CHAPTER XLIV.

“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.