Arbuthnot had dismounted, and was fastening his horse to the gate, and he replied by one of the gayest and most discriminatingly pitched of the invaluable laughs.
"It is no use," he said; "the professor does not believe in me. He refuses to recognize in me anything but hollow mockery."
Bertha went to him. There was something hurried in her movement; it was as if she was strangely, almost feverishly, glad to see him. She went to his horse's head and laid her hand on the creature's neck.
"That takes me back to Washington," she said: "to Washington. It was like you to come, and I am glad, but—you should have come a little sooner."
And, as she stood there, faintly smiling up at him, her hand was trembling like a leaf.
CHAPTER XXI.
It was New-Year's day, and His Excellency the President had had several months in which to endeavor to adjust himself to the exigencies of his position; though whether he had accomplished this with a result of entire satisfaction to himself and all parties concerned and unconcerned, had, perhaps unfortunately, not been a matter of record. According to a time-honored custom, he had been placed at the slight disadvantage of being called upon to receive, from time to time, the opinions of the nation concerning himself without the opportunity of expressing, with any degree of publicity, his own opinions regarding the nation; no bold spirit having as yet suggested that such a line of procedure might at least be embellished with the advantage of entire novelty, apart from the possibility of its calling forth such originality and force of statement as would present to the national mind questions never before discussed, and perhaps not wholly unimportant. All had, however, been done which could be done by a nation justly distinguished for its patriotic consideration for, and courtesy toward, the fortunate persons elevated to the position of representing its dignity at home and abroad. Nothing which could add to that dignity had been neglected; no effort which could place it in its proper light, and remove all difficulty from the pathway of the figure endeavoring creditably to support it, had been spared. The character of the successful candidate for presidential office having been, during the campaign, effectually disposed of,—his morals having been impugned, his honor rent to tatters, his intellectual capacity pronounced far below the lowest average,—united good feeling was the result, and there seemed little more to attain. His past had been exhausted. Every event of his political career and domestic life had been held up to public derision, laudation, and criticism. It had been successfully proved that his education had been entirely neglected, and that his advantages had been marvellous; that he had read Greek at the tender age of four years, and that he had not learned to read at all until he attained his majority; that his wife had taught him his letters, and that he had taught his wife to spell; that he was a liar, a forger, and a thief; that he was a model of virtue, probity, and honor,—each and all of which incontrovertible facts had been public property and a source of national pride and delight.
After the election, however, the fact that he had had a past at all had ceased to be of any moment whatever. A future—of four years—lay before him, and must be utilized; after that, the Deluge. The opposing party sneered, vilified, and vaunted themselves in the truth of their predictions concerning his incapacity; the non-opposing party advised, lauded, cautioned, mildly discouraged, and in a most human revulsion of feeling showed their unprejudiced frankness by openly condemning on frequent occasions. The head of the nation having appointed an official from among his immediate supporters, there arose a clamor of adverse criticism upon a course which lowered the gifts of his sacred office to the grade of mere payment for value received. Having made a choice from without the circle, he called down upon himself frantic accusations of ingratitude to those to whom he owed all. There lay before him the agreeable alternatives of being a renegade or a monument of bribery and corruption, and if occasionally these alternatives lost for a moment their attractiveness, and the head of the nation gave way to a sense of perplexity, and was guilty of forming in secret a vague wish that the head of the nation was on some other individual's shoulders, or even went to the length of wishing that the head upon his own shoulders was his own property, and not a football for the vivacious strength of the nation to expend itself upon,—if this occurred, though it is by no means likely, it certainly revealed a weakness of character and inadequacy to the situation which the nation could not have failed to condemn. The very reasonable prophecy,—made by the party whose candidate had not been elected,—that the government must inevitably go to destruction and the country to perdition, had, through some singular oversight on the part of the powers threatened, not been fulfilled. After waiting in breathless suspense for the occurrence of these catastrophes, and finding that they had apparently been postponed until the next election, the government had drawn a sigh of relief, and the country had gained courage to bestir itself cheerfully, with a view to such perquisites as might be obtained by active effort and a strong sense of general personal worthiness and fitness for any position.