"A story has just leaked out that a stormy scene occurred in the Ways and Means Committee Room between our friend Montgomery and two members of the Committee whose names I won't mention. He openly accused them of accepting bribes from certain Trusts. It even is reported that they came to blows, but that is probably an exaggeration. We have had our sensation also. One of our fire-eaters accused—at the top of his voice—the entire Senate of bribery and corruption. He is new and will think better of us in time. Meanwhile he would amuse us if such things did not affect the dignity of the Senate with the outside world. Unfortunately we are obliged to accept whomsoever the people select to represent them, and can only possess our souls in patience till time and the Senate tone the raw ones down."
"Is he representative, that man? And those hysterical members of the House, whose speeches make me wonder if humour is really a national quality?"
"They are only too representative, unfortunately, but they are more hysterical than the average because they have the opportunity their constituents lack, of shouting in public. The House is America let loose. When a former private citizen belonging to the party out of power gets on his feet in it, he develops a species of hysteria for which there is no parallel in history. He seems to think that the louder he shouts and the more bad rhetoric he uses, the less will his party feel the stings of defeat. Some of them tone down and become conscientious and admirable legislators, but these are the few of natural largeness of mind. Party spirit, a magnificent thing at its best, warps and withers the little brain in the party out of power. But politics are out of place in this wilderness. There should be redskins and bows and arrows on all sides of us. I used to revel in Cooper's yarns, but I suppose you never have read them."
Betty shook her head. "When can you come up here to stay?"
"Probably not for a month yet. There will be a good deal more wrangling before the bill goes through. I don't like it in its present shape and don't expect to in its ultimate; neither do a good many of us. But I shall vote for it, because the country needs a high tariff, and anything will be better than nothing for the present. Later, the whole matter will be reopened and war waged on the Trusts."
"Sally says they have bought up the atmosphere."
"They may be said to have bought up several climates. I have spent a great many hours puzzling over that question, for they have put an end to the old days when young men could go into business with the hope of a progressive future. Now they are swallowed up at once, depersonalized, and the whole matter is one of the great questions affecting the future development of the Republic."
He was not looking at Betty; he was staring out on the lake. His eyes and mouth were hard again; he looked like a mere intellect, nothing more.
As Betty watched him, she experienced a sudden desire to put him back on the pedestal he had occupied in the first days of their acquaintance, and to worship him as an ideal and forget him as a man. That had been a period of intellectual days and quiet nights. And as he looked now, he seemed to ask no more of any woman.
But in a moment he had turned to her again with the smile and the peculiar concentration of gaze which made women forget he was a statesman.