"But why should I?" asked Mrs. Vanderpool.
"Mrs. Vanderpool, to be frank, I know some excellent investments that your influence in this line would help. I take it you're not so rich but that--"
"Really, Mr. Easterly, I know little about such matters and care less. I have food and clothes. Why worry with more?"
Mr. Easterly half expected this and he determined to deliver his last shot on the run. He arose with a disappointed air.
"Of course, Mrs. Vanderpool, I see how it is: you have plenty and one can't expect your services or influence for nothing. It had occurred to me that your husband might like something political; but I presume not."
"Yes. You see, it's barely possible, for instance, that there will be a change in the French ambassadorship. The present ambassador is old and--well, I don't know, but as I say, it's possible. Of course though, that may not appeal to you, and I can only beg your good offices in charity if--if you see your way to help us. Well, I must be going."
"What is--I thought the President appointed ambassadors."
"To be sure, but we appoint Presidents," laughed Mr. Easterly. "Good-day. I shall hope to see you in Washington."
"Good-day," Mrs. Vanderpool returned absently.
After he had gone she walked slowly to Zora's room and opened the door. For a long time she stood quietly looking in. Zora was curled in a chair with a book. She was in dreamland; in a world of books builded thoughtfully for her by Mrs. Vanderpool, and before that by Miss Smith. Her work took but little of her time and left hours for reading and thinking. In that thought-life, more and more her real living centred.
Hour after hour, day after day, she lay buried, deaf and dumb to all else. Her heart cried, up on the World's four corners of the Way, and to it came the Vision Splendid. She gossiped with old Herodotus across the earth to the black and blameless Ethiopians; she saw the sculptured glories of Phidias marbled amid the splendor of the swamp; she listened to Demosthenes and walked the Appian Way with Cornelia--while all New York streamed beneath her window.
She saw the drunken Goths reel upon Rome and heard the careless Negroes yodle as they galloped to Toomsville. Paris, she knew,--wonderful, haunting Paris: the Paris of Clovis, and St. Louis; of Louis the Great, and Napoleon III; of Balzac, and her own Dumas. She tasted the mud and comfort of thick old London, and the while wept with Jeremiah and sang with Deborah, Semiramis, and Atala. Mary of Scotland and Joan of Arc held her dark hands in theirs, and Kings lifted up their sceptres.