Читать книгу The Fall of a Nation - Thomas Dixon - Страница 8

“Aren’t you glad you came?” Zonia asked eagerly.

“Hurry! Don’t let her get away with Waldron – ”

The girl darted from his side and pushed rapidly to the platform. The crowd had encircled Virginia and a hundred people were trying to grasp her hand at the same time. There was no help for it. He must wait. At least he was glad the jam made it equally impossible for Waldron to reach her. He saw him wave his hand to her over their heads, bow and leave the platform for his waiting car.

Vassar was glad to be rid of his presence. That frozen smile poisoned the air. He could breathe deeply now.

It was fully fifteen minutes before he caught the signal Zonia waved from the steps.

His niece was radiant with joy as she proudly introduced them.

“Uncle John, this is my heroine, Miss Holland, and you’ve got to shake hands and be good friends now – ”

“I trust we shall!” Vassar cried laughingly.

Virginia smiled seriously.

“It depends on you, Mr. Congressman,” she responded quietly. “You know I’ve tried to be friendly for some time, but you have been elusive. I had to threaten you with death even to bring about an introduction – ”

He lifted his hand in protest.

“Don’t – please! It’s unkind now that I know you. I’ve had such a silly idea of your personality. I repent in sackcloth and ashes – ”

“Really?”

“Honestly,” he went on eagerly. “You know I had an idea that all suffragettes were ugly, disappointed, soured women whose lives had been beggared by the faults of sinful men – ”

“Or Amazons – Uncy!” Zonia broke in with a laugh. “He called you an Amazon, Miss Holland!”

Virginia blushed and broke into a musical laugh.

John Vassar shook his head menacingly at his niece.

“That’ll do for you now, Miss!”

“Did you call me an Amazon?” Virginia asked still smiling.

“Before I saw you, yes – ”

“And now?”

“Now, I’ve a new grudge against Waldron for using first an expression on which I could improve – ”

“What’s that?” she asked, puzzled.

“He called you ‘our Joan of Arc’ – ”

“And you could improve on that?”

“Yes – you’re Joan of Arc without the cold touch of sainthood. You’re warm and real and human and still the leader – ”

She lifted a pair of serious eyes quickly to his and saw that he was in dead earnest. There was no fencing or banter. He meant it. A little smile of triumph played about the corners of her mouth.

She held his gaze in silence and then spoke slowly.

“We’re going to be friends?”

“If you’ll let me – ”

Her eyes still held his steadily.

“There are conditions, of course – ”

“All right.”

“You wish to know them?”

“At once – ”

“My! My! You can come to the point – can’t you?” She laughed.

“My political life may depend on it, you know?” he replied lightly.

“Why not walk home with me – ”

“With pleasure!” he broke in.

“And we’ll have a chat in the library. I’m free to confess, Mr. Congressman, that we would like very much to come to an understanding with you.”

“And I’m going to confess, Miss Holland, that I’m very much ashamed of myself that I haven’t made an effort to understand you.”

“Well, you know what the old preacher down South always shouted in the revivals?”

“No – what?”

“As long as the lamp holds out to burn the vilest sinner may return!”

“Good. We’ll hope that my repentance is not too late – ”

“My only fear is, to tell you the truth – that it’s a little too sudden – ”

“But it’s genuine!” he cried. “You’ll have to admit that!”

He looked in vain for his father and Marya.

“Zonia may go with us?” he asked.

“Indeed she can! Everybody has tried his hand to draw out our young statesman and she succeeds. She’s my little mascot!”

Virginia pressed her arm around the girl and she blushed with pride.

“Come; it’s only a short walk to Stuyvesant Square – we spend most of our time now at our country place at Babylon, but we’re in for this week’s rallies.”

Vassar looked for Zonia and discovered her in deep converse with a smiling blond youth of fourteen, the sparkle of whose eyes made no secret of their interest.

“My infant brother Billy – “ Virginia explained.

“Indeed!”

“They’re old friends.”

“Evidently!” he laughed.

“Come,” Virginia said in quick business-like tones, “the kids will follow. I want you to meet my father and mother before they’re off to bed. In spite of modern progress they are the most pig-headed and persistent pair of fossils with whom I have to contend – ”

“I’ve often seen your father at the soldiers’ reunions – the youngest and finest looking man of the Old Guard, I’ve always thought.”

“He is – isn’t he?” she said thoughtfully.

“I wonder that the daughter of a soldier should take seriously all this talk about universal peace – ”

“Perhaps that’s the reason – ”

“Nonsense!”

“Seriously. I’ve listened by the hour to his stories of the war. When I was very young I saw only the glamour and the romance and the glory and then as I grew older I began to think of the blackened chimneys of Southern homes and feel the misery and the desolation of it all. And we began to quarrel about war.”

“Your father was in Sherman’s army, I believe?”

“Yes – he ran away from his Western home at fourteen and joined the colors. Think of it! At eighteen he was mustered out in Washington a veteran of twenty-six pitched battles. He’s only sixty-odd today with every power alert except a slight deafness – and by the way – “ she paused and smiled – “I should tell you that his hobby just now is the immigration question. Don’t mind anything silly he may say, will you?”

“Certainly not!” Vassar agreed. “I too am fighting against the invasion of this country by a foreign army – ”

“Yours a dream – my father’s grievance quite real you must admit.”

“Seeing that a Pole is his Congressman neighbor – ” Vassar admitted good-humoredly. “It must get on the nerves of the old boys who can’t see our point of view. The man or woman born in free America inherits it all as a matter of course. He rarely thinks of his priceless birthright. To my old father every day of life is a Fourth of July! To me it is the same. A frail half-starved little orphan clinging to his hand thirty-one years ago, I stood on the deck of a steamer and saw this wonderful Promised Land. You are American by the accident of birth. You had no choice. We are American because we willed to come. We love this land because it’s worth loving. We know why we love it. We lifted up our eyes from a far country – amid tears and ashes and ruins – and saw the light of liberty shining here across the seas. We came and you received us with open arms. You set no hired spies to watch us. You made our homes and our firesides holy ground. We kiss the soil beneath our feet. It is our country – our flag, our nation, our people as it can’t be yours who do not realize its full meaning – can’t you see?”

“Yes,” she answered softly. “And I never thought of it in that way before.”

She glanced at the tall, straight, intense figure with new interest. They walked in silence for a block and he touched her arm with a movement of instinctive chivalrous protection as they crossed Second Avenue.

She broke into a laugh in spite of an effort at self-control when they had reached the sidewalk.

He blushed and looked puzzled.

“Why do you laugh?” he asked in hurt surprise.

“Oh, nothing – ”

“You couldn’t have laughed at the little confession I just made to you – ”

She laid her hand on his arm in gentle quick protest.

“You know I could not. It was too sincere. It was from the depths of your inmost heart. And I see you and all your people who have come to our shores in the past generation through new eyes after this revelation you have given me – no, I was laughing at something miles removed – ”

Again she paused and laughed.

“Tell me” – he pleaded.

“Come in first – we can’t stand here on the sidewalk like two spooning children – this is our house – ”