"Well, then, all right," said Vernon, "I don't know what I've done. All I have done has been to champion a measure-and I may add, without boasting, I hope, with some success-all I have done has been to champion a measure which was to benefit your s.e.x, to secure your rights, to-"

"Morley!" Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop said, cutting him short. "Morley, have you indeed fallen so low? It is incomprehensible to me, that a young man who had the mother you have, who had the advantages you have had, who was born and bred as you were, should so easily have lost his respect for women!"

"Lost my respect for women!" cried Vernon, and then he laughed. "Now, Mrs. Hodge-Lathrop," he went on with a shade of irritation in his tone, "this is too much!"

Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop was calm.

"Have you shown her any respect?" she went on. "Have you not, on the contrary, said and done everything you could, to drag her down from her exalted station, to pull her to the earth, to bring her to a level with men, to make her soil herself with politics, by scheming and voting and caucusing and b.u.t.tonholing and wire-pulling? You would have her degrade and uns.e.x herself by going to the polls, to caucuses and conventions; you would have her, no doubt, in time, lobbying for and against measures in the council chamber and the legislature."

Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop paused and lifted her gold eye-gla.s.ses once more to the bridge of her high, aristocratic nose.

"Is it that kind of women you have been brought up with, Morley? Do we look like that sort? Glance around this table-do we look like that sort of women?"

The ladies stiffened haughtily, disdainfully, under the impending inspection, knowing full well how easily they would pa.s.s muster.

"And, if that were not enough," Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop went on inexorably, "we come here to plead with you and find you hobn.o.bbing with that mannish thing, that _female_ lawyer!"

She spoke the word _female_ as if it conveyed some distinct idea of reproach. She was probing another chop with her fork. She had sent the pot of coffee back to the kitchen, ordering the waiter to tell the cook that she was accustomed to drink her coffee hot.

"And now, Morley Vernon, listen to me," she said, as if he were about to hear the conclusion of the whole matter. "If you have any spark of honor left in you, you will undo what you have already done. This resolution must be defeated in the Senate to-day; I am down here to see that it is done. We go to the State House after breakfast, and these ladies will a.s.sist me in laying before each member of the Senate this matter in its true and exact light. As for our rights," she paused and looked at him fixedly, "as for our rights, I think we are perfectly capable of preserving them."

Her look put that question beyond all dispute.

"And now," she resumed, "you would better take a little breakfast yourself; you look as if you needed strength."

Vernon rose. He stood for an instant looking at Amelia, but she glanced at him only casually.

"I suppose, Amelia, I shall see you later in the morning?"

"I suppose so, Mr. Vernon," she said. "But pray do not let me keep you from rejoining your companion." She was quite airy, and lifted her coffee-cup with one little finger quirked up higher than he had ever seen it before.

He went back to where Miss Greene sat, and where his breakfast lay.

"My goodness!" he said, seating himself. "I've had a time!"

"I should imagine so," said Miss Greene.

She was just touching her napkin to her lips with a final air. She carefully pushed back her chair, and rose from the table.

"I beg your pardon," he stammered, getting up himself, "I'll see you after breakfast."

Miss Greene bowed. Then she left the dining-room.

XII

MORLEY VERNON came out of the dining-room in a temper far different from that he had worn when he went in. His breakfast, after so many vicissitudes, was sure to be a failure, though John, striving against fate, had tried to restore the repast to its original excellence by replacing each dish with a fresh one. He affected a heroic cheerfulness, too, but the cheer was hollow, for his experience of men and of breakfasts must have taught him that such disasters can never be repaired.

Vernon, however, had heavier things on his mind. In his new position as knight-errant of Illinois womankind, he had looked forward to this day as the one of triumph; now, at its beginning, he found himself with two offended women on his hands, and two hopelessly irreconcilable mistresses to serve. He began to see that the lot of a constructive statesman is trying; he would never criticize leaders again.

The lobby of the hotel was filling rapidly, and men with their hair still damp from the morning combing were pa.s.sing into the breakfast room with newspapers in their hands. In the center of the lobby, however, he saw a group of senators, and out of the middle of the group rose a dark bonnet; the flowers on the bonnet bobbed now and then decisively. Around it were cl.u.s.tered other bonnets, but they were motionless, and, as it were, subordinate.

"Can you tell me who that is?" asked Brooks of Alexander, jerking his thumb at the group.

"Yes," said Vernon, "that's General Hodge-Lathrop. She's on her way to the front to a.s.sume command."

"Oh!" said Brooks. "I saw something in the papers-" And he went away, reading as he walked.

Vernon looked everywhere for Miss Greene, but he could not find her. The porter at the Capitol Avenue entrance told him that she had driven over to the State House a few minutes before. Vernon was seized by an impulse to follow, but he remembered Amelia. He could not let matters go on thus between them. If only Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop were not in command; if he could get Amelia away from her for a while, if he could see her alone, he felt that explanations would be possible.

He looked at his watch; it was half-past nine; the Senate would convene at ten; the resolution would not be reached before half-past ten at any rate; and so he determined to brave Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop again. He turned back into the lobby; there she was, hobn.o.bbing with men; she did not pa.s.s from group to group, after the manner of any other lobbyist, but by some coercion he wished he might be master of, she drew them unerringly to her side. Now she had Braidwood, the leader of the House, and chairman of the steering committee, and Porter, the leader of the Senate. She appeared to be giving them instructions.

She had set her committee on less important game; the ladies were scattered over the rotunda, each talking to a little set of men. When Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop saw Vernon coming, she turned from Braidwood and Porter and stood awaiting him. Strangely enough Braidwood and Porter stayed where they were, as if she had put them there. And Vernon reflected that he had never known them, as doubtless no one else had ever known them, to do such a thing as that before.

"Where's Amelia?" he asked before she could speak.

"I have sent her upstairs," said Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop, "poor child!"

Vernon wondered why "poor child."

"It's really too bad," Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop continued.

"What is too bad?" demanded Vernon. He had grown sulky.

Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop looked at him pityingly.

"Morley," she said in a vast solemn tone that came slowly up from her great stays, "I can make allowances, of course. I know something of the nature of man; I will admit that that Greene woman is remarkably handsome, and of her cleverness there can be no doubt. I don't altogether blame you."

She paused that Vernon might comprehend to the fullest her marvelous magnanimity.

"But at the same time it has been hard on poor little Amelia. I saw no other way than to bring her down. You must go to her at once."

She turned toward Braidwood and Porter, still standing where she had left them.

"When you have done, I'll see you with reference to this miserable resolution; but that can wait till we are at the Capitol. This other matter comes first, of course."

She smiled with a fat sweetness.

"And Morley," she said, "order two carriages for us at ten o'clock. You may drive to the Capitol with us."

And she went away.

Vernon ordered the carriages, and in turning the whole matter over in his mind he came to the conclusion that he must deal with these complications one at a time; Miss Greene, as events now had shaped themselves, would have to wait until he got over to the State House.