Through One Administration

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The color on Bertha's cheek faded a little, but her smile did not. She checked him with a gesture.

"Thank you," she said, "that will do! You are even better than Senator Planefield. My eyes are like stars—my dress is perfection! I myself am as brilliant as—as the chandelier! Really, there seems nothing left for me to do but to follow the President, who, as you said, has been good enough to take his leave and give us permission to retire." And she rose from her chair.

She made her adieus to Planefield, who bestowed upon Tredennis a sidelong scowl, thinking that it was he who was taking her away. It consoled him but little that she gave him her hand—in a most gracious farewell. He had been enjoying himself as he did not often enjoy himself, and the sight of the colonel's unresponsive countenance filled him with silent rage. It happened that it was not the first time, or even the second, that this gentleman had presented himself inopportunely.

"The devil take his grim airs!" was his cordial mental exclamation. "What does he mean by them, and what is he always turning up for when no one wants to see him?"

Something of this amiable sentiment was in his expression, but the colonel did not seem to see it; his countenance was as unmoved as ever when he led his charge away, her little hand resting on his arm. In truth, he was thinking of other things. Suddenly he had made up his mind that there was one effort he could make: that, if he could conquer himself and his own natural feeling of reluctance, he might speak to Bertha herself in such words as she would be willing to listen to and reflect upon. It seemed impossible to tell her all, but surely he might frame such an appeal as would have some small weight with her. It was not an easy thing to do. He must present himself to her in the rôle of an individual who, having no right to interfere with her actions, still took upon himself to do so; who spoke when it would have seemed better taste to be silent; who delivered homilies with the manner of one who thought himself faultless, and so privileged to preach and advise.

"But what of that?" he said, checking himself impatiently in the midst of these thoughts. "I am always thinking of myself, and of how I shall appear in her eyes! Am I a boy lover trying to please her, or a man who would spare and shield her? Let her think poorly of me if she chooses, if she will only listen and realize her danger when her anger is over."

The standard for his own conduct which he had set up was not low, it will be observed. All that he demanded of himself was utter freedom from all human weakness, and even liability to temptation; an unselfishness without blemish, a self-control without flaw; that he should bear his own generous anguish without the movement of a muscle; that he should wholly ignore the throbbing of his own wounds, remembering only the task he had set himself; that his watchfulness over himself should never falter, and his courage never be shaken. It was, perhaps, indicative of a certain degree of noble simplicity that he demanded this of himself, which he would have asked of no other human creature, and that at no time did the thought cross his mind that the thing he demanded was impossible of attainment. When he failed, as he knew he often did; when he found it difficult to efface himself utterly from his own thoughts and was guilty of the weakness of allowing himself to become a factor in them; when his unhappiness was stronger than himself; when he was stirred to resentment, or conscious of weariness, and the longing to utter some word which would betray him and ask for pity,—he never failed to condemn himself in bitterness of spirit as ignoble and unworthy.

"Let her be angry with me if she chooses," he thought now. "It is for me to say my say, and leave the rest to her—and I will try to say it kindly."

He would set aside the bitter feeling and resentment of her trifling which had beset him more than once during the evening; he would forget them, as it was but right and just that they should be forgotten. When he spoke, as they went up the staircase together, his tone was so kind that Bertha glanced up at him, and saw that his face had changed, and, though still grave, was kind, too. When she joined him after leaving the cloak-room, he spoke to her of her wrap again, and asked her to draw it more closely about her; when he helped her into the carriage, there was that in his light touch which brought back to her with more than its usual strength the familiar sense of quiet protection and support.