She had worked hard. The President stood ready to send her husband‚Äôs appointment again to the Senate whenever Easterly could assure him of favorable action. Easterly had long and satisfactory interviews with several senators, while the Todd insurgents were losing heart at the prospect of choosing between Vanderpool and Cresswell. At present four Southern votes were needed to confirm Vanderpool; but if they could not be had, Easterly declared it would be good politics to nominate Cresswell and give him Republican support. Manifestly, then, Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool‚Äôs task was to discredit the Cresswells with the Southerners. It was not a work to her liking, but the die was cast and she refused to contemplate defeat.
The result was that while Mrs. ¬ÝCresswell was giving large and brilliant parties to the whole Southern contingent, Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool was engineering exclusive dinners where old New York met stately Charleston and gossiped interestingly. On such occasions it was hinted not once, but many times, that the Cresswells were well enough, but who was that upstart wife who presumed to take social precedence?
It was not, however, until Mrs. ¬ÝCresswell‚Äôs plan for an all-Southern art exhibit in Washington that Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool, in a flash of inspiration, saw her chance.
In the annual exhibit of the Corcoran Art Gallery, a Southern girl had nearly won first prize over a Western man. The concensus of Southern opinion was that the judgment had been unfair, and Mrs. ¬ÝCresswell was convinced of this.
With quick intuition she suggested a Southern exhibit with such social prestige back of it as to impress the country.
The proposal caught the imagination of the Southern set. None suspected a possible intrusion of the eternal race issue for no Negroes