"We'll have to watch for our opportunity,"he said,"and when it comes we can handle this new movement not by crushing it,but by guiding it.I've come to the conclusion that there is a true instinct in it,that there are certain things we have done which have been mistakes,and which we can't do any more.But as for this theory that all wisdom resides in the people,it's buncombe.What we have to do is to work out a practical programme."His confidence in me had not diminished.It helped to restore confidence in myself.
The weather was cool and bracing for September,and as we drove in a motor through the beautiful avenues of the city he pointed out a house for me on one of the circles,one of those distinguished residences,instances of a nascent good taste,that are helping to redeem the polyglot aspect of our national capital.Mr.Watling spoke--rather tactfully,I thought--of Maude and the children,and ventured the surmise that they would be returning in a few months.I interpreted this,indeed,as in rather the nature of a kindly hint that such a procedure would be wise in view of the larger life now dawning for me,but I made no comment....He even sympathized with Nancy Durrett.
"She did the right thing,Hugh,"he said,with the admirable casual manner he possessed of treating subjects which he knew to be delicate.
"Nancy's a fine woman.Poor devil!"This in reference to Ham....
Mr.Watling reassured me on the subject of his own trouble,maintaining that he had many years left if he took care.He drove me to the station.
I travelled homeward somewhat lifted out of myself by this visit to him;with some feeling of spaciousness derived from Washington itself,with its dignified Presidential Mansion among the trees,its granite shaft drawing the eye upward,with its winged Capitol serene upon the hill.
Should we deliver these heirlooms to the mob?Surely Democracy meant more than that!
All this time I had been receiving,at intervals,letters from Maude and the children.Maude's were the letters of a friend,and I found it easy to convince myself that their tone was genuine,that the separation had brought contentment to her;and those independent and self-sufficient elements in her character I admired now rather than deplored.At Etretat,which she found much to her taste,she was living quietly,but making friends with some American and English,and one French family of the same name,Buffon,as the great naturalist.The father was a retired silk manufacturer;they now resided in Paris,and had been very kind in helping her to get an apartment in that city for the winter.She had chosen one on the Avenue Kleber,not far from the Arc.It is interesting,after her arraignment of me,that she should have taken such pains to record their daily life for my benefit in her clear,conscientious handwriting.I beheld Biddy,her dresses tucked above slim little knees,playing in the sand on the beach,her hair flying in the wind and lighted by the sun which gave sparkle to the sea.I saw Maude herself in her beach chair,a book lying in her lap,its pages whipped by the breeze.And there was Moreton,who must be proving something of a handful,since he had fought with the French boys on the beach and thrown a "rock"through the windows of the Buffon family.I remember one of his letters--made perfect after much correcting and scratching,--in which he denounced both France and the French,and appealed to me to come over at once to take him home.Maude had enclosed it without comment.This letter had not been written under duress,as most of his were.
Matthew's letters--he wrote faithfully once a week--I kept in a little pile by themselves and sometimes reread them.I wondered whether it were because of the fact that I was his father--though a most inadequate one--that I thought them somewhat unusual.He had learned French--Maude wrote--with remarkable ease.I was particularly struck in these letters with the boy's power of observation,with his facile use of language,with the vivid simplicity of his deions of the life around him,of his experiences at school.The letters were thoughtful--not dashed off in a hurry;they gave evidence in every line of the delicacy of feeling that was,I think,his most appealing quality,and I put them down with the impression strong on me that he,too,longed to return home,but would not say so.There was a certain pathos in this youthful restraint that never failed to touch me,even in those times when I had been most obsessed with love and passion....The curious effect of these letters was that of knowing more than they expressed.He missed me,he wished to know when I was coming over.And I was sometimes at a loss whether to be grateful to Maude or troubled because she had as yet given him no hint of our separation.What effect would it have on him when it should be revealed to him?....It was through Matthew I began to apprehend certain elements in Maude I had both failed to note and appreciate;her little mannerisms that jarred,her habits of thought that exasperated,were forgotten,and I was forced to confess that there was something fine in the achievement of this attitude of hers that was without ill will or resentment,that tacitly acknowledged my continued rights and interest in the children.It puzzled and troubled me.
The Citizens Union began its campaign early that autumn,long before the Hons.Jonathan Parks and Timothy MacGuire--Republican and Democratic candidates for Mayor--thought of going on the stump.For several weeks the meetings were held in the small halls and club rooms of various societies and orders in obscure portions of the city.
