Hanway had seen the gravest catastrophies grow from reasons small as mustard seed! A city is burned, and the conflagration has its start in a cow and a candle! Mrs. Hanway-Harley shall not put his hopes to jeopardy in squabbles over Dorothy and her truant love. Senator Hanway felt the hot anxiety of one who, bearing a priceless vase through the streets, is jostled by the inconsiderate crowd. Domestic politics and national politics had come to a clash.

Senator Hanway stood staring at Mrs. Hanway-Harley. He required time to gather control of himself and lay out a verbal line of march. He decided for the lucid, icy style; it was his favorite manner in the Senate.

"Barbara," said he, "give careful ear to what I shall say. I do not request, I do not command, I tell you what _must_ be done. I do not interfere between you and Dorothy; I interfere only between you and Mr.

Storms. That young man is necessary to my plans. He is to come to this study, freely and without interference. Nor are you, on any occasion, or for any cause, to affront him or treat him otherwise than with respect."

"But, brother," urged Mrs. Hanway-Harley, "he has trapped Dorothy into a promise of marriage."

"Why do you object to him?"

"He has no fortune; the man's a beggar!"

"He has his money from the _Daily Tory_, say five thousand a year. That is as much as I am paid for being Senator."

"There is no parallel! Your salary may be five thousand; but you make twenty-fold that sum," which was quite true.

"Barbara," remarked Senator Hanway reprovingly, returning to the original bone of dispute, "why should you insist on this young man owning millions before he can think of Dorothy? You had nothing, John had nothing, when you married. You should remember these things."

Mrs. Hanway-Harley refused to remember. There was no reason why she should. Dorothy was the present issue; and Dorothy was--or would be--rich.

"I won't go into the business any further," retorted Senator Hanway at last, with a gesture of irritation and disgust. "I simply tell you that Mr. Storms is neither to be affronted nor driven away. Should you disregard my wishes, Barbara, I say to you plainly that I myself will bring the young people together, send for a preacher, and marry them in this very study. I am not to lose a Presidency because you choose to play the fool."

Mrs. Hanway-Harley, ill.u.s.trious in all her diamonds, upon the next evening received Richard in vast state. She proposed to impress him with her splendors. Dorothy, in antic.i.p.ation of the meeting between mother and lover, had gone across to Bess; her nervousness must have support.

Richard, whose diplomacy was barbaric and proceeded on straight lines, told Mrs. Hanway-Harley of his love for Dorothy. As his handsome face lighted up, even Mrs. Hanway-Harley was not unswept of admiration. She could look into Richard's eyes, and see for herself those gray beauties of tenderness and truth that had won Dorothy to his side. They might have won even Mrs. Hanway-Harley had she not been a mother. What if he were tender, what if he were true? He had no fortune, no place; even the Admirable Crichton, wanting social station and the riches whereon to base it, would have been impossible.

When Richard had ended his love-tale--which, considering that for all his outward fort.i.tude he was inwardly quaking, he told full eloquently--Mrs. Hanway-Harley composed herself for reply. She hardly required those warnings of Senator Hanway; there was no wish now to insult or humble him. In truth, Mrs. Hanway-Harley was in the best possible temper to carry forward her side of the conference in manner most creditable to herself and most helpful for her purposes. More than ever, since she had heard him, she knew the perilous sway this man must own over her daughter. While he talked, the deep, true tones were like a spell; the great, tender, persistent will of a man in loving earnest seemed as with a thousand soft, resistless hands to draw her whither it would. Even she, Mrs. Hanway-Harley, selfish, guarded, worldly, cold, was shaken and all but conquered beneath the natural hypnotic power of the male when speaking, thinking, feeling, moving from the heart. Oh, she would warrant her daughter loved this wizard! She, herself, was driven to fence against his pleadings to keep from granting all he asked. But fence she did; Mrs. Hanway-Harley remembered that she was a mother, an American mother whose daughter had been asked in wedlock by a Count. She must protect that daughter from the wizard who would only love to blight.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley never spoke to more advantage. She did not doubt Mr.

Storms's honesty, she did not distrust his love; but woman could not live by love alone, and she had her duty as a mother. Dorothy had been lapped in luxury; it was neither right nor safe that her daughter should marry downhill. Mrs. Hanway-Harley's voice was smoothly even. Mr. Storms must forgive a question. Something of the kind had been asked before, but changes might have intervened. Had Mr. Storms any expectations from Mr. Gwynn?

"Madam," replied Richard, while a queer smile played about his mouth, a smile whereof the reason was by no means clear to Mrs. Hanway-Harley, "madam, I shall be wholly honest. Living or dead, gift or will, I shall never have a s.h.i.+lling from Mr. Gwynn."

"Then, Mr. Storms," returned Mrs. Hanway-Harley, "I ask you whether I would be justified in wedding my daughter to poverty?"

"But is money, that is, much money, so important?" pleaded Richard. "I have education, health, brains--in moderation--and love to prompt all three. That should not mean beggary, even though it may not mean prodigious wealth."

"Every lover has talked the same," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley, not unkindly. "Believe me, Mr. Storms: no man should ask a woman in marriage unless he can care for her as she was cared for in her father's house."

"But the father's fortune is not sure," remonstrated Richard. "The father's riches, or the lover's poverty, may vanish in a night."

"We must deal with the present," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley.

Richard pondered the several perplexities of the case.

"If I had a fortune equal to Mr. Harley's, you would not object, madam?"

"It is the only bar I urge," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley suavely.

"Then I am to understand that, should a day come when I can measure wealth with Mr. Harley, I may claim Dorothy as my own?"

Mrs. Hanway-Harley bowed.

"My daughter, however, must not be bound by any promise."

"Your daughter, madam," returned Richard, with a color of pride, "shall never be bound by me. Though I held a score of promises, I would have no wife who did not come to me of her free choice. I do not look on love as a business proposition."

"Older people do," responded Mrs. Hanway-Harley dryly.

"Madam," said Richard, "I have only one more question to ask. What is to be my att.i.tude towards your daughter, while I am searching for that fortune?"

It was here that Mrs. Hanway-Harley made her greatest stroke; she reached Richard where he had no defense.

"Your att.i.tude, Mr. Storms, towards my daughter, I shall leave to you for adjustment as a man of honor."

Richard crossed the street to Dorothy and told her what had pa.s.sed.

Dorothy kissed him, and cried over him, and made a wail against their darkling fate.

"How I wish papa was poor!" cried Dorothy. "I wish he didn't have a dollar!" Then, conscience-stricken: "No, I don't! Poor pop; he doesn't hate money, if I do."

Richard took Dorothy's sweet face between his hands, and looked into her eyes.

"You will believe me, darling?"

"Yes!"

"Then don't weep, don't worry! I promise that within the year you shall be my wife. I'll find the way to find the money."

"And hear me promise," returned Dorothy. "Money or no money, I'll become your wife what day you will."

Of course, after such a speech, there befell a sweet world and all of foolish tenderness; but, since the scandalized Ajax would not stay to witness it, neither shall you.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley said nothing to Dorothy of her interview with Richard; she appeared to believe that Richard had saved her that labor.

There was a kind of sneer in this. Feeling the sneer, Dorothy put no questions; she was willing, in her resentment, to have it understood that Richard had told her. Why should he not?--she who was to be his wife! Dorothy would have been proud to proclaim her troth from the house-tops.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley had Storri to dinner. Dorothy, when he was announced, sought her room. A moment later, Mrs. Hanway-Harley was at the door. She came in cool, collected, no trace of anger. Why did not Dorothy come down to dinner? Dorothy did not come down to dinner because Dorothy did not choose.

"You do not ask Mr. Storms to dinner," said Dorothy, her color coming and her eyes beginning to glow. "I will not meet your Storri."

"Mr. Storms is not in our set, dear," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley coldly.

"He is in my heart," returned Dorothy.

The self-willed one seated herself stoutly, and never another word could Mrs. Hanway-Harley draw from her.

Storri received the excuses for Dorothy's vacant place at table which Mrs. Hanway-Harley offered; for all that he read the reason of her absence, and his pride fretted under it as under a lash.

New Year's Day; and the diplomatic reception at the White House. The President stood in line with his Cabinet people, and the others filed by. Richard, being utterly the democrat, was, of course, utterly the aristocrat, since these be extremes that never fail to meet. Wherefore, Richard did not take his place in the procession and waver painfully forward, at a snail's pace, to shake the Presidential hand. It was a foolish ceremony at which Richard's self-respect rebelled. There was no hand, no masculine hand, at least, which Richard would wait in line to grasp.