"By Jove," he said, "it's even more gorgeous than usual. And did you ever see so many flowers outside of a conservatory?"
The room was a bower of violets and lilies of the valley. The mantelpiece was obliterated, the table looked like a garden, and great bunches of the flowers swung from the ceiling. As what could be seen of the room was green and gold, the effect was very beautiful. The lights were pink, and in this room Mrs. Fonda defied Time and looked so wholly attractive that it was not difficult to fancy her the cause of another war, albeit not its Helen.
But much to Betty's disappointment the conversation, which was always general when that radiant hostess presided, soon wandered from the suffering Cuban and fixed itself interminably about a certain measure which had been agitating Congress for the last four years. It was a measure which demanded an immense appropriation, and so far Senator North had kept it from passing the upper chamber; it was generally understood that it would fare still worse at the hands of the Speaker, did it ever reach the House. These two intractable gentlemen had evidently not been bidden to the feast; but three of the Senators, Betty suddenly observed, were members of the Select Committee for the measure under discussion.
Five courses had come and gone, and still the conversation raged along a tiresome bill that happened to be Betty's pet abomination, the only subject discussed in the Senate that bored her. Mrs. Fonda, in the brightest, most impersonal way, defended the unpopular measure, pointing out the immense advantage the country at large must derive from the success of the bill, and, while appealing to the statesmen gathered at her board to set her right when she made mistakes,—she couldn't be expected to keep up with every bill while her head was full of Cuba,—assailed the weak points in those statesmen's arguments.
"I'm bored to death," muttered Betty, finally. "I wish I hadn't come.
You won't talk to me and I can't eat any more."
Burleigh turned to her at once. "I've merely been watching her game," he whispered. "Now, I'm nearly sure."
"What?" asked Betty, interested at once.
"She has given a dinner a week this winter, and there is a rumour that she is spending the money of the syndicate interested in this much desired appropriation. Heretofore, when I have been here, at least, although she has always graciously permitted the subject to come up and has delivered herself of a few trenchant and memorable remarks, this is the first time she has deliberately made it run through an entire dinner; every attempt to turn the conversation has been a sham. She's in the ring for votes, there's no further doubt in my mind on that subject; and she's getting desperate, as it is so near the end of the session."
"Then she is a lobbyist," said Betty, in a tone of deep disgust, and pushing away her plate.
"'Sh! She is too clever to have got herself called that. She has very successfully made the world believe that the great game alone interests her; there never has been a more subtle woman in Washington. During the last two years there has been one of those vague rumours going about that she has lost heavily through certain investments; but one hasn't much time for gossip in Washington, and it is only lately that this other rumour has been in the wind. How long she has been doing this sort of thing, of course no one knows."