Those who did not know Langdon intimately suggested that "this fellow ought to be 'taken care of.' What in God's name does he want? A committee chairmanship? An ambassadorship for some Mississippi charcoal burner? A couple of Federal judgeships for his friends? Well, whatever it is, give it to him and get him in with the rest of us!"
Again it was Peabody who had the deciding say.
"There's only one thing worse than a young reformer, and that's an old one," he laughed bitterly at a secret conclave at his apartment in the luxurious Louis Napoleon Hotel. "The young one thinks he is going to live and wants our future profits for himself. The old one thinks he's going to die, and he's sore at leaving so much graft behind him."
Heads and hearts thinking and throbbing together, Langdon and his secretary had learned to lean on each other, the young gaining inspiration from the old, the old gaining strength from the young. They loved each other, and, more than any love, they trusted one another. And Hope Georgia watched it all and rejoiced, for she believed with all the accrued erudition of eighteen years of innocent girlhood that Mr. Bud Haines was quite the finest specimen of young manhood this world had ever produced. How could he have happened? She was sure that she had never met his equal, not even in that memorable week she had spent in Jackson.
The passing weeks taught Haines that he was deeply in love with Carolina, and, though he had endeavored to keep the knowledge of this from her, her woman's intuition had told her his secret, and she stifled the momentary regrets that flitted into her mind, because she was now in "the game" herself, the Washington game, that ensnares the woman as well as the man and makes her a slave to its fancy. No one but herself and Norton knew how deeply she had "plunged" on a certain possible turn of the political cards. She must not, she could not, lose if life itself were to remain of value to her, and on her sway over this secretary she was told it all depended.
A subject that for some unexplained reason frequently lodged in Haines' mind was that of the apparent assiduity with which Mrs. Spangler cultivated Senator Langdon's friendship. For several years she had occupied a high social position at the capital, he well knew, but various indefinite, intangible rumors he had heard, he could not state exactly where, had made him regret her growing intimacy with the girls and with the Senator. They had met her through letters of introduction of the most trustworthy and assuring character from people of highest social rank in Virginia, where the Langdons had many friends; but even so, Haines realized, people who write introductory letters are sometimes thoughtless in considering all the circumstances of the parties they introduce, and residents of Virginia who had not been in the capital for years might be forgiven for not knowing of all the more recent developments in the lives of those they knew in Washington. While not wishing to have the Senator know of his intention, the secretary determined to investigate Mrs. Spangler and her present mode of life at his first opportunity, hoping the while that his quest would reveal her to be what the Langdons considered her—a widow of wealth, fashion and reserve who resided at the capital because the memories of her late husband, a former Congressman of high standing, were associated with it.
Calling at the Langdons' house one evening in February to receive directions regarding important work for the next day, Haines was somewhat puzzled at the peculiar smile on the Senator's face. Answering the secretary's look of inquiry, the Mississippian said:
"I've been told that I can name the new holder of a five-thousand-dollar-a-year position in the Department of Commerce and Labor, and that if I have no one in particular from my State to name—that—that you would be a good man for the job. First I was glad for your sake, my boy, for if you wanted it you could have the position. But on thinking it over it seemed there might be something behind it not showing on the surface."
"It's a trick," said Haines. "Who made the offer?"
"Senator Stevens."