Blaise could never tell with any politician where truth ends and expedient cant begins. Did this handsome, god-like youth, admittedly a rustic god, more Pan than Apollo, really give a damn about the working-man or the price of cotton or the tariff? Or were these the noises that he was obliged to make, like a bird’s mating call, to gain himself what he wanted in the world? Blaise did not pursue the question. Instead, he reminded Jim that Hearst had helped to invent the populist if not popular Bryan. “So they, the six-fingered owners of the country, haven’t totally distorted him. He has his rich admirers, too.”
“Yes, that’s been lucky for us. Hearst has done us some good, no doubt of that-and no matter why.” Jim stood up; and Blaise realized that he himself was not dressed. Blaise walked toward the open door to his own bedroom. “We’re having lunch on Payne’s ocean-liner,” he said. He paused at the door. “Did Brisbane say that you would go far in politics?”
Jim laughed. “Yes, he did. And he told me why.”
“Because you have blue eyes.”
“Exactly. Is Hearst just as crazy?”
“Crazier in a way.”
“We must,” said Jim, as he left the room to rejoin the house-party, “keep an eye on him.”
“A cold blue eye.”
“On those six fingers, particularly.”
DESPITE MARGUERITE’S PLEAS, Caroline joined the yachting party. “I must seem absolutely all right,” she said, “until…”
“Until… what?”
“I do what I have to do.” This sentence released a torrent of mercifully silent tears. Actually, Caroline had no plan for the coming catastrophe. She must be cool, she told herself; do nothing rash; tell no one, certainly.
The father of her child-to-be looked very handsome, as he lounged on the after-deck of the yacht, the unlovely bulk of Block Island just back of him. The other guests were in the main salon, waiting for lunch to be announced. Although Caroline had been careful to avoid Jim, she had not been able to resist fresh air. She who had never in her life fainted now feared just that. The sensations inside her body were ominous, to say the least; and anything could happen.
“I probably shouldn’t have come.” Jim smiled. “But Blaise insisted, and I’m in his debt-for Mr. Hearst, or Mr. Brisbane, I suppose.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” Caroline managed to animate her voice. “Of course,” she added.
“I’d no idea people really lived like this.”
“Does it tempt you?”
“No. What I do is more interesting. I’m never bored, while these folks…”
“Give dinner-parties for their dogs.”
“I just met Mr. Lehr.“ Jim grimaced.
“I will not protect you…”
“That poor girl he’s married to…”
“You saw that?”
“We’re not all that simple back home.”
“I never thought you were.” Caroline was pleased that, thanks to the shock of her situation, she felt no desire at all for Jim. He, on the other hand, was radiating sexual energy like one of Henry Adams’s dynamos. She would have to discourage him, she decided, not quite certain what the etiquette of a pregnancy at this point required, or allowed. The doctor that she had visited, anonymously, in Baltimore, had been so interested in his fee for the planned abortion that she had not gone back to him. Instead, she had waited; she did not know for what.
“You’ll be going back to American City now…?”
Jim nodded. As the mouth still had its appeal for her, she gazed upon Block Island instead. “On Monday. Kitty’s pregnant.”
“Oh, no!” Caroline’s astonishment was so genuine that she feared that she had given herself away.
But Jim simply grinned. “Well, that’s what you get married for, you know.”
“I don’t-know.” Caroline saw a good deal of gallows humor in the situation. “I can imagine, naturally.” She was her usual self now. “Is she ill? I mean does she have-spells of sickness?”
Jim nodded, without much interest. “There’s always a bit of feeling bad, I guess.”
“When will it… the child, that is, be born?”
“October, the doctor thinks.”
The same month that Caroline’s would be due. He had gone from one bed to the other, perhaps even on the same day, like a rooster. For the first time, she realized just how dangerous the male was. The superior physical strength was bad enough, but the ability to start new life, with a single inadvertent thrust, was truly terrifying. Mlle. Souvestre had been right. Better the Sapphic life, the “white marriages” between ladies, than this sweaty black magic.
Blaise appeared in the doorway. “Lunch is ready.” For once, Caroline was grateful for his interruption.
“I have no appetite,” she said, accurately, and entered the ship’s salon just as a gong sounded from the dining room. Harry Lehr took her arm, as if for a cotillion.
“I had no idea our congressmen were so attractive.” For a guilty instant, Caroline wondered if Harry Lehr knew. But, of course, he could not know, and her heart beat less rapidly. She wondered if she was going to become entirely furtive in character, thus giving away her game to everyone.
“You mean Mr. Day?” Caroline smiled at Mamie Fish, who nodded in a queenly way. “He’s Blaise’s friend.”
“They’re an attractive couple, aren’t they?” Lehr laughed, musically. Caroline joined in; she had, suddenly, a plan.
2
AT EXACTLY NOON, Caroline entered the Waldorf-Astoria’s Peacock Alley, now largely deserted. Fashionable New York could not be found within a hundred miles of the city, while working New York was largely shut down. The emptiness and stillness of the great rooms was somewhat alarming. Paris must have been like this, she thought, when Bismarck was at the gates.
Beneath a potted palm sat John Apgar Sanford, somewhat balder, somewhat grayer than the year before when they had last met in Washington, and he had reported his usual failure to budge Mr. Houghteling. Since she would inherit soon, no matter what, they had given up the case. “You didn’t say in your telegram what you wanted to see me about, but I assumed it would be the case, so I’ve brought the key documents.” He held up a leather case.
“That’s all right,” she said, and seated herself opposite him. “It’s not about the case, actually.” She had rehearsed a number of openings but none was right. She would, she had decided, depend on inspiration; but now that she was with him, there was none, only a mild panic.
John asked about various Washington Apgars. Caroline began with a wrong move. “One has even been elected to Congress. James Burden Day. I think his mother was an…”
“Grandmother, I believe,” John nodded, “was an Apgar. I’ve met her.”
“The wife is charming.” Then Caroline abandoned this most dangerous of subjects. “You must find…” She could not finish this sentence.
But John took in stride the sentiment. “Yes, it is quite lonely for me. In spite of a plentitude of Apgars, I have no family life now, none at all.”
“We Sanfords are also few.”
“Very few indeed. Blaise…” John did not finish.
Caroline did not begin. That subject was abandoned, stillborn. “I have been thinking,” she said at last, in lieu of inspiration, “about getting married.”
“I suppose that is natural, of course.” John seemed unsurprised; also, uninterested.
“Soon, there will be the inheritance.” She played her great card at once.
“Yes. You will be very well-off indeed. From what I gather, Blaise did not-do as we feared. There are still certain loans to Mr. Hearst outstanding, but Mr. Hearst is good for them. Otherwise, the inheritance is intact. I hope,” John smiled wanly, “you are not being married for your fortune…”
“Like one of Mr. James’s poor ladies? No, I don’t think that enters my… calculation, so far. Is patent law so difficult?”
John looked surprised. “It is not difficult, no. But it is not easy to make a living at it. I’ve changed firms, as you know. But my wife’s long illness…” The voice trailed into embarrassed silence.