“Miss Baldwin’s was the last I went to—but there were plenty of others!”
Ambassadors are not supposed to laugh—but at this, the British Ambassador abandoned all hope of keeping serious. Constance was laughing frankly, Thorndyke was in quiet convulsions, Castlestuart-Stuart and Senator Mulligan were exchanging sympathetic grins—and then Eleanor Baldwin said, with the air of an offended queen:
“Papa, give me your arm.”
This Mr. James Brentwood Baldwin, with a heightened colour, did, but not before Senator Mulligan genially remarked:
“Well, the best of frinds must part, so here’s good-bye and good-luck to ye, Jim Baldwin, and I’ll say to you, Miss Baldwin, I hope ye’ll live and die as honest as ould Danny Hogan, your grandfather, and a better man never stepped in shoe-leather;” and then, turning to Mrs. Hill-Smith, Senator Mulligan continued, “I commind to you the example of your grandfather, Cap’n Josh Slater, that I had the honour of knowin’ and who always got what he wanted, and was an agreeable man enough barrin’ the bad tobacco and mean whiskey. But in the polite society in which we find oursilves, in these dazzlin’ halls of light an’ scenes of pothry an’ splendour, both Cap’n Josh Slater an’ good ould Danny Hogan wud be about as much at home as a ham sandwich at a Jew picnic!”
With these words, Senator Mince Pie Mulligan bowed himself off, leaving a great trail of social devastation behind him.
Chapter Ten
THERE ARE MEN WHO CAN RESIST EVERYTHING EXCEPT TEMPTATION
Congress adjourned on the 15th of June, just two months after it was convened in extra session. Thorndyke’s apprehensions had been confirmed. Few legislative follies had been committed—the House had gone with the people, leaving to the Senate and the Administration the disagreeable task of stemming the popular tide as far as possible, when it rushed on too fast. No reputations had been damaged in either House, and several had been made—but none to equal Julian Crane’s. As for Thorndyke, the newspapers seemed to have forgotten his existence.
By the time adjournment was reached, Washington was deserted. The class which is designated as “everybody” was either going or gone. The outgoing steamers carried half the town across the ocean. Thorndyke had promised himself a treat—a trip to Europe that year—the first since that long-remembered one which had settled his fate in some particulars for him. It was the first time in years that he felt he could afford it, for he was a free-handed man, generous to his invalid sister, not averse to lending money when he had it, and fond of giving presents. To do this on his Congressional salary did not leave much surplus. This summer, however, he concluded he could take a three months’ trip. Constance Maitland’s return had not changed his determination, because he felt that he could not, in decency, follow her wherever her summer wanderings might take her; and if he could not be with her, he would rather, just then, be in Europe.
But one word from Constance, on the afternoon when he went to bid her farewell, changed all this in the twinkling of an eye.