This is how I shall do,” said Peg at last, and after the General and I had waited upon her small profundity for some space; “this shall be my plan. We will have the White House for a reserve, then. The day for our cabinet folk to receive their friends will be Tuesday—the procession begins with the first Tuesday to follow New Year's Day. Our good little Secretary of State has suggested, inasmuch as I am to preside for him, that his house and mine be open only on alternate cabinet days. In short, we will receive together. On one Tuesday he will be at my house; on the next, when my house is closed, I will take stand in his drawing room and receive our guests for him. You know, too, how I am to be the head for what functions occur at the British and Russian legations and act as Lady of the Mansion for our friends, the Viscount Vaughn and Baron Krudener. Thus I begin with a double reception in my house for the good little secretary and myself; then at Krudener's; then at the good little secretary's; and then with the English. After that, we commence again at my own home.”
“And when do you march my White House upon this desperate field?” demanded the General, with much gaiety of mien. Peg's vivacious recount of how she should move her social troops delighted him no little. “In what manner will I be made of use?”
“Why, then,” said Peg, “after the reception at the English house if you will, you may give me a dinner, with a dance in the big East Room?” This was spoken in manner dubious and with the lifting inflection of a request. “Also, though it be much to ask, I could wish mightily for you to come in person to my reception. It would be a most convincing initial.”
“And you doubt my coming?” asked the General, beamingly.
“It would be most unusual for a president,” said Peg, shaking warning head. “The gossips would scarce survive the shock of it.”
“My life,” observed the General, in a most satisfied way, “has been made up of shocks to other folk.”
“But you must consider,” urged Peg, “how your appearance in any one's house would be held a letting down of your dignity. Indeed, in austere quarters, where the regular is as a god, it would be regarded for a no slight rent in your robes.”
“And yet, child, I shall come.” This the General offered in a manner indescribably good. “I have been no man of precedent in my time; I care little for what was, but much for what is presently right. I shall come to your reception; more, I'll stay until you give me leave to go. If to be in the house of my friend, or to show him courtesy who has shown me only favor and good service—if that be to establish a rent in my presidency, I'll even promise to have it a thing of rags and patches before ever I am done.”
“Then you will come!” exclaimed Peg. “Now shall we go bravely through! For, you are to know, so much of social concession or countenance is born of nothing save fear of loss or hope of place, that the herd will collect, bowing and smiling and shining like the sun, wherever you are known to be.”
“These be, truly, most satisfying maps you draw,” remarked the General, quizzically, “and yet I do not see how we are to tell when victory is ours. Now, in war the enemy surrenders or runs away.”