“You remember Sara Luttrell, my dear?” asked General Brandon, with a smile. “Well, she is the same Sara Luttrell I danced with forty–five years ago at West Point. Nobody knew her age then and nobody knows it now—and time seems to have passed her by. She still lives in her fine old house, gives two dinners a week herself and goes out to dine the remaining five evenings, and nobody dares cross her except her nephew—her husband’s nephew, I should say—Richard Baskerville.”
“I remember Mr. Baskerville perfectly. He was always very kind to me, and so was Mrs. Luttrell.”
“Richard Baskerville, my dear, is a very remarkable man. He has developed a comfortable fortune of his own, and will inherit every stiver of Sara Luttrell’s money. But he works hard at his profession of the law and has made a name for himself. His fortune and position make it possible for him to devote himself to civics, and he is frequently engaged in the investigations of violations of the civil service law and in matters coming before Congress in which there is reason to suspect fraud. Just now he is in the thick of a fight with my neighbor in the fine house across the way, Senator Clavering, who is under fire at the present time before a senatorial committee concerning some alleged gigantic frauds with railway land grants in the Far West. I knew Clavering well before the war, when I was a captain of infantry and he was a sutler,—post–traders they now call themselves, and I understand that at army posts their daughters aspire to be visited by the young officers.”
So the big, beautiful house belonged to this man Clavering. Elizabeth felt an immediate and strange interest on hearing about the people who lived in that charming abode. She wondered why she should wish to hear more of these people whose names she had heard only at that moment, but nevertheless she did. Nothing pleased General Brandon so much as to talk of things which happened before the war, except to talk about those which happened during the war.
“Clavering, however, was not the man to remain a sutler very long. He made money at the business—they all do; Napoleon Bonaparte was the only man who knew how to treat a man supplying soldiers. In the days when I knew Clavering, a sutler was a sutler; nevertheless, Clavering was such a remarkable man that no one who knew him could forget him. I used often to talk with him, and he professed to be under some obligations to me for certain small acts of kindness. After giving up the post–tradership for something better, I heard of him at intervals. I even saw him once here in Washington just before your marriage—sometimes he was up and sometimes he was down. Then he went into mining, prospecting, and land buying on a great scale and developed what I had always observed in him, a remarkable capacity for men and affairs. Five years ago he came to the Senate, built this splendid house you saw on the corner, and set up for a statesman and a gentleman. Ha, ha! I must say, however, that he had some qualifications for both. His family are conspicuous socially. He has three daughters and a deadly pious son, a confirmed ritualist like most of those common people. He goes to St. Bartholomew’s Chapel, where I attend service still, as I did when I had the joy of having you with me, my child.”