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These matters took me several times to Baton Rouge that winter, and I recall an event of some interest, which most have happened in February. At that time my brother, John Sherman, was a candidate, in the national House of Representatives, for Speaker, against Bocock, of Virginia.
"Imogen is to take Sir Basil to the club; Miss Bocock is to garden with me tell her particularly that I count upon her. Jack is to take you for a drive. And, Mary," she put her hand for a moment on the girl's shoulder, grave for all her recovered lightness; "you are not to talk of sad things to Jack. You must help me about Jack. You must cheer him; make him forget.
The first move of strategy was made directly after dinner. He asked Imogen to come out and see the moonlight with him. A word to the wise was a word to Mrs. Wake, who safely cornered Miss Bocock and the Pottses over a game of cards. Jack saw Valerie and Sir Basil established on the veranda, and then led Imogen away, drew her from her quarry, along the winding path in the woods.
The next day Bocock repeated the demand in a note which Davis described as a "warning if not a threat." The situation of both President and country was now desperate. The program with which the Government had entered so hopefully upon this fated year had broken down at almost every point.
Wake's dry smile of congratulation had been almost as unpleasant as Rose's silence. From Miss Bocock there was neither smile, nor sting, nor silence to endure. Miss Bocock had suspected nothing, either on the mother's side or on the daughter's, and took the announcement very placidly. "Indeed. Really. How very nice. Accept my congratulations," were her comments.
She considered Miss Bocock her protegee, but Miss Bocock, very vexatiously, seemed always oblivious of that fact; so that Imogen, though feeling that she had secured a guest who conferred luster, couldn't resist, now and then, trying to bring her to a slightly clearer sense of obligation.
Tea, when they went down again, was served on the veranda and Imogen could observe, during its progress, that Miss Bocock showed none of the disposition to fawn on Sir Basil that one might have expected from a person of the middle-class. She contradicted him as cheerfully as she did Imogen herself. Mr. and Mrs. Potts had gone for a little ramble in the lower woods, but they soon appeared, Mr.
Thomas S. Bocock, and the erratic and chivalrous Judge Caskie, represented Virginia districts. Mr. Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, sat near his brother, Israel D. Washburne, of Maine. Mr. Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, was then an ardent Republican, and so was Mr. Francis E. Spinner, of New York, whose wonderful autograph afterward graced public securities. Mr.
"It is so kind of you; but oughtn't I to take Jack his answer first?" "The answer will wait. He has his letters to see to now. What are they all doing?" "Well, let me see; Rose is in the hammock and Eddy is talking to her. Imogen is going to take Miss Bocock to see her club." "Oh, it is Imogen's club day, is it? She asked Miss Bocock?"
It was Rose who voiced the associated proposal, a moonlight ramble; it was Rose who seized upon Sir Basil with her hateful air of indifferent yet assured coquetry; but Imogen guessed that she was a tool, even if an ignorant one, in the hands of Jack. Miss Bocock and her mother had not joined them and, in a last desperate hope, Imogen said, "Mama, too, and Miss Bocock, we mustn't leave them.
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