My men's feature is a breakfast. I engaged a particularly good cook—the best old-fashioned Southern cook in Washington. Rachel had her, and I persuaded Mr. Derby to consent to giving her up to us, just for this season. Cleopatra—that's her name—has nothing to do but get together every morning by nine o'clock the grandest kind of an old-fashioned American breakfast. And I explained to Senator Burke that he was to invite some of his colleagues, as many as he liked, and tell them to come any morning, or every morning if they wished, and bring their friends.
I consult with Cleopatra every day as to what she's to have the next morning; and I think dear old father taught me what kind of breakfast men like. I don't give them too much, or they'd be afraid to come and risk indigestion a second time. I see to it that everything is perfectly cooked—and it's pretty hard for any man to get indigestion, even from corned beef hash and hot cornbread and buckwheat cakes with maple syrup, if it's perfectly cooked and is eaten in a cheerful frame of mind. No women are permitted at these breakfasts—just men, with everything free and easy, plenty to smoke, separate tables, but each large enough so that there's always room at any one of them for one more who might otherwise be uncomfortable. Even now we have from fifteen to twenty men—among them the very best in Washington. In the season we'll have thirty and forty, and our house will be a regular club from nine to eleven for just the right men.
My other big feature is an informal dance every Wednesday night. It's already as great a success in its way as the breakfasts are in theirs. I've been rather careful about whom I let Mrs. Burke invite to come in on Wednesdays whenever they like. The result is that everybody is pleased; the affairs seem to be "exclusive," yet are not. I know it will do the Burkes a world of good politically, because a certain kind of people who are important politically but have had no chance socially are coming to us on Wednesdays, and that's just the kind of people who are frantically flattered by the idea that they are "in the push."
Speaking of being "in the push," there are two ways of getting there if one isn't there. One is to worm your way in; the other is to make yourself the head and front of "the push." That's the way for those who have money and know how. And that's the way the Burkes are getting in—getting in at the front instead of at the rear.
It's most gratifying to see how Mr. Burke treats me. He always has been deferential, but he now shows that he thinks I have real brains. And since his breakfasts have become the talk of the town and are "patronized" by the men he's so eager to get hold of, he is even consulting me about his business. I am criticizing for him now a speech he's going to make on the canal question next month—a dreadfully dull speech, and I don't feel competent to tell him what to do with it. I think I'll advise him not to make it, tell him his forte is diplomacy—winning men round by personal dealing with them—which is the truth.
Young Mr. Burke—after a period of unbending—is now shyer than ever. I wondered why, until it happened to occur to me one day as I was talking with Jessie. I suddenly said to her: "Jessie, did you ever tell Nadeshda that you had planned to marry me to Cyrus Burke?"
She hopped about in her chair a bit, as uneasy as a bird on a swaying perch. Then she confessed that she "might have suggested before Nadeshda what a delightfully satisfactory thing it would be."
I laughed to relieve her mind—also because it amused me to see through Nadeshda.
Of course, one of the women I needed most in this Burke campaign was Nadeshda. And I happened to know that she is bent on marrying a rich American—indeed, that's the only reason why the wilds of America are favored with the presence of the beautiful, joy-loving, courted and adored Baroness Nadeshda Daragane. The yarn about her sister, the ambassadress, being an invalid and shrinking from the heavy social responsibilities of the embassy is just so much trash. So, as soon as "Cyrus" came I went over to see her, and, as diplomatically as I knew how, displayed before her dazzled eyes the substantial advantages of the sole heir of the great Western multi-millionaire.
As I went on to tell how generous the Senator is, and how certain he would be to lavish wealth upon his daughter-in-law, I could see her mind at work. A fascinating, naughty, treacherous little mind it is—like a small Swiss watch of the rarest workmanship and full of wheels within wheels. And she's a beautiful little creature, as warm as a tropical sun to look at, and about as cold as the Arctic regions to deal with. No, I haven't begun to describe her. I'd not be surprised to hear that she had eloped with her brother-in-law's coachman; nor should I be surprised to hear that she had married the most hideous, revolting man in the world for his money, and was suspected of being engaged in trying to hasten him off to the grave. She's of the queer sort that would kiss or kill with equal enthusiasm, capable of almost any virtue or vice—on impulse. If there's any part of her beneath the impulsive part it's solid ice in a frame of steel. But—is there? She's talked about a good deal—not a tenth enough to satisfy her craving for notoriety, and, I may add, not a tenth part so much as she deserves to be, and would be if we studied character on this side of the water instead of being too busy with ourselves to look beyond anybody else's surface.