University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

IN these days, Olympia was both sore and
prickly with a consciousness of her husband's
incapacity; she was as uncomfortable and as
discomforting as a porcupine might be whose
quills should be sharp at both ends.

She was always comparing him disparagingly
with somebody,—with that well-descended gentleman
of the old school, Senator Knickerbocker;
or that opulent gentleman of a new school, Senator
Ironman; with the Speaker and the chairman
of the Finance Committee, and that elegant
Potiphar who had taken the hundred thousand
dollar fee; with the noted orators who had the
ear of the House, such as General Boum and
General Splurge.

She still liked John—in lonely moments; when
they were by themselves of an evening, she often
clung to him with a sense that it was sweet to

be loved and protected; but all day she wished
that he were more respected than he was, and
greater than he could be. At times she had an
idea, or perhaps I should say a feeling, that he
had palmed himself off on her by false pretences.
Had he not married her in the guise of a political
giant, and was he not an indisputable political
dwarf? Other men made great speeches which
stormed the admiration of Washington, or “engineered
something through Congress” which
had the effect of putting their wives into freestone
mansions. Not so with her husband; he
was a nobody, politically, socially, and financially;
and it was all his fault, too, for she wanted it
different.

But, at last, and as if by a mere freak of
fortune, a beam of prosperity lighted her path.
Senator Ironman, who was worth two millions at
least, encountered her by chance at a reception,
paid her some flattering attentions, called upon
her a few days later, and cajoled his wife into
calling. Glad and proud indeed was Olympia

over the acquisition of this patrician intimacy,
the pass to all the selectest dress circles and
most exclusive private boxes of that complex
theatre, the social life of Washington. Finally
her beauty had availed her somewhat; it had
brought her in an hour more that was of value
in her eyes than she had derived in many months
from her husband's public services and reputable
name; and, as beauty triumphant will do, it
bloomed out with increased splendor.

John Vane thought that he had never seen his
wife so handsome as she was on the evening in
which he took her to Ironman's great party, the
grandest crush of the season It was even very
delightful to the honest, unsuspecting soul to
note how the rich and arrogant senator evidently
admired her, and how much he walked and
waltzed with her. And, if Mr. Vane liked it
well, you may be sure that Mrs. Vane liked it
better. She was throbbingly happy, whether on
the great man's arm in the promenade, or on his
shoulder in the dance. The deep flush of her

brunette cheeks and the liquid sparkle of her
dark eyes revealed a stronger agitation than had
possessed her for many a day. People stared at
her a good deal; they called her “a stunner,”
and thought her a little venturesome; various
gentlemen, who knew Ironman well, exchanged
queer glances; certain ladies, who were equally
informed, gazed sidelong at Mrs. Ironman. None
of these disquieting circumstances, however, were
visible to our two innocents from Puritanic Slowburgh.
They passed an entirely delightful evening,
and then walked economically but contentedly
home, telling each other how nice it had all
been.

Thenceforward Mrs. Vane led a cheerier life of
it. She was invited everywhere, and Mr. Ironman
was always delightfully attentive, and consequently
other people paid court. She no longer
found the Washington receptions unsocial, heartless,
and stupid,—mere elbowings of selfish people
who either did not know each other, or only
wanted to use each other,—the dreariest social

gatherings perhaps that ever gas-light shone upon.
The favor of the rich senator and of his adherents
and parasites irradiated these doleful caucusses
to her eyes with interest and gayety.
Moreover, Mr. Ironman did not restrict his courtesies
to occasions of festivity. His carriage
(not his wife's, but his own special turnout) was
frequently seen at Vane's humble door. He took
Olympia in it all over the surrounding landscapes,
to the reservoir hill back of Georgetown, to the
soldiers' cemetery at Arlington, and to other
similarly inspiring eminences whence one can see
a great ways, though not into the future. Furthermore
he gallanted her to the Capitol, to the
Smithsonian, to the theatre, and to concerts.
Likewise he sent her bouquets, and after a time
finer presents. In fact, his assiduity gradually
verged into such an appearance of courtship that
there would have been talk about it, if Washington
society had not been charitable even beyond
Christianity in its judgments, and also absorbingly
intent upon affairs which were more profitable
than gossip.

It was, however, a perilous business for Olympia,
this daily communion with Ironman. The
senator was one of those infrequent and yet discoverable
statesmen who value distinction among
men mainly because it helps them to captivate
women. Although he was, to speak with considerate
vagueness, not under forty, he had that
restless passion for “conquests” which we scarcely
pardon in the novice of twenty, eager to secure
acknowledgments of the puissance of his individuality,
or, in other words, to show that he is “irresistible.”
There was not a session during which
his proud, calm, mature Juno of a wife did not
have occasion to wonder what sort of common
mortal her Jove would run after next. This
patient or indifferent lady, by the way, had taken
very kindly to Olympia, considering her a young
person whom it would be respectable for Ironman
to drive about with, and who would keep him
from making himself ridiculous by sending bouquets
to treasury girls.

But absurd as the senator was in the eyes of

his spouse, he could not seem absurd to Mrs.
Vane, at least not immediately. His very rage
for gallantry made him attractive to a woman who
knew by experience the sweetness of flirtation,
and who, for months past, had been confined to
very short browsings of it. As for his shining
state on the alps of society, and the entirely solvent,
redeemable, coinable wreaths and vapors of
opulence which hung about him, not only were
they circumstances such as she had always looked
up to with admiration, but they seemed more dazzling
than ever, viewed through the atmosphere
of Washington. It is true that this wealth was
mainly the result of special enactments, not beneficial
to the masses; that the rich statesman had
enormously increased his riches by operations
which he had himself helped to legalize; and that
he had sometimes voted for a brother patriot's
pet measure in consideration of a similar service
rendered to his own. But Olympia did not concede
much respect to political disinterestedness;
she had had a surfeit of that poorly paying virtue
in her own cheap and dingy home. Moreover,
Ironman had always been so prosperous that he
could afford to despise the direct lucre of the
lobby, and thus had deserved, in the opinion of a
closely sheared, patient public, the repute of being
a singularly upright lawgiver.

Nor was this the end of his enchantments; he
possessed talismans of a more personal nature.
He was not so plain a man but that, by dint of
careful grooming and fine caparisons, he could
pass for handsome. True, he was too lean, too
hollow in the chest, too narrow in the shoulders,
and too knobby in the arms and legs, to inspire
the most realistic sculptor with a desire to perpetuate
his model in marble, except for the bare
emoluments of the job. But like many tall and
long-limbed men, he was graceful when under
way, and had a specially good gait in dancing.
As for the shiny circle on the top of his blonde
head, it, at first sight, appeared a decided disadvantage.
To conceal it he bowed rarely and at a
very obtuse angle, which caused unobservant and

unreflecting people to pronounce him haughty, if
not discourteous. But, on the other hand, it led
him to carry himself with erectness, and thus
gave him a port which was generally admitted to
be distingué. His long, aquiline, pinkish face
had an expression akin to the immortal perplexity
of Lord Dundreary, but for that very reason,
perhaps, was considered patrician by numerous
Washington ladies. On the whole, he was a cavalier
whose proffered arm might well thrill an ambitious
woman's heart with pride.

Such was the partially respectable statesman
and almost entirely ludicrous man who lifted the
Vanes into the highest circles of the society of
our capital. As we have said, his favor was a
perilous boon to Olympia, considering her breeding
and aspirations. Even as a girl, even while
living thriftily in staid Slowburgh, she had been
eager after pomps and prodigalities. In Washington,
she had become still more demoralized, if
we may apply that ugly epithet to a longing for
finery and admiration,—a longing so common

among our “guardian angels.” The splendors of
women whose husbands had got fortunes by engineering
schemes through Congress had completely
dazzled her imagination and made her mad
with envy.

It would seem that special legislation and its
attendant snares of bribery were set for the downfall,
not only of our Federal heads in Congress,
but also of their Eves.