Meanwhile their hostess loved the fair offender, and aided and abetted her in her wild sallies. Martha O’Neal was an old, old woman, the widow of a famous and wealthy jurist, and she was herself famous as a hostess and a social leader. Her eyes were still bright and keen, though her hair was white as snow; she knew everybody, everybody knew her; a worldly old woman who pursued society with the eagerness of a young débutante, played bridge for high stakes, smoked cigarettes in an exquisite holder of gold and amber, hurried to receptions, balls and routs with a tottering gait and a slightly vibrating head; a woman of large knowledge of the world, shrewd political partisanship and, withal, an eager and determined Romanist. Her dinners were famous; no more than ten ever sat down at her table, and usually five or six was the limit; she believed in conversation, not in isolated pairs. She had a service of gold, she would have no lights but candles. Huge candelabra were set in niches in her walls and on her table; her cut glass was famous, her roses the rarest money could purchase, yet nothing was lavish, nothing glaring or vulgar or new. The flavor of her old wine was as famous as the subdued taste of her surroundings; in a season of display and a city where riches are ostentatious, her drawing-room had the effect of space and repose, there was no crowding of useless and glittering furniture, no blaze of gold, no medley of bric-à-brac and sculpture. What she possessed represented the expenditure of a small fortune; for the rest, her beautiful mahogany, her rare silver were inherited.
The old woman, with the keen perception of long social training, had discovered all Margaret’s gifts as an entertainer, and her occasional outbreaks—as the famous dance and other not less bizarre performances—only gave her an additional value as an element of the unexpected. Mrs. O’Neal, therefore, rarely gave a dinner without asking Margaret, though she included Margaret’s husband with a grimace and a shrug. To-night she was delighted with her guest’s gayety, her wit, her endless vivacity, and she watched her across the wide table with some curiosity, much too keen not to observe the haggard misery which Margaret tried in vain to hide. The dark, Italian face of the delegate, the broad heaviness of White, who wore a perturbed frown, the keen, fine lines of the Spanish ambassador, the placid commonplace fairness of the ambassadress, the vivid coloring of Lily Osborne, the thin, ascetic face and keen eyes of the cardinal were all in sharp contrast to the pale face, the shadowy hair, the brilliant eyes of Margaret White. Mrs. O’Neal, watching her, wondered and was amused.
The dinner was a splendid affair, the delegate talked with the smooth ease, the habitual guarded courtesy of the Italian churchman, the ambassador was genial and responsive, the cardinal said little, throwing in a word now and then, but a word which set the ball rolling, and Margaret never failed. She had never appeared so witty, so sweet, so dangerously amiable.
It was over at last, the cardinal leaving early, and as he rose to depart, the women present being all ardent Catholics except Margaret, rustled forward to kneel and kiss his ring, while Mrs. O’Neal, following the old custom abroad, had bidden her footmen bring the candles, and the Romanists present were gathered at the head of the stairs to light his eminence to the door.
There was a little pause, and Margaret, a slender, white-robed figure, her shoulders veiled in a diaphanous black scarf, came forward to bid the cardinal farewell. White, who stood apart uneasy and conventional in the midst of the dramatic little scene, turned in time to see her kneel devoutly and kiss his eminence’s ring.
They drove home early through the lighted streets and neither spoke a word during the short drive to their own door. The footman helped Margaret with her wraps and attended her up the steps; White had entered ahead of her, and when the servants were gone and she had crossed the hall to the stairs he called her. She turned, with one foot on the lowest step and her hand on the balustrade, and seeing the deep flush on his heavy face she smiled a little with a slightly scornful shrug.
He looked across at her with an expression of savage anger, ill-suppressed. “Your conduct passes all patience!” he said bitterly, controlling himself with an effort; “you know where I stand, that I want to be President, and you flaunt your defiance!”
She returned his look, her head thrown back, her eyelids drooping, the delicate hollows in her cheeks apparent in the half light. “Pray, what is it now?” she asked provokingly.
He gnawed his lip, the cords standing out again on his forehead. “You know,” he said in a low voice, “you make yourself ridiculous by kissing the cardinal’s ring! I don’t care a damn for your religion, but I do care for the Protestant vote; they’ll have this in the papers!”