Vernon, in the nervous excitement which arouses one at the dawn of any day that is to be big with events, had risen earlier than was his wont.

He hastened into the dining-room, and there, at the first table his eye alighted on, sat Maria Burley Greene. She saw him at once, for she faced the door, and she greeted him with a brilliant smile. With springing step he rushed toward her, both hands extended in his eagerness. She half rose to take them; their greeting silenced the early breakfasters for an instant. Then he sat down opposite her and leaned over with a radiant face as near to her as might be, considering the width of table-cloth and the breakfast things between.

"And so you're here at last!" he exclaimed.

His eyes quickly took in her toilet; remarkably fresh it was, though it had been made on the Springfield sleeper. It gave none of those evidences of being but the late flowering of a toilet that had been made the night before, as do the toilets of some ladies under similar circ.u.mstances. She wore this morning a suit of brown, tailored faultlessly to every flat seam, and a little turban to match it. Beside her plate lay her veil, her gloves, and a bra.s.s tagged key. And her face, clear and rosy in its rich beauty, was good to look upon. The waiter had just brought her strawberries.

"Send John to me," said Vernon to the waiter. "I'll take my breakfast here. May I?" He lifted his eyes to Miss Greene's.

"Surely," said she, "we'll have much to discuss."

"And so you're here again at last," repeated Vernon, as if he had not already made the same observation. He laid, this time, perhaps a little more stress on the "at last." She must have noted that fact, for she blushed, red as the strawberries she began to turn over with a critically poised fork.

"And did you come down alone?" Vernon went on.

"No, not exactly," said Miss Greene. "Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, and, I believe, several-"

"Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop!"

"I think," said Miss Greene, "that she sits somewhere behind." There was a twinkle in the eyes she lifted for an instant from her berries.

Vernon scanned the dining-room. There was Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, in all her-and yes, beside her, sheltered snugly under her all-protecting wing, was Amelia Ansley! They were at a long table, Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop at the head, and with them half a dozen women, severe, and most aggressively respectable. They sat-all of them-erect, pecking at their food with a distrust that was not so much a material caution as a spiritual evidence of their superiority to most of the things with which they were thrust in contact every day. Their hats scarcely trembled, such was the immense propriety of their att.i.tudes; they did not bend at all, even to the cream.

Vernon, who was taking all this in at a glance, saw that Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop was severer than he had ever imagined it possible for women to be-even such a woman as she. He would not have been surprised had he suddenly been told that her name had acquired another hyphen; certainly her dignity had been rehyphenated. There she sat, with her broad shoulders and ample bust, her arms jeopardizing the sleeves of her jacket.

It was the most impressive breakfast table he had ever seen. It might have given him a vision of the future, when he should have secured for women all their civil and political rights, and the nation had progressed to female lieutenant-generals, who would be forced at times to dine in public with their staffs. But he had no such vision, of course; the very spiritual aversion of those women to such a thought would have prevented it, occultly.

In point of fact, his regard in an instant had ceased to be general and had become specific, having Amelia for its objective. She sat on the right of her commander, a rather timid aide; and she seemed spiritually to snuggle more closely under her protecting shadow with each pa.s.sing moment. She seemed to be half frightened, and had the look of a little girl who is about to cry. Her gray figure, with its hat of violets above her dark hair, was, on the instant, half pathetic to Vernon. She sat facing him, her face downcast.

There was no conversation at that table; it was to be seen at a glance indeed that among those ladies there would be need for none, all things having been prearranged for them. Vernon noted that Amelia seemed to him more dainty, more fragile than she had ever been before, and his heart surged out toward her. Then she raised her eyes slowly, and held him, until from their depths she stabbed with one swift glance, a glance full of all accusation, indictment and reproach. The stab went to his heart with a pain that made him exclaim. Then perceiving that the complicating moments were flying, he rose hastily, and with half an apology to Miss Greene, he rushed across the dining-room.

XI

NONE of the ladies relaxed at Vernon's approach, Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop least of all. On the contrary she seemed to swell into proportions that were colossal and terrifying, and when Vernon came within her sphere of influence his manner at once subdued itself into an apology.

"Why, Amelia-Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop!" he cried, "and Mrs. Standish, Mrs.

Barbourton, Mrs. Trales, Mrs. Langdon-how do you do?"

He went, of course, straight to Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop's side, the side that sheltered Amelia, and he tried to take the hands of both women at once. Amelia gave him hers coldly, without a word and without a look.

He grew weak, inane, and laughed uneasily.

"Delightful morning," he said, "this country air down here is-"

"Morley," said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, severely, "take that seat at the foot of the table."

He obeyed, meekly. The ladies, he thought, from the rustle of their skirts, withdrew themselves subtly. The only glances they vouchsafed him were side-long and disapproving. He found it impossible to speak, and so waited. He could not recall having experienced similar sensations since those menacing occasions of boyhood when he had been sent to the library to await his father's coming.

"Delightful morning, indeed!" Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop said, in her most select tones. "Delightful morning to bring us poor old ladies down into the country!"

"I bring you down!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Vernon.

"Morley," she said, "I don't wish to have one word from you, not one; do you understand? Your talent for speech has caused trouble enough as it is. Lucky we shall be if we can undo the half of it!"

Vernon shrank.

"Morley Vernon," Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop continued, "do you know what I have a notion to do?"

"No, Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop," he said in a very little voice.

"Well, sir, I've a notion to give you a good spanking."

Vernon shot a glance at her.

"Oh, you needn't look, sir," she continued, "you needn't look! It wouldn't be the first time, as you well know-and it isn't so many years ago-and I have your mother's full permission, too."

The chain of ladylike sympathy that pa.s.sed about the table at this declaration was broken only when its ends converged on Vernon. Even then they seemed to pinch him.

"Your poor, dear mother," Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop went on, "insisted, indeed, on coming down herself, but I knew she could never stand such a trip. I told her," and here Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop paused for an instant, "I told her that I thought _I_ could manage."

There was a vast significance in this speech.

The waiter had brought the substantials to the ladies, and Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop began eating determinedly.

"It was, of course, just what I had always predicted," she went on, in a staccato that was timed by the rise of her fork to her lips, "I knew that politics would inevitably corrupt you, soon or late. And now it has brought you to this."

"To what?" asked Vernon, suddenly growing bold and reckless. Amelia had not given him one glance; she was picking at her chop.

Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, raising her gold gla.s.ses and setting them aristocratically on the bridge of her nose, fixed her eyes on Vernon.

"Morley," she said, "we know. We have heard and we have read. The Chicago press is an inst.i.tution that, fortunately, still survives in these iconoclastic days. You know very well, of course, what I mean.

Please do not compel me to go into the revolting particulars." She took her gla.s.ses down from her nose, as if that officially terminated the matter.

"But really, Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop," said Vernon. He was growing angry, and then, too, he was conscious somehow that Miss Greene was looking at him.

His waiter, John, timidly approached with a glance at the awful presence of Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, and said:

"Yo' breakfus, Senato', is gettin' col'."

"That may wait," said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, and John sprang back out of range.

Vernon was determined, then, to have it out.

"Really, Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop, jesting aside-"

"Jesting!" cried Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, "jesting! Indeed, my boy, this is quite a serious business!" She tapped with her forefinger.