Empire

two old friends methodically filled the office with fragrant smoke, successfully eliminating the cloying odor of summer roses, arranged in every vase. “She left me a note, saying that anything that she hears from Del she will let you know, and hopes that you will do the same.”

“Yes.” The pains in the lower back had, ominously, ceased. For some reason, Hay had always felt that a degree of pain was not only reasonable but a sign that the body was correcting itself, as new things went awry in the furnace, the plumbing and the electrical arrangements. But now there was only a general weakness in every limb; and a sensitivity to heat, which made him constantly sleepy, a condition that sleep itself did not improve. He must soon withdraw to New Hampshire or die; or both, he thought, without fear, glad that he could at least enjoy, in the present instant, Adee’s inspired misunderstanding of the word “Tsar.”

The appearance in the doorway, unannounced, of the Secretary of War caused Adee, graciously, like Saint- Simon indeed, to withdraw, never turning his back on the great ones while never ceasing to puff at his cigar.

Root sat on the edge of Hay’s desk. “The Major wants all Americans out of China.”

“How are we to do that, with the Boxers surrounding them in Peking?”

“I’ve told him I thought it was a bad idea, unless the Russians were to go, too, which they won’t. He’s worried about the effect on the election.”

Hay sighed. “I now leave Asia in your hands. I leave the State Department in your hands. I leave…”

“You leave too much.”

“Well, I don’t leave you Teddy.” Hay looked at the now sealed letter to the Governor of New York. “He will speak in every state, he says.”

“It will be interesting to see if he mentions the President.” Root’s contempt for Roosevelt was entirely impersonal and spontaneous. At the same time, they got on well politically: two practical men who needed each other. Teddy had already written Root his version of the convention, which Root had shown Hay: “It was a hard four days in Philadelphia.” Teddy made his own nomination sound like a war won. “What will the Major do?”

“He is going home to Canton,” said Hay. “He will sit on his front porch until election day, chatting to the folks…”

“… and waiting for the telephone to ring.”

“We’re weak on the Philippines.” Root was abrupt. “Taft’s too easy-going. MacArthur’s too much of the military proconsul.”

“You can handle the General,”

Root chuckled. “Oh, I’ll break him to sergeant if he disobeys me. But I can’t give Taft a backbone. If there’s trouble between now and November…”

“Bryan won’t know what to do about it. We shall be reelected, and I shall no longer be the heir-presumptive to the republic. Are you certain you wouldn’t like my place?”

Hay, genuinely, for the moment at least, wished to relinquish office. But Root would have none of it. “We make a good team, the way we are.” He picked up a copy of the Washington Tribune from a side-table where the national press was each day arranged, much as Hay himself used to prepare it for President Lincoln. But unlike Lincoln, who had never been a journalist, Hay should have known better than to take seriously the press. But fabulists, Hay knew, tend to believe tall tales.

“Del’s fiancee seems to be making a go of this.”

“She says that she does not lose money,” said Hay, “and she is amused.”

4

BUT CAROLINE HAD LOST MONEY since spring; and she was not amused. She had spent far too much money covering the national conventions. Since Hearst had given every journalist in the country an exaggerated idea of his worth, she had been obliged to pay a former New York Herald journalist more than she could afford to write what proved to be, surprisingly, an excellent account of the Philadelphia convention. Could it be that Hearst was right? that one did get what one paid for? Now she sat on the lawn of the Delacroix “cottage” and read the Tribune’s account of the nomination of William Jennings Bryan at Kansas City on July 5. As a running mate, Bryan had selected Grover Cleveland’s ancient vice-president, Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. Caroline carefully compared the account in her paper to that of the rival press. Although Hearst was hearty in his endorsement of Bryan, nothing much was said about silver, while Bryan’s anti-imperialist views were barely acknowledged by imperialist Hearst. Happily, Hearst and Bryan were at one on the “Criminal Trusts,” whatever they were, thought Caroline, turning to Hearst’s new paper, the Chicago American, officially launched on July 4, with all of the Chief’s characteristic energy and rich inaccuracy.

“It is curious indeed,” said a deep feminine voice, “to see a young lady reading the vulgar press, and getting ink on her gloves in the process.”

“Then I shall take off the gloves.” Caroline dropped the stack of newspapers onto the grass, and removed her white gloves. “But I must keep on reading my competition; and perfect my own vulgar art.”

Curiosity had, finally, brought them together. When Caroline, vanquished at last by Washington’s heat, had agreed to spend July with Mrs. Jack Astor, Mrs. Delacroix had written her that she must stay with what was, after all, the nearest thing that she had to a grandmother. And so Caroline had transferred herself from Mrs. Jack’s to the splendors of the Grand Trianon, set high on Ochre Avenue above the bright cool Atlantic; and from this sea-fragrant height the steaming heat of Washington was soon forgotten.

Mrs. Delacroix was small and thin, with a face whose lines resembled an intricate spider’s web, framed by silver-gray hair so elaborately curled and arranged-not to mention thick-that half Newport was convinced she wore a wig like her contemporary Mrs. Astor. But hair-and spider’s web-were all her own. When the old lady spoke, her speech was swift with oddly clipped syllables, a reminder of her New Orleans origin. As Mrs. Delacroix approached Caroline, she held a parasol between pale skin and bright sun; she seemed, to Caroline, like some highly purposeful ghost; with truly bad news from the other side.

“Mr. Lispinard Stewart, our neighbor, has come to call. I said that I thought that you were indisposed. But of course if you are disposed…”

“I am entirely at your disposition.”

“They do teach you girls how to talk over there in Europe.” A footman in livery appeared from behind a hedge of lilac, and placed a chair behind Mrs. Delacroix, who sat in it without once looking to see if the chair was in place. “Mr. Lispinard Stewart owns the White Lodge down the road. He is very snobbish.”

“Like everyone else here. Or so I’ve been told,” Caroline added; she had vowed not to be critical, in conversation.

“Some of us have more occasion to be snobbish than others. Mr. Stewart is a bachelor whom everyone would like to marry. But I suspect he will remain in his current state of immaculate chastity, as the nuns used to say in my youth, until he is one day called to a higher station, as a bridegroom of Christ.”

Caroline could never tell when the old lady was being deliberately droll. In either case, she laughed. “It was my impression that Jesus contents himself only with brides.”

“We must not,” said Mrs. Delacroix serenely, “question the mysterious ways of the Almighty.” With the point of her parasol she was turning over the pile of newspapers on the lawn. “You’re the first young lady that I have ever known who reads the front part of the newspapers.”

“I am the first young lady you have ever known to publish a newspaper.”

“I would not,” said Mrs. Delacroix, “boast.”

“Boast? I had hoped to arouse your sympathy.”

“I have none.” Mrs. Delacroix looked quite pleased with herself.

“None at all-for anyone?”

“Not even for myself. We get what we deserve, Caroline.” From the first day, the old woman had addressed the young woman as both child and relative. “But what I most particularly deserve, you don’t have.” She abandoned turning over the newspapers; and frowned with disappointment. “It’s not here.”

“What were you looking for?”