Playing the mischief :: :: University of Virginia Library

She was very glad to see him arrive, and
eager that he should be content with having
come; but, nevertheless, she was more
distant with him than she had been with
his mature, not to say overripe, predecessor.

He was a young man; there could be no
pretense that she looked upon him as a father;
nods and becks and wreathed smiles
might count for too much when bestowed
upon a gentleman of thirty.

We must not be understood as intimating
that Josie laboriously and gravely thought
this out, and, so to speak, studied her piece
before reciting it to Drummond. Notwithstanding
that she often did things which
were audacious in a lady, she retained still
a great deal of her original womanly delicacy
and sensitiveness of perception, and so
was capable of doing the nice thing with
the promptness of instinct.

Besides, the younger Congressman was a
more disquieting person in appearance and
deportment than the elder one. His passion-haunted
eyes, his trooper-like boldness
of expression, his loud and domineering
voice, his mien of roughness and hardness,
all warned people not to be familiar with
him, unless they wanted intrusion and conquest.

But Sykes Drummond was not easily kept
at long range in conversation. The first
thing that he said, after a word or two of
salutation, was: “So you have already had
the Nestor of the House with you!”

“Who?” asked Josie, knowing that he
meant Mr. Hollowbread, and ready to burst
out laughing at the nickname, but not earing
to talk about the visit.

“Mr. Hollowbread. I didn't know him at
first; he was making so much better time
than usual—haw, haw! I congratulate you
on the conquest,” he added, emboldened by
the amused twitching of her mouth. “He
is a capital old fellow in his way. I mean
to pronounce a eulogy upon him in Congress
at an early day, and confer upon him the title

of Nestor of the House. I wonder if he
would like it?”

Josie knew that Mr. Hollowbread would
not like it, and she could no longer restrain
a cry of laughter.

“Do pronounce a eulogy upon him,” she
said. “But make it a very nice one, to
please me. And don't call him the Nestor
of the House. It would be just the same as
to say that he neglects his dress and doesn't
dye his hair carefully.”

Of course Drummond laughed here, and
of course in his usual haw-haw fashion. It
was always agreeable to him to hear any
body else satirized.

But we must not relate this interview at
length. Necessarily Josie flirted, as we know
that she must flirt; and necessarily she opened
that budget of business which we have
already inspected.

The result of the dialogue was that Sykes
Drummond impudently pronounced the
claim a good one, declared his belief that
it might be engineered through the House,
and offered to take charge of it.

“Do you want to hand it over to me, Mrs.
Murray?” he asked, looking her firmly in the
eyes.

“Certainly I do,” responded Josie; but
she fluttered a little, for she had not yet decided
who should have it.

“What did Nestor think of it?” he inquired,
with an impudent twinkle in his
dusky black eyes.

“Mr. Hollowbread?” she repeated, flushing
to her forehead, for Drummond was certainly
audacious. It just occurred to her
also that she might yet find a master in this
daring and rude man if she submitted herself
at all to his guidance. “Well, he spoke
favorably of it,” she stated, judging that
evasion was useless, but approving of misrepresentation.

“Well, and which of us is it to be?”

“My own member, of course,” she declared,
blushing again under his keen, resolute
gaze. “When you are so kind as to offer,
surely I can not hesitate.”

“Then I had better take these papers
along.”

“Oh, not to-day!” begged Josie, almost
fearful that he would carry them off in spite
of her. She did not seem to herself to be her
own mistress, with this Sykes Drummond
staring into her eyes. “I want to show
them to one old friend, and ask his advice.”

“Bradford, I suppose.”

“I sha'n't tell you, sir,” declared Josie,
laughing, but uneasy. “I mean to have at
least one secret from you. Suppose, after
all, it was my uncle, Colonel Murray?”

“Then he hasn't seen it,” inferred Drummond.
“He had better not. The old gentleman
won't like the case.”

“Why not?” she asked, though she had
already guessed as much, and indeed been
told as much.

“I have been in the army, Mrs. Murray; I
served all through the war, and met quite a
number of regular officers, and got at their
ways of thinking. They are a curious people,
very different from the sort of men prevalent
in these latter days, especially in this
great model republic of Vanity Fair—haw,
haw, haw! I haven't much confidence in
the judgment of Brother Christian and
Brother Faithful of the regular army. They
couldn't be brought to admire this sort of
claim against the Government.”

“I suppose they have their own stiff notions.”

“Yes, they have stiff notions. But you
were thinking of Mr. Bradford. He wouldn't
like the case either.”

“Why not?” again demanded Josie, rather
sharply for her. “He is an old and good
friend of mine.”

“Bradford took to the regulars—wanted
to be a regular. He would pay you the
money himself rather than collect it out of
the Treasury.”

For a moment Josie enthusiastically worshiped
Bradford, because of this imputed nobleness.
She wondered whether she could
not bring him to an offer of marriage, and
then win his life-long admiration by giving
up her claim.”

“He is a bit of a Don Quixote,” continued
Drummond. “He has impractical ideas—
for a man in politics.”

“I never thought him very fastidious,”
incautiously remarked Josie, who had become
aware of some dubious traits in her
“good friend.”

“Perhaps not,” smiled Drummond, with
impudent knowingness. “But you haven't
studied him in money matters and in politics.”

“It doesn't matter about him at all,” she
said, annoyed by Drummond's smile, and
skipping away from the subject. “But still I
want to look over the papers, and get them
by heart, before I hand them to you.”

“And you don't care to show them to that
good friend, and get his advice?”

“You are so bold, sir, that you make me
bold. I have the greatest mind to call you
impudent,” retorted Josie, with a flurried
laugh.

“I wouldn't mind it a bit. But really,
Mrs. Murray, my impudence is all for your
good. You had positively better not consult
Bradford, nor trust Hollowbread. The
first won't do any thing, and the second can't
do any thing.”

“A chairman of a committee can't do any
thing!”

“He is an old figure-head. He hasn't a
stroke of good, earnest, telling work in him.
You might as well expect an answer to prayer
from a fetich as go for help to such a chairman.”

“But it is the Circulating Medium Committee!
And that is just what I want—
circulating medium.”

Drummond laughed outrageously; then
he begged pardon ironically.

“The Circulating Medium Committee has
nothing in the world to do with your business,”
he explained. “It is the Chairman
of the Committee on Spoliations that you
want to get at.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Josie, roundly astonished
and even a little humiliated, for she had
begun to pique herself on her knowledge of
Congressional matters. “Well, Mr. Drummond,
you shall have the papers to-morrow.
If you will give me your address, I will send
them.”

“Many thanks,” he said, handing her his
card. “I will try to be worthy of my mission.
And now I must go.”

“So soon?” stared and almost pleaded Josie,
who had meant to captivate him more or
less before he departed.

“Sorry,” he said; “but the business of the
country — haw, haw! Good-morning, Mrs.
Murray.”

When this interview was over, Josie found
herself very tired. She had done a hard
day's work in the way of seeking to understand
and to master business, and another
hard day's work in striving to coax or dominate
two men of unusual dignity and authority.
At least it was all hard work for
that fragile and sensitive child of lazy luxury,
the fine lady of this century. She dropped
wearily into an easy-chair, and said to
herself that she wanted a good friend—somebody
who would take care of her, and pet
her, and love her—yes, perhaps a husband.

When Bradford arrived, she was almost
ready to fall at his feet and let him guide
her in all things as he wished, providing he
would think for her and be kind to her,
though but a little. She was in that humble,
tender state of mind in which a woman
is apt to accept the first offer that comes,
and in which she is very likely to win offers.

Bradford was surprised and instantaneously
touched by her air of languor, humility,
and sweetness.

“The fatigue of last evening was too much
for you,” he said, sympathetically, as he sat
down by her side.

“Yes, it was hard work—very hard work,”
she murmured.

There was something like a sob in her
voice, she felt herself to be so alone in the
world, and longed so to be pitied and petted.

Much doubting that he was doing a wise
thing, he ventured to take her hand in his,
as he well remembered to have done in other
days, when, indeed, he had even less right
to take it. She quivered slightly, but she
did not withdraw her fingers, and there was
no displeasure in her manner.

For a few seconds they sat thus in silence;
she with her chin resting on her free hand,
her long eyelashes drooped, and her eyes
bent absently on the floor; he with his gaze
fixed upon her unusually pathetic face, all
the more attractive for its pallor and lassitude.
He said to himself that she was exquisitely
beautiful; and he was that kind
of artistic man (a common kind enough)
who can not see beauty without longing to
possess it; and, furthermore, there was the
tempting reminiscence of a make-believe
possession in former days.

But this silence was getting to be entangling,
dangerous, terrible. If it should last
a minute, it would become a sort of personage
in the drama, speaking with something
like the voice of a protecting father or
brother, and demanding a declaration of intentions.

All this Bradford felt; and, being not yet
ready to propose marriage, he made an effort
to break the spell. Still he could only
speak words of kindness, verging closely on
affection.

“I fear that you are unhappy, as well as
fatigued,” he said. “I am very, very sorry
for the troubles that have come upon you in
these latter years.”

We all find it touching to be compassionated
when we long for compassion. Josie's
fine eyes filled with tears as she thought how
she had lost a husband who was at least fond
of her, however much he might be a fool in
other respects, and who had put on flattering
airs of protecting her, although he knew
not in the least how to save her from the
greatest perils of woman's life. Her voice
actually shook as she answered: “You are
very good to remember to give me your
sympathy.”

He was quite astonished, as well as moved,
by this display of emotion. He said to himself
that she had more heart than he had
supposed, and that with a worthy husband
she might make an admirable wife.

“Good! I am simply grateful for old
kindness to myself,” he said. “I should be
a poor creature if I lacked grace enough to
be as good as that.”

“We were friends years ago—I hope earnest
friends. It would be a pity if we could
not keep up our friendship.”

“It will be kept up, at least on my part.”

“And on mine,” whispered Josephine.

She felt this declaration so deeply, that
she was tempted to lay her head on his
shoulders, where she had laid it at least
once in by-gone days. Had he made the
slightest movement toward her, she would
have risked this decisive audacity. Her
cheeks, by-the-way, were no longer pale;
there was a small fervid flush in the centre
of each one of them; and this tale-telling
spot was rapidly deepening in color and extending.
He noted that glow of something

warmer than friendship, and it served him
as a warning-beacon. He said to himself
that he must look into the gulf of consequences
before he leaped; and so, while still
holding her hand, and finding much pleasure
therein, he remained immovable.

At last Josie decided that he was getting
more than he gave, and guessed that he was
presuming on by-gone favors, which likewise
had never been rightly paid for. She did
not show displeasure, for she was not vexed
with him, and desired not to annoy him, but
she gently strove to withdraw her fingers.
He let them go, yet not till he had raised
them impulsively to his lips, finding it no
great lift to overcome her resistance.

“Ah! Edgar! you mustn't,” she murmured,
glancing at him wistfully, to see how
much he meant, and trembling with agitation
and pleasure. “Remember that things
are changed with me,” she added, more firmly,
fearing lest he had only meant to treat
himself to a cheap luxury. “I have no longer
a protector. I must be my own duenna,
and forbid you to kiss my hand.”

“I beg pardon,” he replied. “But it was
a great temptation. I may say that I couldn't
help it.”

“But you ought to help it. You must
know that I don't want to risk vexing and
losing the only old friend I have here by
checking and scolding him. It is not fair
of you to lay the whole burden of resisting
your temptations upon me.”

She was certainly a remarkable young
woman; at least so Mr. Bradford said to
himself. A moment ago he had supposed
that he could be entirely at ease with her;
and yet now she was forcing him to respect
her, and that without angering him.

“You are right, Josie,” he said. “I may
use the old name, mayn't I?” he added, remembering
that she had called him Edgar.
“I shall be flattered and gratified if I may
claim so much.”

“You mustn't call me Josie in public.”

“In that case you mustn't call me Edgar
in public.”

“I don't want to call you Edgar anywhere.”

They both laughed; and henceforth there
was a sort of understanding between them;
they were on terms which might be at one
moment friendship; at another, courtship in
the second degree.

“But I must not forget your business,”
Bradford went on. “You wanted to see me
about a claim.”

Thereupon Josie, for the third time that
day, told her story, and exhibited her documents.

“My dear friend, you frighten me,” was
his first comment. “There are prejudices
—among certain very respectable people—
against such suits. The claim is a very old
one. Against an individual the debt would
be outlawed. It seems strange, therefore, to
urge it against the Government.”

Josie looked excessively distressed, and
was so; her mouth twisted and trembled
quite piteously.

“But if it is a just debt?” she pleaded.
“And it is just.”

It pained him so much to look upon this
feminine trouble, that he turned his eyes to
the floor, as he continued: “Moreover, it
may have been paid once. Many of the
claims of 1812 were adjusted long ago.”

Josie cringed and quivered, so that her
very vestments rustled. She had in her
pocket, at that very moment, a paper showing
that this debt had been liquidated, many
years since, by a payment of two thousand
dollars. She had thought of exhibiting the
document to Bradford, and asking if it debarred
her from making further demands.
Now she suddenly resolved that he should
never, never see it.

“But if it was paid once, that proves that
the thing really happened,” she did venture
to argue. “And then, if there was scarcely
any thing paid, and not half as much as
ought to have been paid, why not ask for the
rest?”

“Ah, well!” he sighed, in a troubled way,
“I will look into it, to the best of my ability,
and see if any thing ought to be done.”

“See here, Edgar,” she implored. “Why
not help me more heartily than that? Augustus
lost and spent nearly all his property.
My father failed in one of the panics, and
left nothing. I haven't enough to support
me; I haven't six thousand dollars. What
do I know about earning a living? What
can a lady do? Isn't it a very, very hard
case?”

Her mouth trembled ungovernably, and
he pitied her with all his heart. Still he
could not promise to take her part at all
hazards, in defiance of that fastidious conscience
as to the public interests, upon which
he prided himself, and which was by far his
most prominent point of honor. He was
nearly ready to tell her that he would marry
her, and support her himself, rather than
push an unjust, or even a doubtful, claim
through Congress for her benefit. But to
that extreme he could not quite go as yet,
although it seemed possible that he might
soon reach it.

“I will do my best for you, Josie,” he
promised. “Can you let me have your papers
for a day or two?”

“Yes,” she said, after one anxious, pleading
look into his pensive, handsome hazel
eyes, which were just then as tender as a
woman's.

And so she gave her precious documents
to Bradford, breaking her promises to Hollowbread
and Drummond. But what a nice
couple of sweet-scented notes she wrote to
those gentlemen, apologizing meekly to each

for not having sent him her package, asking
a few days' delay for further reflection, and,
of course, inviting them to call and see her!