December 27. Three weeks simply boiling with business since I wrote here—and it seems not more than so many days. And all by way of preparation, for the actual season is still five days away.

I can hardly realize that Mrs. Burke is the same person I looked at so dubiously two days less than a month ago. Truly, the right sort of us Americans are wonderful people. To begin with her appearance: her hair isn't "bottled," as she called it, any more. It's beautiful iron-gray, and softens her features and permits all the placid kindliness and humor of her face to show. Then there's her dress—gracious, how tight-looking she was! A thin woman can, and should, wear close things. But no woman who wishes to look like a lady must ever wear anything tight. To be tight in one's clothes is to be tight in one's talk, manner, thought—and that means—well, common. What an expressive word "common" is, yet I'm sure I couldn't define it.

For a fat woman to be tight is—revolting! My idea of misery is a fat woman in a tight waist and tight shoes. Yet fat women have a mania for wearing tight things, just as gaunt women yearn for stripes and short women for flounces. My first move in getting Mrs. Burke into shape—after doing away with that dreadful "bottled" hair—was to put her into comfortable clothes. The first time I got her into an evening dress of the right sort I was rewarded for all my trouble by her expression. She kissed me with tears in her eyes. "My dear," said she, "never before did I have a best dress that I wasn't afraid to breathe in for fear I'd bust out, back or front." Then I made her sit down before her long glass and look at herself carefully. She had the prettiest kind of color in her cheeks as she smiled at me and said: "If I'd 'a' looked like this when I was young I reckon Mr. Burke wouldn't 'a' been so easy in his mind when he went away from home, nor 'a' stayed so long. I always did sympathize with pretty women when they capered round, but now I wonder they ever do sober down. If I weighed a hundred pounds or so less I do believe I'd try to frisk yet."

And I do believe she could; for she's really a handsome woman. Why is it that the women who have the most to them don't give it a chance to show through, but get themselves up so that anybody who glances at them tries never to look again?

It is the change in her appearance even more than all she's learned that has given her self-confidence. She feels at ease—and that puts her at ease, and puts everybody else at ease, too. It has reacted upon Mr. Burke. He has dropped brilliantine—perhaps "ma" gave him a quiet hint—and he has taken some lessons in dress from "Cyrus," who really gets himself up very well, considering that he has lived in Germany for three years. I should have hopes that "pa" would blossom out into something very attractive socially if he hadn't a deep-seated notion that he is a great joker. A naturally serious man who tries to be funny is about the most painful object in civilization. Still, Washington is full of statesmen and scholars who try to unbend and be "light," especially with "the ladies." Nothing makes me—or any other woman, I suppose—so angry as for a man to show that he takes me for a fool by making a grinning galoot of himself whenever he talks to me. Bucyrus is much that kind of ass. He alternates between solemnity and silliness.

I said rather pointedly to him the other night: "You men with your great, deep minds make a mistake in changing your manner when you talk with the women and the children. Nothing pleases us so much as to be taken seriously." But it didn't touch him. However, he's hardly to blame. He's spent a great many years round institutions of learning, and in those places, I've noticed, every one has a musty, fusty sense of humor. Probably it comes from cackling at classical jokes that have laughed themselves as dry as a mummy.

We've been giving a few entertainments—informal and not large, but highly important. I had two objects in mind: In the first place, to get Mr. and Mrs. Burke accustomed to the style of hospitality they've got to give if they're going to win out. In the second place, to get certain of the kind of people who are necessary to us in the habit of coming to this house—and those people are not so very hard to get hold of now; later they'll be engaged day and night.For two weeks now I've had my two especial features going. One of them is for the men, the other for the women. And I can see already that they alone would carry us through triumphantly; for they've caught on.

My men's feature is a breakfast. I engaged a particularly good cook—the best old-fashioned Southern cook in Washington. Rachel had her, and I persuaded Mr. Derby to consent to giving her up to us, just for this season. Cleopatra—that's her name—has nothing to do but get together every morning by nine o'clock the grandest kind of an old-fashioned American breakfast. And I explained to Senator Burke that he was to invite some of his colleagues, as many as he liked, and tell them to come any morning, or every morning if they wished, and bring their friends.I consult with Cleopatra every day as to what she's to have the next morning; and I think dear old father taught me what kind of breakfast men like. I don't give them too much, or they'd be afraid to come and risk indigestion a second time. I see to it that everything is perfectly cooked—and it's pretty hard for any man to get indigestion, even from corned beef hash and hot cornbread and buckwheat cakes with maple syrup, if it's perfectly cooked and is eaten in a cheerful frame of mind. No women are permitted at these breakfasts—just men, with everything free and easy, plenty to smoke, separate tables, but each large enough so that there's always room at any one of them for one more who might otherwise be uncomfortable. Even now we have from fifteen to twenty men—among them the very best in Washington. In the season we'll have thirty and forty, and our house will be a regular club from nine to eleven for just the right men.

My other big feature is an informal dance every Wednesday night. It's already as great a success in its way as the breakfasts are in theirs. I've been rather careful about whom I let Mrs. Burke invite to come in on Wednesdays whenever they like. The result is that everybody is pleased; the affairs seem to be "exclusive," yet are not. I know it will do the Burkes a world of good politically, because a certain kind of people who are important politically but have had no chance socially are coming to us on Wednesdays, and that's just the kind of people who are frantically flattered by the idea that they are "in the push."Speaking of being "in the push," there are two ways of getting there if one isn't there. One is to worm your way in; the other is to make yourself the head and front of "the push." That's the way for those who have money and know how. And that's the way the Burkes are getting in—getting in at the front instead of at the rear.

It's most gratifying to see how Mr. Burke treats me. He always has been deferential, but he now shows that he thinks I have real brains. And since his breakfasts have become the talk of the town and are "patronized" by the men he's so eager to get hold of, he is even consulting me about his business. I am criticizing for him now a speech he's going to make on the canal question next month—a dreadfully dull speech, and I don't feel competent to tell him what to do with it. I think I'll advise him not to make it, tell him his forte is diplomacy—winning men round by personal dealing with them—which is the truth.

Young Mr. Burke—after a period of unbending—is now shyer than ever. I wondered why, until it happened to occur to me one day as I was talking with Jessie. I suddenly said to her: "Jessie, did you ever tell Nadeshda that you had planned to marry me to Cyrus Burke?"

She hopped about in her chair a bit, as uneasy as a bird on a swaying perch. Then she confessed that she "might have suggested before Nadeshda what a delightfully satisfactory thing it would be."

I laughed to relieve her mind—also because it amused me to see through Nadeshda.

Of course, one of the women I needed most in this Burke campaign was Nadeshda. And I happened to know that she is bent on marrying a rich American—indeed, that's the only reason why the wilds of America are favored with the presence of the beautiful, joy-loving, courted and adored Baroness Nadeshda Daragane. The yarn about her sister, the ambassadress, being an invalid and shrinking from the heavy social responsibilities of the embassy is just so much trash. So, as soon as "Cyrus" came I went over to see her, and, as diplomatically as I knew how, displayed before her dazzled eyes the substantial advantages of the sole heir of the great Western multi-millionaire.

As I went on to tell how generous the Senator is, and how certain he would be to lavish wealth upon his daughter-in-law, I could see her mind at work. A fascinating, naughty, treacherous little mind it is—like a small Swiss watch of the rarest workmanship and full of wheels within wheels. And she's a beautiful little creature, as warm as a tropical sun to look at, and about as cold as the Arctic regions to deal with. No, I haven't begun to describe her. I'd not be surprised to hear that she had eloped with her brother-in-law's coachman; nor should I be surprised to hear that she had married the most hideous, revolting man in the world for his money, and was suspected of being engaged in trying to hasten him off to the grave. She's of the queer sort that would kiss or kill with equal enthusiasm, capable of almost any virtue or vice—on impulse. If there's any part of her beneath the impulsive part it's solid ice in a frame of steel. But—is there? She's talked about a good deal—not a tenth enough to satisfy her craving for notoriety, and, I may add, not a tenth part so much as she deserves to be, and would be if we studied character on this side of the water instead of being too busy with ourselves to look beyond anybody else's surface.

Well, the Baroness Nadeshda has been wild about the Burkes ever since we had our talk. And she has Mr. Cyrus thoroughly tangled in her nets, and the Senator, too. And, naturally, she lost no time in trying to "do" me. She has told Bucyrus what a designing creature I am—no doubt has warned him that if I seem distant to him I'm at my deadliest, and to look out for mines. He certainly is looking out for them, for, whenever I speak to him, he acts as if he were stepping round on a volcano. I'm having a good deal of fun with him. I wish I had the time; I'd try to teach him a very valuable lesson. Really, it's a shame to let a man go through life imagining that he's an all-conqueror, when in reality the woman who marries him will feel that she's swallowing about as bitter a dose as Fate ever presented to feminine lips in a gold spoon.

Dear old "ma" Burke hasn't yet yielded to Nadeshda's blandishments. We went to the embassy to call yesterday afternoon at tea-time, and I saw her watching Nadeshda in that smiling, simple way of hers that conceals about as keen a brain as I shouldn't care to have tearing me to pieces for inspection.

The embassy at tea-time is always wild. For then Sophie comes in with her monkey and Nadeshda's seven dogs are racing about. And the Count always laughs loudly, usually at nothing at all. And each time he laughs the dogs bark until the monkey in a great fright dashes up the curtains or flings himself at Sophie and almost strangles her with his paws or arms, or whatever they are, round her neck. I don't think I've ever been there that something hasn't been spilt for a huge mess; often the whole tea-table topples over. Mrs. Burke loves to go, for afterward she laughs a dozen times a day until her sides ache.

As we came away yesterday I said to her: "What a fascinating, beautiful creature Nadeshda is!"

Mrs. Burke smiled. "When I was a girl," she said, "I had a catamount for a pet—a cub, and they had cut his claws. He was beautiful and mighty fascinating—you never did know when he was going to fawn on you and when he was going to fasten his teeth in you. The baroness puts me in mind of my old pet, and how I didn't know which was harder—to keep him or to give him up."

"She certainly has a strange nature," said I.

After a pause Mrs. Burke went on: "She's the queerest animal in this menagerie here, so far as I've seen. And I don't think I'm wrong in suspecting she's sitting up to Cyrus."

"I don't wonder he finds her interesting," said I.

"Cyrus is just like his pa," said she, "a mighty poor judge of women. It was lucky for his pa that he married and settled down before he had much glitter to catch the eyes of the women. Otherwise, he'd 'a' made a ridiculous fool of himself. But I like a man the women can fool easy. That shows he's honest. These fellows who are so sharp at getting on to the tricks of the women ain't, as a rule, good for much else. But Cyrus has got me to look after him."

"He might do much worse than marry Nadeshda," said I.

"That's what his pa says," she replied. "But I ain't got round to these new-fashioned notions of marriage. I want to see my Cyrus married to the sort of woman his ma'd like and be proud to have for the mother of her grand-children. And I ain't altogether sure we need the kind of tone in our blood that a catamount'd bring. Though I must say a year or so of living with a catamount might do Cyrus a world of good."

Which shows that even love can't altogether blind "ma" Burke.

January 3. I had to do a little scheming to get Mrs. Burke an invitation to assist at the New Year's reception. It's always the first event of the season, and, though it would have been no great matter if I hadn't been able to get her in among those who stand near the President's wife and the Cabinet women, still I felt that I couldn't get my "pulls" into working order any too soon. Ever since the second week in my "job" I've realized that nothing could be easier than to put the Burkes well to the front, but my ambition to make them first calls for the exertion of every energy.

So, in the third week of December I set Rachel at Mrs. Senator Lumley and Mrs. Admiral Bixby—two women who can get almost anything in reason out of the President's wife. Rachel is about the most important woman in the old Washington aristocracy, and the Lumleys and the Bixbys are in the nature of fixtures here, not at all like an evanescent President or Cabinet person. So Rachel's request set the two women to work. And although the President's wife said she'd asked all she intended to ask, far too many, and didn't see why on earth she should be beset for a newcomer who had been reported to her as fat and impossible, still she finally yielded.

I hadn't hoped to get an invitation for them for the Cabinet dinner, and I was astounded when it came. We had arranged to give a rather large informal dinner that night and had to call it off, as an invitation from the White House, even from the obscurest member of the President's family for any old function whatever, is a command that may not be disobeyed. Well, as I was saying, the invitation to the Cabinet dinner came unsought. It seems that the Burke breakfasts are making a great stir politically; so great a stir that they have made the President a little uneasy. Of course, the best way to get rid of an opponent is to conciliate him. Hence the royal command to Senator and Mrs. Burke to appear at his Majesty's dinner to his Majesty's ministers.

Mrs. Burke is tremendously proud of her first two communications from the White House. As for the Senator, he looks at them half a dozen times a day.

I went down to the New Year's reception to see how "ma" was getting on. As I had expected, she didn't stand very long. She cast about for a chair, and, seeing one, planted herself. Soon the Baroness joined her, and young Prince Krepousky joined Nadeshda, and then General Martin, who loves Mrs. Burke for the feeds she gives. The group grew, and Mrs. Burke began to talk in her drawling, humorous way, and Nadeshda laughed, which made the others laugh—for it's impossible to resist Nadeshda. When I arrived Mrs. Burke was "right in it."

And after a while the President came and said: "Is this your reception, madam, or is it mine?" At which there was more laughing, he raising a great guffaw and slapping his hip with his powerful hand. Then they all went up to have something to eat, and the President spent most of the time with her.

She doesn't need any more coaching. Of course, she's flattered by her success. But instead of having her head turned, as most women do who get the least bit of especial attention from the conspicuous men here, she takes it all very placidly. "They don't care shucks for me," she says, "and I know it. We're all in business together, and I'm mighty glad it can be carried on so cheerful-like." At the Cabinet dinner, to-morrow night, she'll have to sit well down toward the foot of the table. But she won't mind that. Indeed, if I hadn't been giving her lessons in precedence she wouldn't have an idea that everything here is arranged by rank.

Jessie—so she tells me—had a half-hour's session with "Cyrus" the other day and gave him a very exalted idea of my social position and influence. No doubt, what she said confirmed his suspicion that I and my friends are conspiring against him; but I observe a distinct change in his manner toward me. He's even humble. I suppose he thought I was some miserable creature whom his mother had taken on, half out of charity. I'm afraid I have a sort of family pride that's a little ridiculous—but I can't help it. Still, I am American enough to despise people who are courteous or otherwise, according as they look up to or look down on the particular person's family and position. I guess young Mr. Burke is his father in an aggravated form. Yet Jessie, and Rachel, too, pretend to like him. And probably they really do—it's not hard to like any one who is not asking favors and is in a position to grant them, and isn't so near to one that his quills stick into one.

The Countess of Wend came in to see me this afternoon and told me all about the row over at the legation. It seems that the new minister is a plebeian, and in their country people of his sort aren't noticed by the upper classes unless an upper-class man happens to need something to wipe his boots on and one of them is convenient for use. Well, every attachÉ is in a fury, and none of them will speak to the minister except in the most formal way and only when it's absolutely necessary. As for the minister's wife, the other women—but what's the use of describing it; we all know how nasty women can be about matters of rank. The Count is talking seriously of resigning. I'd be dreadfully sorry, as Eugenie is a dear, more like an American than a foreigner; and I believe she really likes us, where most of them privately despise us as a lot of low-born upstarts. I know they laugh all day long at the President's queer manners and mannerisms—but then, so do we, for that matter. And it's quite unusual for Washington, where each President is bowed down to and praised everywhere and flattered till he thinks he's a sort of god—and forgotten as soon as his term is ended. I suppose there's nothing deader on this earth than an ex-President, with no offices to distribute and no hopes for a further political career.

January 9. We had a beautiful dinner here last night—very brilliant too, as we all were going to a ball at the Russian embassy afterward. All the diplomats and army men were in uniform—and one or two of the army men were really brilliant. But none of the diplomats. They say that no nation sends us its best or even its second best. It seems that diplomats don't amount to much in this day of cables. Those who have any intelligence naturally go to courts, where the atmosphere is congenial and where there are chances for decorations. So we get only the stiffs and stuffs—with a few exceptions. If it weren't for their women—

But, to return to our dinner—Mrs. Burke went in with the German ambassador, and I saw that they were getting on famously. He is a very clever man in a small way, and has almost an American sense of humor. As soon as he saw that she intended what she said to be laughed at he gave himself up to it. "Your Mrs. Burke is charming, Miss Talltowers," said he to me after dinner. "She ranks with Bret Harte and Mark Twain. It's only in America that you find old women who make you forget to wish you were with young and pretty women."

Jim Lafollette took me in—the first time I've had him here. I must say he behaved very well and was the handsomest man in the room. But he never has much to say that is worth hearing. Though conversation at Washington in society isn't on any too high a plane, as a rule—how could conversation in a mixed society anywhere be very high?—still it isn't the wishy-washy chatter and gossip that Jim Lafollette delights in. Of course, army officers almost always go in for gossip—that comes from sitting round with their women at lonely posts where nothing occurs. And they, as a rule, either gossip or simply drivel when they talk to women, because all the women that ever liked them liked them for their brass buttons, and all the women they ever liked they liked for their pretty faces and empty heads. So, usually, to get an army officer at dinner is to sit with a bowl of soft taffy held to your lips and a huge spoonful of it thrust into your mouth every time you stop talking. That's true of many of the statesmen, too, especially the heavyweights. I suppose I'm wrong, but I can't help suspecting a man without a sense of humor of being a solemn fraud.

You'd think American women, at the capital, at least, would be interested in politics. But they're not. They say it's the vulgarity of the intriguing and of most of the best intriguers that makes them dislike politics, even here. I suspect there's another reason. We women are so petted by the men that we don't have to know anything to make ourselves agreeable. If we're pretty and listen well that's all that's necessary. So, why get headaches learning things?Of course, there are exceptions. Take Maggie Shotwell. Her husband is a wag-eared ass. Yet in eleven years she has advanced him from second secretary to minister to a second-class power just by showing up here at intervals and playing the game intelligently. And there are scores of army women who do as well in a smaller way, and a few of the diplomats' wives are most adroit, intriguing well both here and at their homes in a nice, clean way, as intrigue goes.

But most of the women are like "ma" Burke, who'd as soon think of entering for a foot-race as of interfering in her husband's political affairs in any way, beyond giving him some sound advice about the men that can be trusted and the men that can't. I suppose if there were real careers in public life in this country, not dependent upon elections, the Washington women wouldn't be so lazy and indifferent, but would wake up and intrigue their brothers and sons and other male relatives into all sorts of things. Then, too, a man has to vote with his "party" on everything that's important, and his "party" is a small group of old men who are beyond social blandishments and go to bed early every night and associate only with men in the daytime.

No, we women don't amount to much directly at Washington. If Jim Lafollette had kept away from the women and society he might have amounted to something. It's become a proverb that whenever a young man comes here and goes in for the social end of it he is doomed soon to disappear and be heard of no more. The President is trying to make society amount to something, but he won't succeed. Whatever benefit there may be in it will go, not to him, but to men like Senator Burke. He doesn't go any more than he can help, except to his own breakfasts. But he sends his wife, and so, without wasting any of his time, he makes himself prominent in a very short space of time and gets all the big social indirect influence—the influence of the women on their husbands.

Mrs. Burke's younger brother, Robert Gunton, arrived last night. He reminds me of her, but he's slender and very active—a shabby sort of person, clean but careless, and he looks as if he had so many other things to think about that he hadn't time to think about himself. He looks younger and talks older than his years. He's here to get some sort of patent through; he won't permit his brother-in-law to assist him; he refuses to go anywhere—in society, I mean. We rode up to the Capitol together in a street-car this morning, and I liked him.

"Why do you ride in a street-car?" he asked.

"Because it's not considered good form to use carriages too much," I replied. "It might rouse the envy of those who can't afford carriages."

"Then it isn't because you don't want to, but because you don't dare to?"

"Yes," said I. "But things are changing rapidly. The rich people who live here but care nothing for politics are gradually introducing class distinctions."

"You mean, poor people who like to fawn upon and hate the rich are introducing class distinctions," he corrected.

He is thirty-two years old; he treats a woman as if she were a man, and he treats a man as if he himself were one. It isn't possible not to like that sort of human being.

Invitations are beginning to come in floods—invitations for the big, formal things for which people are asked weeks in advance. And we are getting a splendid percentage of acceptances for our big affairs, thanks to my taking the trouble to find out the freest dates in the season. If all goes well, before another month, as soon as it gets round that we are going to give something big in a short time, lots of pretty good people will be holding off from accepting other things in the hope that they're on our list.

Certainly, there's a good deal in going about anything in a systematic way—even a social launching.

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