"Ah," said he briefly, "then my message found you?"
"I was starting for you this moment, sir" I replied.
"Wait for a moment. I counted on finding you here. Matters have changed."
I turned with him and we entered again the East Room, where Mr. Tyler still prolonged the official greeting of the curious, the obsequious, or the banal persons who passed. Mr. Calhoun stood apart for a time, watching the progress of this purely American function. It was some time ere the groups thinned. This latter fact usually would have ended the reception, since it is not etiquette to suppose that the president can lack an audience; but to-day Mr. Tyler lingered. At last through the thinning throng he caught sight of the distinctive figure of Mr. Calhoun. For the first time his own face assumed a natural expression. He stopped the line for an instant, and with a raised hand beckoned to my chief.
At this we dropped in at the tail of the line, Mr. Calhoun in passing grasping almost as many hands as Mr. Tyler. When at length we reached the president's position, the latter greeted him and added a whispered word. An instant later he turned abruptly, ending the reception with a deep bow, and retired into the room from which he had earlier emerged.
Mr. Calhoun turned now to me with a request to follow him, and we passed through the door where the president had vanished. Directed by attendants, we were presently ushered into yet another room, which at that time served the president as his cabinet room, a place for meeting persons of distinction who called upon business.
As we entered I saw that it was already occupied. Mr. Tyler was grasping the hand of a portly personage, whom I knew to be none other than Mr. Pakenham. So much might have been expected. What was not to have been expected was the presence of another—none less than the Baroness von Ritz! For this latter there was no precedent, no conceivable explanation save some exigent emergency.
So we were apparently to understand that my lady was here as open friend of England! Of course, I needed no word from Mr. Calhoun to remind me that we must seem ignorant of this lady, of her character, and of her reputed relations with the British Foreign Office.
"I pray you be seated, Mr. Pakenham," said Mr. Tyler, and he gestured also to us others to take chairs near his table. Mr. Pakenham, in rather a lofty fashion, it seemed to me, obeyed the polite request, but scarcely had seated himself ere he again rose with an important clearing of his throat. He was one who never relished the democratic title of "Mr." accorded him by Mr. Tyler, whose plain and simple ways, not much different now from those of his plantation life, were in marked contrast to the ceremoniousness of the Van Buren administration, which Pakenham also had known.
"Your Excellency," said he, "her Majesty the Queen of England's wish is somewhat anticipated by my visit here to-day. I hasten only to put in the most prompt and friendly form her Majesty's desires, which I am sure formally will be expressed in the first mails from England. We deplore this most unhappy accident on your warship Princeton, which has come so near working irremediable injury to this country. Unofficially, I have ventured to make this personal visit under the flag of this enlightened Republic, and to the center of its official home, out of a friendship for Mr. Upshur, the late secretary of state, a friendship as sincere as is that of my own country for this Republic."