The servant stepped back precipitously, his mouth falling open. He bowed so that his head was almost level with his knees. He began to stammer, “Why—why, sir, I didn’t recognize you! I’m very sorry, indeed, sir, I’m very—”
Stephen, half-envious, half-condemning, had watched other men confronting a presumptuous servant and stopping their speech with a harsh glance, a gesture of lordly disdain. Stephen knew he should do this, he half desired to; and then, seeing the butler’s frantic apprehension at his mistake, his heart melted in spite of all his efforts. No one should be so frightened by another man, he thought; no one should be forced to suffer so in his inner security, even if it is his own fault.
He said, “It doesn’t matter. I’ve never been here before, so why should you know me? Thank you, thank you. I won’t be long, I think. Just lay my coat and hat anywhere.”
The servant, enormously relieved, was also taken aback. Stephen, with the old sinking feeling, saw the white face regain its color and take on its original look of arrogance, though it was somewhat muted and secret. He knew exactly what the man was thinking: Is this Stephen deWitt, actually Stephen deWitt? What a miserable and inconsequential creature! If he were half a man he would knock me down.
The fact that Stephen neither physically nor by implication “knocked him down” lowered him in the servant’s estimation. Stephen thought, as usual, that it was best not to notice too many things which wounded, and so he followed the man down a long, wide, and gloomy hall with polished floors, darkly paneled walls, heavy and gloomy furniture and big mirrors, and a pitched, beamed ceiling. He decided he did not like this great house, and he thought all that wood and all that unrelieved and crepuscular dimness was very depressing. Probably wants to chill constituents, he thought, and was pleased at his unkind thought.
He tasted it on his tongue, and its acrid sting was like an intoxicant. He needed this feeling, he remembered, and so it was a taller and straighter and less awkward Stephen who was ushered into a library immense as a meeting hall, full of brown and red and blue books, dim Oriental rugs, and furniture made for a giant. A wall of gray, silk-covered windows faced what was probably a very desolate garden. But a good and roaring fire crackled on a hearth and shimmered on brass fenders, and two lamps were lit. Even at this distance the sound of the river could be heard plainly, like a thunderous counterpoint.
A man was reading before the fire, and comfortably smoking a pipe. He looked up alertly as Stephen was announced, and he rose at once, his short plump arms and hands extended, his smoking jacket falling open to show a flowered waistcoat which stretched over a big round belly. He was a completely bald man, and he had a good, kindly, and common face, full of open honesty and warmth, a broad coarse nose, and a happy smile. He exuded an odor of smoke and lemon-scented cologne, and his handclasp was cordial and sincere. Seeing this lavish greeting of the “miserable creature,” the butler was more disconcerted than before, and hastily retreated.
“My dear, dear Stephen!” cried Senator George Peale with paternal fondness. “How delighted I am that you finally visited me! I’ve asked you so often, you shrinking violet, but you never came until today. Well, is this a dragon’s nest? Come, come, sit by the fire! Let us have a long visit. Wine? Whisky? Sherry? How damp you are; what a pity. So good to see you, you rascal! Whisky? Now then, now then; is that comfortable? How is your dear father, and our delightful Rufus, the scoundrel?”
Stephen was befuddled by all this cordiality and kindness and obvious pleasure. No one had received him like this before. He had to control his bemused enchantment and gratitude, and he clenched his hands on his brief case lest he forget.
He therefore sat stiffly on the edge of the comfortable chair, his legs spread ungracefully, the knees sticking uncompromisingly against the stuff of his pantaloons. He clutched the brief case. He said, “My father is still an invalid, and Rufus is well. Whisky, please, Senator. I hope I haven’t taken another chill.”
The senator, standing over him, was concerned, and this made Stephen feel guilty. “It’s nothing at all, nothing, Senator. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.” The senator was only forty-five, but Stephen treacherously thought of him as an affectionate uncle. He pulled his thoughts away from this beguiling picture and suddenly, unknown even to himself, his mouth tightened grimly under the mustache and his small eyes retreated in reserve. He must remember his errand, he said inwardly, with cold anger directed only against himself, and nothing must shake him. Too much was at stake.
The senator pulled the bell rope near the fireplace, and directed all the tender solicitude he could summon at his “dear, dear Stephen.” He sat down near Stephen, and nothing could have been more intimate and familiar than his smile. He cocked his head and regarded Stephen with humorous doting. “What a strange person you are, Steve. A strange, strange person. But I like you; I’ve always liked you better than our Rufus, and no words of mine can express how much I do like Rufus. He’s like the sun, my dear wife says. But you, but you—” All at once the senator saw he had made a mistake, which could become offensive if tact were not immediately used. But who the devil was there with whom to compare Stephen deWitt? “Why, dammit!” he cried. “You look something like old Abe, of blessed memory.”
That he had made an error he immediately saw, but why he did not know. For Stephen was saying with unfamiliar coldness, “I suppose you mean that as a compliment, Senator, and thank you. However, I don’t think I resemble Mr. Lincoln in the slightest.”
“Well, well,” said the senator, nonplused, wondering why anyone should resent being compared with Mr. Lincoln. Then he remembered Stephen’s modesty and thought he had offered too extravagant a compliment. He smiled tenderly. “Of course, Mr. Lincoln had such a mop of hair, and there was a wart on his cheek, and he had a lantern chin. But, who cared? Such a spirit, such a nobility, such an inner glory!” He sighed. “You remind me of him in those ways.”
Stephen was silent.
“When I received your note yesterday, I was too happy for speech,” said Senator Peale, spreading his plump knees and resting a hand on each, and regarding Stephen with a benign expression. “I said to my dear wife, ‘Anna, Stephen deWitt has finally consented to visit us!’ She has always liked you extremely, you know, Stephen.”
Stephen doubted this very much, but he remembered that Mrs. Peale was a very nice and gentle soul, and he winced. He wished this man were a villain, a big and thumping villain, or at least a hypocrite or possessed of narrow meannesses. It was so hard to feel bitter against this kind of man, who did not consider what he had ever done was villainous. He doubtlessly believed that he had lived a fine and Christian life, had done his duty as a representative of the people, had made a fortune as legitimately as possible, and was a good husband and father. And no doubt, reflected Stephen despondently, most people are heartily in agreement with him. He felt the damp leather of the brief case under his hands, and again his treacherous kindness almost overcame him.
He became conscious that Senator Peale had been talking on and on, with laughter and pleasure, and that he himself had been nodding without having heard a single word. The senator handed him a glass of whisky. The storm had darkened so steadily over the city that it might have been night instead of hardly noon. Stephen caught a word “—weather.”
He assented, nodding his head again: “Yes, very bad, isn’t it? I think we’ll have snow.”
Silence followed his remark, and he glanced up to see Senator Peale staring at him in perplexity. The senator looked down at his glass, a smile fixed on his kindly face, and Stephen knew, once more, that he had committed his too-familiar faux pas. He had, on the basis of a mere word, thought that he could come into a conversation that had left him far behind, and completely bereft of any idea about it.
“Your boy, Patrick, must be at least eleven years old now, mustn’t he?” His voice wavered hopefully.
The senator looked up, smiled in a peculiar fashion, and said, “Yes. Yes, he is eleven now, St
eve. More whisky?” asked the senator, rising with the agile air of a pleased host. Stephen held out his glass at the end of a stiff arm. Then the senator pulled the bell rope again and said, in too loud a voice, “He’s right here at home, now! The climate in Washington doesn’t suit the little fellow or his mother, and they’ve both had chills. They prefer Portersville, where we were all born, and they don’t even care much for our home in Philadelphia. Nice little place, Portersville! Always delighted when I can come home.”
The butler returned, carefully avoiding looking at Stephen, and the senator asked that Master Patrick be called to the library. Stephen was at once sickened with distress. To see the child, whom he remembered as a handsome, grave little boy, would make his work the harder. But there was no escape, and when Patrick entered the room, smiling at his father with his serious eyes, and then bowing to Stephen, it was almost more than the latter could endure. He addressed a few halting remarks to the child, which were politely answered. Then Patrick withdrew, and his father followed him with a long and moving look. When he turned to Stephen, his voice was more than a trifle shaken: “Our only child. But I feel that in Patrick heaven has blessed me. …”
A thousand small black faces rose up like an accusing chorus before Stephen’s inner eye, and his shivering pity for the senator departed, leaving him cold and very still.
The senator, more disposed than ever to be kind to Stephen, whom he privately considered very queer, remarked, “But you’ll be having one of your own very soon, my boy! Rufus has his girl; perhaps you’ll have a son.”
“Yes,” said Stephen. He began to unfasten his brief case.
Oh, my God, thought the senator, sighing patiently. A petition or something! Well, that was one of the prices of being a senator. But it was odd that Stephen deWitt should be the one bringing a petition, signed, no doubt, by at least two thousand people. What did they want now, here in Portersville? Then he was electrified, for just as he was composing his features into the accepted fatherly expression and senatorial interest, he saw Stephen’s eyes. Small and sunken behind his high cheekbones though they were, they were now the eyes of an enemy, not vindictive, but stern beyond the power of softening.
Stephen was holding a bound sheaf of papers in his hands, and he was extending the sheaf to the senator. “I have been gathering this information, and paying for the gathering, over a period of seven years, Senator,” he was saying. “I thought you ought to see these copies. The other copies are in a safe place, in Philadelphia. You are running for the Senate again this year, are you not?”
Stunned, the senator took the papers, but he could not withdraw his attention from Stephen for several long moments. He began to shake his head, as though pestered by a strange sound. “Why, yes,” he said at last, in a slow voice, “I am running again this year. I believe the people want me. …” Still gazing at Stephen, he asked, “Is this a petition, Steve?” He tried to smile, to change those inexorable eyes.
“Not a petition, Senator. Only a confidential résumé of your career while in the Senate.”
The senator could not believe that he had heard what he had heard. He held the sheaf of papers in his hands, and now they began to tremble slightly and make a fluttering sound.
“I want you to understand, Senator, that no personal animosity brings me here today,” Stephen was saying. He wanted to avert his head, but he refused to permit himself to do this. It was almost the most untenable moment of his life, for he knew that he was about to strike at this man, perhaps mortally, this man who had been one of the closest friends of the deWitt family for many years, and had given, and received, advantages during the relationship. So Stephen, not turning away his eyes, went on: “But I have thought, over all these years, that you ought not to be a senator of this Commonwealth, that you ought not to be elected.”
“What are you saying, Steve?” whispered the senator disbelievingly. The papers fluttered louder in his hands. The rain beat wildly against the windows, and the red fire hissed and cracked. He must be mad, thought Senator Peale. He was always peculiar; yes, he must be mad. He cleared his throat, said weakly, “What do you mean? Your family has always supported me. Your father. …” He had to swallow. “I’m sorry, Steve, if I have done anything in Washington that didn’t meet with your approval, but—”
“You voted for a stronger, more centralized government, Senator, not only for the war period, but as a permanent thing.” Stephen’s voice rose clearly and incisively, for now he had his compassion under control, and could remember. “You voted for a measure that would have destroyed all that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson fought for, and prayed for, and lived for: the right of the states and the commonwealths to their own sovereignty. You did that, Senator, not for any evil reason, I am sure; you said, if I remember correctly, ‘It’s the trend of the times.’”
He shook his head. “No, Senator, it isn’t the ‘trend of the times.’ It’s the trend of tyranny. Washington knew that men would always rise up who would attempt to abrogate the rights of the States and the Commonwealths and centralize government and make it all-powerful. The men who framed the Constitution knew it, too. That is why we have a system of checks and balances. But the men who want power hate those checks and balances, and I suppose, through all the generations of America, they will attempt to overthrow them.” He paused, and then continued: “I don’t believe you want power more than does any other man. I know that the urge for power is strong in most people. I don’t think you were plotting against America deliberately. But still, men like you are dangerous. Yes, I know all the arguments for centralized government: economy, more efficiency, quicker results by directives, more mobility during emergencies of any kind. Perhaps they’re valid arguments in a way. However, they would lead to despotism, the kind of despotism that is crushing Europe today and has been crushing her for centuries.”
It was the longest speech he had ever made in his life, and he poured it out on long breaths of powerful indignation. He could summon up this indignation when protecting a principle or a friend, or against injustice, where he could not do it for himself. His neutral-colored face had flashed into life and strength. It was no longer a man of meekness and humility who sat opposite the stupefied senator, but a man who, in spite of his lean and lanky awkwardness, his clumsy gestures, his battered clothing, was a force. The senator was as much paralyzed by this change in a man he had always considered a mere cipher as by his words.
Stephen was speaking again, more moderately, but still with anger: “You also voted in behalf of the bill to bring tens of thousands of hapless and starving Europeans to this country, Senator. On the surface, it is a charitable and Christian and worthy bill, and I would approve of it also, except for a very pertinent thing.
“We are expanding industrially. We need labor. So, again on the surface, all that you have voted for in that bill is excellent and praiseworthy. But let us think of our own native labor, and let us think of those Europeans, too. Let us, indeed, think of the Europeans first of all. Was there any strong provision made in that bill to protect European labor from the rapacity of our own people, our own employers? Was there any provision that these people be sheltered adequately, given the same rate of pay as our native labor receives? Were there any provisions for their health and safety? No, there were not. So now they are coming in by the shiploads, the endless thousands of them in the stinking holds of vessels, dirty, diseased, hungering. Where are they going? To the cities, to displace our native workers, to work for much less money, and to be bound for a whole year to the masters to whom they will be consigned, to be victimized by mills and factories and machines, virtual slaves who will never dare move until their period of serfdom is over. And this thing was done to despairing creatures by wicked men who are taking advantage of their despair.”
The senator put his hand to his cheek. His pleasant color had faded. He was very pale. “Steve,” he said, “please listen. Isn’t it better for these men to be consigned to employers for a y
ear, while they pay off their passage, than to starve to death in Europe or die in Europe’s endless wars? They have their families with them. Within a generation they will be part of America. We need the labor, if we are to expand. …”
Stephen smiled sadly. “Yes, we are a rapidly growing country, a pioneering country, and we will now begin to push back frontiers in earnest. But it could have been done a little more slowly; the influx of Europeans could have been more carefully controlled, so that when they arrived there would be some respectable shelter for them, some provision. It could have been a slow process, with the help of our own native labor. I dislike prophecy, but now I shall predict the future: for many decades, because of this uncontrolled influx of people into a country not yet prepared to take care of them, there will be bloody riots, hatreds, and racial antagonisms which will last, perhaps, for decades.
“Those who voted for that bill, without any restrictions to amount to anything, without any normal and judicious control, are not good Americans. You were one who voted for it, Senator. And that is why I determined to help prevent you from returning to Washington this year.”
The senator gazed at Stephen earnestly, and the shadow of his bewilderment was still in his eyes. He considered what Stephen had said, and when he spoke, his voice was no longer good and round, like a ripe plum. It was low and thoughtful.
“You are a fine and idealistic man, Steve. I honor you for it. But there are exigencies. …”