Empire

and she a mere society lady, they would probably get on. As it was, the primal emotion was, no doubt, envy.

“I don’t know any congressmen,” said Hearst meekly. “Except Mr. Day and Mr. Williams…”

“The Speaker,” said Jim, “swears he doesn’t know you by sight.”

“So you see, I wouldn’t be at home, would I?”

“All the more reason for coming to our house. Mother will introduce you to the right people. Mr. Sanford, I have only an hour…”

They said their farewells; and got into the Binghams’ chauffeured motor car. “Did you hear about Cissy Patterson?”

Blaise confessed that he did not know who she was; he was told; then: “Last week, after the wedding, the groom didn’t show up at the wedding breakfast in the Patterson house.” The Patterson palace was now directly in front of them as they entered Dupont Circle. “So Cissy was in tears, and a friend of the groom, this Austrian, went looking for him, and found him at the railroad station, buying a ticket for New York. Apparently, he had gone to his bank right after the service, and they had told him that the million dollars that he had been promised hadn’t been deposited.”

“Did he go?”

“He stayed. The check was still being cleared. I don’t think Cissy’s going to be very happy, do you?”

Blaise said no.

“I’d like to be like Caroline. Independent. With something to do.”

“Having children’s quite enough to do.” Blaise was patriarchal; French.

The Connecticut Avenue house was a vast and, to Blaise’s eye, most beautiful rendering in a modern way of Saint-Cloud-le-Duc, which he more and more missed. Neither he nor Caroline had returned, according to their post- Poussin treaty, and he was more than ever homesick while she was less; yet of the two, it was she who had loved the place more, and stayed on and on, while he had turned himself eagerly into a full-time American. Now they had reversed roles.

A caretaker in a heavy overcoat let them in. The interior of the house was even colder than outside. Together they explored the double drawing room, adapted from Saint-Cloud; and the ballroom, copied from a castle of Ludwig of Bavaria. There was even a lift, which Frederika thought a mistake. “The poor Walshes thought they were so clever in putting their ballroom on the top floor. But the elevator could only hold four people at a time, so when the guests all arrive at once, the party takes forever to begin.” She laughed; he found her easy, something that most American girls were not. They tended to take command.

But then, as if to prove that she, too, was American and managerial by nature, Frederika told Blaise exactly how to decorate the various rooms; and he was pleasantly surprised to discover that he did not in the least mind so much advice. As they talked, their mingled breaths like smoke in the icy air, Blaise thought seriously of marriage, not to Frederika, but to someone suitable, someone who would be able to look after the house, not to mention Saint-Cloud-le-Duc. Both Alice Roosevelt and Marguerite Cassini had appealed to him. But the first was far too self- important and the second far too Slavicly sly. Alice Hay had charmed him; but he had not charmed her, and she was now married to a New York Wadsworth. Millicent Smith, the Countess Glenellen, was not without a certain appeal. She had grown up in Washington; gone to school with Caroline; married the Earl Glenellen, from whom she was now separated after what was thought to have been the most exciting fist-fight in the history of the American embassy at London. Lord Glenellen had been knocked unconscious by the fragile Millicent, who later explained to the appalled ambassador that she had cheated, holding in her right fist, not the traditional street-fighter’s roll of coins, but a metal cigar container (cigar inside), which had added exceptional, if unfair, force to her blow. Millicent was also much admired for the strength of her character. Nevertheless, the more Blaise studied the field the less any one person appealed to him. He had considered going back to Paris; but that would have been an acknowledgment of defeat for him, and a victory for Caroline.

“I’m freezing. And I’m late,” Frederika announced, as they made their way to the front door, where the watchman let them out. “Mother’s at home Saturday,” Frederika announced, as she dropped Blaise off at Willard’s.

“I’ll be there,” he said. They shook hands, formally, and he went into the hotel. Why not, he wondered, marry Frederika? She appealed to him in an entirely practical way; that is, there was no passion of the sort that might end with a fist-fight in the White House’s Blue Room. She could certainly manage a dozen households. On the other hand, there was Mrs. Bingham, and all those cows. No, a Sanford must marry within that gilded circle where cows could be peripheral but never central, as in the Bingham case.

2

WHILE BLAISE BROODED ON COWS, Caroline paid court to Henry Adams, as a dutiful niece now matured by matrimony. He seemed smaller, older, and definitely sadder. “The fire that destroyed your brother’s printing press also made molten my little book on the twelfth century.” He sighed, stretched out his hands in a propitiatory way toward the fire, begetter of molten type-face. “I shall have to delay publication, not that I really, ever, publish. The edition is only for me, and you, and a few others…”

“Hearts?”

“We are only three now.” He frowned. “I worry about Hay. He is being slowly worn to death by that maniac across the street, and that madhouse of a Senate. Cabot…” he began; and ended. “I’m in a cheery mood, as you can see.” He gazed at her reflectively. “Why do we never see Mr. Sanford?”

“Because I thought it was the ageing Mrs. Sanford whose company you pretend to enjoy.”

“Oh, no pretense. No pretense. I find it hard to talk to some of the new girls. But then I’m very dull. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes. It’s your most attractive feature. If you were older, I might have married you instead of my cousin, who is merely-not attractively-dull.”

Adams laughed his muted dog’s bark of a laugh. “You’ll do very well.”

“Surely you like Alice.” Washington had taken to saying the name “Alice” with a slight pause between syllables, to denote that the Alice was meant.

“I like her better than her father. But then I like everyone better than I like him. Last week, I went to my first White House dinner since 1878, during the sullen reign of Rutherford B. Hayes, where lemonade flowed like champagne. I was only asked because Brooks could not come. They needed an Adams, any Adams, while the President always needs a pair of humble ears. Mine were never so humble. He did not stop talking for two hours. The contents,” Adams smiled sweetly at Nebuchadnezzar eating grass, “of that mind confound me! All history is neatly on file in that great round Dutch cheese of a head. But-so generous is he that he will share all that he knows with anyone, no matter how humble. I was awed. Speechless. Poor John, what he must go through, day after day…”

Caroline, aware that Adamsian gloom was about to overwhelm the bright room, said, “I just passed Alice and the Cassini girl bob-sledding on Connecticut Avenue. They start at Dupont Circle, and slide through the traffic, out of control.”

“A metaphor, my child, for her father’s Administration.”

“How,” asked Caroline, “does one get money?”

For the first time in their friendship, Adams looked at her with true surprise. “In our world, you select parents who have money, and they, in turn, pass it on. If one has been careless in the selection of parents, one marries someone who was not so careless. I am very good about money, by the way. I can’t think why. But I do well in financial crises. Brooks, who understands the monetary system better than anyone alive, loses money, always. It is highly gratifying. Anyway, next year-is it?-you inherit your fortune-”

“This year, I am desperate.”

“Your husband has debts.” Adams did not phrase this as a question; but then everyone knew everything in their world.

“More than I had bargained for.”

“Go to your brother.”

“He wants the paper.”