Hollywood by Gore Vidal Page B

word. All my life, I’ve wantedsome kind of Atlantic Community, and now—here it is! We are fighting side by side with England. It is too good to be true.” He smiled the famous bright bitter smile. “I can now contemplate the total ruin of our old world with more philosophy than I ever thought possible.”
    “You see it all ending in ruin?” Blaise was still handsome, Caroline decided; a large concession, since, like Lizzie Cameron’s, her taste was now beginning to run to youth in men.
    “Well, things do run down. After all, haven’t I predicted that from the beginning?—of time, it seems like now. And haven’t I been right? The Russian Revolution—all mine. Well, Brooks can take some credit, too. Odd how proprietary one feels about one’s prophecies …”
    “Unless they are wrong,” said Caroline.
    Then Eleanor Roosevelt and her social secretary, a blond pretty girl, entered the room, bringing the cold with them. “It’s Caroline’s fault.” Eleanor was apologetic. “I was going straight home from the Capitol, in such a state, when she said you might receive us, and who wants to be alone right now?”
    “Where’s your husband? No. Don’t tell me. At the Navy Department, ordering Admiral Dewey to seize Ireland.”
    “We buried the Admiral two months ago.” Caroline found Eleanor’s secretary uncommonly charming; and wondered at Eleanor’s courage in engaging someone so much more attractive than herself. Unless, of course, Eleanor was in love in the Souvestrian sense.
    “Send the coffin to Ireland.” Adams was exuberant as William passed around champagne. In the next room, a buffet had been set. Eleanor stared at it closely, even longingly. She liked her food, Caroline had noticed; yet she kept the worst table in Washington.
    “Franklin is at the Navy Department, with Mr. Daniels. Everything’s starting to happen. My head goes round. I
am
grateful, though, we have Mr. Wilson living across from you.”
    “Oh, child.” Caroline recognized Adams’s special ancestral voice, prophesying doom. “It makes no difference to the course of history who lives in that house. Never has. Energy—or its lack—determines events.”
    “Don’t say that to my Franklin, please.” Eleanor was unexpectedly firm. “You ought not to discourage any young person with ideals, who might accomplish something very fine.” When Eleanor realized that she suddenly had the room’s attention, the silvery skin turned to deepest rose—the Puritan rose, thought Caroline, fond of so much sweet humorless high-mindedness.
    “I think maybe he’s just the one I should say it to. Ah, the magnificoeshave arrived. Like the Magi. My star, no doubt. Welcome, to my manger, or
manger à la fourchette
.” In the doorway stood the British ambassador, Sir Cecil Spring Rice, and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, whose swollen, red cheek gave much delight to Adams, who enjoyed tormenting his one-time Harvard pupil. As Blaise and Frederika and Eleanor moved toward the buffet table, Caroline and the social secretary remained to greet the magnificoes.
    Spring Rice was an old friend of old Washington. He had been posted to the embassy in youth; had penetrated the heart of the Adams circle, known as the Five of Hearts; had become Theodore Roosevelt’s closest friend, and best man when the widower Roosevelt remarried. Now, old and ailing, he had returned in triumph as British ambassador to Washington. He wore a blond-steely beard like that of his king; he had eyes not unlike those of his President. He was, it was thought, most energetically, dying.
    “You have prevailed.” Spring Rice gave Adams an exuberant French sort of embrace.
    “I always do, Springy. Who hit you, Cabot?”
    “A pacifist. But you should—”
    “See
him
. I know all the latest argot of your charming Scollay Square. Who would have thought Wilson would ever have had the courage?”
    Spring Rice indicated Lodge. “There’s his backbone. With some help from Theodore, our