"Ah, this is the youthful enthusiasm of the Senate," thought Betty. "And I have been accustomed to think of forty-five as quite elderly. I feel a mere infant and shall not call myself an old maid till I'm fifty." She smiled approvingly into the Senator's illuminated face, and he plunged at once into details, including the entire history of Spanish colonial misrule. The history was told in head-lines, so to speak, but it was graphic and convincing. Betty nodded encouragingly and asked an occasional intelligent question. She knew the history of Spain as thoroughly as he did, but she would not have told him so for the world. It is only the woman with a certain masculine fibre in her brain who ever really understands men, and when these women have coquetry also, they convince the sex born to admire that they are even more feminine than their weaker sisters. When Senator Burleigh finished, Betty thanked him so graciously and earnestly, with such lively pleasure in her limpid hazel eyes, that he raised his glass impulsively and touched it to hers.
"You must have a salon" he exclaimed. "We need one in Washington, and it would do us incalculable good. Only you could accomplish it: you not only have beauty and brains—and tact?—but you are so apart that you can pick and choose without fear of giving offence. And you are not blas? of the subject like Congressmen's wives, nor has the wild rush and wear and tear of official society chopped up your individuality into a hundred little bits. It would be brutal to mention politics to a woman in political life, and consequently we feel as if no one takes any interest in us unless she has an axe to grind. But you are what we all have been waiting for I feel sure of that! Let it be understood that no mere politician, no man who bought his legislature or is under suspicion in regard to any Trust, can enter your doors. Of course you will have to study the whole question thoroughly; and mind, I am to be your instructor-in-chief."
Betty laughed and thanked him, wondering how well he understood her. He looked like a man who would waste no time on the study of woman's subtleties: he knew what he wanted, and recognized the desired qualities at once, but by a strong masculine instinct, not by analysis.
A few moments later the women went into the drawing-room, and the conversation for the next half-hour was a languid babble of politics, dress, New York, the lady of the White House, and the play. Betty thought the women very nice, but less interesting than the men, possibly because they were women. They certainly looked more intelligent than the average one sat with during the trying half-hour after dinner; but their conversation was fragmentary, and they oddly suggested having left their personality at home and taken their shell out to dinner. Betty also was interested to observe that their composite expression was a curious mingling of fatigue, unselfishness, and peremptoriness. "What does it mean?" she asked of Lady Mary, with whom she stood apart for a moment.
"Oh, they are worked to death,—paying calls, entertaining, receiving people on all sorts of business, and helping their husbands in various ways. They have no time to be selfish,—rich or poor,—and they have acquired the art of disposing of bores and detrimentals in short order. Even their own sort they pass on much in the fashion of royalty. How do you like Senator Burleigh?"
"I never learned so much in two hours in my life. My head feels like a beehive."
"I never saw him quite so devoted."
"I thought you were occupied with Senator North."
"I was, but my eyes and ears understand each other. He wants to meet you after dinner. He knows all about you."
"He has been pointed out to me, but in those days when I was only interested in possible partners for the German. I do not recall him."