“How,” asked Caroline, “did she lose the teeth?”
“A horse kicked her.” Mrs. Bingham looked almost youthful as she bore, yet again, ill tidings. “Now she’s developed an abscess in her lower jaw, and all the teeth fell crashing out…”
“Poor girl,” said Blaise. He had never met Miss Roosevelt, but she was known to be clever and eager to have a social life of great intensity anywhere on earth except in dowdy Washington. He could not blame her. Idly, he wondered if he should marry her. She was said to be good-looking. But then the thought of the dentures that she soon must wear erased any fantasy of a White House wedding.
Caroline helped Mrs. Bingham greet the arriving guests, and Blaise was taken off by an Apgar lady, “your fifth cousin,” she said. They kept track, the Apgars, of their vast cousinage. As Blaise tried to make conversation, he looked about the room, all gilt and crystal and old-fashioned shiny black horsehair, and tried to recognize who was who among the politicians, and failed. But he was able to tell which man present was a politician-the uniform black Prince Albert frock-coat was the give-away, not to mention the inevitably large mouth and huge chest, suitable for speech-making to enormous crowds. So many opera tenors, he decided, disguised as preachers. Caroline, he noted, seemed in her element; she was supremely poised, as Mrs. Bingham introduced her to the new men of state; and once each had realized that this young lady was proprietor of the Tribune, her hand would be taken not in one hand but two glad-hands, and her arm pumped, as if from the depths of her being printer’s ink might be summoned up, to spell out, again and again, the politician’s name in stories that would give pleasure to his constituents and profits to his sponsors.
Bleakly, Blaise realized that the Baltimore Examiner could never have the same effect on these overexcited men, excepting, always, the Maryland delegation, to a man to be avoided. Fortunately, Hapgood had promised to act as buffer; and Hapgood knew them all.
A wiry young man with a full head of coppery hair-for some reason, a full head of hair was a rarity in the republic’s political life-turned to Blaise, and said, “You’re Mr. Sanford. Caroline’s brother.” The young man’s handshake was highly professional. By gripping hard the other man’s fingers, the politician got the first grip, thus saving himself from the malicious working-man, whose superior strength could, with a grinding squeeze, reduce even the sturdiest man of state to his knees. McKinley’s famous trick of simultaneously shaking the honest yeoman’s hand while appearing gently to caress its owner’s elbow was simply a precaution. Should the other begin to crush the presidential fingers, the affectionate grip on the elbow would be transformed to a sudden sharp blow, calculated to cause such unexpected pain that the grip would be loosened. Blaise had learned all the tricks, in the Chief’s service.
“You’re one of the new-congressmen?” Despite the political handclasp, the young man seemed far too athletic and handsome to be a tribune of the people; but that, indeed, was what he was. “James Burden Day,” he said; and named his state and district; also cousinage. “We’re all of us Apgars,” he said.
“Yes.” Blaise was vague. He had no memory of James Burden Day, but he was not displeased to have a distant cousin in the Congress, particularly one who looked like a gentleman even if he did represent a barbarous state, whose barbarous accent he also affected, if it was not, grim thought, his own.
“I was here before, in the comptroller’s office. That’s when I got to know Del Hay and, of course, Miss Sanford.” They exchanged condolences on Del’s death. “After he went off to Pretoria, I never saw him again. He was going to marry Miss Sanford…?” Day inserted a question in his voice.
“Yes. This month, I think. He was also going to join the President’s staff.”
“Poor… Mr. Hay,” said the young man, unexpectedly; and his pale blue eyes looked suddenly, directly, embarrassingly, into Blaise’s. With one hand, Blaise touched his own forehead, as if to deflect by this meaningless gesture that sharp disquieting gaze; and wondered why he should find Mr. Day disturbing. After all, the inference that Caroline did not care for Del was none of Blaise’s business. But Day had made him uneasy, which he did not like. He was also reminded, yet again, that although he was the Sanford, Washington was very much Caroline’s city. She had made herself a high place; and he had none yet.
Day said the expected things. Del dead so young; President dead so tragically; Mr. Hay devastated. “Even more so now,” said Blaise, wishing that he was as tall as Day, who was able to speak to him with such intimacy and warmth, and yet could look, whenever he chose, over Blaise’s head to see what new magnate had entered the room. But Blaise continued: “Mr. Hay’s oldest friend just died, Clarence King. You know, the geologist.”
“I didn’t know…”
“My sister tells me he died in Arizona a few weeks ago. So in six months poor Mr. Hay has lost his son, friend and president.”
“Well,” said Day, with sudden cold-bloodedness, “he hasn’t lost his job, has he? Funny that Roosevelt hasn’t replaced him. But then,” and the smile was boyish and engaging, “I’m a Democrat, and I carry a spear for Bryan, in the people’s name.”
“We’re crucifying them,” said Blaise, matching the other’s boyish coldness, “upon a cross of silver this time around.” Both men laughed.
“I’m Frederika Bingham.” A pale blond girl, with a languid manner, introduced herself. “I know who you are, of course, but Mamma thinks that you should know who I am.” She smiled at Blaise, a somewhat crooked smile that revealed curiously sharp incisors. She smelled of lilac-water. Day smelled of not quite clean broadcloth. Of all Blaise’s faculties, the sense of smell was the strongest and, in sexual matters, the most decisive. “I saw you at the Casino, at Newport,” he said.
“You will go far in politics,” said the young woman, her voice on a dying fall, her eyes not on Blaise but on James Burden Day.
“Except Mr. Sanford doesn’t go into politics at all,” said Day. “He doesn’t have to, lucky man.”
“I get everyone mixed up,” said Frederika contentedly. Blaise could see that Day attracted her; and that he didn’t. Masculine competitiveness began, like a tide, to rise, for no reason other than the moon’s disposition, or was it lilac, or the other? The other…
Caroline joined them. She, too, was attracted, Blaise could see. A storm of male resolve broke-behind his eyes or wherever such storms break. One male-admittedly taller than he-had attracted two women. He must, somehow, establish his own primacy. “You have come back, as you said you would,” Caroline greeted Day warmly. “In Congress, at last.”
“Father wants you to do something about milk,” said Frederika, gazing thoughtfully at Blaise. At least, he had willed her attention from the other.
“But I don’t come from a dairy state,” said Day, answering for Blaise.
“You are naive!” Caroline seemed to be bestowing a high compliment; but Day blushed, as she meant him to do. “The fact that there is not a single cow in your state means that when you finally do something for all the cows in the nation-I don’t know just what you’ll have to do, but Mr. Bingham will tell you-you will be thought disinterested and altruistic and a true friend of…”
“… of the dairy interests,” finished Day, habitual healthy bronze heightened.
“No. No. Of the cows.” Caroline was emphatic.
“Father really likes them.” Thoughtfully, Frederika smiled her crooked smile at Blaise. “Cows, that is. He can moon around that dairy of his-the one in Chevy Chase-all day.”
“I know how he feels.” Blaise could tell that Caroline was about to improvise an aria. She could, with no effort, say what others would like to hear, with astonishing spontaneity. “I was like that at Saint-Cloud-le-Duc. Remember, Blaise? The cows, the milking rooms, the churns where they still make butter the way they did when Louis XV stayed there? It was Paradise, and at its center not God but the Cow…” Before Caroline could complete her panegyric, Day pulled a small, plump, pretty woman to his side, and said, “This is my wife, Kitty.”