Like any other sufferer from intoxicants he had his periods of depression. In such moments he felt that his marriage was a mockery, that Helen was not his, would never be his, could never be his. Long odds were against his getting his commission—even if the President signed it the Senate would never confirm it. The fight would be too long, and the issue hopeless—he could not win—his colour was too great a handicap—curse it! A negro,—yes, a negro—and white men so insufferably unjust to a negro—curse them all!—curse the whole white-faced race!—save only her—she was his—yes, she was his—his by love and law—they could not take her from him, and he would have her yet despite the whine of all the purblind, race-proud Senators who might oppose his confirmation—curse them all! curse them all!!
Such moods were happily intermittent. Again he was himself—a man among men—already a winner—the crowned king of Helen's heart—the President's son-in-law. Away with doubt! To whom so much had come with ease everything would come with effort. Confidence uplifted him.
* * * * *
Helen's début was an event of note. No need for her to be the President's daughter to make it so. Her sensational beauty needed not the stamp of official rank to give it currency, nor the sparkle of her manner and speech any studied purpose to give them vogue. Dominion came to her by divine right of beauty and wit and ingenuous girlish honesty.
In the stately East Room, dressed but not over-dressed for that occasion in palms and ferns and flowers, beside her mother for two hours she stood, the fairest, loveliest flower that ever graced that historic hall, and received the new world which came to take her to itself. Gowned in simplicity and maiden white—with the flush of unaffected joy in her cheeks and the sparkle of genuine youth in her gray eyes—with the splash of October sunsets in her dark hair—with a skin white and clear as purity, but shot through with the evanescent glows and tints of health—with neck, shoulders and arms rising from her gown like a half-opened lily from its calyx—lissome and graceful indeed as a lily-stem—virginal freshness in mind, manner and person: she was a May-day morning.
"My dear," said Senator Ruffin as he bowed low over her hand, "may an old man who admired your grandmother in her youth presume to express the extravagant wish that you may be as happy as you are beautiful!"
"And may a young man," said Senator Rutledge, close following Mr. Ruffin, "who has the orthodox faith that perfect happiness is found only in heaven, express the hope that the full consummation of Senator Ruffin's wishes for you may be long delayed?"
"And may you both live to repent of trying to turn a young girl's head," Helen replied, making them a curtsey.
"Once on a time I warned you against the day when such speeches would be made to you," said Rutledge, "and you have grown even more astonishingly into the danger than the eye of prophecy could perceive. I warn you again. Senator Ruffin spoke only the words of soberness, as befits his age and station, but wait you till ardent youth tells you what it thinks—and you will have to hold your head on straight with your hands: and—which dances may I have?"
"You unblushing bribe-giver!" said Helen. "But you are just in time. I've only one left if I've counted them right,—the very last. Why did you come so late? The very last man. Listen, the clocks are striking eleven."