"Thank you," he said slowly, "it will not be possible. I've an assignment at the White House for that evening."
He turned abruptly and left them.
[CHAPTER II]
[JANGLING VOICES]
The roar of the Inauguration passed, and Washington was itself again—an old-fashioned Southern town of sixty thousand inhabitants, no longer asleep perhaps, but still aristocratic, skeptical, sneering in its attitude toward the new administration.
Behind the scenes in his Cabinet reigned confusion incredible. The tall dark backwoodsman who presided over these wrangling giants appeared at first to their superior wisdom a dazed spectator.
He had called them because they were indispensable. Now that the issues were to be faced, Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, Mr. Cameron and Mr. Bates realized that the country lawyer who had won the Presidency over their superior claims knew his weakness and relied on their strength, training, and long experience in public affairs.
Certainly it had not occurred to one of them that his act in calling the greatest men of his party, and the party of opposition as well, into his Cabinet was a deed of such intellectual audacity that it scarcely had a parallel in history.
Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, had reluctantly consented to enter the Cabinet at the last moment as an act of patriotism to save the country from impending ruin too great for any other man to face. His attitude was a reasonable one. He was the undoubted leader of the triumphant party.