"True again, sir!" said the leader, recognizing the force of the murmur which greeted this outburst. "It is not any of these powers that I fear. They might bluster, and still not fight; and indeed they lack any rational cause for war. But what I fear, what all of us fear, gentlemen, is the danger here, inside our own walls, inside our own country."
Silence again fell on all. They looked about them, as though even in this dimly lighted room they felt the presence of that ominous shadow which lay over all the land—the menace of a divided country.
"That is the dread of all of us," went on the leader. "The war with Mexico showed us where England stands. She proved herself once more our ancient enemy, showed that her chief desire is to break this republic. Before that war, and after it, she has cultivated a friendship with the South. Why? Now let the abolitionist bring on this outbreak which he covets, let the North and South fly at each other's throats, let the contending powers of Europe cross the seas to quarrel over the spoils of our own destruction—and what then will be left of this republic? And yet, if this compromise between North and South be broken as all Europe desires, and as all the North threatens, precisely those matters will come hurrying upon us. And they will find us divided, incapable of resistance. That is the volcano, the magazine, over which we dwell continually. It passes politics, and puts us as patriots upon the question of the endurance of our republic.
"And I tell you now, gentlemen," he concluded, "as you know very well yourselves, that this woman, here in Washington, would hold the match ready to apply to that magazine. Which of you does not see its glimmering? Which of you doubts her readiness? There was not twenty-four hours to argue the matter of her—her temporary absence. We'd have had Austria all about our ears, otherwise. Gentlemen, I am mild as any, and most of any I am sworn to obey the laws, and to guarantee the safeguards of the Constitution; but I say to you—" and here his hand came down with an emphasis unusual in his nature—"law or no law, Constitution or no Constitution, an exigency existed under which she had to leave Washington, and that upon that very night."
"But where is she now?" ventured another voice. "This young army captain simply says in his report that he left her on the Mount Vernon packet, en route down the Ohio. Where is she now; and how long before she will be back here, match in hand?"
"It is the old, old case of Eve!" sighed one, who leaned a bony arm upon the walnut, and who spoke in the soft accents which proclaimed him of the South. "Woman! It is only the old Garden over again. Trouble, thy name is Woman!"
"And specifically, its name is Josephine, Countess St. Auban!" drawled another, opposite. A smile went around among these grave and dignified men; indeed, a light laugh sounded somewhere in the shadow. The face of the leader relaxed, though not sufficiently to allow light comment. The dark man at the right spoke.
"The great Napoleon was right," said he. "He never ceased to prove how much he dreaded woman at any juncture of public affairs. Indeed, he said that all the public places of the government should be closed to them, that they should be set apart and distinguished from the managers of affairs."
"And so do we say it!" broke in the leader. "With all my heart, I say it."
The tall man bowed, "It was the idea of Napoleon that woman should be distinguished always by a veil and gown, a uniform of unworthiness and of danger. True, Napoleon based his ideas on his studies in the Orient. Us he accused of treating woman much too well. He declared woman, by virtue of her birth, to be made as man's inferior and his slave, and would tolerate no other construction of the relation of the sexes. According to Napoleon, women tyrannize over us Americans, whereas we should tyrannize over them. It was plain, in his conception, that the main province of woman is in making fools of men."