Playing the mischief :: :: University of Virginia Library

Bradford was considerably moved by
Josie's brace of tears, as men of poetic imagination
and warm temperament usually are
moved by feminine grief, especially when the
afflicted one is fair to look upon.

“My dear child!” he said; and so far all
went promisingly for her.

It was a phrase which he had never accorded
to a woman whom he did not like
very, very much, though, by-the-way, he had
thus liked several—say three or four, or perhaps
a dozen.

But even while he was talking and palpitating,
a thought of the risks of marriage
with such a flirt gave him a spasm of prudence,
and he slackened his emotional speed
rapidly.

“I will try to be such a friend to you as
you deserve,” he added, before the momentum
had greatly diminished. “I will look
into the claim again, if you wish it,” he
continued, changing his subject with truly
hateful sagacity. “If I can find any solid
grounds for it, I will support it with all my
strength,” was the peroration of this disappointing
speech.

“No, you shall not!” exclaimed Josie, hastily,
and with a good deal of feeling.

She was discontented and hurt, for she
had been aiming at his heart instead of the
United States Treasury, and would at that
moment have liked a word of love better
than a check for many thousands. Moreover,
she did not want him to look into the
claim anew, lest he should find that it was
being pushed without regard to scruples, and
lest he should even be moved to traverse Mr.
Hollowbread's hopeful prospects.

“Promise me that you will not give yourself
the least trouble about that poor little
business,” she went on, with the patience of
a dove and the wisdom of a serpent. “I
want you to be just simply my old friend
and my comforter. You are the only man
living whom I feel willing to cry at in my
troubles,” she added, with a pleading smile.
“You are the only man who can make me
cry. It is because you are my sole friend,
and nothing more — I mean nothing less.
Stay what you are. I like it best so.”

Bradford was not in such a tranquil frame
as to be able to study character attentively,
or to weigh with accuracy the intellectual
merit of conversation. But he felt—he had
a quick and yet clear impression—that this
young lady was in some respects his equal
in brain-power, if not his superior. What a
pity, he vaguely thought, that she was not
as fine morally as she was intellectually!
In such case, what a glorious woman she
would be, and what a desirable, adorable
wife she would make!

Well, was Mr. Edgar Bradford worthy of a
glorious woman and adorable wife? Doubted:
at least he had rarely shown himself admirable
in his treatment of women; his honor
had mainly been for men and manly affairs.
However, he none the less demanded
perfection in whomsoever willed to marry
him, and could not yet accept Josie Murray
as fit for that exalted destiny.

Thus there were no words uttered in this
conversation which decided that any body
should take or be taken for better or worse.
The final sentences of it were, “I shall call
often” from Bradford, and a fervent, grateful
“Do!” from Josie.

We ought to add that the gentleman kept
his promise, and that henceforward there
were frequent long and delightful interviews
between them, to the great anguish
of love-cracked Mr. Hollowbread.

This very day that gentleman had a turn
in his sentimental inwards, in consequence
of arriving at the Murray house just in time
to see Bradford leave it, and finding Josie
still marked by the sweet agitation of the
interview. Her cheeks had a hot and almost
crimson flush in them, and her dark
eyes were strangely bright, humid, dreamy,
and tender. Mr. Hollowbread faintly hoped
that all this was because of his own coming,
and yet he felt intolerably sure that it was
because the other had come. Knowing that
Bradford had been a favored admirer of Mrs.
Murray, he found it distressingly easy to be
jealous of him.

“I am so glad to see you!” said Josie, trying
to look interested in his arrival. “Do
take a seat and talk to me. Tell me what
is going on—tell me something agreeable.”

But the phrases were obviously mere commonplaces
of civility, and her eyes had an
air of not seeing him — of looking beyond
him.

“I will sit down, thank you,” answered
the Congressman, in his loud-breathing way.
“But, as for any thing agreeable, it is rather
a dull and sad world; at least, I find it so.”

He looked more than gloomy; he looked
positively glum. In short, he was suffering
acutely from the thought that it would be
useless for a man of his venerable figure to
court Mrs. Murray in opposition to the courtship
of the young and handsome man who
had just quitted her.

“A dull and sad world!” repeated Josie.
“Oh, Mr. Hollowbread, do you come here
to tell me that? Why, I look to you for
strength and cheering. Melancholy is a
woman's business, and not a man's. I have
had an awful day; I have cried at least two
hours this very day. Oh, it has been horrid!
And here you raise my spirits by telling
me it is a sad world, and things can't
possibly go well in it.”

He was relieved, the poor man; yes, he
was absolutely comforted. So she had had
a bad day, and Bradford's company had been
no solance to her; and no hand but his own
could draw the iron from her soul! Mr.
Hollowbread's spirits bubbled up at once,
and brimmed over in a cheerful smile.

“I must congratulate you on one thing,
at least,” he observed. “You bear sorrow
wonderfully well; it is even very becoming
to you. I never saw you looking in better
health, or—do excuse me for being frank—
or handsomer.”

“Oh! handsomer! Well, that is good
news!” laughed Josie, with an air of content
which gratified him.

She was thinking of Bradford, and hoping
that she had been handsome during his stay,
and that he would remember it.

But this recollection and this desire did
not prevent her from going on to say things
which would naturally be agreeable to the
old gentleman now present. She could not
afford to have him dissatisfied with her, and
consequently with the work which he had
undertaken for her. She peremptorily needed
his fervent devotion and his laborious
fidelity; and to gain these she would flatter
him and flirt with him, grizzled and dyed
and strapped and padded as he was.

It was a wonderful performance for a
woman of two-and-twenty, and, considering
her as a mere social force, it does her great
credit. Of course she was helped out in the
matter by her native turn toward coquetry
—a turn so vigorous that she could strive
to attract almost any thing in the shape of
a man, and, had men been lacking, might,
perhaps, have made eyes at wax-figures and
scarecrows.

But, furthermore, she had practical sense
enough (and here is one proof of the unusual
intelligence which I have imputed to her)—
she had sense enough to see that a claimant
in Washington must not stick to young men
alone. Usually this is what the juvenile adventuress
does, and this is why she so seldom
secures her appropriation. She arrives
in our earthly Jerusalem with the intent of
pilfering a goodly slab of the golden pavement,
and a large block out of the walls of
precious stones. But although she carnestly
means business, she does not know whom
to apply to to get it done, or she lets her
sentiments divert her from the necessary severities
of her mission. She falls in love,
perhaps; and, if so, she is pretty certain to
pick out, as the object of her adoration, the
youngest and handsomest bachelor member;
we will suppose, for example, that she sets
her cap at that “oiled and curled” Apollo of
thirty, the graceful Potiphar.

But Potiphar is in the full tide of easy
love-conquests, and naturally does not care
to work hard or pay high for a new one.
Moreover, he has his political character to
make, and must not risk it for the sake of
a tear and a smile. Finally, he has little
influence; he has not won the ear of the
House; he is on a fourth-rate committee.
Thus, he desires to do little for his lovely
suitor; and even that little is, perhaps, beyond
his limited powers.

Meanwhile some wily, experienced, unfastidious
adventuress, of thirty or forty, or,
dear me! of forty-five, has gone straight
to the thrones and principalities; she has

made eyes at those bald, time-worn, uncomely
dispensers of gifts, General Bangs and
General Hornblower and Senator Ironman,
and with the greatest ease she has got her
husband an office, and herself an appropriation.

Josie Murray, however, and her fortunate
rival, Mrs. John Vane, were different from
most of the young women who came to Washington
with the hope of making money or a
sensation. In many things these two noticeable
ladies were unlike, but in one practical
characteristic they were similar. There was
something in their natures (and it is not
quite an agreeable trait to dwell upon) which
enabled them to be on kindly terms with elderly
admirers, and that, too, without serious
sentiments of disrelish.

“There is one great pleasure in being handsome,
Mr. Hollowbread,” continued Josie. “I
do believe that it gives satisfaction to one's
friends. Don't you like,” she asked, archly
and encouragingly, “don't you like to have
me handsome?”

Mr. Hollowbread, with his heart in his
mouth and in his boots at the same moment,
replied that he did like it. In fact, he did
not confine himself to that measurable statement,
but signified as much more to similar
effect as looks could express.

“That is what pleases me,” declared Josie,
though meanwhile she seated herself in the
isolation of a chair, and not on a sofa, as when
Bradford was present. “I don't care much
to think myself pretty, but I do want my
best friends to think me so.”

“One of your best friends had the taste to
think you so when he first saw you, and to
continue in that mind ever since,” asseverated
Mr. Hollowbread, with a solemnity of
emotion which did credit to his heart, however
poorly it might speak for his noddle.

Josie smiled, and nodded her thanks, as
she always did when any one paid her a compliment,
whether that one were man or woman.
At the same time she fixed her lustrous
dark eyes upon her admirer's rather faded
optics with an expression which he found
singularly moving. It is strange to tell, but
those eyes were scarcely less tender and melting
now than when they had been bent upon
the man whom she earnestly liked; and one
is led to believe that she was not entirely responsible
for the frequent sweetness and fervor
of their utterances. However that may
be, they often allured and entangled masculine
souls when it did not seem natural
that their owner could desire any such result.
In the present case they bewildered
and bamboozled and completely deprived of
his common sense this really able Congressman,
this fluent orator, whom many thought
worthy of being the leader of his party in the
House, and who, but for his laziness, might
perhaps lead it to—say, the devil.

“Mrs. Murray,” he gasped, vastly more
choked and affrighted than he would have
supposed possible, considering his large and
varied experience in making love.

Mrs. Murray, seasoned coquette as she was,
also had a little spasm in the throat, for she
saw what was coming.

“May I ask your serious attention for one
moment?” continued Mr. Hollowbread, after
he had cleared his voice by a deep and mellow
ahem.

The natural purity, the tenderness and
grace of fine-ladyhood asserted itself for one
moment in Josie's face; it had a really beautiful
and touching expression of alarm, shyness,
and startled modesty as she mechanically
and very gently bowed her head; it was
just then a face which the noblest man alive
might have revered without hesitation or
stint.

“I am entirely unworthy of saying what
I am about to say,” confessed this venerable
lover. “It is a piece of extreme and perhaps
ridiculous presumption in me even to
conceive of such an audacity.”

Josie's coral lips moved, but gave forth no
sound, not even a whisper. She did not
want him to propose, for she felt that she
could not, could not possibly, accept him,
and she had not devised how she might refuse
him without giving offense. To quarrel
with him, to drive him away from her before
he had secured her claim, was a thing
too dreadful to contemplate. A vague, wild
idea of taking him for the present, and jilting
him as soon as he had got her money
for her, came into her busy little head. But
her prevalent impulse was to beg him to say
nothing; to put the matter off somehow; to
gain time. While she was in this uncertain
frame of mind, Mr. Hollowbread pursued his
elaborate way through his offer.

“But the truth is, Mrs. Murray, I have
dared,” he continued, “old as I am and insignificant
as I am, I have dared—to love
you. I have had the folly to fix my heart
on the hope of winning you for my wife.”

The murder was out, and Josie could have
screamed. She had half a dozen emotions
and impulsive desires in less than two seconds.
Now that the thing had been said,
now that the grasping, demanding, exorbitant
word wife had been pronounced, she
started with a violent shudder of negation,
aversion, and dislike. She would have been
pleased to run out of the room, and in case
Mr. Hollowbread blocked her way, to slap
his crimson face. But that sort of behavior
would never do; propriety and the claim
alike forbade it. She was equal to her complicated
and hazardous situation, however,
and after one throbbing moment, she uttered
what was fitting and wise.

“You!” she said, remembering the speech
of a heroine in “Pelham.” and turning it to
her own purposes. “I never suspected that
you could think of such things. I supposed

that you were all occupied in the great affairs
of man's life—in statesmanship and
finance. Oh, Mr. Hollowbread, how you have
surprised me! How could you care for such
a child—such an insignificant trifle—as I
know that I am!”

“I could, and do,” he replied, with a simplicity
and feeling which made him appear
really fine, almost noble. “You are not what
you say, Mrs. Murray. You are a lady of
unusual intellect and remarkable character.
You are worthy of my admiration and affection,
and you have them. I am obliged
in honor to add that you are worthy of the
love of men far more desirable and admirable
than myself. The sole question is, what
am I worthy of?”

It was well said, because it was deeply
felt. Josie raised her eyes to his face with
respect, if not with a certain amount of
kindly interest. Then she suddenly dropped
them, and for a time looked at him no
more. She knew pretty well how eloquent
those eyes of hers were, how much more
they were apt to express than she could feel,
and how powerfully they often moved men
upon whom they rested. Mr. Hollowbread
must not receive their encouragement nor be
exposed to their fascination.

“Let me add one word of what is merely
fair and honorable explanation,” he continued.
“I am abundantly able to relieve you
of any possible need of urging this perhaps
uncertain claim. My property amounts to
at least two hundred thousand dollars, as I
shall be able to show satisfactorily to your
relatives. Excuse me, Mrs. Murray, for mentioning
this. I am myself not worthy of
your consideration. But I can at least surround
you with every comfort, and secure
you from the meaner anxieties of life.”

For the first time since he had begun his
offer Josie vacillated in her feelings and
pondered seriously the idea of an acceptance.
Money she terribly needed; money her combined
greed and extravagance led her to
prize highly; and here was as much money
as she could rationally hope to gain by marriage
or any other means open to woman.

For a moment she queried, with oppressed
breath and an almost motionless heart,
whether she could surrender her youth and
beauty to this man for his two hundred
thousand dollars.