Selma bit her lip. She recognized the death-knell of her cherished expectations. She was not prepared to acknowledge formally her discomfiture and her disappointment. But she believed that Mr. Elton, though a plain man, had comprehensive experience and that he spoke with shrewd knowledge of the situation. She felt sure that he was not trying to deceive or humiliate her. It was clear that Washington was contaminated also.
"I dare say I should get on here well enough after a time, though I should find difficulty in considering that it was right to give so much time to merely social matters. But Mr. Lyons and I have already decided that I can be more use to him at present in Benham. There I feel at home. I am known, and have my friends, and there I have important work—literary lectures and the establishment of a large public hospital under way. If the time comes, as you kindly predict, that my husband is chosen a United States Senator, I shall be glad to return here and accept the responsibilities of our position. But I warn you, Mr. Elton,—I warn the people of Washington," she added with a wave of her fan, while her eyes sparkled with a stern light "that when I am one of their leaders, I shall do away with some of the—er—false customs of the present administration. I shall insist on preserving our American social traditions inviolate."
Here was the grain of consolation in the case, which she clutched at and held up before her mind's eye as a new stimulus to her patriotism and her conscience. Both Mr. Elton and Flossy had indicated that there was a point at which exclusiveness was compelled to stop in its haughty disregard of democratic ideals. There were certain women whom the people who worshipped lack of enthusiasm and made an idol of cynicism were obliged to heed and recognize. They might be able to ignore the intelligence and social originality of a Congressman's wife, but they dared not turn a cold shoulder on the wife of a United States Senator. And if a woman—if she were to occupy this proud position, what a satisfaction it would be to assert the power which belonged to it; assert it in behalf of the cause for which she had suffered so much! Her disappointment tasted bitterly in her mouth, and she was conscious of stern revolt; but the new hope had already taken possession of her fancy, and she hastened to prove it by the ethical standard without which all hopes were valueless to her. Even now had anyone told her that the ruling passion of her life was to be wooed and made much of by the very people she professed to despise, she would have spurned the accuser as a malicious slanderer. Nor indeed would it have been wholly true. Mrs. Williams had practically told her this at their last meeting in New York, and its utterance had convinced her on the contrary of repugnance to them, and of her desire to be the leader of a social protest against them. Now here, in Washington of all places, she was confronted by the bitter suggestion that she was without allies, and that her enemies were the keepers of the door which led to leadership and power. Despondency stared her in the face, but a splendid possibility—aye probability was left. She would not forsake her principles. She would not lower her flag. She would return to Benham. Washington refused her homage now, but it should listen to her and bow before her some day as the wife of one of the real leaders of the State, whom Society did not dare to ignore.
CHAPTER VII.
At the close of the fortnight of her stay in Washington subsequent to the reception at the White House, Selma found herself in the same frame of mind as when she parted from Mr. Elton. During this fortnight her time was spent either in sight seeing or at the hotel. The exercises at the Capitol were purely formal, preliminary to a speedy adjournment of Congress. Consequently her husband had no opportunity to distinguish himself by addressing the house. Of Flossy she saw nothing, though the two men had several meetings. Apparently both Lyons and Williams were content with a surface reconciliation between their wives which did not bar family intercourse. At least her husband made no suggestion that she should call on Mrs. Williams, and Flossy's cards did not appear. Beyond making the acquaintance of a few more wives and daughters in the hotel, who seemed as solitary as herself, Selma received no overtures from her own sex. She knew no one, and no one sought her out or paid her attention. She still saw fit to believe that if she were to establish herself in Washington and devote her energies to rallying these wives and daughters about her, she might be able to prove that Flossy and Mr. Elton were mistaken. But she realized that the task would be less simple than she had anticipated. Besides she yearned to return to Benham, and take up again the thread of active life there. Benham would vindicate her, and some day Benham would send her back to Washington to claim recognition and her rightful place.
Lyons himself was in a cheerful mood and found congenial occupation in visiting with his wife the many historical objects of interest, and in chatting in various hotel corridors with the public men of the country, his associates in Congress. His solicitude in regard to the account which Williams was carrying for him had been relieved temporarily by an upward turn in the stock market, and the impending prompt adjournment of Congress had saved him from the necessity of taking action in regard to the railroad bill which Williams had solicited him to support. Moreover Selma had repeated to him Horace Elton's prophecy that it was not unlikely that some day he would become Senator. To be sure he recognized that a remark like this uttered to a pretty woman by an astute man of affairs such as Elton was not to be taken too seriously. There was no vacancy in the office of Senator from his state, and none was likely to occur. At the present time, if one should occur, his party in the state legislature was in a minority. Hence prophecy was obviously a random proceeding. Nevertheless he was greatly pleased, for, after all, Elton would scarcely have made the speech had he not been genuinely well disposed. A senatorship was one of the great prizes of political life, and one of the noblest positions in the world. It would afford him a golden opportunity to leave the impress of his convictions on national legislation, and defend the liberties of the people by force of the oratorical gifts which he possessed. Elton had referred to these gifts in complimentary terms. Was it not reasonable to infer that Elton would be inclined to promote his political fortunes? Such an ally would be invaluable, for Elton was a growing power in the industrial development of the section of the country where they both lived. He had continued to find him friendly in spite of his own antagonism on the public platform to corporate power. A favorite and conscientious hope in his political outlook was that he might be able to make capital as well as labor believe him to be a friend without alienating either; that he might obtain support at the polls from both factions, and thus be left free after election to work out for their mutual advantage appropriate legislation. He had avowed himself unmistakably the champion of popular principles in order to win the confidence of the common people, but his policy of reasonable conciliation led him to cast sheep's eyes at vested interests when he could do so without exposing himself to the charge of inconsistency. Many of his friends were wealthy men, and his private ambition was to amass a handsome fortune. That had been the cause of his speculative ventures in local enterprises which promised large returns, and in the stock market. Horace Elton was a friend of but three years' standing; one of the men who had consulted him occasionally in regard to legal matters since he had become a corporation attorney. He admired Elton's strong, far-reaching grasp of business affairs, his capacity to formulate and incubate on plans of magnitude without betraying a sign of his intentions, and his power to act with lightning despatch and overwhelming vigor when the moment for the consummation of his purposes arrived. He also found agreeable Elton's genial, easy-going ways outside of business hours, which frequently took the form of social entertainment at which expense seemed to be no consideration and gastronomic novelties were apt to be presented. Lyons attended one of these private banquets while in Washington—a dinner party served to a carefully chosen company of public men, to which newspaper scribes were unable to penetrate. This same genial, easy-going tendency of Elton's to make himself acceptable to those with whom he came in contact took the form of a gift to Mrs. Lyons of a handsome cameo pin which he presented to her a day or two after their dialogue at the President's reception, and for which, as he confidentially informed Selma, he had been seeking a suitable wearer ever since he had picked it up in an out-of-the-way store in Brussels the previous summer.
On the day of their departure Selma, as she took a last look from the car window at the Capitol and the Washington Monument, said to her husband: "This is a beautiful city—worthy in many respects of the genius of the American people—but I never wish to return to Washington until you are United States Senator."
"Would you not be satisfied with Justice of the Supreme Court?" asked Lyons, gayly.
"I should prefer Senator. If you were Senator, you could probably be appointed to the Supreme Court in case you preferred that place. I am relying on you, James, to bring me back here some day."
She whispered this in his ear, as they sat with heads close together looking back at the swiftly receding city. Selma's hands were clasped in her lap, and she seemed to her lover to have a dreamy air—an air suggesting poetry and high ethical resolve such as he liked to associate with her and their scheme of wedded life. It pleased him that his wife should feel so confident that the future had in store for him this great prize, and he allowed himself to yield to the pathos of the moment and whisper in reply: