Betty had organized a picnic for the following day, inviting several acquaintances from the hotel; and they all drove to a favourite spot in the forest. Mrs. Madison's maid had charge of many cushions, and disposed her tiny mistress—who looked like a wood fairy in lilac mull—comfortably on a bed of pine needles. Major Carter felt young once more as he grilled steaks at a camp-fire, and Harriet enchanted him with her rapt attention while his memory rioted in deeds of war.
Senator Burleigh had never appeared so well, Betty thought. There was an out-of-door atmosphere about him at any time; no doubt he had been a mighty wind in the Senate more than once during the stormy passage of the Tariff Bill; but with all out-doors around him he looked nothing less than a mountain king. His large well-knit frame, full of strength and energy, was at its triumphant best in outing tweeds and Scotch stockings; his fair handsome face was boyish, despite its almost fierce determination, as he pranced about, intoxicated with the mountain air.
"If you ever had spent one summer in Washington, you would understand," he said to Betty. "This is where I'd like to spend the rest of my life. I'd like to think I'd never see a city or the inside of a house again."
"Then you'd probably hew down the forest, which would be a loss to the State: you would have to do something with your superfluous energy. And what would you do with your brain? Mere reading, when your arm ached from chopping, never would content you."
"No, that is the worst of civilization. It either produces discontented savages like myself or goes too far and turns the whole body into brain. I have managed to get a sort of steam-engine into my head which gives me little rest and would wear out my body if I didn't happen to have the constitution of a buffalo. But I doubt if I shall be what North is, sixteen years hence. That man is the best example of equilibrium I have ever seen. His mental activity is enormous, but his control over himself is so absolute that he never wastes an ounce of force. I've seen him look as fresh at the end of a long day of debate as he was when he got on his feet. He never lets go of himself for a moment."
That was the only time Betty heard Senator North's name mentioned during Burleigh's visit, for the younger man was much more interested in himself and the object of his holiday.
"I think if it hadn't been for this Extra Session I should have followed you to California," he said abruptly. "I didn't know how much I depended for my entire happiness upon my frequent visits to your house until I came back after the short vacation and found you gone."
"It would have been jolly to have had you in California. But you must feel that your time has not been thrown away. Are you satisfied with the Tariff Bill?"
"I liked it fairly well as we re-wrote it, but I don't expect to care much about it after it comes out of conference. But there are no politics in the Adirondacks, and when a weary Senator is looking at a woman in a pale green muslin—"
"You look anything but weary. I expect you will tramp over half the Adirondacks before you go back. And I am sure you will eat one of those beefsteaks. Come, they are ready."