Empire

was collegial, “there’s no way of telling them. But since you’re a handsome young woman with a fortune, and Del Hay to marry, how long can you be so… original?”

“As long as you, I suppose.”

“I’m a man. We’re allowed to marry and we’re allowed-delighted to do business. No lady that I know of has ever set out, so young, while single, to do anything like this.”

Caroline studied the white smoke which had replaced the blue flame-flowers. “Why,” she asked, “are you so eager to be president?”

“How do you know I am?”

“That’s coy, Mr. McLean. That is maidenly. You give me the sort of answers that I’m supposed to give you. Why do you want it so badly that you took on the President in his own home state, and lost, as you knew you were going to?”

McLean’s hiccups returned, louder than the fire’s hissing and sputtering. “I didn’t expect to lose. It was close. The President’s on spongy ground back home. This empire business isn’t popular with the folks.”

“But prosperity is, and the President’s clever. That war of his ended the bad times, and even the farmers are complaining less than usual, which means that McKinley will defeat Bryan again.” How proud, Caroline thought, Mlle. Souvestre would be: one of her girls dealing with a man on equal terms.

McLean stared at Caroline with true wonder. “Somehow or other, I got the impression that you were only interested in the more revolting contents of our city’s morgue.”

Caroline laughed. “I’m not entirely ghoulish. In fact, I don’t like the contents of the morgue at all. But I am curious as to how living people manage to end up on marble slabs, and I share my curiosity with our readers, few as they are.”

“Mr. Hay-the father-must talk freely with you.”

“I listen-freely-to everyone.” Caroline stood up. “We’ve been here too long. I am compromised. Shall I scream?”

“I would be deeply flattered, and Mrs. McLean would be deeply proud-of me.” McLean got to his feet. They stood in front of the fire. Over the mantel hung a splendid fraudulent Rubens. Caroline had seen two exact copies of the same painting in New York. In dealing with innocent Americans, Old Europe’s forgers had grown careless. “You are interested in our political life, and I am surprised. Most young… most women are not. How did this happen?”

“I went to a good school. We were taught to question everything. I do. Now then, Mr. McLean, which of us-the Enquirer or the Tribune-shall question the war?”

“The war?” McLean blinked. “What war?”

“The Filipino war of independence, what else? We seem to be losing it.”

“Losing it? I guess you didn’t see this morning’s Associated Press wire. General Otis has captured the president of the so-called Philippines Congress, and has made secure all of central Luzon. The war, as you call it, is just about over.”

“Aguinaldo is still free. But you know far more than I about all this.” Half-heartedly, Caroline turned herself into polite jeune fille. “I had only hoped that someone might explain just how the… the morgues in those islands got so filled up, and why.”

McLean took her arm; he was suddenly paternal, and almost, for him, affectionate. “You know more than any young woman I’ve ever met. But you haven’t quite got the clue to all of this…”

“Clue?”

McLean nodded. They were at the door. “I’m not going to tell you, either. You’re too smart as it is.”

The door was flung open, and there stood Mrs. John R. McLean, small of chin, blue of eyes, dark of skin. “You two are a scandal,” she observed mildly.

“We are at that.” McLean was wry. “But then that’s our business. Now, young lady, a question.”

“Before my very eyes,” said Mrs. McLean, plainly not disturbed.

“And ears,” her husband added. He turned to Caroline. “Do you mean to sell out to Hearst?”

“No. I also don’t mean, if I can help it, to sell out to my brother-half-brother-Blaise.”

“If you can help it?” McLean watched her face closely, as though studying a clock which may or may not be keeping correct time.

“Blaise has tied up my share of our inheritance. I may not get what is mine until 1905. It is possible that I shall run out of money before then…” Caroline could see that Mrs. McLean was far more shocked by this talk of money than she would ever have been by the thought of a romantic interlude between husband and young woman. But McLean had seized the point.

“If you ever need money for the Tribune,” he said, “come to me.”

“Pop!” Mrs. McLean’s dark complexion seemed smeared with ash by firelight. The pale eyes protruded.

“Mummie!” McLean responded in kind, their princely eminence abandoned for the homely lowland of the common hard pan. McLean turned to his wife and took her arm. “Don’t you see that the best thing in the world is for me to have this lovely child running the Tribune, with my money, rather than have her go sell it to that bastard…”

“Pop!” The voice resounded like thunder.

“I have heard the word,” said Caroline. “In Market Square,” she added, demurely.

“… William Randolph Hearst.” McLean concluded; and led the two ladies back into the ballroom.

Caroline was greeted by her new friends of the diplomatic corps. Jules Cambon was a lively cricket of a man, always pleased to see what he regarded as a countrywoman. He was also, he liked to say, an American bachelor: Madame Cambon had refused to join him in the Washington wilderness. Lord Pauncefote was a lawyer turned diplomat; he had been posted to Washington for ten years, and knew the intricacies of the capital even better, Hay liked to say, than the Secretary of State. Pauncefote’s face was wide, made even wider by fleecy side-whiskers, whose white was emphasized by the rich red claret color of the huge face. Pauncefote was also an expert on the legal intricacies governing international canals. He had been involved in the creation of the Suez Canal; now he was again at work, with Hay, drawing up the protocols which would govern the canal that the United States was planning to build across the Central American isthmus. Once Atlantic and Pacific Oceans were connected, America’s military power would be doubled, while, it was whispered in the Senate cloakroom, England’s would be halved.

“We are hopeful,” said the old man to the group of government officials surrounding him. As Congress was not yet in session, there were few tribunes of the people present to celebrate the hero of Manila Bay. Pauncefote bowed to Caroline. “Miss Sanford. I am speaking shop, and will now desist.”

“Don’t! Go on. It is my shop, too. The Tribune has already thundered its approval of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty.”

“Would that the Senate will do the same next month.” Actually, the Tribune editorial, the work of Trimble, had suggested that since the United States was building-and paying for-the canal, the United States must have the right to fortify the canal, which the treaty, out of deference to an 1850 convention between England and the United States, would deny. But just as Pauncefote began to express his government’s views of canals, Mrs. Admiral Dewey joined them, a sumptuous doll, Caroline decided, who had at last found herself a proper doll’s house. She explained to Caroline, “We couldn’t live in that tacky house in Rhode Island Avenue. So I’ve bought Beauvoir, a pretty place in Woodley Lane. Do you know it?”

Caroline did not.

“It’s like being in the country, but still in the town. I can’t wait to start fixing it up. For years I’ve owned quantities of the most lovely blue-and-white Delft tiles, and now I’m going to be able to use them.”

“In the kitchen?”

Mrs. Dewey’s huge doll’s eyes blinked like-a doll’s. “No. In the drawing room. Of course, the house is rather small, but then we don’t need anything large. There are no children now. Only my husband’s trophies. And what trophies! You saw the gold sword the President gave him at the Capitol?”

“From a great distance.” The ceremony had been impressive, if somewhat bizarre. Never before had a reigning president sat in front of the portico while the center of attention was not himself, the sovereign, but a military man. McKinley had carried off his difficult assignment with his usual papal charm, and Caroline had accepted, gratefully, Hay’s characterization of the President as a medieval Italian prelate. While the Admiral was being celebrated by the vast crowd, the President had smiled beautifully at no one. Only once was he utilized. He was obliged to present a