"That, of course. I want him to enter the next Legislature."
Mr. Hacket had not decided that the desire expressed by the lady was his own, but he was shrewd enough to know that, crude as her ideas might be, and defective her knowledge of things political, she had the energy to attain her desire in the end, if seconded by the efforts of her candidate. He hated innovation, but he was aware that the Great Serpent held potentialities which he must not antagonize. It was not possible for him to be pleasing to Mrs. Joe, nor for her to be pleasing to him; but it was prudent to seem sympathetic. He essayed it, awkwardly enough.
"You know," he said, "your son is young and his only merit is money."
She flushed; but she knew he could not help being insolent in the presence of grace, comeliness and luxury, and all these were before him. "You mean it's the merit by which he's best known. Let it serve until others become apparent."
"It'll go far, but some it makes mad. I have an idea your son isn't over-warm in the matter."
"He didn't seem so. He wasn't aware that I am serious, and I said but little to him. Then the country was very new to him, and the people. He'd been long in Europe; his position was difficult." She had realized much more keenly than Mr. Hacket that Mark had only followed her urgency in that matter of making acquaintance because he had wished to please her. She was sure that there had been some hidden cause for indifference other than distaste for the task she had set him, and had brooded not a little over possibilities. But she was sanguine by nature; and since no love-tale had come to her ears (and she had her observers and reporters) she had concluded that, whatever the cause of his indifference, her son would become sufficiently ardent in the furtherance of her plans, when once they were more fully disclosed to him, and he had become aware that his mother had set her heart upon a political career for him. At present he probably regarded her wishes as merely a passing whim, and she knew that he was ignorant of her consultations with Mr. Hacket.
"Positions are apt to be difficult," observed the gentleman. "However, it's much too soon to discuss nominations. He'll have a year before him."
"He must have the Seminary," she said, "when the time comes."
"When the time comes," he echoed. He did not intend to commit himself, but he was becoming each moment more convinced that the lady knew her value and wished him to perceive the fact. It was equally evident that she duly appreciated his own; was, in fact, afraid of him, a pleasing assurance, which would have been yet more delightful if the gentleman, simultaneously with the recognition of this truth, had not also recognized a less agreeable fact, namely, that he was also afraid of her; sufficiently so to make it advisable that she understand he was not trifling with her. Such advice as he might give must seem reasonable, and must go beyond the suggestion of making acquaintances.
"You're working the Sem. all right," he said as graciously as he could. "Keep it up, but don't overdo it. How's Miss Achsah feel?"