“All very well, gentlemen!  All very well!” repeated the man who sat at the head of the table.  “I do not deny anything you say.  None the less, the question remains, what were we to do with this woman, since she was here?  I confess my own relief at this message from our agent, Captain Carlisle, telling of her temporary disappearance.”

As he spoke, he half pushed back his chair, as though in impatience or agitation over the problem which evidently occupied his mind.  A man above medium height, somewhat spare in habit of body, of handsome features and distinguished presence, although with hair now slightly thinned by advancing years, he seemed, if not by natural right, at least by accorded authority, the leader in this company with whose members he was not unwilling to take counsel.

Those who sat before him were his counselors, chosen by himself, in manner ratified by law and custom.  They made, as with propriety may be stated, a remarkable body of men.  It were less seemly openly to determine their names and their station, since they were public men, and since, as presently appeared, they now were engaged on business of such nature as might not be placed in full upon public records.

At least it may be stated that this meeting was held in the autumn of the year 1850, and in one of the great public buildings of the city of Washington.  Apparently it was more private than official in its nature, and apparently it now had lasted for some time.  The hour was late.  Darkness presently must enshroud the room.  Even now the shadows fell heavy upon the lofty portraits, the rich furnishings, the mixed assemblage of somewhat hodgepodge decorations.  Twice an ancient colored man had appeared at the door with lighted taper, as though to offer better illumination, but each time the master of the place had waved him away, as though unwilling to have present a witness even so humble as he.  Through the door, thus half opened, there might have been seen in the hall two silent and motionless figures, standing guard.

Obviously the persons here present were of importance.  It was equally obvious that they sought no intrusion.  Why, then, in a meeting so private and so serious, should there come a remark upon a topic certainly not a matter of state in the usual acceptance of the term?  Why should the leader have been concerned over the slight matter of a woman’s late presence here in Washington?

As though to question his associates, the speaker turned his glance down the long table, where sat figures, indistinct in the gathering gloom.  At his right hand, half in shadow, there showed the bold outlines of a leonine head set upon broad shoulders.  Under cavernous brows, dark eyes looked out with seriousness.  Half revealed as it was, here was a countenance fairly fit to be called godlike.  That this presence was animated with a brain whose decision had value, might have been learned from the flitting gaze of the leader which, cast now on this or the other, returned always to this man at the right.  There were seven gentlemen of them in all, and of these all were clad in the costume of the day, save this one, who retained the fashion of an earlier time.  His coat might have come from the Revolution, its color possibly the blue of an earlier day.  The trousers fitted close to massive and shapely limbs, and the long waistcoat, not of a modish silk, was buff in color, such as might one time have been worn by Washington himself.  This man, these men, distinguished in every line, might have been statesmen of an earlier day than that of Calhoun, Clay and Benton.  Yet the year of 1850, that time when forced and formal peace began to mask the attitude of sections already arrayed for a later war, might have been called as important as any in our history.

The ranks of these men at the table, too, might have been called arranged as though by some shrewd compromise.  Even a careless eye or ear might have declared both sections, North and South, to have been represented here.  Grave men they were, and accustomed to think, and they reflected, thus early in Millard Fillmore’s administration, the evenly balanced political powers of the time.

The headlong haste of both sections was in the year 1850 halted for a time by the sage counsels of such leaders as Clay, in the South, even Webster, in the North.  The South claimed, after the close of the Mexican War and the accession of the enormous Spanish territories to the southwest, that the accepted line of compromise established in 1820, by which slavery might not pass north of the parallel of latitude thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, should be extended westward quite to the Pacific Ocean.  She grumbled that, although she had helped fight for and pay for this territory, she could not control it, and could not move into it legally the slaves which then made the most valued part of a southern man’s property.  As against this feeling, the united politicians had thrown to the hot-headed Southerners a sop in the form of the Fugitive Slave Act.  The right for a southern owner to follow and claim his slave in any northern state was granted under the Constitution of the United States.  Under the compromise of 1850, it was extended and confirmed.

The abolitionists of the North rose in arms against this part of the great compromise measure; a law which, though constitutional, seemed to them nefarious and infamous.  The leaders in Congress, both Whig and Democrat, feared now, therefore, nothing in the world so much as the outbreak of a new political party, which might disorganize this nicely adjusted compromise, put an end to what all politicians were fond of calling the “finality” of the arrangement, and so bring on, if not an encounter of armed forces, if not a rupture of the Union, at least what to them seemed almost as bad, the disintegration of the two great parties of the day, the Whigs and Democrats.

If compromise showed in this meeting of men from different sections, it was, therefore, but a matter in tune with the time.  Party was at that day not a matter of geography.  There existed then, however, as there exists to-day, the great dividing line between those who are in and those who are out.  Obviously now, although they represented different sections of the country, these men likewise represented the party which, under the adjusted vote of the day, could be called fortunate enough to dwell within the gates of Washington and not in the outer darkness of political defeat.

The dark-browed man at the leader’s right presently began to speak.  His voice, deep and clear as that of a great bronze bell, was slow and deliberate, as fittingly voicing an accurate mind.

“Sir,” he said, “this matter is one deserving our most careful study, trivial though at first blush it would seem.  As to the danger of this woman’s machinations here, there is no question.  A match may produce convulsion, explosion, disaster, when applied to a powder magazine.  As you know, this country dwells continually above an awful magazine.  At any time there may be an explosion which will mean ruin not only for our party but our country.  The Free Soil party, twice defeated, does not down.  There is a nationalist movement now going forward which ignores the Constitution itself.  With you, I dread any talk, any act, of our own or another nation, which shall even indirectly inflame the northern resentment against the fugitive law.”

“On that, we are perfectly agreed, sir,” began the original speaker, “and then ­”

“But then, sir, we come to the question of the removal of this unwelcome person.  She herself is a fugitive from no law.  She has broken no law of this land or of this District.  She has a right to dwell here under our laws, so long as she shall obey them, and there is no law of this District, nor this republic, nor of any state, any monarchy, not even any law of nations, which could be invoked to dismiss her from a capital where, though unwelcome, she has a right to remain.  I may be unwelcome to you, you to me, either of us to any man; yet, having done no treason, so long as we pay our debts and observe the law, no man may raise hand or voice against us.”

“Quite right!” broke in the leader again.  “But let us look simply at the gravity of it.  They say it is treason not only against our own country but against a foreign power which this woman is fomenting.  The Austrian attache, Mr. Hulsemann, is altogether rabid over the matter.  He said to me privately ­”

“Then most improperly!” broke in the tall dark man.

“Improperly, but none the less, insistently, he said that his government will not tolerate her reception here.  He charges her with machinations in Europe, under cover of President Taylor’s embassy of investigation into Hungarian affairs.  He declares that Russia and Austria are one in their plans.  That, I fear, means also England, as matters now stand in Europe.”

“But, sir,” broke in the vibrant voice of a gentleman who sat at the left of the speaker, concealed in the shadow cast by the heavy window drapings, “what is our concern over that?  It is our boast that this is a free country.  As for England, we have taken her measure, once in full, a second time at least in part; and as for Austria or Russia, what have we to do with their territorial designs?  Did they force us to fight, why, then, we might fight, and with proper reason.”

“True again, sir!” said the leader, recognizing the force of the murmur which greeted this outburst.  “It is not any of these powers that I fear.  They might bluster, and still not fight; and indeed they lack any rational cause for war.  But what I fear, what all of us fear, gentlemen, is the danger here, inside our own walls, inside our own country.”

Silence again fell on all.  They looked about them, as though even in this dimly lighted room they felt the presence of that ominous shadow which lay over all the land ­the menace of a divided country.

“That is the dread of all of us,” went on the leader.  “The war with Mexico showed us where England stands.  She proved herself once more our ancient enemy, showed that her chief desire is to break this republic.  Before that war, and after it, she has cultivated a friendship with the South.  Why?  Now let the abolitionist bring on this outbreak which he covets, let the North and South fly at each other’s throats, let the contending powers of Europe cross the seas to quarrel over the spoils of our own destruction ­and what then will be left of this republic?  And yet, if this compromise between North and South be broken as all Europe desires, and as all the North threatens, precisely those matters will come hurrying upon us.  And they will find us divided, incapable of resistance.  That is the volcano, the magazine, over which we dwell continually.  It passes politics, and puts us as patriots upon the question of the endurance of our republic.

“And I tell you now, gentlemen,” he concluded, “as you know very well yourselves, that this woman, here in Washington, would hold the match ready to apply to that magazine.  Which of you does not see its glimmering?  Which of you doubts her readiness?  There was not twenty-four hours to argue the matter of her ­her temporary absence.  We’d have had Austria all about our ears, otherwise.  Gentlemen, I am mild as any, and most of any I am sworn to obey the laws, and to guarantee the safeguards of the Constitution; but I say to you ­” and here his hand came down with an emphasis unusual in his nature ­“law or no law, Constitution or no Constitution, an exigency existed under which she had to leave Washington, and that upon that very night.”

“But where is she now?” ventured another voice.  “This young army captain simply says in his report that he left her on the Mount Vernon packet, en route down the Ohio.  Where is she now; and how long before she will be back here, match in hand?”

“It is the old, old case of Eve!” sighed one, who leaned a bony arm upon the walnut, and who spoke in the soft accents which proclaimed him of the South.  “Woman!  It is only the old Garden over again.  Trouble, thy name is Woman!”

“And specifically, its name is Josephine, Countess St. Auban!” drawled another, opposite.  A smile went around among these grave and dignified men; indeed, a light laugh sounded somewhere in the shadow.  The face of the leader relaxed, though not sufficiently to allow light comment.  The dark man at the right spoke.

“The great Napoleon was right,” said he.  “He never ceased to prove how much he dreaded woman at any juncture of public affairs.  Indeed, he said that all the public places of the government should be closed to them, that they should be set apart and distinguished from the managers of affairs.”

“And so do we say it!” broke in the leader.  “With all my heart, I say it.”

The tall man bowed, “It was the idea of Napoleon that woman should be distinguished always by a veil and gown, a uniform of unworthiness and of danger.  True, Napoleon based his ideas on his studies in the Orient.  Us he accused of treating woman much too well.  He declared woman, by virtue of her birth, to be made as man’s inferior and his slave, and would tolerate no other construction of the relation of the sexes.  According to Napoleon, women tyrannize over us Americans, whereas we should tyrannize over them.  It was plain, in his conception, that the main province of woman is in making fools of men.”

“In some ways, Napoleon was a thoughtful man,” remarked, a voice to the left; and once more a half subdued smile went around.

“I yield to no man in my admiration for the fair sex ­” began the tall, dark man.  The smile broke into open laughter.  The leader rapped sharply on the table edge, frowning.  The tall man bowed once more, as he resumed.

“ ­but, viewed from the standpoint, of our diplomacy, the matter here is simple.  Last week, at the reception where the representatives of Austria were present this woman appeared, properly introduced, properly invited, it is true, but wholly unwelcome socially, in certain quarters.  The attache and his wife left the roof, and made plain to their host their reasons for doing so.”

“Yes, and it was public shame that they should take such action.  The woman had the right of her host’s protection, for she was there by invitation!” Thus the bony man in the shadows.

Again the leader rapped on the table.  “Gentlemen, gentlemen!” he began, not wholly humorously.  “Let us have a care.  Let us at least not divide into factions here.  We all of us, I trust, can remember the case of Peggy O’Neil, who split Washington asunder not so long ago.  She was the wife of one of President Jackson’s cabinet members, yet when she appeared upon a ball-room floor, all the ladies left it.  It was Jackson and Eaton against the world.  That same situation to-day, granted certain conditions, might mean a war which would disrupt this Union.  In fact, I consider Josephine St. Auban to-day more dangerous than Mrs. Eaton at her worst.”

“But we have just heard what rights we have before the law, sir,” ventured a hesitating, drawling voice, which had earlier been heard.  “How can we take cognizance of private insult given by a foreign power in only quasi-public capacity?  I conceive it to be somewhat difficult, no matter what the reception in the society of Washington, to eject this woman from the city of Washington itself; or at least, very likely difficult to keep her ejected, as you say, sir.”

“Where should she go?” demanded yet another voice.  “And why should she not come back?”

Impatiently, the leader replied:  “Where?  I do not know.  I do not want to know.  I must not know!  Good God, must we not bear ourselves in mind?”

“Then, sir, in case of her sudden return, you ask an agent?” said a keen, clear, and incisive voice, which had not yet been heard.  “Gentlemen, shall we cast lots for the honor of watching the Countess St. Auban in case of her undesired return?”

The grim demand brought out a hasty protest from a timid soul:  “To that, I would not agree.”  A sort of shuffle, a stir, a shifting in seats seemed to take place all about the table.

“Very well, then,” went on the clear voice, “let us employ euphemism in terms and softness in methods.  If we may not again kidnap the lady, why may we not bribe her?”

“It could not be done,” broke in the dark man toward the head of the table.  “If I know the facts, this woman could not be bought for any ransom.  She has both station and wealth accorded her, so the story goes, for some service of her family in the affairs of France.  But she will none of monarchies.  She turned democrat, revolutionist, in France, and on the hotter stage of Hungary ­and so finally sought this new world to conquer.  She is no artless miss, but a woman of the world, brilliant and daring, with ideas of her own about a world-democracy.  She is perhaps devout, or penitent!”

“Nay, let us go softly,” came the rejoinder from the shadows.  “Woman is man’s monarch only part of the time.  We need some man who is a nice judge of psychological moments and nicely suited methods.  We stand, all of us, for the compromise of 1850.  That compromise is not yet complete.  The question of this unwelcome lady still remains to be adjusted.  Were Mr. Clay not quite so old, I might suggest his name for this last and most crucial endeavor of a long and troublous life!”

“By the Eternal Jove!” broke in the dark man at the right, shaking off the half-moodiness which had seemed to possess him.  “When it comes to wheedling, age is no such bar.  I call to mind one man who could side with Old Hickory in the case of Mrs. Peggy Eaton.  I mean him whom we call the Old Fox of the North.”

“He was a widower, even then, and hence immune,” smiled the man across the table.  “Now he is many years older.”

“Yet, none the less a widower, and all the more an adjuster of nice matters.  He has proven himself a politician.  It was his accident and not his fault not to remain with us in our party!  Yet I happen to know that though once defeated for the presidency and twice for the nomination, he remains true to his Free Soil beliefs.  It has just occurred to me, since our friend from Kentucky mentions it, that could we by some fair means, some legal means ­some means of adjustment and compromise, if you please, gentlemen, ­place this young lady under the personal care of this able exponent of the suaviter in modo, and induce him to conduct her, preferably to some unknown point beyond the Atlantic Ocean, there to lose her permanently, we should perhaps be doing our country a service, and would also be relieving this administration of one of its gravest concerns.  Best of all, we should be using a fox for a cat’s-paw, something which has not often been done.”

The matter-of-fact man who presided straightened his shoulders as though with relief at some sign of action; yet he did not relax his insistent gravity sufficiently to join the smile that followed this sally.

“Let us be sure, gentlemen, of one thing at a time,” he resumed.  “As we come to this final measure suggested by our friend from Kentucky, I am at a loss how further to proceed.  What we do can not be made public.  We can not sign a joint note asking this distinguished gentleman to act as our intermediary.”

“At the time of the ratification of the Constitution by the convention of 1787,” began the dark man who had earlier spoken, “there arose a difficulty as to the unanimity of those signing.  At the suggestion of Doctor Franklin and Mr. Gouverneur Morris, there was a clause added which stated that the Constitution was signed ‘as by the states actually present,’ this leaving the individual signers not personally responsible!  I suggest therefore, sir, that we should evade the personal responsibility of this did you put it to the vote of the states represented here.”

“I rely upon the loyalty and the unanimity of my family,” replied the leader, with more firmness than was wont.  “Gentlemen, are we then agreed?  Does Massachusetts consent?  Is Virginia with us?  Is New York agreeable?  Does Kentucky also agree?”

There was no murmur of dissent, and the leader, half rising, concluded;

“Gentlemen, we agreed four days ago that the Countess St. Auban should leave Washington not later than that night.  We are now agreed that, in case of her return, she shall if possible be placed under the charge, not of any responsible figure of our party, but of a gentleman distinguished in the councils of an opposing party, whose abolitionist beliefs coincide somewhat with her own.  Let us hope they will both get them to Missouri, the debating ground, the center of the political battle-field to-day.  But, Missouri or Hungary, Kentucky or France, let us hope that one or both of them shall pass from our horizon.

“There remains but one question, as earlier suggested by Kentucky:  if we agree upon New York as our agent, who shall be our emissary to New York, and how shall he accomplish our purpose with that gentleman?  Shall we decide it by the usual procedure of parliamentary custom?  Do you allow the ­the Chair ­” he smiled as he bowed before them ­“to appoint this committee of one?  I suppose you agree that the smaller the committee and the more secret the committee’s action, the better for us all?”

There was silence to this.  A moment’s hesitation, and the speaker announced his decision.  “The gentleman from Kentucky is appointed to execute this task for the people of the United States.  Let us hope he never will have need to serve.”

It cost the self-control of some to remain silent at this, and the courage of the remaining member also to preserve the silence which meant his acceptance of a task so difficult and distasteful.

“Sir,” hastily went on the original speaker, “our thanks are due to you.  We shall limit you with no instructions.  All the money required by you as agent, or required by your agent, shall of course be forthcoming, and you shall quietly have also the assistance of all the secret service, if so desired.  None of us must know what has become of the Countess St. Auban, now or later.  You have heard me.  Gentlemen, we adjourn.”

He stepped now to the door, and admitted the ancient colored man, with his lights.  The curtains were drawn, shutting out even the twilight gloom.  And now the lights blazed up, illuminating an historic stage.

The chief of the deliberations now became the host, and motioned his guests to the corner of the apartments where stood a long sideboard of dark mahogany, bearing different crystal decanters.  Himself refraining, as did one or two others, he passed glasses, motioned to the ancient colored man, and, raising his own hand, proposed them a toast.

“Gentlemen, ­the Union!”

They bowed to him ceremoniously, each in his way, with reverence, touching lips to his glass.  As they parted, one for a moment stood alone, the dark man who had sat at the speaker’s right.  For a moment he paused, as though absorbed, as finally he set down his glass, gazing steadily forward as though striving to read what lay in the future.

“The Union!” he whispered, almost to himself.

It might have been the voice, as it was the thought of all those who, now passing, brought to a close this extraordinary meeting.

The Union!