Miss Byrd had followed the argument closely. “And then?” she questioned, calmly, when Risdon finished.
“Then we will print it. It will be a great scoop for the Gazette, of course. But it may also mean salvation for the country.”
“And,” broke in McNew, “You don’t want to run away with the idea that you are betraying your employer. Old Pratt will know what your errand in his house is.”
“Oh!” Miss Byrd’s face cleared. “That changes the case,” she conceded.
“Of course! You see Risdon here got scared, and wired a lot of stuff last night that brought me down to Washington in a hurry. I saw Pratt this morning and reasoned with him. He’s willing enough to oblige the Gazette, Pratt is. Besides, he had his suspicions already. Pratt’s no fool, you understand. No fool ever gets to be United States Senator nowadays. Pratt’s got the far west idea of women, and he doesn’t understand the type of the countess. She doesn’t understand him either, however. So it’s a stand off. The upshot is that he agreed to my terms. He won’t discuss it with you, though! To him you will be his daughter’s social secretary and nothing else, and you’ve got to attend to your duties as such; what else you may do he doesn’t care. Now—Will you do it?”
McNew rose, and Miss Byrd did so also. “Yes,” she said, slowly. “I will do it!”
“Good! Then the first thing you have to do is to forget that you know German.”
CHAPTER XIX
As Miss Eleanor Byrd soon found, her duties as social secretary to Miss Pratt were no sinecure. The Pratts had been in Washington thirteen years, the Senator having just started on his third term in the upper house of the national government, but they had not cared much for social affairs until their daughter was ready to make her bow to society. Then they discovered, to their amazement, that while they could command a certain amount of consideration as a senator’s family, there were yet many circles into which they could not penetrate. These circles, although really little if any better than those to which they had access, naturally became at once exceedingly desirable to both Mrs. Pratt and her daughter. Especially did they desire, as all Washington women do, to get into the diplomatic set, and when chance—they thought it was chance—threw the Countess Elsa in their way, they were ready to grapple her to themselves with hooks of steel—or gold. When, instead of making demands upon them, the countess appeared to lay herself out to please them, they were overjoyed; and when she proposed to visit them in their Washington home, their delight knew no bounds; even Senator Pratt, hard-headed business man as he was, was pleased, but partly because the countess always treated him with a consideration as grateful as it is rare to the average American father and husband. It was Senator Pratt who a few months before had openly thanked God that he didn’t keep a dog. “Because,” he said, “my wife comes first, my daughter second, and if we kept a dog, I’d come fourth.”
Pleased the Senator was, but not carried beyond his depths. Life-long habits are strong, and more than once he had asked himself what there was “in it” for the countess. When McNew offered an answer, his suggestion fell on fertile ground.