On the following evening she went with the Montgomerys to the Army and Navy reception at the White House. Lady Mary had but to express a wish for a card to any function in Washington; and her popularity had much to do with her love for her adopted country.
It was the first time Betty ever had entered the historic mansion, and as she waited for twenty minutes in the crush of people on the front porch, she reflected that probably it was the last.
But when she was in the great East Room, which was hung with flags and glittered with uniforms, and was filled with the strains of martial music, she thrilled again with the historical sense, and almost wished there was a prospect of a war which would compel her to patriotic excitement.
They remained in the East Room for some time before going to shake hands with the President, that the long queue of people patiently crawling to the Blue Room might have time to wear itself down to a point. As Betty stood there eagerly watching the scene, and talking to first one and then another of the Army men who came up to speak to her, she became deeply impressed with the fact that this was the calmest function she had attended in Washington during the winter. There was no excitement on the faces of these men in uniform, and they said little and hardly mentioned the subject of war. They looked stern and thoughtful; and Betty felt proud of them, and wished they were doing themselves honour in a better cause.
She went down the long central corridor after a time, past the crowd wedged before the central door, gaping at the receiving party, to a room where she and the Montgomerys joined the diminished queue extending from a side entrance to the Blue Room. She was not surprised to see Mrs. Mudd in front of her, for although the Representative's wife should have received a card for another evening, she was quite capable of forcing her way in without one; as doubtless a good many others had done to-night. She wore her black silk gown and her bonnet, and although most of the women present were in brilliant evening dress, Mrs. Mudd had several to keep her in countenance. She glanced wearily over her shoulder during the slow progress of the queue, and caught sight of Betty. Her place was precious, but she left it at once and came down the line.
"I'll go in along with you," she said. "George couldn't come and I've felt kinder lonesome ever sense I got here. And we've been three quarters of an hour getting this far. It's terrible tiresome, but as I've found you I guess I can stand the rest of it."
Betty detected the flicker of malice in her former housekeeper's voice. They were on equal ground for once, and Miss Madison and Mrs. Mudd would shake hands with their President within consecutive moments. She smiled with some cynicism, but was too good-natured to snub the native ambition where it could do no harm.
"I saw Senator North to-day," observed Mrs. Mudd, "and he looked crosser 'n two sticks. He's mad because they'll have war in spite of him. I call him right down unpatriotic, and so do lots of others."
"That disturbs him a great deal. He is much more concerned about the country making a fool of itself."
"This country's all right, and we couldn't go wrong if we tried. Them that sets themselves up to be so terrible superior are just bad Americans, that's the long and the short of it, and they'll find it out at the next elections. If Senator North should take a trip out West just now, they'd tar and feather him, and I'd like to be there to see it done. They can't say what they think of his setting on patriotic Senators loud enough. And as for the President—"