“It’s easy enough for another fellow to
talk,” said Harry, despondingly, after he had
put Philip in possession of his view of the case.
“It’s easy enough to say ‘give
her up,’ if you don’t care for her.
What am I going to do to give her up?”
It seemed to Harry that it was a situation requiring
some active measures. He couldn’t realize
that he had fallen hopelessly in love without some
rights accruing to him for the possession of the object
of his passion. Quiet resignation under relinquishment
of any thing he wanted was not in his line.
And when it appeared to him that his surrender of
Laura would be the withdrawal of the one barrier that
kept her from ruin, it was unreasonable to expect
that he could see how to give her up.
Harry had the most buoyant confidence in his own projects
always; he saw everything connected with himself in
a large way and in rosy lines. This predominance
of the imagination over the judgment gave that appearance
of exaggeration to his conversation and to his communications
with regard to himself, which sometimes conveyed the
impression that he was not speaking the truth.
His acquaintances had been known to say that they
invariably allowed a half for shrinkage in his statements,
and held the other half under advisement for confirmation.
Philip in this case could not tell from Harry’s
story exactly how much encouragement Laura had given
him, nor what hopes he might justly have of winning
her. He had never seen him desponding before.
The “brag” appeared to be all taken out
of him, and his airy manner only asserted itself now
and then in a comical imitation of its old self.
Philip wanted time to look about him before he decided
what to do. He was not familiar with Washington,
and it was difficult to adjust his feelings and perceptions
to its peculiarities. Coming out of the sweet
sanity of the Bolton household, this was by contrast
the maddest Vanity Fair one could conceive.
It seemed to him a feverish, unhealthy atmosphere
in which lunacy would be easily developed. He
fancied that everybody attached to himself an exaggerated
importance, from the fact of being at the national
capital, the center of political influence, the fountain
of patronage, preferment, jobs and opportunities.
People were introduced to each other as from this
or that state, not from cities or towns, and this
gave a largeness to their representative feeling.
All the women talked politics as naturally and glibly
as they talk fashion or literature elsewhere.
There was always some exciting topic at the Capitol,
or some huge slander was rising up like a miasmatic
exhalation from the Potomac, threatening to settle
no one knew exactly where. Every other person
was an aspirant for a place, or, if he had one, for
a better place, or more pay; almost every other one
had some claim or interest or remedy to urge; even
the women were all advocates for the advancement of
some person, and they violently espoused or denounced
this or that measure as it would affect some relative,
acquaintance or friend.
