University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.
THE MAN SHE LOVES.

In short, Josie Murray made a great and
increasing sensation in Washington, and
while she was much envied and hated and
criticised, she was also much admired and
petted.

The Appleyard fight did her little damage,
partly because the tale of it was so promptly
retracted by the Newsmonger, and partly
because small scandals can not much hurt
women of her peculiar celebrity. To be
sure, it lost her the attentions of Sykes
Drummond for a period; but on the other
hand it brought back to her the attentions
of Edgar Bradford.

She was exceedingly glad to see him,
when he at last called with the intention
of finding her at home, and so did find her.
His staying-away had vexed her not a little,
but it had humiliated and pained her still
more. We must be allowed to say that it
was rather a fine thing in Josie, this persistence
in liking one old friend better than all
her many new admirers—in liking him, too,
notwithstanding that he thwarted her wishes
and neglected her society. Sentiment is
so much nobler than pure egotism, and fidelity
so much lovelier than heartless forgetfulness,
that we must accord them some
praise even when they present themselves
in manikin proportions. All this time, while
Hollowbread was her humble adorer and
faithful advocate, and while nobody knows
how many other men were panting to take
the place of Hollowbread, she would have
been delighted to have her old intimate
back by her side, though at the cost of losing
many flattering attentions, and at some
risk of failing in her claim.

She had always liked him; she thought,
at least, that she had liked him better than
any other man she ever knew; yes, perhaps
better, perhaps a good deal better, than poor
Augustus. If this was not strictly true, it
at all events appeared to be true, now that
she had found him in a lofty position, and
now that his nature had risen upon her in a
new and nobler light. For it must be stated
to her credit that his very scruples with regard
to her suit had impressed her in his favor;
possibly because she knew that such
scruples are generally admired among men,
and possibly because they made him a more
difficult conquest.

At times she thought about him by the
half-hour together, and in a way which
would have been flattering to his vanity,
had he known of it. Her general feeling
was this, that she would like to win him,
and then make him push the claim, or, if
that could not be, push it herself without
his knowledge, and yet keep him. Keep
him how? Well, keep him as a husband;
she loved him well enough for that; at least
she very easily could love him well enough.
Such being her state of feeling as to her former
beau, it is quite natural that his visit
should make her heart beat joyfully.

As for the young man, why did he call?
Well, he had said to himself (and how should
he attempt to deceive that respectable and
sagacious personage?) that it was because
of the Newsmonger scandal; because that
rascally piece of American humor would
hurt Josie's standing in society, and he ought
to give her his countenance; because it
would mortify and pain her, and he ought
to console her.

Was he not her old friend and admirer,
and under specially tender obligations to
her, such as no man should forget? A gentleman
who could win from a lady confessions
of peculiar good-will, only to avoid her
as soon as she demanded a service and needed
protection, seemed to him a very shabby
gentleman indeed. What a delicately honorable
fellow he was, to be sure! And yet
what a queer sense of honor it appears, on
thoughtful inspection!

There were as many incongruities in it as
there are in the British Constitution, and,
like that instrument, it worked surprisingly
well and surprisingly ill, yet, on the whole,
not insufferably. The one great point in his
favor was, that, as a public man, he was unselfish
and thoroughly honest. Had it not

been for this, we should not have selected
him for serious study, nor allowed him to
take upon himself some show of being a hero.

Upright and wise as he was in certain
matters, he could be a deceiver in others,
though so far unconsciously as to deceive
himself. The reasons which he assigned
for calling upon Josie Murray were not the
true reasons which moved him to that step,
or, rather, were not the only ones. She was
very fascinating to his imagination, and
very attractive to his eyesight. That mainly
was why he now came to see her, and why
he always found her company agreeable.

“Ah! you have come at last! naughty old
friend! false old friend!” said Josie, flushed
and beautiful with pleasure, as she rustled
up to him and seized his hand.

“I have been very shabby,” he confessed,
for there was no resisting her forgiveness,
her good-nature, and her satisfaction at seeing
him, not to mention her prettiness and
grace.

“Do you know, I wish you were my father
or my uncle! I should like to lay my head
on some related shoulder. I have been so
lonely!” sighed Josie.

She was so much the more enticing and
perilous because she was not a mere counterfeiter
of feelings, but really had strong
and almost fervent impulses, evanescent
though they might be. Moreover, these
impulses were poured forth so briskly and
fluently and graciously, that they flew at
once to the nerves of him who tasted of
them. She was like Champagne, which,
because of its sweetness and its gaseous
titillation, is intoxicating out of all proportion
to its alcohol. Bradford felt the
sugar and the carbonic-acid gas tingling
along his veins and rising to his brain.
He had a longing to put his arm around her
lonely head and lay it on his shoulder, there
to repose forever.

“If I had known that you were in low
spirits, I should have been here before,” he
declared. “I ought to have come. You
have a right to be vexed with me.”

“I have not been vexed; only disappointed,”
said Josie. “I know that you must
be, or ought to be, busy. Many people tell
me what a fine stand you have taken in
Congress, and that you are the most promising
of the new members. I am proud of
you, and want you to go on working—to go
on and be a great man—a Charles Summer.
I shall be overtempted to tell a fib about
you some day; I shall say I helped form
your character. It won't be true—perhaps
—will it? But it will be my only reward
for wishing you well. You are determined
not to reward me in any other way. It is
too much to expect you to talk to me about
your hopes and labors and measures. But
you won't even come now and then to talk
to me about trifles. It is rather hard.”

Bradford could not resist the temptation
of a fascinating imprudence. How sweet she
had been once, and how sweeter than ever
she was, and how her sweetness was manifolded
by her cleverness! It seemed to him,
the much-complimented man, that she talked
amazingly well. Flatteries from such an
able head were worth more than good-will
from a far better heart. Under all this stimulus,
from the past and the present, he took
her hand in his and held it.

“You may boast of forming me as much as
you like, if ever the result should be worth
praise,” he said. “I shall owe you something;
I admit that.”

“What?” murmured Josie, her voice
choking a very little, and her face flushing
with pride and pleasure.

“I have worked the harder to win your
admiration. I have felt it worth while to
get the notice of such a mind as yours.”

“My mind!” returned Josie, too clever, and
just then too full of feeling, not to be disappointed.
Her heart, she femininely believed,
was the strongest part of her, and it was
that which she wanted him to aim at.
When a lady is hoping for a declaration of
love, how can she want to be complimented
on her intellect?

Bradford, whose temperament was poetic,
and whose brain, therefore, was sensitively
receptive to impressions, felt at once that his
utterance had given pain. He wanted to
add something more kindly; but words at
such a moment were perilous; perhaps a
gesture would say enough, and yet not commit
him. Reflecting thus, and moved also
by a vigorous carnal hunger, he lifted her
hand quickly and kissed it. It was a deed
which he had done repeatedly before without
finding that any thing serious came of it.

“Ah, Mr. Bradford,” said Josie, drawing
away from him. “I suppose it means nothing
but friendship, and yet you shouldn't do
it. When you speak English, I can understand
you. But when you kiss my hand, I
don't know where we are.”

How easily he could have come to an understanding
for life with her at that moment!
And yet he had not been in the room
five minutes, and had scarcely laid eyes on
her before for a fortnight. It was always
thus between them; alone with her, he could
not possibly keep at long-range action; he
was ever at close quarters, and that promptly.
But many other men, we ought to state,
in fairness to him, felt this same attraction
in Josie Murray, and easily drifted alongside
for a yard-arm contest.

“Can't you bear it from a very old and
sincere friend?” he asked, and with some
consciousness of hypocrisy, for he was not so
very sincere.

“But you are always calling on me to bear
it, Mr. Bradford. Have I got to buy your
friendship all my life in this way?”

“I wish you would.”

Josie burst out laughing. She was quick
at catching a joke, and easily amused by one.
It was one of the nicest traits about her, this
ready perception of humor or wit, and this
jolly responsiveness to it. Moreover, her
laugh was so musical and natural and infectious,
it was so prettily furnished out with
coral lips and pearly teeth, that it became
her wonderfully, and was very bewitching.
Well, she laughed aloud, with a charming
air of completely forgetting herself; and, in
so doing, she blew away all the embarrassment
which had arisen between them.

“Can I be of any service to you?” he asked,
referring to the Appleyard slander, and
the supposed need of helping her bear it.

“I—don't—know,” she hesitated, supposing
that he alluded to her claim, and wondering
that he should offer help.

“I have seen you—hinted at in the papers,”
he added, nearly blushing for her.

It was, indeed, a very disagreeable thing
to his mind that she should be babbled about
in connection with such people as Drummond
and Squire Nancy.

“Oh—that? Wasn't it shameful!” returned
Josie, rather too carelessly to please him.
Of a sudden, too, she laughed outright, as
merrily as could be.

“So you don't mind it?” asked Bradford,
gravely.

“I can't mind it much. The whole thing
was too farcical to weigh on me. Of course
I ought to mind it, and take on dreadfully.
It is always supposed to be bad for a lady
to get talked about, whether she is to blame
for it or not. But I was no more to blame
than the lamp-post on the corner. I didn't
even see the show. I had but just spoken
to Mr. Drummond, when bang! came that
Bloomer creature, and I jumped into a shop.
That is all I know about it,” continued Josie,
remembering to forgot her flirtation with
Drummond and her parlor-battle with Squire
Appleyard.

“It was an abominable article,” declared
Bradford. “I heard a foreign attaché mention
it as an instance of the degradation of
manners characteristic of a democratic society.
However, the Newsmonger has retracted
it and apologized for it.”

“So I have heard,” said Josie, who had
read every thing, both the scandal and the
disavowal. “Do you think the affair is of
much consequence?”

“It will wear off. But I fear that you
might be annoyed by it, and I called partly
to ask if you wished me to do any thing.”

“Thank you! That is being a very good
old friend, indeed. But I do not want you
to do any thing. I do not want to work you
at all, neither in this affair nor in others.
You shall have all an old friend's privileges.
Other people shall run on my errands, and
you shall get the thanks.”

“It's a nice easy berth, isn't it? It puts
me in mind of some arrangements in the political
world. I wonder how the other people
will like it?”

“I wonder how you will like it?”

“Oh, I like it; all but the meanness and
selfishness of the position—that I am heartily
ashamed of. The fact is, that you have
always kept me under obligations to you.”

They both fell silent for a space. Each
was thinking of the by-gone love-passages
between them; the lady querying whether
they would be renewed, and the man whether
he should renew them.

With one feature of this interview—the
fact that Josie had said nothing about her
shabby claim—Bradford felt much pleased.
He trusted that she had given it up; then,
judging that such a resignation must have
seemed a sacrifice to her, he decided that she
merited his respect for it; and that being
the case, he, as a just soul, whose business it
was to countenance the respectable, wanted
to reward her uprightness.

Well, she should have courtship; for he
believed that she would certainly like that;
he knew her so well! But how much courtship?
He actually began to think seriously
of letting himself slide into a proposal of
marriage.

Of course that would stop forever the
prosecution of the claim; of course, if she
became his wife, he, the model of honest legislators,
could not indulge her in a disreputable
swindle; even if the bill were passed,
he could not let her take the money. Would
she be submissive to him in this little matter?
Oh, undoubtedly! he decided; wives
always bowed to their husbands in great affairs.

It is true that Josie had not always obeyed
poor Augustus to his face, and that she
had occasionally done things behind his back
which he would have disapproved of angrily.
But, then, poor Augustus was a sort of
fool, and this very clever little beauty could
not help seeing it. In the hands of a husband
of reputation and character and ability
she would be as plastic as butter. So a
man flatters himself, and meanwhile woman
supposes that it is she who has the superior
judgment and distinction, concluding therefrom
that it will be masculine duty and pleasure
to exhibit ductility.

In spite of all these thoughts and emotions,
the silence came to nothing. Bradford
showed his sense of obligation no further
than by acknowledging it. It is an easy
way to meet a debt of gratitude, and often
it is a curiously satisfactory one, not only to
the indebted person, but also to the creditor.
Josie would have been well pleased to have
him thank her by telling her that he loved
her dearly, and wanted her to be his wife.

Had he done so, she would have throbbed
with great happiness; she would have broken

her heart on his bosom and poured it
out in pulsations of gratitude; she would
have given him, or, rather, believed that she
had given him, an immense affection and an
unshakable troth.

He did nothing of the sort; and yet she
was not in the least angry, nor disposed to
call him hard-hearted and selfish; on the
contrary, she felt only the more humble and
subservient because he accepted so much and
gave so little.

“If you want to repay me for my friendship,
you must do two things,” she said at
last, with a faint sigh—a really piteous sigh,
though it was scarcely audible. “You must
be distinguished, so that I can boast of you;
and you must not neglect me so completely
and unkindly. I suppose that I know—at
least I hope that I know — why you have
staid away. You were afraid that I would
ask you to push my claim. Well, I have
not asked you to do that, and I never shall.”

She stopped, being really quite worried
with the thought that he would not help
her, and also out of breath because of other
more womanly and tenderer emotions.

“I wish with all my heart that I could
assist you in that affair,” affirmed Bradford.
“But I told you why I must not. Mr. Hollowbread
has it in hand, I believe?”

“Mr. Hollowbread is looking into it to
see whether it ought to be presented,” said
Josie, telling her best-loved man a downright
fib, and ready to cry over it. “If it is
a wrong claim, there it ends. If it is a right
one, why shouldn't I urge it? There was
one payment; I know that well enough;
but it was a very little one. Mr. Hollowbread
thinks he can get proof that the property
was worth a great deal more than one
thousand dollars. If he can, then the Government
really owes me something, and why
shouldn't it pay me? I tell you this merely
to be frank with you and to justify myself
in your eyes. I don't ask you to help me.
I know that you are sensitive and honorable,
and I want you to remain so. But I
want you to respect me also, and not look
upon me as a sharp adventuress.”

“My dear friend—I do respect you—and
you must forgive me,” stammered Bradford.

Josie broke down here; she could not
help crying; only a couple of tears, to be
sure; but they were very melting.