Roger Carrington bowed. Mrs. Jettson had found a friend in the wife of one of the more recent senators, and they were having a little chat, as it was that lady's first visit to Washington to attend the inauguration. So Roger slipped the fair hand within his arm, and they began a tour of the still unfurnished White House, though much nearer completion and in a better state than Abigail Adams had found it in her brief sojourn.
Mrs. Madison's tact and grace had brought about a more congenial state of affairs even while wife of the secretary of state. There was in the conduct of both men and women a trifle of formality verging to a certain grandeur, yet gracious and truly courteous. There was no mad rush then for the first places.
Presently the company broke up into chatty little groups. Jaqueline found herself quite a center in the midst of other centers. Here were two or three elderly men who had known her father. She saw a young neighbor in the throng whose eyes expressed so much amazement that she could not help smiling. Lieutenant Ralston had come in his soldier trappings, and there was quite a sprinkling of military men, with others in the Continental costume that gave such a picturesque aspect.
Jaqueline had a fresh, girlish charm, and to-night she certainly looked lovely. Women and girls, when they were admitted to society, were expected to make themselves agreeable. No abstruse learning was required, and though they might have strong political preferences they were delicately veiled. Mrs. Madison had gone through four years of unusual stress, and the few enemies she had made were only those who envied her popularity. She had been discretion itself outwardly, and her opinions, her conferences, and her advice had been lodged only in her husband's bosom.
Jaqueline had no care, no experience to conceal, and she had already tried her prentice hand on the students at Williamsburg. And that natural art of making men pleased with themselves, that charming deference, so great a factor in that day, was hers in an eminent degree. Roger Carrington watched her as she caught up the merry badinage and returned it with gay sparkles, and the pretty air that was half girlish demureness, the other half the indefinable charm of budding womanhood.