Empire

of him, Theodore Rex addressed his subjects, and, as always, Hay marvelled at the way neck became head without any widening at all.

The President was not going to have an easy time of it. Now that Mark Hanna was dead, he would have difficulty getting so obvious a bill as the one regarding the inspection of meat through a Senate where nearly everyone had been bought or was himself, like Aldrich of Rhode Island, a millionaire buyer of votes, while in the House, Speaker Cannon was wedded to the rich, no bad thing in Hay’s eyes, himself a millionaire not only through marriage but his own efforts. Even more than Adams, he had always had a golden touch, a source of some surprise to one who had begun life as a poet.

Although Hay deeply believed in oligarchy’s “iron law,” as Madison put it, he saw, as Roosevelt saw, the possibility of revolution if reforms were not made in the way that the new rich conducted their business at the expense of a powerless public. The Supreme Court and the police together ensured not only the protection of property but the right of any vigorous man to bankrupt the nation, while the Congress was, for the most part, bought. The occasional honest man, like the loud young Beveridge, was, literally, eccentric: too far from power’s center to do anything but make the public love him-and the all-powerful Steering Committee of the Senate ignore him.

As for Cabot… Hay shuddered; and not from cold. Cabot’s vanity and bad faith were two of the constants of Washington life. Cabot will be the rock, Adams had once observed, on which Theodore wrecks himself. So far, Theodore’s barque had sailed the republic’s high seas without incident; yet Cabot was always there to try to block every one of Hay’s treaties. Cabot’s my rock, Hay murmured to himself, happy he would soon be sailing not on the republic’s viscous sea but on the Mediterranean.

There was loud, long applause, as Theodore finished. In the north a black cloud appeared. Taft helped Hay up. To Hay’s surprise, Taft asked, “Was it here Lincoln gave his last inaugural address?”

Hay nodded. “Yes. Right here. I remember now. There was rain at first. Mr. Johnson, the Vice-President, was drunk. Then the rain stopped, and the President read his speech.”

Taft looked thoughtful. “I know that speech by heart.”

“We never suspected, then, that we were all so-historical. We just saw ourselves caught up in this terrible mess, trying to get through the day. I remember there was applause before he had finished one sentence.” Hay had the odd sense that he was now, if not in two places at once, in the same place at two different times, simultaneously, and he heard, again, the President’s voice rise over the applause, and say with great simplicity the four terrible words “And the war came.”

“We lost a generation.” Taft was oddly flat.

“We lost a world,” said Hay, amazed that he himself had survived so long in what was now, to him, so strange a country.

2

THE DAY AFTER THE INAUGURAL BALL, Caroline celebrated her twenty-seventh birthday with Blaise, and two lawyers, one her husband, John, the other Mr. Houghteling. The celebration began in her office at the Tribune, where various documents of transfer were signed and witnessed and countersigned and notarized. John asked pointed questions. Houghteling’s answers were as to the point as his innumeracy allowed. Blaise stared into space, as if he were not there. Caroline now had what was hers; while Blaise, in possession of half of what was hers, was marginally better off. To be a half-publisher of a successful paper was better than being a non-publisher, or the custodian of the Baltimore Examiner.

“Now,” said Houghteling, as the last set of signatures had been affixed, and Caroline had become a number of times a millionaire, “in the matter of the Saint-Cloud-le-Duc property, the will of your late father neglects to make clear which of you inherits. In law then, a court would doubtless find that you own it jointly as you do the rest of the estate, and should the property be sold, you would divide, evenly, the money from the sale. Is that agreeable?” He looked at John, who looked at Caroline, who said, “Yes,” and looked at Blaise, who shrugged and said, “Okay.”

“I want it for May and June,” said Caroline. “I miss the place.”

“I’ll come in July and August,” said Blaise. “For my honeymoon.”

“Good,” said Houghteling, who never listened to anyone except when specifically paid to.

Caroline looked intently at Blaise, who was now wiping ink off his middle finger. “Frederika?”

“Yes. We’re getting married in May.”

“Then you must have Saint-Cloud. For May, that is.”

“We can all stay there.” Blaise was equable.

“Congratulations,” said John, and formally shook Blaise’s hand. Houghteling had now put away his documents in a leather case and, still unaware of his client’s approaching marriage, bade them all good-by with the sentiment that, after nearly seven years, all must be well that had ended so well.

Blaise suggested that Caroline join him and Frederika for dinner that night at Harvey’s Oyster House. “And you, too, John,” he added; and left the room.

In recent years, Caroline and John seldom looked at each other directly; nor very often aslant, either. “Well, it’s over.” John took out his pipe; filled and lit it. Caroline studied a mock-up of the Sunday Ladies’ Page. Princess Alice was featured yet again; and there were hints that she might marry Nicholas Longworth; and then, again, she might not. “How is Emma?” Caroline had been touched to find that John had taken to the child and she to him.

“She flourishes. She asks for you. I’ve talked to Riggs Bank. They will start making monthly payments into your account, as we agreed.”

John stood up and stretched himself. He looked years older than he was; and the face was now of the same gray as the hair. “I suppose you’ll want a divorce.” He played with the heavy gold watch chain, to which were attached emblems of exclusive clubs and societies. He, too, was Porcellian, a gentleman.

“I suppose so. Would you like one?” Caroline was amazed at the tone that each had managed to strike, a mutual lassitude, like guests at a dinner party that would never get off the ground.

“Well, it’s for you, really, to decide. You see, I have no future.”

“What makes you think I have one?”

John gave a wan smile; and exhaled pale blue pipe-smoke with the words: “Heiresses cannot avoid having a future. It’s your fate. You will remarry.”

“To whom?”

“Emma’s father.”

“Out of reach. For good.”

“Kitty might die…”

For the first and last time in their marriage John astonished her. “How did you know?”

“I have eyes, and Emma has his eyes, and Emma can talk now, and she speaks of his Sunday visits, with pleasure, too.”

“You haven’t spied on me?” Caroline’s face felt unnaturally warm.

“Why should I? It’s no business of mine. What business I ever had with you is concluded, and yours with me.”

“I trust,” said Caroline, rising from behind her rolltop desk, “you will always be a-lawyer to me.”

“And you a client to me.” John smiled, and shook her hand, formally. “You know I did want to marry you, when you first came over. I mean really marry you.”

Caroline felt a sudden strong emotion, which she could not identify. Was it loss? “I’m afraid that wasn’t meant to be, no fault of yours-though, perhaps, of mine. You see, I wanted to be all myself, but had no real self to be all, or even part of. I think I make no sense.” Caroline was suddenly flustered. It was not her way to speak so personally to anyone, even Jim.

“Well, the key to your-brief,” John was dry, “was that it wasn’t meant to be, and that certainly proved to be the case. I helped you, and, God knows, you helped me. Shall I divorce you, or you me?”

“Oh, divorce me!” Caroline had regained her poise. “For desertion, that’s fashionable now. In the Dakotas, which should