“Now I feel better,” said Ellen, after she’d finished two cups of black coffee, the alcoholic fumes of the night before dispelled.

In the year that I had known her she was either just coming out from under a hangover or else going into one, with a moment or two, I suppose, of utter delight when she was in between, when she was high. In spite of the drinking, however, I liked her. For several years she had been living in New York, traveling with a very fast set of post-debutantes and pre-alcoholics, a group I occasionally saw at night clubs or the theater but nowhere else.

I am a hard-working public relations man with very little time for that kind of living. I would never have met Ellen if she hadn’t been engaged for eight weeks last year to a classmate of mine from Harvard. When the eight blissful weeks of engagement to this youth were up, she was engaged to me for nearly a month; I was succeeded then, variously, by a sleek creature from the Argentine, by a middle-aged novelist, and by a platoon of college boys to each of whom she was affianced at one time or another and, occasionally, in several instances, at the same time. Not that she is a nymph. Far from it. She just likes a good time and numerous engagements seem to her the surest way of having one.

“Won’t Father be surprised to see us together!” she said at last.

“Yes.” I was a little worried. I had never met Senator Rhodes. I had been hired by his secretary who had, I was quite sure, known nothing about my acquaintance with Ellen. My contract with the Senator was to run three months with an option in March and then another after that … by which time, if I were still on the job, the National Convention would be meeting and the Midwest’s favorite son Lee Rhodes would go before the convention as the people’s choice for President of the United States, or so I figured it, or rather so I figured Senator Rhodes figured it. Well, it was a wonderful break for the public relations firm of Peter Cutler Sargeant II, which is me.

Ellen had been more cynical about it when I told her the news in Cambridge where we had been attending a Harvard function. In spite of her cynicism, however, we had both decided, late at night, that it would be a wonderful idea if we went straight to Washington from Boston, together, and surprised the Senator. It had all seemed like a marvelous idea after eight Martinis but now, in the cold light of a Maryland morning, I was doubtful. For all I knew the Senator loathed his daughter, paid her liberally to keep out of Washington … nervously, I recalled some of Ellen’s exploits: the time last spring when she undressed beneath a full moon and went swimming in the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel in New York, shouting, “I’m coming, Scottie … Zelda’s coming!” in imitation of that season’s revival Scott Fitzgerald … imposing on the decorous 1950’s the studied madness of the 1920’s. Fortunately, two sober youths got her out of there before the police or the reporters discovered her.

“What do you think your father’s up to?” I asked, resigned to my fate: it was too late now to worry about the Senator’s reaction to this combination.

“Darling, you know I hate politics,” she said, straightening one eyebrow in the window as frame houses and evergreens flashed by.

“Well, he must be planning something. I mean, why hire a press agent like me?”

“I suppose he’s going to run for the Senate again.”

“He was re-elected last year.”

“I suppose he was. Do let’s send George and Alice a wire, something funny … they’ll die laughing when they hear we’re on a train together.”

“You know I think it’s quite wonderful your father’s done as well as he has considering the handicap a daughter like you must be to him.”

Ellen chuckled. “Now that’s unkind. As a matter of fact he simply adores me. I even campaigned for him when I was fifteen years old. Made speeches to the Girl Scouts from one end of the state to the other.… I even spoke to the Boy Scouts, lovely young creatures. There was one in Talisman City, an Eagle Scout with more …”

“I don’t want to hear any of your obscene reminiscences.”

She laughed. “You are evil, Peter. I was just going to say that he had more Merit Badges than any other scout in the Midwest.”

“I wonder if he’s running for President.”

“I don’t think he’s old enough. You have to be thirty-five, don’t you? That was ten years ago and he was seventeen then which would make him … how old now? I could never add.”

“I was referring to your father, not that Eagle Scout of infamous memory.”

“Oh, Daddy. Well, I don’t know.” Ellen was vague. “I hope not.”

“Why not?”

“It’s such a bore. Look at the time poor Margaret Truman had, trailed by detectives and guards everywhere.”

“If you were a nice girl like Miss Truman you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh … !” And Ellen Rhodes said a bad word.

“There would be all sorts of compensations, though,” I said, trying to look on the bright side. “I think it would be very pleasant having a father who was President.”

“Well, I don’t. Besides, I don’t think Mother will let him run. She’s always wanted to go back to Talisman City where we came from originally.”

“That would be nice for you.”

Ellen snorted. “I’m a free spirit,” she said, and, all things considered, she was, too.

2

We parted at the Union Station. Ellen went home in a cab and I walked across the square to the Senate Office Building, a white cake of a building in the shadow of the Capitol.

Senator Rhodes’ office was in a corner on the first floor, attesting to his seniority and power since he was, among other things, Chairman of the Spoils and Patronage Committee.

I opened the door of his office and walked into a high-ceilinged waiting room with a desk and receptionist at one end. Several petitioners were seated on the black leather couches by the door. I told the woman at the desk who I was and she immediately told me to go into the Senator’s office, a room on the left.

The room was empty. It was a fascinating place, and while I waited I examined everything: the vast mahogany desk covered with party symbols, the hundreds of photographs in black frames on the walclass="underline" every important political figure since 1912, the year Leander Rhodes came to the Senate, was represented. Leather chairs were placed around a fireplace on whose mantel were arranged trophies and plaques, recording political victories … while above the mantel was a large political cartoon of the Senator, handsomely framed. It showed him, his shock of gray unruly hair streaming in the wind of Public Opinion, mounted upon a spavined horse called Political Principle.

“That was done in 1925,” said a voice behind me.

I turned around quickly, expecting to find the Senator. Instead, however, a small fat man in gray tweed, wearing owl-like spectacles, stood with hand outstretched, beaming at me. “I’m Rufus Hollister,” he said as we shook hands. “Senator Rhodes’ secretary.”

“We’ve had some correspondence,” I said.

“Yes sir, I should say so. The Senator’s over in the Capitol right now … important vote coming up this morning. But sit down for a minute before we join him and let’s get acquainted.”

We sat down in the deep armchairs. Mr. Hollister smiled, revealing a handsome upper plate. “I suspect,” he said, “that you’re wondering exactly why I engaged you.”

“I thought Senator Rhodes engaged me.”