Her Infinite Variety

“You’ll have to do it,” he said, helplessly.

From some mysterious fold of her habit she took a pin, and then, leaning over, she pinned the rose to his coat, pinned it with its long stem hanging, as a woman would pin a flower to a man’s lapel.

“Thank you.” He was looking into her eyes again.

“Rather let me thank you,” she said. “It’s so good of you to vote for my measure.”

His eyes widened suddenly. He had quite forgotten the resolution. She must have perceived this, for she blushed, and he hastened to make amends.

“I’ll not only vote for it,” he rushed ahead impulsively, “but I’ll make a speech for it.” He straightened and leaned away from her to give a proper perspective in which she could admire him. He sat there smiling.

“How splendid of you!” she cried. “I feel encouraged now.”

Then Vernon’s face lengthened. He stammered: “But you’ll have to give me some data; I—I don’t know a thing about the subject.”

“Oh,” she laughed, “I brought some literature. It shall all be at your disposal. And now, I must be about my work. Can you make any suggestions? Can you tell me whom I should see, whom I should interest, who has the—ah—pull, I believe you call it?”

“I’ll bring them to you,” Vernon said. “You sit here and hold court.”

He rose and his eyes swept the chamber. They lighted on Burns, and an idea suddenly came to him. He would revenge himself on Burns for all the slights of the session.

“Of course you’ll have to see Sam Porter, but I’ll begin by bringing Senator Burns—familiarly known as Bull Burns.”

“I’ve read of him so often in the newspapers,” she said. “It would be an experience.”

Vernon went over to Burns’s seat and touched him on the shoulder.

“Come on,” he said in a tone of command, speaking for once from the altitude of his social superiority. And for once he was successful. The burly fellow from the First District stood up and looked inquiringly.

“Come with me,” Vernon said; “there’s a Chicago lawyer back here who wants to see you.”

Burns followed and an instant later Vernon halted before Miss Greene. The other men, who had quickly returned to her side, made way, and Vernon said:

“Miss Greene, may I present Senator Burns, of the First District?”

Miss Greene smiled on the big saloon-keeper, who instantly flamed with embarrassment. She gave him her hand, and he took it in his fat palm, carefully, lest he crush it.

“I am delighted to meet Senator Burns; I’ve heard of you so often,” she said, looking up at him. “And do you know I count it a privilege to meet one of your acknowledged influence in our state’s affairs?”

Vernon stood back, delighted beyond measure with the confusion into which Burns for once had been betrayed. The senator from the First District was struggling for some word to say, and at last he broke out with:

“Aw now, lady, don’t be t’rowin’ de con into me.”

The men in the little group on that side of the Senate chamber burst out in a laugh, but Burns becoming suddenly grave, and dangerous and terrible in his gravity, they broke off in the very midst of their mirth. The group became silent.

“Really, Senator Burns,” said Miss Greene, “this is no—ah—confidence game, I assure you.” She rose with a graceful sweep of her skirts. Then she went on: “If you will permit me, I should like to explain my mission to you. I am down here to ask the Senate to adopt a resolution that will submit an amendment to the Constitution permitting the women of Illinois to vote at all elections, as they vote at school elections now. If you can give it, I should like your support; I should, at least, like to tell you my reasons.”

Slowly she seated herself again, saying: “Will you sit down?”

But Burns only stood and looked at her. There was a trace of fear in her face.

“Do you want dis resolution put t’rough?” he asked bluntly.

“I? Indeed I do!” she said.

“Is dere anyt’ing in it fer you?” he went on.

“Why,” Miss Greene said, somewhat at a loss, “only that I am interested as a matter of principle in seeing it adopted. It would be a great day for me if I could go back to Chicago feeling that I had had just a little bit to do with such a result.”

“Den I’m wit’ you,” said Burns, and wheeling, he went back to his desk.

Miss Greene watched him a moment, and then turned to the men, their numbers augmented now by others who had come up to see Burns in the presence of such a woman. The glance she gave them was a question.

“Oh, he means it,” said Monroe of Whiteside. “He’ll vote for the resolution.”

“Yes, he’s given his word,” said Brownell of Cook.

Vernon devoted half an hour to bringing senators to meet Maria Greene. It was not difficult work, though it had its disadvantages; it did not allow Vernon to remain with her long at a time. But at last it was done, and he found a moment alone with her. She had given him some pamphlets on equal suffrage.

“Ah, if you could only address the Senate!” he exclaimed, in open admiration. And then, as if an inspiration had come to him, he added:

“Perhaps I could arrange it; it has been done.”

She gasped and stretched out her hand to stay him.

“Oh, not for all the world!” she protested.

“But you’ll come and meet the lieutenant-governor?”

“Up there?” she said, incredulously, pointing to the dais under the flags.

“Why, yes,” Vernon answered; “why not? It’s where all the eminent lawyers who come down here to lobby sit.”

She looked up at the desk behind which the lieutenant-governor sat, swinging gently in his swivel chair, while the secretary read Senate bills on third reading. There was a reluctance in her eyes, but when she caught Vernon’s smile, she gathered her skirts and said:

“Well, if I must.”

IV

WHILE Miss Greene sat chatting with the lieutenant-governor, who gladly neglected the duties of his high office, Vernon went out into the rotunda, lighted a cigarette, glanced over the pamphlets, and tried to arrange the heads of his speech in his mind.

At the thought of the speech, Vernon grew cold and limp with nervousness. His hands were clammy, his knees trembled, his mouth became dry and parched, and the cigarette he had lighted imparted all at once an evil taste. Yet he smoked on, and as he wandered around the rotunda, men from both houses, passing to and fro, greeted him, but they seemed to him to be strange new creatures flitting by in a dream. If he was conscious of them at all it was only as of envied beings, all on a common happy plane, fortunate ones who did not have to make a speech within the hour. He went over to the state library, thinking that its quiet would soothe, but when he stood among the tall stacks of books he suddenly remembered that he must not smoke in those precincts; and so he turned out into the rotunda again, for he must smoke. He walked round and round the rotunda, pausing at times to lean over the brass railing and look far down to the main floor where the red light glowed at the cigar stand; he sauntered back into the dim and undisturbed corridors, his mind racing over all the things he might say.

Once or twice he glanced into the pamphlets Miss Greene had given him, but he could not fix his mind on them; their types danced meaninglessly before his eyes. He was angry with himself for this nervousness. Why must it assail him now, just when he wished to be at his best? He had spoken before, a hundred times; he knew his audience, and he had the proper contempt for his colleagues. He had never, to be sure, made a set speech in that presence; seldom did any one do that; the speeches were usually short and impromptu, and there was no time for anticipation to generate nervous dread. And yet his mind seemed to be extraordinarily clear just then; it seemed to be able to comprehend all realms of thought at once.

But it was not so much the speech he thought of, as the effect of the speech; already he could see the newspapers and the big headlines they would display on their first pages the next morning; he could see his mother reading them at breakfast, and then he could see Amelia reading them. How her dark eyes would widen, her cheeks flush pink! She would raise her hand and put back her hair with that pretty mannerism of hers; then impulsively resting her arms on the table before her, she would eagerly read the long columns through, while her mother reminded her that her breakfast was getting cold. How proud she would be of him! She would never chide him again; she would see that at last he had found himself.

The Eltons, too, would read, and his absence from their dinner would react on them impressively. And Maria Greene—but a confusion arose—Maria Greene! He had not thought of Amelia all the morning until that very instant; Amelia’s letter lay still unopened on his desk back there in the Senate chamber. Maria Greene! She would hear, she would color as she looked at him, and her eyes would glow; he could feel the warm pressure of the hand she would give him in congratulation.

And it was this handsome young woman’s presence in the chamber that gave rise to all this nervousness. He was sure that he would not have been nervous if Amelia were to be there. She had never heard him speak in public, though he had often pressed her to do so; somehow the places where he spoke were never those to which it would be proper for her to go. She would wish she had heard this speech, for in twenty-four hours it would be the one topic of conversation throughout the state; his picture would be in the newspapers—“The brilliant young Chicago lawyer who electrified the Illinois Senate with his passionate oratory and passed the woman-suffrage measure.” It would be an event to mark the beginning of a new era—

But his imaginings were broken, his name was spoken; he turned and saw Miss Greene.

“Come,” she said. “It’s up! Hurry!”

She was excited and her cheeks glowed. His teeth began to chatter. He followed her quick steps in the direction of the chamber.

“But,” he stammered. “I—I didn’t know—I haven’t even arranged for recognition.”

“Oh, I’ve fixed all that!” the woman said. “The lieutenant-governor promised me.” She was holding her rustling skirts and almost running.

V

AS they entered the Senate chamber, Vernon heard the lieutenant-governor say: “And the question is: Shall the resolution be adopted? Those in favor will vote ‘aye,’ those opposed will vote ‘no,’ when their names are called; and the secretary will call the—”

“Mr. President!” Vernon shouted. There was no time now to retreat; he had launched himself on the sea of glory. A dozen other senators were on their feet, likewise demanding recognition.

“The senator from Cook,” said the lieutenant-governor.

Vernon stood by his desk, arranging complacently the documents Miss Greene had given him. Once or twice he cleared his throat and wiped his lips with his handkerchief. The other senators subsided into their seats, and, seeing that they themselves were not then to be permitted to speak, and like all speakers, not caring to listen to the speeches of others, they turned philosophically to the little diversions with which they whiled away the hours of the session—writing letters, reading newspapers, smoking. Vernon glanced around. Maria Greene was sitting precariously on the edge of a divan. Her face was white and drawn. She gave a quick nod, and a smile just touched her fixed lips. And then Vernon began. He spoke slowly and with vast deliberation; his voice was very low. He outlined his subject with exquisite pains, detail by detail, making it clear just what propositions he would advance. His manner was that of the lawyer in an appellate court, making a masterly and purely legal argument; when it was done, the Senate, if it had paid attention—though it seldom did pay attention—would know all about the question of woman-suffrage.

In his deliberation, Vernon glanced now and then at Maria Greene. Her eyes were sparkling with intelligent interest. As if to choose the lowest point possible from which to trace the rise and progress of legislation favorable to women, Vernon would call the attention of the Senate, first, to the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court In re Bradwell, 55 Ill. 525. That was away back in 1869, when the age was virtually dark; and that was the case, gentlemen would remember, just as if they all kept each decision of the court at their tongues’ ends, in which the court held that no woman could be admitted, under the laws of Illinois, to practise as an attorney at law. But,—and Vernon implored his colleagues to mark,—long years afterward, the court of its own motion, entered a nunc pro tunc order, reversing its own decision in the Bradwell case. Vernon dilated upon the importance of this decision; he extolled the court; it had set a white milestone to mark the progressing emancipation of the race. Then, briefly, he proposed to outline for them the legislative steps by which woman’s right to equality with man had been at least partly recognized.

He fumbled for a moment among the papers on his desk, until he found one of the pamphlets Miss Greene had given him, and then he said he wished to call the Senate’s attention to the Employment Act of 1872, the Drainage Act of 1885, and the Sanitary District Act of 1890. Vernon spoke quite familiarly of these acts. Furthermore, gentlemen would, he was sure, instantly recall the decisions of the courts in which those acts were under review, as for instance, in Wilson vs. Board of Trustees, 133 Ill. 443; and in Davenport vs. Drainage Commissioners, 25 Ill. App. 92.

Those among the senators who were lawyers, as most of them were, looked up from their letter writing at this, and nodded profoundly, in order to show their familiarity with Vernon’s citations, although, of course, they never had heard of the cases before.

“This recognition of woman’s natural right,” Vernon shouted, “this recognition of her equality with man, can not be overestimated in importance!” He shook his head fiercely and struck his desk with his fist. But then, having used up all the facts he had marked in Miss Greene’s pamphlets, he was forced to become more general in his remarks, and so he began to celebrate woman, ecstatically. He conjured for the senators the presence of their mothers and sisters, their sweethearts and wives; and then, some quotations fortunately occurring to him, he reminded them that Castiglione had truly said that “God is seen only through women”; that “the woman’s soul leadeth us upward and on.” He recounted the services of women in time of war, their deeds in the days of peace, and in the end he became involved in an allegory about the exclusion of the roses from the garden.

The senators had begun to pay attention to him as soon as he talked about things they really understood and were interested in, and now they shouted to him to go on. It was spread abroad over the third floor of the State House that some one was making a big speech in the Senate, and representatives came rushing over from the House. The correspondents of the Chicago newspapers came over also to see if the Associated Press man in the Senate was getting the speech down fully. All the space on the Senate floor was soon crowded, and the applause shook the desks and made the glass prisms on the chandeliers jingle. The lieutenant-governor tapped from time to time with his gavel, but he did it perfunctorily, as though he enjoyed the applause himself, as vicariously expressing his own feelings; his eyes twinkled until it seemed that, were it not for certain traditions, he would join in the delighted laughter that made up most of the applause.

Once a page came to Vernon with a glass of water, and as he paused to wipe his brow and to sip from the glass, he glanced again at Maria Greene. Her face was solemn and a wonder was growing in her eyes. Beside her sat old “Doc” Ames, scowling fiercely and stroking his long white beard. There were sharp cries of “Go on! Go on!”

But Vernon, not accustomed to thinking on his feet, as talkers love to phrase it, and having stopped, could not instantly go on, and that awkward halt disconcerted him. He was conscious that the moments were slipping by, and there were other things—many other things—that he had intended to say; but these things evaded him—floated off, tantalizingly, out of reach. And so, for refuge, he rushed on to the conclusion he had half formed in his mind. The conclusion was made up mostly from a toast to which he had once responded while in college, entitled “The Ladies.” The words came back to him readily enough; he had only to apply them a little differently and to change his figures. Thus it was easy to work up to a panegyric in which Illinois stood as a beautiful woman leading her sister states up to new heights of peace, of virtue and of concord. He had a rapt vision of this woman, by her sweet and gentle influence settling all disputes and bringing heaven down to earth at last.

The Senate was in raptures.

“This is the face,” he cried, “‘that launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of Ilium!' … 'she is wholly like in feature to the deathless goddesses!’” So he went on. “‘Age can not wither, nor custom stale, her infinite variety.’”

He was growing weary. He already showed the impressive exhaustion of the peroration. He had sacrificed a collar and drunk all the water from his glass. He fingered the empty tumbler for a moment, and then lifted it on high while he said:

“’I filled this cup to one made upOf loveliness alone,A woman, of her gentle sexThe seeming paragon—Her health! and would on earth there stoodSome more of such a frame,That life might be all poetry,And weariness a name.’”

When he had done, there was a moment’s stillness; then came the long sweep of applause that rang through the chamber, and while the lieutenant-governor rapped for order, men crowded around Vernon and wrung his hand, as he wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. And then the roll was called. It had not proceeded far when there was that subtile change in the atmosphere which is so easily recognized by those who have acquired the sense of political aeroscepsy; the change that betokens some new, unexpected and dangerous manœuver. Braidwood had come over from the House. His face, framed in its dark beard, was stern and serious. He whispered an instant to Porter, the Senate leader. Porter rose.

“Mr. President,” he said.

The lieutenant-governor was looking at him expectantly.

“The gentleman from Cook,” the lieutenant-governor said.

“Mr. President,” said Senator Porter, “I move you, sir, that the further discussion of the resolution be postponed until Wednesday morning, one week from to-morrow, and that it be made a special order immediately following the reading of the journal.”

“If there are no objections it will be so ordered,” said the lieutenant-governor.

Bull Burns shouted a prompt and hoarse “Object!”

But the lieutenant-governor calmly said:

“And it is so ordered.”

The gavel fell.

VI

AFTER the adjournment Vernon sought out Maria Greene and walked with her down Capitol Avenue toward the hotel. He was prepared to enjoy her congratulations, but she was silent for a while, and before they spoke again “Doc” Ames, striding rapidly, had caught up with them. He was still scowling.

“I was sorry you didn’t finish your speech as you intended, sir,” he said, with something of the acerbity of a reproach.

“Why,” began Vernon, looking at him, “I—”

“You laid out very broad and comprehensive ground for yourself,” the old man continued, “but unfortunately you did not cover it. You should have developed your subject logically, as I had hopes, indeed, in the beginning, you were going to do. An argument based on principle would have been more to the point than an appeal to the passions. I think Miss Greene will agree with me. I am sorry you did not acquaint me with your intention of addressing the Senate on this important measure; I would very much have liked to confer with you about what you were going to say. It is not contemplated by those in the reform movement that the charms of woman shall be advanced as the reason for her right to equal suffrage with man. It is purely a matter of cold, abstract justice. Now, for instance,” the doctor laid his finger in his palm, and began to speak didactically, “as I have pointed out to the House, whatever the power or the principle that gives to man his right to make the law that governs him, to woman it gives the same right. In thirty-seven states the married mother has no right to her children; in sixteen the wife has no right to her own earnings; in eight she has no separate right to her property; in seven—”

Vernon looked at Miss Greene helplessly, but she was nodding her head in acquiescence to each point the doctor laid down in his harsh palm with that long forefinger. Vernon had no chance to speak until they reached the hotel. She was to take the midday train back to Chicago, and Vernon had insisted on going to the station with her. Just as she was about to leave him to go up to her room she said, as on a sudden impulse:

“Do you know that the women of America, yes, the people of America, owe you a debt?”

Vernon assumed a most modest attitude.

“If we are successful,” she went on, “the advocates of equal suffrage all over the United States will be greatly encouraged; the reform movement everywhere will receive a genuine impetus.”

“You will be down next Wednesday when the resolution comes up again, won’t you?” asked Vernon.

“Indeed, I shall,” she said. “Do you have any hopes now?”

“Hopes?” laughed Vernon. “Why certainly; we’ll adopt it. I’ll give my whole time to it between now and then. If they don’t adopt that resolution I’ll block every other piece of legislation this session, appropriations and all. I guess that will bring them to time!”

“You’re very good,” she said. “But I fear Mr. Porter’s influence.”

“Oh, I’ll take care of him. You trust it to me. The women will be voting in this state next year.”

“And you shall be their candidate for governor!” she cried, clasping her hands.

Vernon colored; he felt a warm thrill course through him, but he waved the nomination aside with his hand. He was about to say something more, but he could not think of anything quickly enough. While he hesitated, Miss Greene looked at her watch.

“I’ve missed my train,” she said, quietly.

Vernon grew red with confusion.

“I beg a thousand pardons!” he said. “It was all my fault and it was certainly very stupid of me.”

“It’s of no importance. Where must I go to reserve space on the night train?” said Miss Greene.

Vernon told her, and proffered his services. He was now delighted at the philosophical way in which she accepted the situation—it would have brought the average woman, he reflected, to tears—and then he went on to picture to himself the practical results in improving women’s characters that his new measure, as he had already come to regard it, would bring about.

VII

MARIA GREENE would not let Vernon attend to her tickets; she said it was a matter of principle with her; but late in the afternoon, when they had had luncheon, and she had got the tickets herself, she did accept his invitation to drive. The afternoon had justified all the morning’s promise of a fine spring day, and as they left the edges of the town and turned into the road that stretched away over the low undulations of ground they call hills in Illinois, and lost itself mysteriously in the country far beyond, Miss Greene became enthusiastic.

“Isn’t it glorious!” she cried. “And to think that when I left Chicago last night it was still winter!” She shuddered, as if she would shake off the memory of the city’s ugliness. Her face was flushed and she inhaled the sweet air eagerly.

“To be in the country once more!” she went on.

“Did you ever live in the country?” Vernon asked.

“Once,” she said, and then after a grave pause she added: “A long time ago.”

The road they had turned into was as soft and as smooth as velvet now that the spring had released it from the thrall of winter’s mud. It led beside a golf links, and the new greens were already dotted with golfers, who played with the zest they had accumulated in the forbidding winter months. They showed their enthusiasm by playing bare-armed, as if already it were the height of summer.

As the buggy rolled noiselessly along, Vernon and Miss Greene were silent; the spell of the spring was on them. To their right rolled the prairies, that never can become mere fields, however much they be tilled or fenced. The brown earth, with its tinge of young green here and there, or its newly ploughed clods glistening and steaming in the sun, rolled away like the sea. Far off, standing out black and forbidding against the horizon, they could see the ugly buildings of a coal shaft; behind, above the trees that grew for the city’s shade, the convent lifted its tower, and above all, the gray dome of the State House reared itself, dominating the whole scene. The air shimmered in the haze of spring. Birds were chirping in the hedges; now and then a meadow-lark sprang into the air and fled, crying out its strange staccato song as it skimmed the surface of the prairies. Vernon idly snapped the whip as he drove along; neither of them seemed to care to speak. Suddenly they heard a distant, heavy thud. The earth trembled slightly.