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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19148-8.txt b/19148-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e272af --- /dev/null +++ b/19148-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9279 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Henchman, by Mark Lee Luther + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Henchman + +Author: Mark Lee Luther + +Release Date: August 31, 2006 [EBook #19148] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HENCHMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +THE HENCHMAN + + +BY + +MARK LEE LUTHER + + + +AUTHOR OF "THE FAVOR OF PRINCES," "THE RECKONING," "THE LIVERY OF +HONOR," ETC. + + + + + +New York + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. + +1902 + +All rights reserved + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1901, + +BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + + + + +TO + +GEORGE RICE CARPENTER + +OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY + + + + +Those familiar with the early history of Western New York will know the +"Tuscarora Stories" of this volume for twice-told tales which the +author has ventured to adapt from the suggestive "Pioneer History of +Orleans County," by Judge Arad Thomas. + + + + +BOOK I + + +The Henchman + +CHAPTER I + +It was the custom of the geographers of a period not remote to grapple +somewhat jejune facts to the infant mind by means of fanciful +comparison: thus, Italy was likened to a boot, France to a coffee-pot, +and the European domain of the Sultan to a ruffling turkey. In this +pleasant scheme the state of New York was made to figure as a couchant +lion, his massy head thrust high in the North Country, his forepaws +dabbled in the confluence of the Hudson and the Sound, his middle and +hinder parts stretched lazily westward to Lake Erie and the Niagara. +Roughly speaking, in this noble animal's rounding haunch, which Ontario +cools, lies the Demijohn Congressional District whose majority party +was now in convention assembled. In election returns and official +utterances generally the Demijohn District bore a number like every +district in the land, but the singular shape lent it by the last +gerrymander had settled its popular title till another political +overturn should distort its outline afresh. + +The spokesman of the defeated faction had been recognized by the chair, +and was moving that the convention's choice of the gentleman from +Tuscarora County be declared unanimous. His manner was even more +perfunctory than his words. + +"The name of Calvin Ross Shelby," he ended colorlessly, "spells +success." + +"Screws it out as if it hurt him," whispered the Hon. Seneca Bowers to +the nominee. "I tell you, Ross, there's no argument like delegates." + +Bowers was a thick-set man of the later sixties, with a certain surface +resemblance to General Grant of which he was vain. So far as he could +he underlined the likeness, affecting a close-trimmed beard, a campaign +hat, and the inevitable cigar; when the occasion promised publicity +sufficient to outweigh the physical discomfort he even rode on +horseback; and he was a notable figure on Decoration Day and at all +public ceremonies of the Grand Army of the Republic. Shelby was his +protégé. + +The present member of Congress from the Demijohn District, whose seat +Shelby coveted, may be most charitably described as a man of tactless +integrity. His course in Washington had been a thorn in the side of +the organization by whose sufferance he rose, with the upshot that the +Tartar neared the end of his stewardship backed by a faction rather +than a party. The faction clamored for his renomination and pushed +their spirited, if poorly generalled, fight to the floor of the +convention. In debate they were eloquent, in logic unanswerable; nor +did any one attempt to answer them. With the best of possible causes +they lacked but the best of possible worlds to insure success. The +whole story of their failure was packed into the Hon. Seneca Bowers's +succinct phrase, "There's no argument like delegates." + +The vanquished clustered in a little group apart marked by a suggestion +of tense nerves, but the gathering was noticeably of a kind. Country +lawyers, bankers, merchants, stockmen, farmers, in its units, it was +sealed as a whole with the seal of New England which had sent forth +these men's grandfathers and great-grandfathers in their ox-carts to +people and leaven the West. The transplanted New Englandism had +sloughed certain traits of the pioneers who laid the axe to the forests +of the Genesee Country and the Holland Purchase. Only the older people +of the Demijohn District now computed their dealings in shillings; +mentioning one's conscience on week-days was an eccentricity; the +doctrine of Original Sin had lapsed from among burning topics of +conversation; family records were less and less scrupulously kept; and +the _Mayflower's_ claim to consideration as the Noah's Ark of the only +ancestors worth reckoning had assumed a mask of comedy. Yet, all said, +the Yankee blood cropped out in face and limb and speech--particularly +in speech; the folk of the Demijohn District did not employ the dialect +of Hosea Biglow, nor a variant of it, but the insistent drawling R to +be heard on every second lip was of no doubtful lineage. + +The victor, who sat with folded arms as the perfunctory motion was +seconded and carried, was bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh. +Not a few there could recall his sturdy grandfather, a pioneer of +Massachusetts birth, and everybody remembered his spendthrift father +who had squandered the substance of three generations in drink. The +man's own story was an open page which needed no thumbing of the +Tuscarora County history to find. Born under the administration of +Buchanan, the lad's palm was callous with work by the surrender of Lee, +and it knew no softening till his seventeenth year; yet somehow he got +the marrow from the common schools, and in good time won a competitive +scholarship in a narrow little sectarian college which boastfully +called itself a university. Here he acquired two wholesome things: a +perception that the college is but the beginning of education, and a +lasting disgust with bigotry of every stripe. There followed some +years of school-mastering by day and law-book drudgery by night, whose +end was his admission to the bar and a partnership with the man sitting +by his side. Then politics drew him, and, step by step, through rough +and ready service at the polls, in town caucus, county convention, what +not, he secured his footing and finally a seat in the lower house of +the State Legislature. In politics a hobby is often a useful piece of +property, and Shelby, who had a hobby, rode it to success; it made him +a marked man in the first month of his term, it gave him a popular +title, it compelled his renomination and reflection. Nowadays chairmen +always introduced him as the "Champion of Canals," and even at this +moment the catchword with cries of "speech" greeted him from every +quarter of the dingy convention hall. He unfleshed his strong teeth in +a wide-mouthed smile, rose, squared his shoulders, and walked alertly +down an aisle to the platform. Brought thus into the open, under the +yellow glare of a gas-light chandelier, he showed for a simply clad, +businesslike person, with a well-set head and a shaven jaw, whose +firmness a cushion of superfluous flesh could not disguise. + +"Thank you, boys," he said. + +The offhand fashion of address provoked a fresh demonstration which the +nominee acknowledged with a good-humored nod. His eye sauntered over +the delegates, and with a shrewd twinkle halted on the dejected group +which had fought his nomination. + +"This happy occasion reminds me of a Tuscarora County story," he began, +with a little drawl; "the story of Tired Tinkham's election as overseer +of highways at Noah's Basin--a pioneer classic which some of you have +doubtless heard. It happened in the early days of Noah's Basin, when +that interesting village contained perhaps a score less people than +walk its changeless streets to-day. Tired Tinkham was the local Rip +Van Winkle--the children's friend and labor's foe. No one could +whittle green willow whistles in the springtime like Tired Tinkham, or +fashion bows and arrows with such fascinating skill. Like Rip also he +drank whenever a drink was forthcoming, but unlike Rip he did not hunt. +Minks, coons, and squirrels were plentiful, with here and there a deer +or bear, but Tired Tinkham was too weary to hunt. He fished; fished +day in and day out in the canal basin, which gives the place its name; +fished till the packet captains came to know him and point him out as a +fixture in the scenery. But, lazy as he was, Tired Tinkham didn't +monopolize all the laziness in Noah's Basin. In one particular +laziness was epidemic, even among the otherwise industrious, and it +took the form of shirking the road tax. No roads were wretcheder than +theirs; nobody cared less than they. In his personal view of life +Tired Tinkham was a fit exponent of the local theory of public duty, +and some village humorist accordingly hit upon the idea of nominating +him for overseer of highways. Tired Tinkham looked more than commonly +fatigued at the suggestion, but did not put the crown away. His +election was unanimous. Then Noah's Basin woke up. The jubilee +bonfires were scarcely ashes before Tired Tinkham delivered at the +corner grocery what he called his inaugural address. 'I cal'late I +know why I wuz 'lected; he said. 'T' loaf 'n' let ye loaf. I cal'late +ye've mistook suthin'. Ye'll work.' And work Noah's Basin did as it +had never worked before." + +Shelby noted that the anecdote won even a thin-lipped grin from the +hostile camp. + +"The Tired Tinkhams aren't so rare in politics," he went on. "We +sometimes put them in the White House. Americans have a way of growing +up to their responsibilities, and perhaps even I shall prove another +sort of man than I've been ticketed." His tone quickened suddenly, and +his glance fastened on the defeated anew. "I should count this honor +less had it fallen as a ripe fruit falls, the prize of the first comer. +We've had our battle; we wear our scars; no battle worth the name is +without its scars; but I assume to speak for every man present when I +say that the blows we give and take do not rankle to the prejudice of +the common cause. Our quarrels are wholly in the family, where speech +is free, for it is a fundamental article of our party creed that the +will of the majority should prevail. The will of the majority made +plain, it is our healthy custom to strip off our coats, and go to work: +The party, not the individual, is of moment;--the historic party of our +fathers, the party of the living present, the party of the future whose +bounds no man may set." + +As he dropped into his seat, Shelby added a foot-note. + +"If that didn't jam their duty down those soreheads' throats," he told +Bowers, "I'll take another guess." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Meanwhile the nominee's fortunes and traits of character underwent +dissection in his own town at the first autumn assembly of the Culture +Club which, as always, met with Mrs. Hilliard. There were two profound +reasons for this constancy to Mrs. Hilliard,--her house boasted the +largest double parlors in New Babylon, and her husband had a billiard +table. The intimate association of billiards with the pursuit of +sweetness and light may at first seem grotesque, but Mrs. Hilliard +proved it to be not without warrant in sound philosophy; by her simple +formula billiards stood to culture as the Salvation Army to the +decorous body of the Church Militant, both alliances resting on the +basic truth that some souls will prick ears only to the beating of +tom-toms. + +Theory aside, the fact was not to be blinked that she knew how to clash +cymbals to the unregenerate and drum up in the name of culture such a +varied company as no other woman could muster short of a silver +wedding. In the winning of the cultivated, Mrs. Hilliard took no +pride. They lent their countenance to any educational project, and she +owned to herself that given a like cause any capable woman with double +parlors could have them for the asking. It was rather in the hooking +of men of the stamp of the Hon. Seneca Bowers and her own husband that +she gloried, for in their candid souls they styled great Shakespeare +rot and voted Ibsen and Tolstoi sheer bedlamites at large. While mind +met mind below stairs these honest gentlemen contentedly knocked the +balls about the green, smoked hospitable Joe Hilliard's cigars, and +sampled the choicest liquors of his sideboard. By such diplomacy every +important walk in the town's life came to have its representative in +what in her heart of hearts Mrs. Hilliard called her salon. + +The first autumn meeting should have gladdened the hostess. Her house +had never lighted to better advantage; everybody admired the new +decorations; she herself felt no impulse to quarrel either with nature +or her dressmaker; the programme had run with consummate +smoothness,--Volney Sprague, the editor of the _Tuscarora County Whig_, +reading a scholarly paper on Shakespeare's anachronisms, and his fast +friend Bernard Graves leading the discussion in his usual clever way; +furthermore, the ices which had been ordered for this very special +occasion had proved everything that ices should be. Yet Mrs. Hilliard +was dissatisfied. + +"The club positively loses a vital something of its individuality when +Mr. Bowers and Mr. Shelby are absent," said she. + +Mrs. Bowers, a large placid personage of indefinite waist-line, +remarked that nothing except politics could have dragged her husband +away. + +"What a pity that the Hon. Seneca had to miss your anachronisms, +Volney," murmured Bernard Graves, who was a personable young gentleman +of thirty. + +"And Shelby," queried the editor, "hasn't that choice spirit your pity +too?" + +Mrs. Hilliard caught nothing of their sarcasm save Shelby's name. + +"I miss his criticism," she declared. "It's so practical." + +The editor fell to polishing his eye-glasses for lack of a reply. + +"And so helpful," pursued the lady. "He has the faculty of ending a +tangled discussion with a word." + +"The dear man usually changes the subject," muttered the editor +savagely under cover of an amiable platitude put forth by Mrs. Bowers. + +"Or fogs it round with one of his Tuscarora yarns," dropped Graves. + +The topic apparently knew no bottom for Mrs. Hilliard. + +"How he will shine in Congress!" she went on. "Of course he'll get the +nomination?" She referred the query to Sprague. + +"Probably." His reply was lukewarm. + +"And isn't there news of the convention? You ought to know, who get +straight from the wires what ordinary mortals must wait to read. Has +he won?" + +"There was nothing definite when I left the office. They hadn't begun +to ballot." + +Mrs. Hilliard sensed an increasing dryness in the editor's manner. + +"We're not talking literature, are we?" she laughed. + +Bernard Graves considered the moment ripe for a paradox. + +"The by-laws of the ideal literary club would forbid all literary +talk," he declared. "Then there would be nothing else." + +"Cynic," rebuked the lady, threatening punishment with her fan. "We +shall talk politics if we choose." + +Disseminating culture and an odor of patchouli she drifted down the +drawing-room to join another group, and the two men caught a fragment +of feminine comment from a divan hard by. + +"Cora Hilliard is handsome," asserted a voice. "Look at those +shoulders." + +"She manoeuvres to show them. Besides, she's too stout." + +"What can you expect, my dear, after thirty-three years of idleness?" + +"She's thirty-six," came the scrupulous correction. + +"You don't mean it? And a blonde!" + +"Oh, I know it's so. We were classmates in the seminary. Besides, her +Milicent is a year and two months older than my Georgie, who will be +thirteen in October, and when Milicent was born her mother was +twenty-two." + +"She says she feels twenty-two now." + +"Well, she looks--" the gossip languished to an indistinct murmur. + +"More literary discussion," said Sprague. + +"It's as literary as politics." + +"You're capable of saying it's as interesting." + +"Why not? It's very human." + +"So is politics." + +"We are drifting on the rocks of an argument. You and I can't agree +about politics, and we'd better stop trying. What absorbs you bores +me--this tiresome Shelby above all." + +"Oh, surely you're not serious," protested Sprague, eagerly. "It isn't +possible that you care nothing whether Shelby or the honest man he's +scheming to supplant represents you in Washington." + +"He attracts me neither as a man nor as a problem in ethics. But don't +be harsh with me. The fault is congenital, I'm sure. Every masculine +American is supposed to be interested in politics,--I wonder if the +Irish invented the notion,--but I can't conform; I don't know why." + +"Gad," fumed the editor. "Your indifference is criminal." + +"I like to hear you say 'gad,'" Graves observed. "You remind me of +Major Pendennis." + +Sprague shrugged his thin shoulders impatiently. + +"I tell you it's a crime for you to sit by as unconcerned as a mud idol +while other men struggle for civic decency." + +"Picturesque as usual," applauded the delinquent, unruffled; but he +added, more seriously: "It's natural that you should feel strongly +after your newspaper war on Shelby. Is he so sure of the nomination?" + +"If he's not sure, there's no virtue in packed caucuses." + +"There, that interests me," cried Graves, brightening. "I'd like to +see a caucus packed. The slang attracts me somehow. Is it very +shocking?" + +Sprague laughed in spite of himself. + +"In things political your artlessness is prehistoric," he said. "You +belong in the Stone Age. All in all, you and Ross Shelby aren't far +removed: he's politically immoral; you are politically unmoral." + +"We'll go and talk to Ruth Temple," decided the younger man, his eye +lighting on the central figure of a group, chiefly masculine. "Who can +look at her and maintain that the higher education of women is a mere +factory for frumps?" + +"Ruth has a quaint rareness all her own," Sprague answered, watching +the play of the girl's mobile face. "She had it as a mere tot. Is it +her mouth, her simple dress, her hair?--One can't say precisely what." + +"Don't try. You're squinting at her like an entomologist over a +favorite beetle. Take her for what she seems, and chuck analysis. She +is decorative. She satisfies the optic nerve." + +"Which is intimately allied with other nerves, my bachelor." He +counted the men around the sofa where the girl sat beside little +Milicent Hilliard, and announced, "Seven; it's Queen Ruth always." + +"And, like a true monarch, bored to extinction by her courtiers. +Behold Dr. Crandall browbeating the Rev. Mr. Hewett like a hanging +judge. I'll warrant they're talking politics too. The atmosphere is +drenched with it." + +Sprague bent his head to listen. + +"Wrong," he chuckled slyly. "It's literature this time, or what passes +as such. They're threshing out the immortal ode on the 'Victory of +Samothrace.'" + +Bernard Graves laughed, also, at some jest well understood, and moved +to watch this eddy in the astonishingly widespread discussion of an +anonymous poem, of a certain rhetorical vigor, which had been +Interpreted by some critics as a plea for woman suffrage. At this +juncture Mrs. Hilliard suddenly bore down upon them, flourishing a +yellow paper. + +"Such news, such news!" she called. "Here's a telegram--a telegram +from our candidate. He is nominated! Mr. Shelby is nominated. Think +of it! One of our members! And he has wired the good news to us first +of all!" She searched vainly for her glasses--her big blue eyes were +astigmatic--and finally, with an impatient "You read it to them all," +thrust the message into Volney Sprague's reluctant fingers. + +He unfolded and read the paper, in lively quandary whether her choice +were as haphazard as it seemed:-- + +"Nominated on first ballot. Home ten-thirty. Coming directly to club. +It stands first. + +"C. R. SHELBY." + + +"Isn't that simply dear of him?" demanded Mrs. Hilliard. "_We_ come +first. He remembers us in his hour of triumph. It shows the true +nature of the man." + +"It does indeed," grumbled Sprague, shifting within pinching distance +of Bernard Graves, whom he had seen grinning in the background during +the reading. "It's a barefaced bid for votes." + +Mrs. Hilliard's enthusiasm demanded a vent. + +"He'll be here in five minutes," she exclaimed, peering at the hall +clock. "The message was delayed somehow, and his train is due now. We +must devise a reception. We owe it to him. He thought of us. We must +think of him. What shall we do? Think, think, you clever people!" + +"That preposterous woman means to turn this into a ratification +meeting," groaned the editor under his breath. "I must get out." + +His hostess was of another mind, however, and barred retreat when he +attempted to make his excuses. + +"You shan't desert us," she declared roguishly. "You can't," she +immediately added, at the sound of carriage wheels on the gravel of the +drive. "He's here! The hall, the hall! Into the hall!" And into the +hall Mrs. Hilliard masterfully bundled the Culture Club of New Babylon, +grouping it theatrically around the newel-post and up the winding stair. + +"Gad," muttered Sprague, struggling to efface himself, "knock me in the +head." + +Bernard Graves gleefully struck an attitude behind a friendly palm, and +Mrs. Hilliard threw wide the door. + +"Welcome to your own people," she cried, and Shelby, closely followed +by Bowers, crossed the threshold into the light. Then big Joe +Hilliard, whom the unwonted commotion had attracted from the billiard +room, led a boisterous cheer, which the candidate received with +modestly bowed head. He flushed, and wrestled with his diffidence like +a schoolboy, as the house grew still and they waited for him to speak. + +"I--I don't claim the credit, friends," he stammered. "It's your +victory." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Midway in the following forenoon Shelby sat in his law office revising +for the seventh time the last will and testament of the Widow +Weatherwax. It was the seventh revision of her third last will and +testament, to speak by the card, for the widow had a bent for +will-making, which the lawyer had noticed was of periodic intensity. +Once, in a moment of drollery, he entered a jocose memorandum in the +"tickler," under the first week-day of several successive months: +"Revise Mrs. Weatherwax's will;" and such was his foresight that twice +only during that term did she frustrate his prophecy. + +This day, as always, she attained the topmost step outside his office +door breathless, and, as always, Shelby gravely lent a hand to deposit +her plump little person in the softest of his old-fashioned office +chairs. The ceremony ended regularly with the panting announcement, +"The Lord has spared me for another month." + +It was the man's custom at such times to allot equal praise to +Providence and the widow's marvellous vitality for this happy issue, +and to hazard a guess that she had thought of important changes for her +will. The widow would nod assent over a heaving bosom, and slowly fan +herself back to normal respiration. The relict of a leather-lunged +Free Methodist preacher, she affected a garb of ostentatious +simplicity. No godless pleats or tucks or gores or ruffles or sinful +abominations of braid defaced the chaste sobriety of her black gown; +buttons were tolerated merely as buttons, without vain thought of +ornament; and the strange little bonnet, which she perched above hair +whose natural coquetry of curl was austerely sleeked away, was of a +composition so harshly ugly that more worldly-minded women shuddered at +the sight. The worldly-minded, indeed, were prone to the criticism +that the material of Mrs. Weatherwax's garments was beyond cavil, but +this surely was her own concern. It were sheer impertinence to finger +the texture of a zealot's sackcloth. + +Shelby busied himself with his papers, pending her recovery. + +"Them stairs alluz give me sech a turn," she sighed, at length. She +enunciated her R's with the merciless fidelity of her section at its +worst, saying stair-urs and tur-urn. + +"Too bad the town's boom stopped short of elevators," sympathized +Shelby. + +"Shouldn't use 'em, anyway," returned the widow, firmly. "They give me +a wuss turn than the stairs." + +"They're trying moving stairways in some places,--a French invention, I +believe." + +"Shouldn't use them contrapshuns neither. The French are a godless +people, full of vanity and all uncleanness." + +Shelby's imagination balked at suggesting another alternative, and he +held his peace. The visitor's jetty eyes forsook his face and pounced +upon the clerk, who, with tongue in cheek, was filling out narrow slips +of paper at a battered table clothed in a baize of a dye traditionally +held to have been green. + +"How's your ma's lumbago, Willie Irons?" she demanded. + +The youth stammered a husky reply, and blushed far into his +brick-colored hair. He was of an age when a babyish diminutive becomes +a thorn unspeakable. Mrs. Weatherwax glanced tranquilly past his +writhings to the ancient table. + +"Ross," she asked, "wa'n't that your grandfather's?" + +"Yes. He used it in his place of business." + +"I call to mind seein' it in the old distillery when I was a girl," +pursued the widow, who never called a spade an agricultural implement. +"Distillin's a wicked business." + +"People thought differently about many things in my grandfather's day." + +The widow sniffed. "Wrong's wrong. Is that Seneca Bowers's roll-top +desk?" + +"It was Mr. Bowers's. I bought it when we dissolved partnership." + +"Law books, too?" + +"Yes." + +"Threw in the pictur's, I s'pose?" indicating some dingy lithographs of +political worthies past and present. + +"Yes," admitted Shelby with superhuman good nature; "they came to boot." + +The widow sniffed again. "'Pears to me," said she, "you've got nothin' +new." + +The man wheeled in his chair to a neighboring safe and took a +tape-bound document from a pigeon-hole. + +"Shall we begin?" he asked. + +"Yes--if you're so rushed," she returned, and composed her features to +fitting solemnity. As the lawyer slowly read the instrument, which he +could have rattled off from memory, Mrs. Weatherwax punctuated the +pious phrases of its exordium with approving wags. "'Frail and +transitory,'" she interpolated; "that's jest what life is. I might be +took any minute." At the reference to the payment of her lawful debts +she recovered her spirits sufficiently to put in that she did not owe a +"red cent," as everybody knew. Finally she called a halt. "Needn't go +any farther," she directed. "The first part's what I like to hear +best. Exceptin' one thing, all the rest about my green rep sofy +a-goin' to Cousin Phoebe, the pickle-caster to Brother Henry, the old +dishes what can't be sold to my beloved nephew, Jason Weatherwax, and +my best tablecloths and sheets and pillow-slips to his little Ann Eliza +when she gets a husband what's a good provider, is fixed jest as it hed +ought to be. What I want now is a postscript." + +"Another codicil? Very well." + +He made note of her wishes concerning a cherished feather bed which it +had struck her was too good for that "shiftless coot," Cousin Phoebe's +husband, to lie upon, and, bidding her bring her witnesses on the +morrow, bustled the will into his safe and fell upon his papers after +the manner of all lawyer kind since Chaucer's sergeant of the law who +"semed besier than he was." + +The widow eyed his movements placidly. + +"In a stew to hev me go?" she asked. + +"Of course not," Shelby protested. "What put that in your head?" + +"Your squirmin' round. Seein' I'm entirely welcome, I'll set a piece." + +Shelby restrained the delight he said he felt and returned to his +papers under her relentless scrutiny. + +"Telegraphs of congratulashun, I s'pose," the visitor presently +observed. + +"Yes; my friends are rejoicing with me." + +"Everybody tickled?" + +"All but the common enemy, I trust." + +"I ain't hed a chance to go about much and ask," said the widow, with a +preliminary sniff; "but I've met some as wa'n't tickled or enemies +neither." + +"No? Well, after all, this isn't paradise, but New York politics." + +"At Tompkins's--I alluz go to him for my Oolong--I heard that Doc +Crandall won't vote for you after your dead set at the place. He's one +of your party, isn't he?" + +"Yes. The doctor is one of us. Good fellow, too." + +"And at Brady's, where I get my corn meal, I heard somebody say you've +got the Irish down on you." + +"Oh, I hope not," returned the candidate, cheerfully. "They're a most +respectable and industrious factor in our town's life. I like the +Irish." + +"I s'pose." + +He searched her face and concluded that her irony was unconscious; she +undeceived him. + +"Butter wouldn't melt in your mouth now you're runnin' for office," she +said, laboring to her feet. "I'm s'prised you hevn't wings." + +Shelby affected to relish the hoary jest, and escorted her gayly to the +door. "I'll look for you to-morrow," he assured her. + +"Don't strain your eyes," said the widow. + +The Hon. Seneca Bowers passed her on the stairs. Greeting the lawyer, +he seated himself behind the clerk's back, with a meaning slant of his +Grant-like head. + +Shelby understood. "Leave those notices of trial for the present, +William," he ordered, "and get this stipulation signed. If the man +isn't in his office, try the county clerk's." + +Bowers pulled with clock-work precision at his cigar, while the boy +uncoiled his long legs from his chair, and with furtive little pats at +his necktie and fiery shock, made ready to go out. Shelby stumbled +upon the waste-paper basket as the door slammed at his clerk's heels, +and with vicious satisfaction he kicked it to the room's far end. + +The caller's eyes twinkled. + +"The Widow Weatherwax been administering spiritual balm?" he asked. + +"I could wring her neck," Shelby averred. + +"Her will again?" + +"Of course." + +"You'll have it as long as you practise law. I did. It goes with the +office. Remunerative as ever?" + +"Talk about 'benefit of clergy,'" exploded the younger man; "that +mediaeval bonanza isn't to be mentioned in the same week with the +ministerial half-rates, donations, and hold-ups we moderns put up with. +This pulpit pounder's shrew pays me no more than she pays the doctor, +the grocer, the butcher, and the rest. What a ukase I could issue if I +were Czar of these United States." + +"Cousin Phoebe's 'sofy,' beloved Nephew Jason's unsalable dishes, and +Brother Henry's pickle-caster still extant?" + +"Yes, yes," groaned Shelby. + +"And little Ann Eliza's sheets and pillow-slips, I dare say. It's +astonishing how they endure." + +"It's astonishing how I endure." + +"You must--at any rate, till the Tuesday after the first Monday in +November. Did the pious gossip tell you any pleasant personal news?" + +"She has heard talk that the Micks are sore and that Doc Crandall has +had an attack of virtue." + +"You needn't lose sleep over the handful of Irish in our camp; they +know who butters their parsnips. And I'll take care of the doctor. +He's an innocuous mugwump. She didn't mention Volney Sprague?" + +"Sprague," said Shelby, wearily; "what is that man up to now?" + +Bowers rose, paced the room, and returned, big with news. + +"The _Whig_ has bolted," he announced. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Shelby's amaze spent its force in an oath. In a moment he asked, +calmly:-- + +"What does he say?" + +"Not much; mainly that the manner of your nomination debars his +printing your name at the head of his editorial page." + +"Endorses the rest of our party ticket, doesn't he?" + +"Yes; it's a personal bolt." + +Shelby ruminated earnestly. + +"It's only a one-horse country daily," he declared finally. "The +_Whig_! You'd think Henry Clay still above ground." + +"Strikes you that way, does it?" Bowers emitted with a cloud of smoke. + +"Why, yes. You don't consider such a paper dangerous?" + +"All newspapers are dangerous in politics; there's none too mean to +have its following. The _Whig_ has influence." + +"It's a one-horse paper," reiterated Shelby. + +"M-yes; it is a slow coach," Bowers admitted; "but it suits a lot of +people. They respect it because it keeps the old name and jogs along +in the old gait it had under Volney's father before him. It's been a +stanch party paper, too, and that without soliciting a dollar's worth +of public advertising or political pap of any description. The _Whig_ +doesn't often kick over the traces. The Greeley campaign was its last +bolt." + +"Well, the milk's spilt," said Shelby, with strenuous cheerfulness; +"we've one reason the more to make next week's ratification meeting a +rousing success. What did you think of our little welcome at the club +last night?" + +Bowers grinned. + +"Mrs. Hilliard managed it first-class," he said; "but I felt cheap when +we came in." + +"So did I. The scheme seemed a good one when she suggested it, but +when it came right down to pulling it off I would have sold out for +thirty cents on the dollar. It takes lovely woman to do those things. +She has her uses in politics, eh?" + +"M-yes," Bowers answered in half assent; "but she's an uncertain +quantity. Like grandsire's musket, she's as likely to kill behind as +before." + +The vine-screened window in which they now talked overlooked the +neighboring Temple house, a dignified sentry at the point where the +leisured street forsook the chaffer of the town to climb amidst arching +elms and maples, above whose gaudy autumn masses rose the dome of the +courthouse and the spires of many churches. It was an old-fashioned +Georgian structure with white columns clear-cut against its weathered +brick; at either side of the low steps a great hydrangea, its glory +waning with the summer, lifted its showy clusters from an urn; while +walk and carriage drive alike sauntered to the street through hedgerows +of box. The mouth of the driveway at this moment gleamed white from +the kerchiefs of a knot of Polish children estray from the quarry +district, who, at a laughing nod from Ruth, swooped, a chattering +barbaric horde, on the fallen apples dotting a bit of sward with yellow +and red. Shelby smilingly watched the scramble to its speedy end, and +turned to the giver of the feast, who sat in a sheltered corner of her +veranda with a caller. The latter proved to be Bernard Graves, sunning +himself with a cat's content. + +"Industrious young man," Shelby observed with the irony of whole-souled +dislike. "Inherits a comfortable property, goes to an expensive +college, dawdles through Europe, and then comes home to play carpet +knight and read poetry to girls. Why doesn't he go to work?" + +Bowers made no reply to the gibe. He was watching Ruth. Presently in +his slow way he checked off her qualifications:-- + +"Handsome girl, good education, kind disposition, rich, no airs, and no +incumbrances, barring her companion, the old maid cousin, who could be +pensioned. Ross, she'd do you more good than a brace of married women." + +Shelby threw off the laugh of a contented man. + +"I'm not in the marrying class." + +"Then you'd better enter." His hand on the door, Bowers asked, "Your +contribution for the county campaign fund ready?" + +"Draw you a check any time," the candidate returned jauntily. + +Nevertheless, when the county leader had gone Shelby gave a diligent +quarter-hour to his bankbook. By and by he took an opera glass from a +drawer and focussed it on the pair below. So his clerk came upon him, +compelling a ruse of adjusting the instrument. + +"One lens has dust in it," he declared. Perceiving Bernard Graves pass +down the box-bordered path, he left his office for the day. + +That evening Shelby took certain steps to prosper his coming rally at +the court-house, one of which was duly noted by Mrs. Seneca Bowers. It +was this lady's habit in summer evenings to discuss the doings of her +immediate neighbors from her piazza, but now that the nights were cool +she had shifted to the bay window of a room styled by courtesy the +library from a small bookcase filled with Patent Office Reports and +similar offerings of a beneficent government. This station embraced a +wide prospect of shady street flanked by pleasantly sloping lawns and +dwellings of various architectural pretence. Most proximate and most +interesting to Mrs. Bowers was the Hilliard house, and while she rocked +placidly over her darning, she contrived to hold this gingerbread +edifice in a scrutiny which permitted the escape of no slightest +movement of chick or child. She saw the newsboy leave the evening city +papers; Milicent Hilliard dance down the leaf-strewn walk to a last +half-hour's play; a white-capped maid sheet the geranium beds against +possible frost; and, finally, the householder himself emerge and light +a cigar whose ruddy tip winked for a second in the thickening dusk. +Listing from side to side, big Joe Hilliard tramped heavily down and +away to his nightly haunt in the billiard room of the Tuscarora House. +As the quarry owner's great bulk vanished Shelby entered the scene, +briskly crosscut the Hilliard lawn, and bounded up the steps just +quitted by the substantial Joe. + +"There; he's done it again!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowers. + +"Who has done what?" grunted her husband, from the lounge. He was +coatless and shoeless, and had spread a newspaper over his bald spot to +the annoyance of a few superannuated yet active flies. + +"Ross Shelby. He's gone to Cora Hilliard's again!" + +"Well, let him," said Bowers, from beneath the news of the day. "It's +a free country." + +Mrs. Bowers smoothed a mended sock and rolled it into a neat ball with +its fellow by aid of an arc light which sizzled into sudden brilliance +among the maples. + +"'Tisn't his going that's such a scandal," she discriminated. "All the +men run there. It's the way he goes. This is the ninth time I've +known him to wait till Joe Hilliard had left the house." + +"Looks as if he didn't dote on Joe's society," chuckled Bowers. "I +can't say that I do myself." + +"It's a scandal," repeated Mrs. Bowers, firmly. Her husband remaining +indifferent, she assumed her wifely prerogative to pass rigorous +judgment upon his conscience. "And it's your plain duty, Seneca +Bowers, to speak to him." + +The old man flung off his newspaper with a snort. + +"What call have I to set up as a censor of public morals?" he demanded +testily. "I'm not Shelby's guardian. He's of age. He's cut his eye +teeth. Talk sense, Eliza." + +Mrs. Bowers essayed a flank attack. + +"You're the Tuscarora boss, aren't you?" + +"Yes, I'm county leader." + +"What you say goes?" + +"I suppose so." + +She pushed her Socratic pitfall a step farther. + +"When you say run so-and-so, he runs, doesn't he?" + +Bowers permitted himself a dry smile in the dark. + +"Most generally." + +"Then you're responsible," she argued triumphantly. "You got Ross +Shelby into politics; you've run him for this and that; he's your +charge." + +The Hon. Seneca Bowers turned his disgusted face to the wall. + +"So you've the Sunday-school idea of politics," he threw over his +shoulder with heavy sarcasm. "I'm to teach a Bible class and pass out +dinkey little reward-of-merit cards to the prize pupils! Bah!" + +His wife presently fetched her outdoor wraps and adjusted them before a +mirror in the dimly lit hall. + +"I'm going to take a tumbler of jelly to poor lonely Mrs. Weatherwax," +she announced from the door. + +Bowers roused suddenly. + +"I hope, Eliza, you don't intend raking them over the coals with her," +he protested, rummaging for his slippers; but his consort was beyond +hail. + +A literal transcript of the talk in progress over the way would have +confounded the evil thinking; to illustrate the blameless text with an +equally faithful record of Shelby's actions might salt the narrative. +He had a lawyer's perception of the values of words as words, and +through extended practice with Mrs. Hilliard excelled in that deft +juggling of pregnant trifles without which Platonic friendships must +die of inanition. He now thanked the lady for her successful coup at +the club without specifically naming it--to hint at prearrangement were +too fatuous; and Mrs. Hilliard admired his tact. Parenthetically she +reflected that Joe had no tact. Without specifically naming it, Shelby +contrived to suggest that she could do him yet greater service by +shepherding society at his ratification meeting. + +"To be significant, that sort of thing should be broadly +representative," said he. + +His words were impersonal, but there was no misreading his look. + +Mrs. Hilliard offered her aid with equal thrift of speech and +prodigality of glance. She rejoiced in transparent subtleties. Joe +was never subtle. + +"But I've no right to ask it of you--I don't ask it," Shelby deprecated +with his lips. + +"You have every right, dear friend," she reassured. "Friend! We are +more than friends, you and I. We are spiritually akin. We fairly +speak without words." + +"Exactly." His business despatched, Shelby prepared to go. "My time +isn't my own now," he explained. "It belongs to the party." + +"Selfish party," she pouted. "I hate it." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +By the night of the meeting it was clear that that bugaboo of +politicians, a general apathy, had blanketed the candidate's own +community. Shelby should have stirred local pride. Not for years, in +fact not since Bowers himself sat in Congress, had the nomination come +to Tuscarora County out of the several counties which the Demijohn +District comprised. Nor had the interval since the convention been a +time for folding of hands. Mrs. Hilliard rounded her social circle, +rallying the members of the Culture Club to stand by their own, and +appealing to such outside its membership as seemed desirable on the +ground of local pride. Shelby became all things to all men. To the +club people he was the Club Candidate; to the unclubbed townsfolk he +was New Babylon's Candidate; while among the quarry workers and other +socially impossible flotsam and jetsam of the voting public other +agencies than Mrs. Hilliard's heralded him as the People's Candidate. +Yet the fog of apathy refused to lift. + +There can naturally be little of the herdlike crushing at the doors of +a political gathering in the country which marks the urban rally. The +rural citizen has elbow-room to take his politics sedately and order +his going with temperate pulse and judicial mind. Of such mettle +normally were the New Babylonians who took their leisured way beneath +the fluted columns of the court-house into Shelby's rally; but this +audience felt itself more than normally temperate and judicial. +Despite Mrs. Hilliard, despite the Hon. Seneca Bowers, despite Shelby's +own striving, it had come less to encourage than to try and weigh. + +The high places were immutably fixed. The bench of the courtroom, +surmounted by a pitcher of ice-water and adorned by crayon portraits of +New Babylonians learned in the law, of course stood consecrate to the +speakers. The arm-chairs within the railed precinct set apart for +members of the bar were by unwritten canon the peculiar haunt of +citizens of light and leading, while the jury-box and its neighboring +benches by custom immemorial bloomed with the pick of feminine good +society. It was a privilege of the socially elect to enter such +meetings at the court-house by way of the court's own staircase behind +the bench, and so came Bernard Graves. Spying a vacant seat beside +Ruth Temple, the young man slipped into it as unobtrusively as Mrs. +Hilliard's acute sense of her responsibility as society's chief whip +would permit. + +"The club has responded nobly," she confided in a stage whisper across +the intervening millinery. "That eccentric Volney Sprague is +positively the only recreant. And isn't the audience representative?" + +She beamed impartially round upon the just and the unjust through her +jewelled lorgnon. Mrs. Hilliard rejoiced in her lorgnon. It +compensated fully for her defect of vision, and lent her a distinction +which she felt to be wholly cosmopolitan. She aspired to be +cosmopolitan. + +The New Babylon Brass Band fell lustily upon a popular two-step at this +moment, and an usher thrust a bundle of campaign leaflets into Graves's +hands. One of these pamphlets contained a half-tone portrait of +Shelby, with an account of his career and a few phrases from the more +noteworthy of his public addresses. Graves gave these latter a caustic +scrutiny, and read aloud one of the italicized quotations. + +"'It has been said, that Egypt is the gift of the Nile; Tuscarora +County is no less the gift of the Erie Canal!' Now what can you say of +a man who couples those two ideas with a sober face? He is +aesthetically dead." + +"At least, he's enthusiastic," smiled Ruth, "which is refreshing +nowadays. The canal is his master hobby, the poetry of his prosaic +existence. Mr. Shelby is nothing if not practical." + +"Offensively practical." + +"Practicality achieves." + +Graves thought he detected an implication levelled at himself, and +laughingly accused her. + +Ruth made no denial. + +"The world weighs achievement," she returned, "not barren cleverness." + +Outwardly serene, the young man was inwardly ruffled. It was no new +thing for her to reproach him with napkined talents, and he was wont to +count it as an earnest of her liking. The novelty of this situation +lay in her presenting Shelby as a pattern of fruitfulness, and it irked +him. The agile leap of the brass band from the half-finished two-step +to "Hail to the Chief," suddenly put this out of mind, and he watched +the speakers of the evening file up the judge's staircase to the +rostrum. With the subsidence of the musicians the Hon. Seneca Bowers +aligned himself with the water-pitcher. + +"How much he looks like Grant!" exclaimed Mrs. Hilliard, with +originality. + +With soldierly calm Bowers waited for the applause to cease, and +submitted a slated list of officers for the meeting. It was +straightway manifest that he had made good his promise to take care of +Dr. Crandall. Speech-making was the breath of the worthy, if pompous, +physician's nostrils, and Bowers had shrewdly judged that to offer him +the chairmanship would clinch his wavering allegiance. The crowd which +always relished his grandiloquence, voted him into office with a shout, +and cheered his soaring periods to their peroration. A quartet of +young voters now proceeded in catchy doggerel to laud the virtues of +the party and the commanding genius of its candidates, thereby giving +the blown doctor a much-needed respite. He came up in good form +presently, winged another flight with Shelby's name as its climax, and +while Mrs. Hilliard split a new pair of gloves in ineffectual applause, +the candidate rose and faced his well-wishers and his foes. + +"Mr. Chairman," he began, "men and women." + +Bernard Graves was surprised into approval of his unexpected good +taste, never dreaming that a chance remark of Ruth's had moved Shelby +to discard the more hackneyed form of address. Before ever he +presented himself as a candidate for public office, Shelby had been +rated in the note-book of the Secretary of the State Committee as an +effective speaker on "canals, local issues, and currency," with the +further information that he was "strong in rural neighborhoods." This +entry foreshadowed the development of an art which he had since rounded +to high facility. He was considered a spellbinder of uncommon power. + +"There are some among you who think harsh things of the way by which +the honor of a congressional nomination has come to the community we +love," he went on boldly. "I ask all such--my honest critics, I make +no doubt--and I ask my avowed supporters to listen to a story. It's an +old story, nearly as old as New Babylon itself, and many of you must +have heard it from the honored lips of the Tuscarora pioneers whose +deeds it chronicles. It is a story of our town in that rough-hewn past +before railroads were dreamed of, before 'Clinton's Ditch' had touched +our wilderness with its mighty wand and made it blossom like the rose. +We owe a vast debt to De Witt Clinton," he digressed to add. "He was +our Moses, and I can never think upon his great achievement without a +thrill of gratitude. I confess to a mania for the Erie Canal." + +A man in the body of the audience whom Graves recognized as a canal +bank watch whose appointment Shelby had brought about, called for +three-times-three, but Shelby interfered, saying, "I'd rather you'd +listen than cheer." + +"I speak," he continued, "of New Babylon before the coming of the canal +put an end to the log cabins, the spinning-wheels, the ox-sleds, the +corduroy roads, the miasmatic swamps, the wolves, the bears, the fever, +the ague, the blue pill, and all the rude makeshifts and backwoods' +evils which to your forefathers and mine were stern reality. These +were the days when men wore their coat collars high in the back and +small clothes were lengthening into trousers; when veterans of the +Revolution still walked the land hale and strong, and the second war +with the mother country was an uncicatrized memory. In short, I mean +New Babylon of the critical hour when the Legislature wisely saw fit to +erect Tuscarora County, and appointed a commission to choose a +county-seat. 'Then was the tug-of-war.' New Babylon coveted the +award, pined for it, panted for it as the hart for the water brooks. +But so did Etruria, our strapping rival." + +A ripple of appreciation of his version of the familiar legend ran from +jury-box to door, and Shelby, a psychologist, like every real orator, +perceived it with stirring pulse. The instrument he knew best lay +attuned to his hand. + +"How little could we boast," he said, adroitly identifying his +listeners with the past. "The surveyors assured us that the canal was +pointed our way, though no one was sanguine of its speedy coming. We +did occupy the geographical centre of the new county, and with that +ends the tale of our pretensions." + +"We had Penelope Chubb!" + +The suggestion came from an old man in one of the arm-chairs +immediately below. + +Interruptions never disconcerted Shelby. + +"I forgot Penelope Chubb," he admitted smilingly. "Yes, we had her, +the best dress-maker in Tuscarora, whom even Etruria was keen to +employ. But you wouldn't have had us offer Penelope Chubb to the +commissioners as an inducement," he added, and won a laugh for his +readiness. "It was far different with Etruria. It lay on the great +Ridge Road, and the stages from the East tooled and trumpeted straight +through its long main street. It had stores and shops and factories, +it had a grist-mill, a distillery, a tavern--" + +"Two taverns," corrected the hoary critic below. + +"Two taverns, a bona fide doctor, a licensed preacher, the only +academy, the only meeting-house, the only printing-press, and the only +newspaper within the county limits. The Etrurians were so cock-sure of +victory that they raised the price of village lots. Yet we presumed to +hope. Great emergencies focus on individuals; so with ours. New +Babylon found its saviour in Israel Booth." + +Booth's name was the signal for an outburst. The older generation held +him in equal reverence with the fathers of the republic. + +"It was Israel Booth who saw that our one hope lay in a natural +resource, and set himself to conjure one from Red Jacket Creek. Genius +has seldom worked with less promising material. Red Jacket Creek isn't +an imposing stream to-day as it skirts our town,--I am told few of the +historic streams are imposing,--and there was hardly more of it then. +It yielded adequate power to run the sawmills only during the spring +freshets when the swamps overflowed, and it was our ill luck that the +legislative commission decided to visit Tuscarora in dog-days while +Etruria's stage line was doing a land-office business and our poor +little resource was wasted to a long-drawn-out puddle choked with +cat-tails and lily-pads. But what dismayed other men seemed to spur +Israel Booth, and one night, a bare fortnight before the commissioners' +coming, his great conception saw its birth. Before he slept he took +counsel with the leading settlers." + +Shelby broke off to address one of his audience. + +"Your father was in the secret, Mr. Hewett," he said; "and yours, Dr. +Crandall--and my grandfather, and many another upright citizen." + +The gentlemen singled out for reflected fame stirred consciously in the +effort to appear unconscious. + +"Now Red Jacket Creek woke from its summer sleep. The spiders in the +mill yards were dispossessed; lumber that had been hauled away was +replaced and piled conspicuously; the dams and flumes were repaired, +and the water-gates were shut; the backwater began to flood the ponds +and agitate the colony of frogs; prominent men were heard to pray for +rain, and Israel Booth was seen carrying water by night from his well +to the raceway; New Babylon was big with mystery. You all know the +sequel. You know how the commissioners came to us hungry from Etruria; +how Booth and his helpers met them in Sunday butternut and shirt frills +without spot; how we flattered our visitors' distinguished yet entirely +human stomachs with the toothsome dishes of our grandmothers; how we +cracked dusty bottles of Madeira brought years before from New England; +and how we brewed a waggish punch from the output of our rival's own +distillery. You know how they were driven presently about our cleanly +streets, every dooryard raked spick and span against their coming, and +were brought at last to the mills. You know how the Red Jacket, pent +to bursting from a providential thunder-storm of the night, blustered +down through the race with the pride of a Danube; how the saws sang, +the logs rolled, the teamsters shouted, and the commissioners admired. +You know, too, that the guests left before the waters abated or the +punch-bowl knew drought; and that by the same token we won our fight. +Does any of you in his inmost heart censure the pioneers for their +stratagem? I think not. They worked with what tools lay to their +hands, and the profit is their children's and their children's +children's." + +He wisely left it to his listeners to point the parallel, and turned to +discuss the larger issues of the campaign. His canvass chanced among +one of the several battles waged over the national currency, a thorny +topic at best, but Shelby threw a life into the juiceless principles of +his theme which roused the dullest. At the last, referring to the +hardships a depreciated currency might entail on the nation's +pensioners, he turned to the Hon. Seneca Bowers as if his Grant-like +figure typified the great war's heroism, and delivered an impassioned +eulogy upon the soldier dead. It was naturally, convincingly done, and +the audience was loath to find it his peroration. + +There was no doubt of his sweeping triumph. With its formal close the +meeting transformed itself spontaneously into a reception, and, under +the spell of his eloquence still, men prophesied that his brilliant +career would halt not short of the governorship. Mrs. Hilliard would +be satisfied with nothing less than the presidency. + +"The world his oyster," said Bernard Graves. He had pocketed a sheaf +of stenographic notes, with which he had busied himself during the +latter part of Shelby's speech, and mounted a bench with Ruth, the +better to watch the crowd surge round the foot of the platform. "Shall +we go now?" he asked at length. + +Ruth turned from the scene with shining eyes. + +"I promised I would tell him what I thought," she answered. + +"You promised Shelby!" + +"He called the other day--after you had gone. He talks well of +politics. I was interested." + +Bernard Graves swallowed something unpalatable. + +"And the speech?" he said. "What do you think?" + +"That it was remarkable--even brilliant, as they're saying." + +"Great is buncombe." + +"Don't," she begged. "Why spoil it for me? If nothing more, it proves +him a born orator, who can do what he will with men. I believe in him." + +Shelby approached them presently, with the melting of the throng, and +Graves had to listen to an antiphony of praise, sung by Ruth and Mrs. +Hilliard. In a lull he asked Shelby if he admired the oratorical +methods of General Garfield. + +"Eh!" said Shelby, abruptly. + +"Your manner suggests his at times." + +"Yes--oh, yes. I see. Powerful speaker, Garfield. No bad model, you +know." + +"Yes, I know," Graves answered. + +Shelby turned again to the circle of women, and Graves left the +building. A few minutes later he entered the _Whig_ office and made +his way to Sprague's cluttered sanctum. + +"Volney," he announced, as the editor peered genially from underneath +the green drop-light, "I want to browse in your file of the +Congressional Record. And you've Garfield's Works down here, too, +haven't you?" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Shelby stretched himself awake and contentedly surveyed his bachelor +bedroom in the Tuscarora House. He had boarded at this establishment +upward of five years, and his chamber had been decorated and, to a +degree, furnished in accord with his notions of elegant comfort. The +wall paper was a pattern which William Morris and his disciples would +have writhed to behold,--a hideous terra-cotta ground overrun with +meaningless scrolls and stiff garlands of roses of an unearthly pink. +There were stuffy maroon lambrequins above the window casements, and +two large blue vases, containing many-dyed plumes of pampas grass, +flanked like rigid sentinels a pseudo-marble clock upon the truly +marble mantelpiece which somehow suggested a mausoleum falling to +decay; while the blue motive was further emphasized by a plush +photograph album, with a little mirror let into its cover, standing in +a metallic holder on the bureau, whose sombre walnut matched the bed +and chairs. The pictures included a chromo, depicting an impossible +castle set in an equally impossible landscape, a print or two of race +horses, a lithograph of a poker game in supposably high life, and a +photogravure of a painting familiar to the habitues of a great +metropolitan hotel, popularly fancied in the country to be daring in +the extreme. At first sight of the original, over the rim of a +cocktail, Shelby had been fired with the resolve to own some sort of +copy, and even now, after several years of possession, he esteemed it +one of the world's masterpieces of pictorial art. + +He dressed himself in the same content which had flushed his waking +revery. The plaudits of last night's mass-meeting still rang +harmoniously in his ears, and the praise of Ruth Temple and Mrs. +Hilliard was sweeter in retrospect than it had been in reality. This +happy serenity bore him company through the bare echoing corridors of +the hotel to the office, to be heightened by the gratulations of the +landlord and the help, who seemed to feel that a vicarious honor had +been done the house, a most insinuating form of hero-worship which +attained its climax in the homage of the true-penny who set forth his +morning bitters on the bar. + +Extended notices of the meeting had been telegraphed to the neighboring +cities by local correspondents, and Shelby ran through the newspaper +accounts in the cheerless dining room, which he thought to-day by no +means comfortless. There was a flattering deference in the manner of +the waitresses, and the lessening of their pert familiarity told him, +more plainly perhaps than anything else, that he had become a +personage. He failed to remind them that the oatmeal was burned, the +rolls soggy, and the coffee reminiscent of chicory. He ate all that +was set before him, and was still content. The hotel barber-shop +seemed a blithe spot indeed, as he sat for his daily shave, and the +admiring barber a prince of good fellows. Sweet also were the +greetings of the market-place, as, cigar in mouth, he sauntered through +Main Street to his law office. All his paths were pleasantness and +peace. + +The first discordant note was struck, oddly enough, by his faithful +satellite, William Irons, who, at his employer's entrance, abruptly +left off an attempt to coax his red shock into lovelocks, slid his +pocket mirror under a heap of papers, and fell to hammering the +typewriter with unnatural energy. Shelby accepted the subterfuge, and +wished him a hearty good morning. + +"Did you attend the rally, William?" he inquired, as he slit the +envelopes of his morning's mail. + +"Yep," said William Irons. + +"Everybody seemed pleased?" + +"Nope." + +"No?" Shelby repeated, lifting his eyes. "And who was disgruntled?" + +"The Widow Weatherwax." + +"Ah! That's unfortunate," returned Shelby, blandly. "What is the +widow's grievance?" + +"She's put out because you told a story makin' light of drinkin' punch. +She belongs to all the temp'rance societies doin' business, you know." + +"No; I didn't know." + +"And she says none of her church 'll vote for you after your +countenancin' such a cryin' sin." + +"Her list of cardinal sins is extensive." + +"Yep," agreed William. "Won't even let me play my fiddle in the house. +Says it's a vanity." + +"I'd forgotten that you had gone to live with her." + +"Do chores for my keep," explained the clerk. "Have codfish three +times a day, Monday morning to Saturday night, and no warm victuals +Sundays. Makes me keep my fiddle in the barn and play it behind the +woodpile." + +Shelby laughed, and sought to woo back his mood of charity toward all, +but it was futile. The widow's mite of hostile criticism had leavened +the whole lump with bitterness. Nevertheless, he bridled his tongue. + +Work came hard for the moment, and his eyes strayed past his papers +through an open window and spied Ruth Temple's slender shape in the +lawn below. The dewy freshness of the morning seemed to touch her +youth as it did the asters and belated hollyhocks of the quaint garden +into which she passed as he watched. Then Bernard Graves suddenly cut +into the picture, and drew a newspaper from his pocket, directing her +attention to something which amused him. But Ruth did not laugh. +Shelby clearly saw her color change. + +A heavy step outside his door heralded the coming of the Hon. Seneca +Bowers. The county leader was in no mood for idle words, and looked as +Grant may have looked when about to pass judgment on a disgraced +soldier. + +"Seen the _Whig_?" he asked curtly, when William Irons had been +despatched to the post-office. + +"The _Whig_! No, I don't take it." + +"I'd advise you to subscribe." + +Shelby's face sobered with a premonition of misfortune. + +"What's to pay now?" he asked. + +Bowers struck open a copy of Volney Sprague's newspaper, and with +stubby rigid thumb guided the candidate's glance to an editorial. + +"Read that, sir." + +His tone was a new thing in their intercourse, but without remark +Shelby read:-- + + +"AN ELOQUENT THIEF" + +"Before a crowded mass-meeting last evening, Calvin Ross Shelby, +congressional candidate for the suffrages of an intelligent people, +stultified alike his hearers and himself. We shall not dignify his +specious appeal to local pride with the easy exposure of its fallacy; +the victory were too cheap; but since he glibly sought to establish a +parallel between his own questionable political methods and the +legendary deeds of the founders of our community, we too will frame +from his eloquence a parallel which we commend to the orator and to his +electors. In the newspaper business we call it the deadly parallel. + + "Do you realize what this "When you can enlarge + talk about the dollar means, if your farm by changing the + true? It means that all you figures in your deeds; when + need do to increase the acreage your dairymaid can make more + of your farm is to change butter and cheese by watering + the figures in your title deeds; the milk; when you can have + it means that your creameries more cloth by decreasing your + will yield a better product if yardstick one-half; when you + you water the milk; it means can sell more tons of merchandise + that when the housewife shops by shortening your pound + she will buy more linen, or one-half,--then, and not until + gingham, or calico, if the then, can you increase the value + merchant moves the brass tacks of your property or labor by + of his counter yard measure decreasing your standard of + nearer together." values." + + CALVIN ROSS SHELBY. JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD, + Faneuil Hall, Boston, + September 10, 1878. + + + "These fanatics say that if "But this is the first time I + foreign nations don't want the ever heard a financial philosopher + sort of money we choose to express his gratitude that we + coin they can go without, and have a currency of such bad + that we should be glad that repute that other nations will not + they don't. We've some receive it; he is thankful that it + other things that foreigners is not exportable. We have + don't want. We've peaches a great many commodities in + with the yellows, and weeviled such a condition that they are + wheat, and rancid butter, and not exportable. Mouldy flour, + ancient eggs, but I've yet to rusty wheat, rancid butter, + meet a farmer who wants to damaged cotton, addled eggs, and + corner the market. They spoiled goods generally are not + remind me of a town that was exportable. But it never + moved to build a gallows occurred to me to be thankful for + because all its neighbors had this putrescence. It is related + them. I don't need to add in a quaint German book of + that it was not an American humor that the inhabitants of + town. And one of the wise Schildeberg, finding that other + city fathers was so carried away towns, with more public spirit + by his patriotism that he tried than their own, had erected + to make the council pass a gibbets within their precincts, + resolution that the gallows be resolved that the town of + reserved for that town's Schildeberg should also have a + inhabitants exclusively." gallows; and one patriotic member + of the town council offered a + CALVIN ROSS SHELBY. resolution that the benefits of + this gallows should be reserved + exclusively for the inhabitants + of Schildeberg." + + JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD, + House of Representatives, + June 15, 1870. + + + "If each grave had a voice "If each grave had a voice + to tell us what its silent tenant to tell us what its silent tenant + last saw and heard on earth, we last saw and heard on earth, we + might stand, with uncovered might stand, with uncovered + heads, and hear the whole story heads, and hear the whole story + of the war. We should hear of the war. We should hear + that one perished when the first that one perished when the first + great drops of the crimson great drops of the crimson + shower began to fall, when the shower began to fall, when the + darkness of that first disaster at darkness of that first disaster at + Manassas fell like an eclipse on Manassas fell like an eclipse on + the nation; that another died the nation; that another died + of disease while wearily waiting of disease while wearily waiting + for winter to end; that this one for winter to end; that this one + fell on the field, in sight of the fell on the field, in sight of the + spires of Richmond, little dreaming spires of Richmond, little dreaming + that the flag must be carried that the flag must be carried + through three more years of through three more years of + blood before it should be planted blood before it should be planted + in that citadel of treason; and in that citadel of treason; and + that one fell when the tide of that one fell when the tide of + war had swept us back till the war had swept us back till the + roar of rebel guns shook the roar of rebel guns shook the + dome of _the_ capitol, and dome of _yonder_ capitol, and + re-echoed in the chambers of the re-echoed in the chambers of the + Executive mansion. We should Executive mansion. We should + hear mingled voices from the hear mingled voices from the + Rappahannock, the Rapidan, the Rappahannock, the Rapidan, the + Chickahominy, and the James, Chickahominy, and the James, + solemn voices from the Wilderness, solemn voices from the Wilderness, + and triumphant shouts from and triumphant shouts from + the Shenandoah, from Petersburg, the Shenandoah, from Petersburg, + and the Five Forks, mingled and the Five Forks, mingled + with the wild acclaim of with the wild acclaim of + victory and the sweet chorus of victory and the sweet chorus of + returning peace." returning peace." + + CALVIN ROSS SHELBY. JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD, + Arlington, Va., + May 30,1868. + + +"Of these three passages, rightly thought by Calvin Ross Shelby's +audience the most telling of his speech, the first and second are +unmistakably plagiarisms of ideas, while the third, differing from its +original in but one telltale, damning word, is shameless, flat-footed +theft. Either of the first two offences committed singly might be +unconscious; conjoined they betray deliberation; united with the third +they 'smell to heaven.' It is high time for the voters of this +congressional district to ask themselves the question. Shall we vote +for a thief?" + + +"Well, sir, well?" exploded Bowers at last. + +Shelby tossed the paper aside with a laugh. + +"It's well done." + +"Well done!" Bowers dropped one of his infrequent oaths. "Have you +nothing else to say?" + +"Yes; it's true, more or less." + +"You admit it?" + +"Keep cool. It was this way: I was pressed for time when I prepared my +speech,--you know that,--and it occurred to me to adapt one or two of +Garfield's illustrations. I've studied him some, and he said many +things that fit in nowadays as well as they ever did. Plenty of +speakers quarry there I guess. I honestly meant to give him the credit +of that soldier business in my peroration, but somehow the quotation +marks were lost in the shuffle. There was but one chance in a thousand +that anybody would notice." + +"Somebody did," growled Bowers, and spat our his mangled cigar. + +"Yes; I ran against a man with a memory." + +"It wasn't on the square, Ross. It'll hurt you." + +Shelby eyed him shrewdly. + +"You read speeches in Washington that I wrote," he reminded. + +"That's different. Lots of congressmen do that,--even senators. +They're not posted on everything." + +"No," Shelby agreed, with an irony too subtle for Bowers; "they +certainly are not. However, there's no need to borrow trouble over +this thing. People will laugh a little, say it was a good speech, +wherever I got it, and vote the straight party ticket despite Bernard +Graves." + +"Graves," said Bowers. "What has he to do with it?" + +"Everything; he's the little joker with the memory." + +Bowers whistled. + +"What is he after?" + +Shelby jerked his head toward the Temple doorstep where Bernard still +lingered. + +"After her." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +"Humor a silk stocking according to his crotchet, that's my maxim," +submitted Bowers as they threshed the matter out in its latest aspect. + +"I can't see its application to Graves. He's outside politics; hates +the very name, they say." + +"Practical politics is applied human nature. If a rule is sound in +politics, it will work anywhere this side of the pearly gates. Graves +may not care a tinker's dam for politics, but evidently he does get +queasy when another man's ideas are misappropriated. Perhaps that's +his crotchet. Writes himself, doesn't he?" + +"Some rubbish or other," returned Shelby, contemptuously. + +"That's where he is susceptible, to my thinking. I don't cotton to +your woman theory. I say leave women out of politics. So conciliate +him; humor his crotchet." + +"I can't see why I should kotow to him, or what further harm he can +do," said the candidate, but he deferred to Bowers's judgment. "I'll +look him up this afternoon," he agreed; "though I've no stomach for the +job. I never liked the cuss." + +He abundantly appreciated this long-standing antipathy as he cast about +for some common ground of interest in the little reception-room of the +house shared by Bernard Graves and his mother. It seemed to the +waiting caller a drab and lifeless home, uninteresting in its +appointments, and out of keeping with the wealth known to have been +inherited by the widow and her son. The young man's study was visible +down the vista of a series of low-ceiled apartments, and Shelby saw +that it was crammed with books. None of the many pictures could cope +in dash and color with his own collection and, what seemed to him +singular in a Protestant home, they were chiefly of the Madonna; all in +all, a tame assortment beside his copy of the secular masterpiece in +the great metropolitan hotel. Over one of the crowded bookcases was +the cast of a winged woman. It was armless and headless, and Shelby +wondered by what accident it had become so damaged, and why it was not +banished to the attic. + +The maid came presently to tell him that Mr. Bernard had gone for a +walk to the golf links. + +Shelby was relieved. He felt ill at ease in this queer drab dwelling, +and doubtful of the course he ought to pursue with its tenant. It +would be another matter altogether in the open air. Returning to his +law office, he bade William Irons to telephone the Tuscarora House +livery-stable to send around his horse and buggy. + +At the farm-house on the outskirts which served the golf devotees for a +headquarters Shelby was told that Graves had gone yet farther, taking +the direction of the Hilliard quarries--geologizing bent, the speaker +thought. Unassociated with practical results, this had always +presented itself to Shelby as a trivial pursuit akin to botany, +embroidery, and other employments distinctly feminine. He forebore +comment, however, and presently struck down a road which wound into a +little suburb peopled by Polish quarry-workers. It was essentially an +alien community in whose straggling streets and lanes one heard English +but seldom. Tow-headed children, shy elves peeping from odd +hiding-places, swarmed a half-dozen and upward to a house. Work was +the key-note of Little Poland, as it was called. While the men toiled +in the sandstone quarries the women did a man's stint in the fields of +the outlying farms, and bore more children. Childbirth was a mere +detail in these thick-waisted women's lives; some hours, a day perhaps, +and they were stooping in the fields again. And the children early put +shoulder to the wheel; those too small for the fields begged food in +the streets of the town. Little Poland was virtually a fief of Joe +Hilliard's. Men, women, and elves looked up to him as to a benevolent +feudal lord, and the naturalized males voted Joe Hilliard's party +ticket with mechanical precision. + +The politician approached the quarries with an interested eye. Among +his many irons in the fire he had acquired part ownership in another +quarry to the westward, like this bordering the towpath of the canal. +Bowers held the controlling interest, though neither his name nor +Shelby's figured prominently in its management. They called it the +Eureka Sandstone Company. + +Shelby tied his horse near the office, and, putting his head among the +morning-glories curtaining an open window, stated his errand to +Hilliard, whose vast bulk was humped ludicrously upon a high stool. +The big fellow stopped thumbing his ledger, greeted him with a jovial +shout, and directed him toward a stratum of rock which the workmen had +recently unearthed. + +"Look it over," he called after him. "It promises to pan out +scrumptious. We struck A-1 rock seven feet below the surface." + +"That discounts the Eureka," said Shelby. "We've never done better +than twelve." + +He picked his way through the yards, the hammers of the stone dressers +clinking out a not unmusical chorus from every shed, and skirting the +docks where the ponderous cranes swung the great slabs to the canal +boats, scrambled down a rough roadway into the quarry proper amidst all +the hurly-burly of the teamsters and the hoarse steam drills. The +walls of sandstone rose sheer around him, sliced down by the blasts +like sugar with a scoop. Some of the formation was not unlike sugar +little refined; some, lighter, with streaks of grayish pink, like sides +of bacon; and some, a rich deep brown which architects specified the +country over, was said to have no equal the world around save only in +Japan. In the newly uncovered tract Shelby spied Bernard Graves +pecking about with a little hammer. + +"Prospecting for gold?" he asked jocularly. + +"No; fucoids." + +"Eh?" + +"Fossils, you know; a sort of seaweed. The only kind we can discover +in this formation." + +"My little freshwater college wasn't strong on the sciences," said +Shelby, speculating whether this particular crotchet required humoring. +As the young man's own interest in the topic seemed languid, he decided +against this course and frankly told him that he wanted to talk with +him. "Suppose we move away from the clatter of the drills," he +suggested. + +Graves assented, and they shifted from beneath the overhanging bank of +sandy loam to the shade of an unused derrick. + +"Smoke?" queried the politician, affably. + +Graves declined a cigar, explaining, "I merely take a cigarette now and +then, usually after dinner." + +Shelby's contempt for cigarettes was boundless, but he dissembled his +opinion, and lit the strongest cigar in his case. + +"It's up to me, Bernard," he confessed with a laugh. "It's my move, +and I'm right on the spot like a little man, though humble pie isn't my +favorite tidbit by a large majority." + +"Meaning what?" asked Graves, without animation. + +Behind the candidate's urbane mask rioted a lust to mar and maim, but +his political self explained blandly:-- + +"Meaning that your checkmate in this morning's _Whig_ was well played." + +"I didn't write that editorial." + +"I know you didn't. It had the Volney Sprague earmarks. But you did +what is more important,--you inspired it." + +"Well?" + +"Just this: in a general way I admit its justness, and come frankly to +tell you so." + +"Why should you trouble yourself?" + +Shelby throttled his mounting ire. + +"Because," he returned slowly, "I recognize your ability and want your +support. If you mean to interest yourself in politics, I can be of +service to you. I know, of course, you don't think politicians are +necessarily scamps." + +"I judge no class of men so summarily," Graves opened his mouth to +protest. "That is too much like Burke's indictment against a whole +people, you know." + +The allusion was not familiar, but Shelby said, "Exactly," with labored +calm. He fancied that he detected a note of condescension, and +resented it passionately. + +"The average politician isn't such a bad lot," he went on. "His +methods don't always square with the Decalogue, but he means well, and +in the long run does well. I don't say this to pat myself on the back. +You know me. I'm a plain, practical man, and try to steer by +common-sense. If I'm elected to Congress, I'll do my best to make the +district proud of me, and I'll promise you personally, right here and +now, that I will deliver no man's speeches but my own." + +Graves wished that he would make an end of his excuses and go away. +The whole episode bored him, and his mind wandered even while he +listened. He was thinking that that muscular Pole directing the +planting of a steam drill below the sand-bank a rather statuesque +figure for these prosaic days. The man had jumped upon the tripod of +the drill in ordering the work, and loomed large and competent. Graves +thought him in feature not unlike his great compatriot John Sobieski, +and tried to picture him in the Polish king's armor which he remembered +to have seen in some European collection. Shelby's silence recalled +him. + +"Really, there's no necessity for you to explain or promise anything to +me," he rejoined coldly. "I'm not in politics, and I don't care to be." + +Shelby had reached his last ditch. + +"You think you're too damned good for it," he broke out. "It's the +lily-fingered people of your stripe who make reform a byword and a +laughing-stock." + +Graves's face flamed, and he shrank inwardly with a scholar's +repugnance from the rencounter. Outwardly, however, he was truculent. + +"Such bar-room personalities are characteristic of you," he retorted. +"Your place--" + +But it was fated that Shelby should not learn his place. A sharp +warning cry from a workman heralded the crumbling fall of a great +section of the bank overhanging the drill which Graves had idly +watched, and, as idly, watched still. A dreamer of habit, his will +failed immediately to rally to the naked fact and its demands. It was +unreal, a picture, a play, a poet's conception of chaos--that was it! +The thing was Dantesque or Miltonic. The gaping rent, the jumbled +rocks, the thick spurt of steam issuing from the buried drill, it was +all tumultuous, primeval; and that grimy workman, heaving aside the +dirt and scrambling to the air, was suggestive of Milton's earth-born +"tawny lion, pawing to get free." + +"Good God, man, wake up!" Shelby shook him roughly by the arm and +dragged him toward the scene of the catastrophe. "There are men under +that heap." + +A little knot of Polish laborers forthwith congregated, ox-eyed and +inert. Shelby tore a shovel from a paralyzed hand and began to dig, +ripping out crisp oaths at their stupidity. + +"Find shovels for these cattle," he commanded. + +By signs Graves roused the unnerved men to action, but he could find no +sort of tool for himself, and stood empty-handed apart, conscious of +unfitness. The politician, burrowing like a woodchuck, showered him +with red earth. + +"English? Anybody speak English?" he panted without stopping. "How +many are under here?" + +One of the workmen understood, chattered excitedly with his fellows, +and held up one soiled finger. + +"Ein," he said. "Kiska, he vork here." + +Shelby's shovel grated on the cylinder of the buried drill. From +underneath its tripod protruded the booted leg of a man. + +"Go easy, boys," he cautioned. + +With his own hands he skilfully uncovered the victim's head and trunk. +Graves saw that it was the giant of his day-dream. The man's rugged +face was earth-stained and still; his great chest motionless. Shelby +mastered the situation with a glance, thrust his hand into the coarse +shirt, and felt for the heart. + +"There's life in him," he announced. "Over with him into the shade." +Between them all they bore him to a shelf of level rock. "Off with his +shirt," said Shelby to his helper, and they two stripped the body to +the waist. It was the torso of a gladiator. Shelby rolled the garment +and thrust it underneath the bare back below the shoulders. "It's not +high enough," he decided instantly. "Something else--a coat--anything." + +Kiska's compatriots could not have complied had they understood, being +coatless to a man. Bernard Graves took off a new golf coat which +Shelby ruthlessly crumpled and stuffed into place. An instant later he +was astride the Pole's hips, his hands grasping the powerful chest on +either side. Bracing his elbows, Shelby bore his whole weight forward, +counted three, sat back upon his knees, counted two, and so continued, +down "one-two-three," up "one-two," with the quiet assurance of a +surgeon. + +The younger man watched his every movement with wondering respect. The +operator interrupted his meditations. + +"Get hold of his tongue with your handkerchief," he ordered. "That's +right--hold it by the tip. On one side--on one side. Now take both +his wrists and pin them above his head--so." + +All the while the steady pressure and relaxation went on, compelling +the lungs to their function. Presently came the faintest quiver of a +nostril, and Shelby smiled. + +"Kiska will do his own breathing pretty soon," he said. Presently he +suggested: "Better fetch Hilliard now. And have him 'phone Doc +Crandall to come to Kiska's house in Little Poland. I'll take Kiska +home in my rig when his bellows gets well under way." + +Graves did his errand, outlining the disaster and rescue as he hurried +with the quarry owner to the scene. Joe Hilliard was divided between +sympathy for Kiska, whom he declared was the pick of his men, and +admiration for Shelby's presence of mind. + +"He's got gumption, that man," he exclaimed, "gumption, simon-pure." + +Graves's own impressions were mixed, and the stress of the accident +passed, he resumed his ruined coat with a vague sense of personal +slight. Something of this sort prompted him to say rather +patronizingly to Shelby as they parted:-- + +"You made skilful use of that method of resuscitation. Where in the +world did you pick it up?" + +"Every schoolboy knows it," returned the politician, shortly; "or every +schoolboy should." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Shelby's forecast of the effect of the _Whig's_ exposure was +brilliantly fulfilled. People did laugh over it and say that it was a +good speech, whatever its source. In popular conception literary theft +is at worst a venial sin whose very iniquity is doubtful unless found +out. The culprit's average fellow-townsman accepted the incident as +fresh evidence of his acknowledged cleverness and promptly forgot it in +the nine days' wonder over his exploit at the Hilliard quarries. + +The town's attitude mirrored that of the congressional district and the +state. Volney Sprague's editorial occasioned some little paragraphing +here and there among up-state newspapers and by brief mention in +_Associated Press_ despatches roused a metropolitan daily of opposite +political faith to one of the satirical thrusts for which it was +famous; whereupon one of its more serious contemporaries found a text +for a thunderous jeremiad on the decay of political morality. Yet +where one person read of Shelby's plagiarism, a score devoured the +sensational accounts of his rescue of Kiska, while of those who read +both, an illogical but human majority considered his atonement complete. + +Sprague himself was disposed to gauge Shelby's vogue with the +groundlings as greater than before, and lamented it to Bernard Graves, +who fell wholly into his mood for once and deplored the fatuity of +popular judgment with unlooked-for warmth. + +His friend listened with unqualified approval. + +"Thank Heaven, you're beginning to take an interest in politics!" he +exclaimed. + +The young man flushed. + +"There are some things in this man's canvass one can't ignore," he +carefully explained, and tried to think he meant plagiarism. + +He had not discussed recent happenings with Ruth Temple. When he took +her the _Whig_ article the morning after the mass-meeting she had +displayed a disconcerting willingness to cloud the vital fact and +excuse Shelby. Indeed, he finally left with the disgusted conviction +that she had pilloried not the sinner but himself,--a not uncommon +outcome in a clash of wits between a woman and a man. After that, he +told himself, she might form what fantastic opinion of this freebooter +she chose without let or hindrance from him, and at the same time he +resolved that she should see less of him. The latter resolution proved +as flimsy as a New Year's vow, but while it needed less than a smile to +whistle him back, the whole distasteful subject of Shelby became +tacitly taboo. + +As Ruth was a very woman, often saying less what she really thought +than what she knew would stir dissent, her innermost opinions were less +stable than he fancied. She had not had speech with Shelby since the +mass-meeting, but he had found time that night to ask her to drive with +him, and she anticipated the outing with a zest whose disproportion to +its surface cause she did not analyze. + +On the appointed afternoon she saw his horse and buggy brought from the +Tuscarora House and hitched at the curb below his office, and as it +lacked little of the hour set she thrust home the last hat-pin and +stood jacketed and gloved by a window, waiting his coming. The hour +struck and brought no Shelby, though punctuality was the first article +of his creed. Out in the drowsy thoroughfare a sprinkling-cart jarred +heavily past, spurting ineffectually at the yellow dust which rose +perversely under its baptism and surged beneath the awnings of the +shops. It was Saturday, universal shopping-day in the farmland, and a +ramshackle line of rustic vehicles--buggies, democrats, sulkies, lumber +wagons--with graceless plough horses slumbering in the thills, +stretched in ragged alignment down the curb. Shelby's smart turnout +seemed fairly urban by contrast, and Ruth saw that it met with the +critical approval of the loungers. + +A quarter of an hour slipped by; no Shelby. His cob fretted at the +autumn flies and whinnied to be gone. A half-hour elapsed, unfruitful; +an hour. Then did Queen Ruth, on whose imperious nod a little world +had hung from babyhood, perceive the recreant come calmly down from his +law office in company with some creature of relatively common clay, +shake hands, chat further, shake hands again, take up his reins amid an +interchange of badinage with the bystanders, and so, gossiping still, +jog deliberately on--to her! + +She spun on her heel as he turned in at the drive and rang for her maid. + +"If Mr. Shelby should call," she directed, wrenching at her gloves, +"say I'm not at home." + + +Shelby's occupations in the meantime had been absorbing. In the course +of an earnest conference at the Tuscarora House the evening of the +quarry accident, the Hon. Samuel Bowers had removed his cigar to let +fall a sententious observation. + +"As long as an all-wise Providence saw fit to dump that sand-bank on +one of the Polacks," said he, "I call it a piece of downright Ross +Shelby luck that it fell on Kiska." + +"I should have worked as hard over a dago," rejoined Shelby; "or a dog +either, I guess." + +"M-yes; I reckon. But you're not complaining that it wasn't some dago +who doesn't know a ballot from a bunch of garlic? No, I reckon not." +His eyes twinkled, and Shelby flickered a responsive grin. "Note a +rule for candidates: When about to effect the spectacular rescue of one +of the toiling masses which are the bone and sinew of this fair land of +ours, pick a man who holds a block of the foreign vote right in the +pocket of his jeans." + +It was perhaps appreciation of this aphorism's significance, perhaps +sheer abundance of the milk of human kindness, perhaps a harmonious +blending of both, which inspired Shelby's warm welcome to Kiska as he +was about to leave his office to join Ruth Temple. + +"You shouldn't have come out so soon, Kiska," he protested, urging the +big Pole to a chair, and bringing him a glass of water. "Did you walk +all the way from Little Poland to see me?" + +"I valked," answered Kiska, simply, his face working. "I vould like to +haf roon, Meester Shelby." + +"Oh, I wouldn't run much just yet," laughed Shelby, kindly, trying to +head off the man's expression of gratitude. "Have another drink? +Perhaps you'd prefer some whiskey?" + +Kiska declined, and harked back to his message. + +"I vould like to haf roon to tank you, Meester Shelby. I got vife to +tank you. I got mooch cheeldren to tank you. I no taalk good. Dat +Eengleesh hard,--so? Eef I no taalk, I tink. I tink all day: Tank +you, Meester Shelby, tank you, Meester Shelby." + +"You speak English very well," said Shelby, patting him on the +shoulder. "But you mustn't say any more about the matter." + +He led him presently to talk of the quarry-workers and their families, +their wages, their hours, their recreation, their parish church, their +priest, their school; for Little Poland was sufficient unto itself; and +Kiska saw that he questioned with sympathy and understanding, and was +pleased. On the dial of his office clock Shelby noted the hour of his +appointment come and go, and from his window he caught a fleeting +glimpse of Ruth at hers. She wore his favorite hat, with a gleam of +red, which became her dark hair so well, and he divined that she had +put it on because of him. He longed to be out and away with her +between the autumn hedgerows, but there sat Kiska, garrulous of Poland +over seas and Little Poland by the quarries, and to Kiska the +politician inclined a patient ear. + +The Pole rose at last, after a delighted hour, and Shelby saw his eye +light on a package of campaign lithographs of himself, which had come +that morning from the printers. + +"Want one?" he asked. + +Kiska exploded in incoherent gratitude. + +"Take several," said Shelby, snapping an elastic band around a sheaf of +the pictures. "Give 'em to your friends to hang in their front +windows. That's what we do with 'em in town, you know. It's American. +You're all good Americans in Little Poland, aren't you?" A thought +struck him, and from a roll of banknotes, destined for campaign uses, +he extracted a ten-dollar bill. "I dare say Joe Hilliard will pay your +doctor, Kiska," he went on, "but there'll be other things you'll want. +Winter's coming; buy the yellow-haired kids some shoes; get the wife a +warm dress. You can pay me when Poland gets its independence." + +Kiska took the money. "I vould like to vork for you," he exclaimed. + +"Would you?" laughed the politician. "I think perhaps you may some +day." + + +The minor social conventions, which, after all, are possibly the major +ones, were consistently ignored by Shelby. + +"Not at home?" he repeated after Ruth's maid. "I guess you're +mistaken. I saw Miss Temple at the window as I drove in the gate. +Just look around a bit, and you'll find her." + +He walked calmly past the bewildered girl to the drawing-room. In the +centre of the apartment stood Ruth, her cheeks waving crimson, like a +poppy field astir. + +"Angry?" said the man. + +Ruth waited till the open-mouthed maid had retreated down the hall. + +"I'm furious," she answered, and looked the part. + +"Think I'm a boor?" + +She could not trust herself to reply. Had he dared smile then, she +would have swept by him, but he was wholly grave. + +"I'll tell you what you're thinking," he said quietly. "You are +thinking that I have fallen short of your notion of me. You listened +the other night at the court-house and thought kindly things. Then you +were told by my enemies that I had used in part what was not my own. +You were vexed, for it impeached your judgment of character. Then I +failed of my appointment, and did you a more grievous wrong--I piqued +your woman's vanity." + +Ruth gasped. + +"Your effrontery is--is fascinating." + +Shelby's eyes hinted a smile. She had said what she thought. + +"I shall not defend myself to you against the charges of the _Whig_," +he went on. "I doubt even if I shall answer them publicly. Greater +men than I have had their names blackened in a campaign, and deemed +silence the wisest answer. People don't ascribe many virtues to the +politician, but even he occasionally turns the other cheek. As for my +tardiness to-day--well, I could have avoided it." + +"You admit it?" blazed Ruth. + +"Yes. I had my choice." + +"And you chose--" The shabby figure she had seen descend from Shelby's +office visualized itself sharply. + +"Yes--poor devil--I chose Kiska." + +Her mood veered, and she whirled impulsively toward him, all +womanliness and contrition. + +"Forgive me. How could I know? I thought--I thought--" + +"That it was some heeler with a vote to sell?" + +Her face betrayed her. + +"Forgive me," she repeated. "You would have done wrong to turn him +away because of me. I know of your noble deed--who does not? I am +proud of you, and wished to tell you so. I wanted to see you for +this--to praise your heroism. I've been your friend in that--that +other thing. I could see how the crowd, the exhilaration, the sense of +mastery, might lure one on. I looked at it dispassionately--with a +friend's eyes. I was loyal till I thought you held my friendship +lightly, and put politics before it. I own my mistake--my injustice." + +Shelby had not dreamed of vindication so sweeping, and, with a word of +modest disclaimer, led the talk to pacific commonplace. It was too +late for the promised drive, and indeed neither of them thought of it +again till the door had shut between them. + +In leaving, the man's glance was arrested by an object on the piano. + +"What is that called?" he asked abruptly. + +"The cast? That is my Victory--the famous Victory of Samothrace, which +suggested the poem everybody's reading. It's my despair. I've failed +at drawing it for years. The original is in the Louvre, and towers +gloriously over a staircase. I can shut my eyes and see it perfectly." + +"Pretty old?" ventured Shelby. + +"Oh, yes; it's an antique. See how ruffian Time has dealt with it." + +The man walked slowly round the goddess, surveying her from every side. + +"A day or two ago," he said simply, "I saw that image in a house, and, +in my ignorance, thought a servant had broken it. I wondered why the +people didn't pitch it out." + +His tone went straight to her sympathy. + +"Many are strangers in the kingdom of Art," she returned gently. "Most +of us must come to it like little children." + +Shelby was silent for a moment. Then he said:-- + +"In Bernard Graves's opinion I am aesthetically dead--I believe those +were his words." + +The girl started. + +"I never repeated them," she protested. + +"What," laughed Shelby, grimly, "has he told you that, too? He's +evidently fond of the phrase. Perhaps he is right. Yet I hope not. +I'd rather think I'm merely unborn. I am not a voluntary Ishmaelite. +I simply haven't had the chance to learn." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A fault recognized, it was Ruth's nature to be lavish of atonement, and +by way of further expiation she consented a day or two later to make +one of a driving party of Mrs. Hilliard's to hear Shelby speak in a +village located "down north," as the local vernacular had it, near the +shore of Lake Ontario. Ruth cared little for Mrs. Hilliard. She saw +her through feminine eyes, and Mrs. Hilliard was not popular with +women. But Shelby had privily told her of the project and begged her +to accept. + +"I had planned to rent the Tuscarora House tallyho and go with some +éclat," the lady lamented at the eleventh hour, "but the way people +have disappointed me is positively harrowing. There was Bernard +Graves--I pinned my childlike faith on him; but he sent regrets. And +Mr. and Mrs. Bowers. Wouldn't you think that they, of all people, +would wish to go? But no; Mrs. Bowers said it did her rheumatic +shoulder no good to traipse around nights,--that was her +expression,--and Mr. Bowers actually told me that he was too busy +organizing political meetings to want to attend them. Isn't he droll? +Then Mr. Hewett had a sermon to prepare; and Dr. Crandall had a case of +diphtheria to watch; and Volney Sprague--well, I really did not dare +ask him, he was so horrid in his paper about Mr. Shelby's splendid +speech. So one and all they began to make excuses, as the Bible says, +till it has simmered down to you, dear Ruth, and Joe, and Mr. Shelby, +and me." + +"Oh," said Ruth, with misgiving. + +"A sort of survival of the fittest, don't you know, as somebody or +other says. Was it Shakespeare? He really seems to have written all +the clever things." + +"No," Ruth replied with gravity; "it wasn't Shakespeare." + +"Really? I thought it sounded Shakespearian. Well, as I was telling +you, it has come to a jolly little company of four in my surrey, which, +after all, is perhaps nicer than a dozen in a tallyho, though of course +it won't impress the voters as much." + +Ruth's eyebrows arched. + +"Is that the object of our going?" + +"What an idea, my dear!" Nevertheless, she colored. "We'll start +early enough for a fish supper at the Lakeview Inn," she rattled on. +"You know how good their fish suppers are. And perhaps we shall have +time to stop at the camp-meeting of those ridiculous Free Methodists +which is in full swing at the grove behind the hotel. Joe says that it +will be the last night of the camp, and equal to Barnum's Three Rings +and Mammoth Hippodrome. Doesn't that sound just like Joe? I'm sure we +can manage to see something of it. Mr. Shelby's meeting won't begin +till eight-thirty and Eden Centre can't be ten minutes' drive from the +grove." + +She sowed without conception of the harvest. The pleasuring so idly +planned, the religionists whose vagaries provoked her laughter, were in +time to bulk huge in a clairvoyant light of revelation. + +It fell a ripe autumn day with the haze mantling the orchards like the +purple of a plum, a day in whose magic atmosphere even common things +wore an air of poetry. The very canal was transfigured. + +"There is a bit of Holland," said Ruth, as they crossed the waterway on +the ragged hem of the town. "If this were Europe and the courthouse +over there could triple its age and take another name, this bridge +would swarm with the 'personally conducted' admiring the view. I don't +wonder that artists are beginning to paint the canal." + +"They say a house-boat party came through last week," Mrs. Hilliard +remarked. + +"Tied their scow near my place," put in her husband. "Had the hold all +rigged up with a piano and curtains and rugs. Harum-scarum looking lot +of men and women you wouldn't trust to paint a barn. They overran the +quarries and made pictures of the Polacks." + +"Bernard Graves met them," Ruth added. "They told him that Little +Poland was a second Barbizon for peasant models, with an 'Angelus' or a +'Man with the Hoe' around every corner." + +Joe Hilliard guffawed. + +"Guess they meant the woman with the hoe; she's the agriculturalist in +the Polack matrimonial team." + +Shelby was discreetly backward in these quicksands which the quarry +owner did not fear to tread, but the canal stirred his imagination, +too, and in a characteristic way. + +"It takes seven figures to express last year's tonnage down the Ditch +to tidewater," he told them; "stone, lumber, food. Why it dumped over +three-quarters of a million tons of food alone into New York City's +maw. Yet they say it's antiquated and can't compete with the +railroads. What else has kept the railroads within bounds? Ask any +Tuscarora shipper what happens yearly when navigation closes. Abandon +it! We'll see. The canal counties swing a pretty vote in this state." + +Hilliard laughed. + +"Think you're addressing the Legislature, Ross?" + +"I heard you address the Assembly once," Ruth said. "I was a Vassar +girl then, visiting Albany friends. You spoke about the canals, and +the other members stopped gossiping and writing letters to listen." + +"The canal is a part of my religion," Shelby answered. + +They crossed the ancient shore line of the lake, the Ridge, +so-called,--successive highway of the Iroquois, the pioneer, the +stage-coach, and the ubiquitous trolley,--and caught presently the +distant shimmer of Ontario, sail-dotted, intensely blue. That first +glimpse of the inland sea always stirred Ruth to the depths. It was +not the romance of New France alone which it evoked--that picturesque +procession of redmen, _coureurs de bois_, friars, Jesuits, soldiers of +fortune, La Salle, Frontenac, the conquering English, the +conqueror-conquering American--but the mystery of the vaster tidal sea +toward which it drew, whose supremest witchery none may know save the +yearning inland-born. + +"Calm as a puddle to-day," said Joe. "You can almost hear the Canucks +singing 'God Save the Queen.'" + +Dusk had set in when they left the deserted piazzas of the summer hotel +for the camp-meeting in the grove. The flare of torches wavered afar +between the tree boles, and above the lapping of the waves walled a +drear hymn. + +Mrs. Hilliard skipped girlishly in the woodland path. + +"They've begun, they've begun," she exulted. "We shall see the fun +after all." + +"It's too early for the meeting in the big tent," Shelby told Ruth; +"but if you've never seen anything of the kind, the scene which goes +before will be quite as curious." + +Skirting a makeshift village of tiny tents and shanties they issued to +a torch-lit clearing in the wood whose central object was the greater +tent, which, frayed, weathered, and patched as it was, yet stood to +these zealots of an iron creed as the chosen tabernacle of a very God. +Its rough benches were empty now, but before its dingy portal swayed +and groaned a rapt circle of men and women, hand in hand, in whose +midst an old man with a prophet's head and a bigot's eye was gyrating +like a dervish as he mouthed the hackneyed phrases of the sanctified. +As the new-comers pressed among the bystanders hemming the inner circle +of the faithful, the performer with a last frantic whirl dropped +exhausted, and rolling down a slight declivity lay stark and deathlike +at their feet, his white beard and hair strewn with russet leaves. + +Ruth recoiled with a shudder. The swaying circle redoubled its +incantations, and left him to his envied beatitude. Their indifference +seemed inhuman to the girl, and she would have stooped to the prostrate +figure but for Shelby's detaining hand. + +"Merely the 'Power,' as they say," he whispered, adding cynically, +"Epilepsy can be feigned, you know." + +She desisted, and a new actor waltzed rhythmically into the glare of +light. Her short rotund body writhing not unlike an Oriental dancer's, +the Widow Weatherwax had assumed the centre of the ring. The +sanctified were without sense of humor, but the unregenerate onlookers +were not proof against the comic aspects of emotional religion, and +from the dark outskirts rang a ribald laugh. + +"Why doesn't that dreadful woman wear a corset?" demanded Mrs. Hilliard +in a stage whisper of Ruth, whose face went suddenly aflame. + +"The widow would make the fortune of any Midway, Ross," Joe Hilliard +chuckled, digging Shelby in the ribs. + +"Woe, woe, woe," chanted the widow, spurred to anathema by derision. +"Woe upon scorners! Woe upon them that sit in the seats of scorners! +'Ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in +yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.'" + +Scripture-quoting was reckoned among the fine arts in the widow's +circle, and an applauding chorus of Praise Gods and Amens greeted her +dexterous use of the beloved weapon. She rounded the chain once more +in her grotesque dance; then, suddenly spying the little group of her +neighbors peering through the girdle of the sanctified, she halted, +directly fronting them, and, singling out Mrs. Hilliard, who was +conspicuous in a red tailor-made gown, she transfixed her with her +beady eyes. + +"Woe, woe, woe," she wailed again, rocking to and fro. "Woe upon +Babylon! 'Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the +habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of +every unclean and hateful bird!'" + +The brethren thrilled at the well-understood allusion to the speaker's +abiding-place, while the outsiders, scenting a veiled scurrility, +craned to listen and to watch. + +Secure of her audience, the widow paused as if waiting the descent of +the prophetic afflatus. Then:-- + +"'And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my +people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not +of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath +remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and +double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she +hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, +and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she +saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no +sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and +mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire.'" + +Ruth vacillated between fascination and disgust. The flickering +torches, the soughing wind, the lapping waves, the old, old words, lent +the denunciation a solemnity which transcended the bizarre mouthpiece. +She shook off the impression, however, and asked Shelby to take her +away. + +"Yes; it's time to leave for the rally," he acquiesced. "I'll speak to +the Hilliards." + +As they turned, they saw that Mrs. Hilliard's eyes were riveted on the +widow's in an hypnotic stare. In shrill singsong the woman was +declaiming:-- + +"'So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a +woman sit upon a scarlet beast, full of names of blasphemy, having +seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and +scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, +having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations--'" + +Whereupon Mrs. Hilliard suddenly stopped her ears and grovelled on her +knees full in the light of the torches, her shoulders quivering with +hysterical sobs. There was a ripple of sensation at the prominence of +the convert, and triumphant peals of "Saved by His precious blood," +"Saved by the Lamb," "Look to Him, sister, look to Him," and the like. +Then big Joe Hilliard stolidly thrust himself into the ring, and, +raising the stricken woman, bore her away into the outer darkness. +Apart from the crowd, Hilliard shook his wife with rough kindness. + +"Wake up, girl," he said. "Nightmare's over. I guess you need a dose +of camomile." + +In the inky outskirts she presently threw off the obvious marks of her +hysteria, but by little signs another woman might read, Ruth saw hours +afterward that the spell possessed her still. Its gloom seemed to +overcast the entire evening. Either through insufficient advertising, +or the crass stupidity of the enfranchised of Eden Centre, who thought +less of their political enlightenment than the noisy saving of their +souls, Shelby's meeting proved a pitiful fiasco. Hardly a score had +gathered in the low-ceiled schoolhouse, fetid with reeking kerosene +lamps and wilting humanity; and of this beggarly handful two-thirds +were women. Shelby assumed a cheerful front, declaring that a small +audience so assembled was deserving of his best, but hewing to this +line was another matter. Womankind are proverbially indifferent to +politics; and a stouter resolution than his would have flagged in the +presence of that preoccupied feminine two-thirds, whose eyes were +centred on Mrs. Hilliard's tailor-made gown and Ruth Temple's fall hat. +Used as he was to easy victory, this first disappointment of his +campaign seemed bodeful of evil days to come. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Yet when mischief speedily befell, it wore so curious a guise that +Shelby missed its import and laughed it aside for a random fling of +jocund Fate. It began with a publisher's announcement of a volume +containing the collected poems of the author of the admired, imitated, +parodied, and derided ode on the "Victory of Samothrace," anonymous no +longer, but the avowed offspring of Bernard Graves. Dazed, +incredulous, and slow to do him honor, the prophet's own country +advanced a theory of mistaken identity. But reluctant New Babylon had +soon to recognize the young man's vogue. Through its supposed advocacy +of woman suffrage the poem had all but founded a cult, and the +disclosure of its true author, after months of guesswork and +silly-season gush, bounced and ricochetted among the newspapers with +astonishing ado. With the _Whig_ in the forefront the local press +began to echo the gossiping paragraphs and character sketches which, +true, half true, and of whole cloth, padded the lean columns of a +mediocre literary season, and New Babylon had faith. The last doubting +Thomas yielded when it became necessary to convey the celebrity's mail +to his home in a special bag; not even the ensuing plague of special +correspondents, biographical dictionary solicitors, photographers, and +worshipping pilgrims so stirred the local imagination; this surely was +fame! + +To Ruth Temple, who by some sorcery guessed his secret before its +public revelation, Graves went with his laurels thick upon him. + +"How does it feel to be a celebrity?" he said, meeting her volley of +questions collectively. "Much like a breakfast cereal, a patent +medicine, or a soap. Byron said that the first thing which sounded +like fame to him was the tidings that he was read on the banks of the +Ohio. It's different nowadays. The first taste usually comes from +seeing your name placarded on a dead wall between some equally +distinguished rolled oats and a new five-cent cigar. Personally I +think I first saw the 'gypsy' face to face when the Hon. Seneca Bowers +told me that save 'Betsey and I Are Out' he had read no poem but mine +in twenty years. That was my 'Ohio,' though of course Mrs. Hilliard's +request for an author's reading at the Culture Club was an annunciation +in itself. Am I becoming fabulously rich from my royalties? Alas! no; +I must buy too many presentation copies for people who fancy that I +obtain gratis really more than I know what to do with. Shall I write +for the stage? I could as easily write a cook book. Do I give my +autograph? Always, if a stamped envelope is enclosed. One of our +hardest-working presidents daily set apart a time for autographs; why +then should a popular writer pretend that it bores him? He is secretly +tickled, and probably collects autographs himself." + +Ruth laughed, but denied that he had exhausted her questions. + +"Why did you withhold your name from your masterpiece?" she asked. + +"Partly because it was my masterpiece,--it would be false modesty to +deny that I know it,--and I had some notion of digging a pit for the +critics. But the main reason was to confound my Uncle Peter." + +"I didn't know you had an uncle." + +"I haven't in the flesh. 'Uncle Peter' is generic--a polite lumping +together of my chronic fault-finders within the family and without. +You know him. Both masculine and feminine, he's eternally an old +woman. Everybody knows Uncle Peter, the first to censure and the last +to praise. Now, as I've been his especial tidbit and awful example for +years, I had to school myself to the thought of snatching the daily +morsel of gossip from his mouth. The murder out, Uncle Peter's grief +is pitiful. How much sharper than a serpent's tooth is a prophecy of +evil unfulfilled! It's not that he considers I've gone to work, +incorrigible vagabond that I am; it's the fact that my intolerable +idling has produced money which sets his teeth on edge--money, the +golden calf of Uncle Peter's narrow idolatrous soul." + +Ruth had no liking for his moments of acid mockery. + +"Don't let Uncle Peter overshadow your friends," she warned. + +"I'll not," promised the man. "And you--by what witchery of friendship +did you find me out?" He shifted his seat, seeking her eyes. "Ruth, +was it love?" + +She did not answer immediately. + +"Be my wife, Ruth," he said. + +"It was not love," she replied simply. + +It was one of the oddities of his temperament that at this moment he +saw himself objectively. What a subdued neutral tinted thing was life! +By all the canons of romance it was now his cue for perfervid speech. + +"What then?" he asked quietly. + +"Liking--a real liking." + +"Will it grow warmer?" + +"I cannot tell." + +"I will teach you to love me," he declared, his artistic self nudging +him meanwhile that he had dropped into the worn formula of the ages. + +Ruth did not deny him the attempt, and he undertook a lesson on the +spot, pointing out that they saw life through similar eyes; that art, +music, literature spoke with a common voice; that if true marriage were +perfect companionship, the auguries were not uncertain in their happy +omen; so on till he wearied her with argument. + +"All those things refine love," she put in at last, a little wistfully; +"they are not its essence. A man may be a barbarian and yet lovable." + +He desisted at that, and presently went away. Out of doors her words +clothed themselves with a personal application. Shelby--lovable +barbarian!--was entering the gate. + +Of what immediately followed neither man retained a clear recollection. +It was a clash of temperaments hopelessly at odds, in which the spoken +word weighed little beside the mute antipathy jaundicing the mind. Yet +the word played no small part in the sequel. Graves assured Shelby +that he should spare no effort to compass his defeat; while Shelby in +his turn suggested that the zest of the campaign would be doubled if +Graves were only his ridiculous opponent. + +Puzzling how the quarrel could have begun and hurried to its climax so +swiftly, Bernard Graves swung up the street heedless of his steps. +Then the bland colonial facade of the public library confronted him +like a smirking face and, as his vagrant fancy trifled with the +conceit, its lips opened to emit two chattering girls. + +"I was the tenth on the waiting-list," said one. + +He saw that she spoke of his own volume which she held in a triumphant +embrace with a box of caramels, and was filled with a nauseated disgust +for his handiwork. Retracing his steps he climbed to the _Whig_ +office, and finding Sprague at his desk, he swept a pile of exchanges +from a chair and drew it to the editor's elbow. + +"Volney," he asked, "does this talk of an independent movement against +Ross Shelby amount to anything?" + +Sprague's eye lit. + +"It's gathering headway every minute," he declared. "We require just +one thing--a candidate of prominence and backbone." + +Graves reached past the paste-pot to capture a fugitive match. + +"What do you say to me?" + +"What do I say!" Unwinding his long legs from his chair rounds the +editor dealt his friend a clap between the shoulders which sent his +cigarette spinning to the floor. "I say you're a trump." + +Sprague had not a little in common with the type in the political +cosmos which is contemptuously styled cloistered. Of New England +stock, like most of Tuscarora, he had been born of a later migration +than the pioneers', and was hence less tempered by New York influences +for good or ill. Begotten a generation earlier, he would have tended +transcendental pigs at Brook Farm. His earliest political +recollections were associated with heated quotations from Garrison and +Wendell Phillips, and the sharpest-etched memory of his childhood had +to do with a runaway slave harbored in his father's garret. As a man +he was given to printing Emersonian nuggets in the editorial columns of +the _Whig_, his favorite sentiment being, "Hitch your wagon to a star," +whose practical application led him over highways which knew not +macadam. He now perceived nothing grotesque in Bernard Graves's +proposal, nor did it astonish him. From his office window he had +chanced to overlook the stormy meeting of the suitors, but he gave +Graves no hint. + +"With any other candidate I can think of," he declared, "this movement +would merely signify the protest of a self-respecting minority; with +you, the author of the famous Samothrace ode,--gad! I think it augurs +victory by a handsome majority." + +Graves colored. + +"I had forgotten the ode," he confessed. "Couldn't we eliminate that +from the campaign?" + +"Eliminate it! Why, boy, it's half your platform." + +"Is it?" said the novice, drearily. "Oh, very well. I thought I +should like to run on the moral issue. Shelby is corrupt, and the +other party is certain to name some creature who would out-Shelby +Shelby if he got the chance. That seems to me issue enough for a third +candidate without dragging in my verses. I'm sick of them." + +"Do you find your royalties a nuisance?" + +"Don't be banal, Volney. You understand me. I don't want to be the +one-sided artist merely; I want to do things as well as write about +them, and I want the provinces separate." + +Sprague laughed paternally. + +"If I'm not to be banal, neither must you be impracticable. It's the +ode that makes you available and enables you to do things, and there +can be no question of dividing your personality as King Louis +something-or-other tried to do. You have placed yourself in my hands. +Very good. I assure you that I can nominate you. You should therefore +defer to my judgment. You owe me that." + +"Of course." + +"Yes; well, then. Congressman Graves that is to be, here is the +situation in a nutshell: In Tuscarora Shelby has gained ground because +of the Kiska affair. Little Poland has his lithograph in every window. +Elsewhere in the Demijohn I've reason to know that he's in exceedingly +bad odor, and that a third ticket would draw no end of support from +thinking voters who like Shelby little, but the other party less. At +present, you see, it's frying-pan or fire for them." The editor paused +to charge a discolored corn-cob pipe. "Now your coming changes all +that," he continued, tilting back in the wreathing smoke. "I tell you +it warms my heart to think of you opposing Shelby; it's a draught of +Falernian, no less. It's logically, it's romantically, fitting that +you who unmasked his plagiarism should battle with him at the polls. +Moreover, your discovery puts such a feather in your cap at the outset. +You've proved your political acuteness; you've won your spurs. It's +town talk that the credit is yours,--I acknowledge it whenever +asked,--and now that you are to enter the field, I'll blazon it to the +four winds." + +"If the world takes it as placidly as New Babylon, it will do us little +good." + +"Ah, but the world isn't so stupid," retorted Sprague, beginning to +rummage his chaotic desk. "There, sir," he went on, dragging a bundle +of newspaper clippings to the surface, "there is the world's opinion of +the exposure. Rochester, Buffalo, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, +Troy--you'll find the comments of every important city in the state +voiced by reputable journals; New York--why, New York gave it three +editorials, not one of them less than two sticks. No utterance of the +_Whig_ ever attracted such attention. I tell you, man, that, your poem +aside, your advent in politics with this thing to your credit makes you +a figure of state importance; with the ode--gad, sir, your canvass is +of national concern." + +"It sounds like a dream of Colonel Mulberry Sellers's," laughed Graves, +but he warmed to the editor's mood. "You're sure I can have the +nomination? We're flying in the face of the Boss and all his works." + +Sprague flung out his thin hands impatiently. + +"I have told you that it rests with me." + +The tyro dropped an acute, if indiscreet, observation. + +"It seems to me," said he, "that you are something of a boss yourself." + +"Every cause must have a leader. I have been the consistent head and +front of the protest against Shelbyism, and the independent movement is +of my creating. Why shouldn't I name the candidate?" + +Bernard Graves retreated hastily from this ticklish corner, and put +forward a vague supposition that there would have to be "caucuses, +conventions, and things." + +"Independent nominations are made by certificate." + +"Oh," said the young man, meekly, "I see;" which was disingenuous. He +silently debated whether this meant a species of letter of +recommendation, but was shy of asking. + +Sprague mercifully enlightened him. + +"I've the law right here," he went on, tapping a calf-bound manual +which Graves eyed with profound respect. "An independent nomination +for Congress requires at least a thousand signers who must be electors +of the district. We've ample time; it's a good three weeks before we +need file our certificate with the Secretary of State, and a fortnight +would answer to secure the minimum. But we'll not content ourselves +with the minimum; the greater our list of signers, the stronger our +argument in the campaign. Voters are gregarious, you know." + +"I've noticed the importance of bell-wethers," Graves remarked dryly. + +"Oh, but don't asperse the intelligence of the flock," deprecated the +reformer quickly. "I've been thought to idealize The People; perhaps I +do, but it is good for a man to keep sweet his faith in humanity. +There's a saying of Emerson's that fits the case if I could remember +it." He scoured his memory absently for an interval. "Well, no +matter. It occurs to me that we'll need an emblem for our ticket. The +law requires us to select some device. The eagles, ballot-boxes, +roosters, stars, and the like have all been preempted, and aren't +strikingly significant anyhow. We want something telling--a graphic +symbol of our aim. You are a man of imagination; what is your notion?" + +The man of imagination considered, and the editor's excess of nervous +force spent itself in idle forays about his desk, one of which brought +forth a foot-rule; whirling in the eager fingers, it proved an +inspiration. + +"Why not--" Graves began; "no, not that--a square, a carpenter's +square. It symbolizes everything we stand for." + +"Bravo! It's a slogan to win with. Square issues, square dealing, +square men! We'll placard every fence and barn door in the district. +A woodcut will cost next to nothing, and I'll run the posters off right +here on the premises." + +The suggestion bruised Graves's sensibilities. + +"Is that necessary?" he protested mildly. "I'd really prefer to leave +all that sort of vandalism to the other side; it's so philistine, you +know." + + + + +BOOK II + + +CHAPTER I + +Volney Sprague's flaming posters in black and red menaced Shelby from +the selvage of the district to the threshold of his door. The State +Committee had despatched him on a brief stumping tour, embracing a +handful of canal counties, a section of the grape belt, and certain +strategic points in the Southern Tier, and he had kept in fairly +regular communication with Bowers; but while that leader's letters were +usually as terse and meaty as Caesar's campaign jottings in Gaul, they +somehow failed to impress the candidate with the actual condition of +his political fences. It was therefore with the shock of almost +complete surprise that he entered his proper bailiwick to find Bernard +Graves's opposition regarded seriously. Saloons, cigar stores, street +corners, the billiard room of the Tuscarora House, all his familiar +haunts, buzzed with the vote-getting possibilities of an independent +ticket in a community where regularity had become well-nigh a fetich. + +Bowers was rudderless and irritable. + +"I advised you to conciliate young Graves," he fretted. "And what +have you done? Stroked him the wrong way ever since. I hope it's a +lesson to you to keep politics and petticoats apart." + +Shelby jeered at his inconsistency. + +"You were good enough to suggest that I make up to the woman in the +case." + +"Not in the thick of a campaign." + +Shelby's optimism was not easily dashed and he laid an energetic +shoulder to the lagging wheel. His associate's rebound from depression +was less elastic, and the candidate's thoughts furrowed a channel they +had frequently taken of late. It was plain to him that the older man +was no longer equal to the requirements of his leadership. Sound in +judgment, shrewd in the reading of men, vigorous in action as he once +had been, and on occasion could be still, he was nevertheless of an +earlier and more leisured school of politics than the present lively +generation which knew not Joseph. They knew other things--the +youngsters--strange methods of the city ward; and the philosophic +observers, who on all sides think they descry evidence of the +corruption of the country by the city, would have glibly explained to +the Hon. Seneca Bowers the causes of his inefficiency. He had come to +rely more and more on his sprightly deputy, till now, virtual county +leader and his party's candidate, Shelby, double-weighted, prepared to +wage the battle of his life. + +The demands upon his time were incessant. He would rise in his +unlovely room at the Tuscarora House, leaden from insufficient sleep, +to be buttonholed before he breakfasted--sometimes, even before he +dressed; this man must be placated, that threatened, the other +convinced by reason; another must be visited in sickness, another found +work, for yet another must gratuitous lawyering be done--all this with +jovial front and a camel's capacity for drink. This was his +domesticity, amidst which must be sandwiched conferences and +journeyings in Tuscarora County and the other counties of his district, +and speeches on behalf of the party outside the Demijohn, entailed by +too successful stumping in the past. Capping all was the perverse +closet-reformer, Sprague, and his figurehead, Graves. + +Shelby was a believer in short campaigns, and the time left the +independents for attack was brief. They retrieved the handicap by +added vigor, and subjected his every public act to merciless scrutiny. +Sprague formulated the case against him in an early issue of the +_Whig_:-- + +"We are asked," he wrote, "to publish our specific reasons for +rejecting this candidate. We gladly comply. The counts of his +indictment are many; we select five:-- + +"We refuse to support a candidate of any party whatsoever whose +nomination issues from dishonest primaries. It is notorious that the +caucuses preliminary to this man's nomination were packed. Can you +gainsay it, Mr. Shelby? + +"We refuse to support a candidate, be his nomination never so spotless, +who degrades himself and the office to which he aspires by the theft of +another's intellectual property. Can you deny your plagiarism, Mr. +Shelby? + +"We refuse to support a candidate, be his nomination irreproachable, +his sense of mine and thine otherwise undulled, whose legislative +record is tainted by traffickings peculiar to the Black Horse +Cavalry--wanton blackmailers of corporate rights. It is of common +knowledge that this man introduced in the last session a bill aimed at +the legitimate profits of a great surface railway system, which he +withdrew for no reason of public record. Can you make affidavit that +the subsequent sale of a block of that same railway's stock by your +business associate was without relevance, Mr. Shelby? + +"We refuse to support a candidate, be his nomination unimpeachable, his +intellectual honesty unchallenged, his legislative record without +stain, who, posing as the champion of our canals, nevertheless lends +himself, through connivance at fraudulent contracts and the appointment +of needless officials, to the squandering of the moneys set apart for +their use. We invite you to disprove your complicity in the wasting of +the state's millions, Mr. Shelby. + +"We refuse, lastly, to support a candidate, be his nomination as +unsullied as his personal integrity, and his legislative career as free +from 'strikes' as his advocacy of our pirate-infested waterways is +disinterested, who is yet so slavishly the henchman of his party +machine that no measure it may propose is too unsavory to enlist his +Dugald Dalgetty loyalty. By your closed lips you countenance the +land-jobbing steal which your great state Boss failed by the merest +fluke to saddle upon the River and Harbor Bill passed by the last +Congress, and purposes to press anew;--dare you vote against your +owner, Mr. Shelby?" + +To all of which, reiterated and emphasized in pamphlet, broadside, +poster, and stump speech, Shelby said publicly never a word, professing +himself a believer in the policy of dignified silence. He touched the +matter after an impersonal fashion with Bowers, however, as they read +the onslaught. + +"Give me the liquor habit, the tobacco habit, the opium habit, singly +or all together," said he, "but preserve me from the vice of rhetoric." + +Bowers had not this fine detachment. + +"I don't wish to nose into your private concerns, Ross," he began, with +visible embarrassment, "but this third count implicates me. I'd like +to ask whether that stock I sold for you in Wall Street last winter was +yours by--by--" + +"By bona fide purchase?" whipped in Shelby. "Yes, sir; out and out. +Do you think me as big a fool as this dream-chaser pretends I am?" + +"No, no." + +"Nobody should know better than you why that bill was introduced. You +brought it to me from the Boss. Those railway people forgot that their +party can't run campaigns on wind, and in his own way he jogged their +memory. I saw that. As for the stock--your skirts are clear. You +merely sold in a rising market what I bought in a falling one. If my +position gave me a speculative advantage, it's my own business--nobody +else's--not even the Hon. Seneca Bowers's." + +The county leader's working features did not resemble General Grant's. +In that unhappy moment he experienced the pangs of unhonored parenthood. + +Presently he put out his hand. + +"I'm sorry I offended you, Ross. I supposed myself too seasoned a +campaigner to mind mud-slinging." + +Shelby laughed apologies away and they parted friends. On the +threshold it occurred to Bowers to ask:-- + +"Who is this Dalgetty fellow Sprague mentions? I never heard of him in +politics." + +"Nor I. Some ward heeler he thinks I resemble, I guess." + +"He'd have made his point stronger by taking somebody that the plain +people know. That's something mugwumps never learn." + +"And there's another thing they don't grasp," Shelby added. "One +personal talk with the average voter will outweigh enough high-toned +editorials to sink a ship. When the reformer begins to rub shoulders +in all sorts of places with all sorts of men his halo won't be so +luminous; perhaps he won't call himself a reformer at all--just +politician, perhaps; but he'll saw wood." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +As a matter of fact, the independent candidate did give the +shoulder-rubbing process a trial. Within the by no means contracted +limits of Volney Sprague's paper-and-ink horizon the flurry of the +attack on Shelby threw its ripples far, but Graves shortly damped the +editor's professional delight by the remark that he had been assured of +no man's vote because of it. + +"There's the pity of our lack of time," frowned Sprague. "An +educational campaign can hardly be too long. Many a demagogue has +failed of election because we vote in November and not in dog-days." + +"You'll have to admit that you've merely revamped old material. It's +no news that Shelby has packed caucuses, stolen speeches, blackmailed +corporations, jobbed canal contracts, and grovelled to the Boss." + +"True," admitted Sprague, ruefully. + +"We need the concrete to convince. Take this canal scandal: we've seen +contracts go to Shelby's adherents on unbalanced bids, and the Ditch +swarms with his useless inspectors at four dollars a day; but can you +bring wrong-doing home to him?" + +"To prove the Champion of Canals' complicity--what a master stroke!" + +The morning after he popped into the young man's study, to the lasting +detriment of a triolet. + +"We can prove it," he exclaimed. "Gad! We can prove it!" + +Graves regretfully dropped a blotter over his manuscript and advanced a +chair. + +"I've suspected that there were men in this town who could lay Shelby +by the heels, were they to tell all they knew. The problem was to draw +them." + +"You can't expect his understrappers to quarrel with their bread and +butter." + +"No; that has been the stone of stumbling precisely, but we've got +around it. In this blessed case, Shelby himself did the quarrelling, +and thereby delivered himself into our hands." + +Bernard Graves sat up. + +"What have you found out?" + +"I've found a man who seems to know of Shelby's crookedness, and is +willing to tell what he knows." + +"Well?" + +"Jap Hinchey." + +Graves's face lengthened. + +"That beast," said he. + +"Did you expect a Sir Galahad for such a service?" + +"What would the word of such a man avail?" + +"As much as any informer's; it isn't a chivalrous office." + +"Nor is ours in employing it, to my thinking; informer and reformer +sound perilously near alike. Still, as you delicately imply, we're not +Knights of the Round Table. What has the sot had to say to you?" + +"Well, the fact is he hasn't told me anything specific," Sprague had to +admit. "The matter is still under negotiation, as one may say. Jasper +is coy." + +"Oh!" + +The lukewarm monosyllable voiced disillusionment. With a partial +return to the academic calm of his normal life Bernard Graves candidly +told himself that the actual basis of his resentment against Shelby was +trivial; that the editor's outlook on politics was Quixotic, not to say +Micawberesque; and that his own wisdom in venturing for such a cause, +with such a pilot, on such uncharted seas, was questionable to a degree. + +Sprague was not devoid of intuition. + +"I'm not rainbow-hunting this time," he put in quickly. "The fellow +knows something interesting, and he's ready to out with it. He was +employed in the Eureka quarries during the canal improvement, and saw +things, he says, that we would like to hear." + +"You talked with him?" + +"Yes; he accosted me in a side street late last night." + +"If he's anxious to inform and reform, why doesn't he? I don't like +the look of it. What does he want?" + +"You." + +"He wants me?" + +"He said he would speak plainly with you." + +Graves's revulsion was fairly physical. + +"You manage it, Volney," he entreated. "You will know how." + +Sprague shook his head. + +"He was positive on that point. It must be you or nobody." + +"I doubt if it's worth while." + +The editor lost patience. + +"It was you who reminded me that we lacked the concrete. Now I offer +it to you." + +"But in such a shape!" + +"Can you quibble over that--and in politics?" + +"No one who knows Jap Hinchey's character would believe him under oath." + +Sprague's reply was astute. + +"I'm thinking of those who don't know him," said he. "The district is +wide." + +"And an affidavit is an affidavit?" His smile was sardonic. "Very +well. I'll see him. What is Jap's At Home?" + +"You will find him fishing on the dock behind his shanty, probably. +I'd follow this thing up promptly, Bernard." + +"Yes," promised the candidate, listlessly. "I will." + +Alone, he fingered his manuscript, read it drearily, and of a sudden +tore it into little bits, the mood which gendered it gone beyond +recall. The sordid necessity of seeing Hinchey taught him afresh the +folly of his dabbling in politics at all, and his whole being revolted +against the contact with humanity in the raw which even mugwumpery +seemed to entail. Left to himself, Sprague might have headed his own +John Brown raid into the established order of things; led it with +brilliancy perhaps, in any case with honest zeal. Yet the root of his +discontent struck rather deeper than Jasper Hinchey and the cold +waterish zone of reform; Ruth had her part in it. He somehow reasoned +that his course merited her approval and encouragement; it had met with +banter. So gyved, lagged the hope of the independents to his task. + +Few towns, however small, lack their moral plague-spot, and Graves's +errand bent him toward New Babylon's, a web of alleys styled the Flats, +spun behind the business centre among the docks and rotting warehouses +of a vanished commerce. The Flats had its business too--groggeries and +a music hall where "sacred concerts" were given on Sunday nights and +men had been stabbed on pay-day; groggeries, the music hall--and worse. +The young man threaded gingerly into its dingy precincts, and by dint +of a handful of Italian, picked up in a Roman winter's sojourn to be +oddly practised on a local washerwoman sousing gay garments in the +amber fluid of the Erie Canal, he singled out the Hinchey hovel from +the squalid score it resembled. Before the sagging threshold tumbled a +many-complexioned brood of children,--they seemed a very dozen,--and in +the doorway, with arms akimbo and hands on massive hips, gaped Jap's +mulatto wife, for of such measure was the man. Graves crossed the +alley, suppressing such of his five senses as he could shift without, +and ascertained that the degenerate Jasper, true to prophecy, was +fishing from the dock in the rear. + +"Good afternoon," said the caller, affably, he thought. + +Jasper grunted without lifting his eyes from his float. + +"What do you catch here?" pursued the candidate, beaming +good-fellowship. + +The line suddenly drew taut, and a muddy fish whipped through the +sunshine within a scant inch of Graves's nose. + +"Bullheads," answered the laconic Hinchey. + +The visitor was disconcerted. + +"You--er--eat them?" he remarked blankly, eyeing first the +beery-looking water and then the ugly fish. + +"Naw," sneered Jap. "I'm foundin' 'n 'quarium." He tossed the +bullhead into a pail, and, spying a piccaninny scudding round a corner, +called: "Here, you chocolate drop, take this yer fish ter yer mammy. +Two mor,' 'n' I'll hev 'nuff fer supper. Set down," he added to his +guest. + +"Thanks," said Bernard, hunting vainly for a clean spot on the +string-piece. He lit a cigarette as a sanitary precaution, and +bethought him to offer one to Hinchey. + +"None o' them coffin-nails fer me," declined the Spartan. "I smokes +men's terbacker." + +Graves gave him a cigar which he chanced to have about him. + +"I don't seem to have a match left," he observed, fumbling in his +pockets. + +Jasper Hinchey calmly relieved him of his cigarette, lit his cigar with +it, and restored the costly importation, malodorous of fish. At the +earliest opportunity Graves dropped it in the canal, a transaction duly +noted by Jap. + +"I've been told you have something to say to me," the young man said +briskly, his social obligations seeming fully paid, and his eagerness +to be gone swamping diplomacy. + +Jasper rebaited his hook, impaling the wriggling earthworm with a +solicitude worthy of comparison with Isaac Walton's refined martyrdom +of frogs. + +"Yes," he drawled; "I kind o' 'magine I hev." + +Bernard curbed his impatience while Jap spat with deadly aim at an +eddying chip. + +"S'pose you know I've knocked round in pol'tics some?" + +The young man said that he did. He thought "knocked" a felicitous +word. Jasper Hinchey's public services had been heavy-fisted, relating +chiefly to voting blocks of drunken Poles and Italians in warmly +contested town elections. + +"I've helped 'lect mor'n one feller t' office in my day. Take Ross +Shelby now: both times he run fer th' 'Sembly I worked like a nailer. +'Cause why? He done right by me. Why I luved that cuss like--like--" +he hesitated for a simile--"like my own son," he added, with the +passing of one of his brood, and forthwith whacked the youngster for +overturning the bait can. "Jes' like my own son. An' so I should +still ef he hedn't done me dirt; ef he'd ben square. Now, you're +square." + +"I try to be," returned Bernard, ravished by the tribute. "That's my +platform in this campaign, you know." + +"Yes; jes' so. An' I rather 'magine I'll vote yer way." + +"Thank you." + +"Pro-vi-ded," Jasper added, "pro-vi-ded we c'n 'range things." + +"Arrange things?" + +Jasper's eyes wandered musingly over his interlocutor's face. + +"'Range things, I sez, an' I sez it again." + +He abandoned something of his drawl. "I 'magine I c'd tell sumpin ef I +tuk a notion." + +Graves brooked his tone with difficulty. + +"I shouldn't be here if I didn't think so too," he answered coolly. + +"Jes' so," agreed Jasper, absorbed in a sinker. "I c'd tell sumpin +erbout a party thet I 'magine you'd cock yer ear t' hear." + +"Shelby?" + +"I 'magine I didn't jes' quite say. No, I 'magine not." + +"If you will exercise your imagination less, Mr. Hinchey, and say +plainly what you have to say, I shall be obliged," retorted Bernard, +exasperated by his shiftiness. + +Jasper was unmoved. + +"Easy t' see _you_ ain't ben in pol'tics long. Wall, whut I've got t' +say is this: I used t' work fer this party off 'n' on,--this party +whose name I ain't a-mentionin'. He wuz in pol'tics too. Likewise run +a quarry an' s'm'other things t' num'rous t' mention. 'Twas in the +quarry I worked, mostly erbout 'lection time. Cur'ous, ain't it, whut +good pay a feller'll git fer light work erbout 'lection time? Wall, +this year I ain't hed proper treatment. This party 'lows money is +tight, an' he's filled his quarry up with dagoes, damned dagoes." He +paused to scowl over the shanties of his immediate neighbors and at the +industrious washerwoman up the dock. "Wouldn't it make you sick th' +way furrin labor's a-crowdin' out th' true 'Merican? I jes' despise +dagoes." + +Graves was too disgusted to reply. He recollected having heard a negro +speak contemptuously of Jews, but this case seemed yet more extreme. + +"Wall," pursued the true American, "I wuz with this party a spell when +th' state tuk a notion t' sink a few s'perfluous millyuns in this ole +ditch." + +The listener became all attention. + +"Queer doin's I seen long erbout then. Contractors is a scand'lous +lot. Many's the load o' dirt I seen hauled out thet easy, whut th' +state paid fer ez blasted rock. My, yes. But my party wuzn't workin' +at contractin'; he wuz workin' at contractors, an' he knew 'em, lock, +stock, and bar'l. He jes' owned th' whole blim pack. Thet's where his +rake-off come in. 'Twant all dirt them daisies tuk out. There wuz as +fustclass sandstun ez my party ever shipped f'm his quarry, an' f'm his +quarry docks it went." + +"You mean that this man connived with the contractors to misappropriate +state property?" + +"I 'magine I do." + +"And your party is Shelby?" + +"Never said no sech thing." + +"It's what you imply clearly enough. Now, if you wish to help us, as +you told Mr. Sprague, you must say precisely who and what you mean, and +swear to it before Mr. Sprague, who is a notary public." + +Jasper straightened. + +"Fer nothin'?" His tone was inimitable. + +Bernard Graves looked him coldly in the eye. + +"We're not bribing people." + +The loafer raised his hulking body and leered over him; the young man +got upon his feet, half expecting assault. + +"Anything we can do for you in a legitimate way, we will do," he added +steadily. + +"I want t' know." + +"You can find me at Mr. Sprague's office any morning between ten and +twelve." + +Jasper Hinchey surveyed him with scorn as he turned to go. Fumbling in +his rags, he extracted a greasy card. + +"P'r'aps you'd buy a twenty-five cent ticket fer th' Jolly Rovers' +picnic," he insinuated. "Mebbe it's not too stiff fer yer purse. They +say ez how 'tis well lined, Mr. Graves." + +"Do you know that the Penal Code makes soliciting a candidate to buy +tickets a misdemeanor?" + +Hinchey smirked. + +"A party whut I know buys 'em without askin'," said he. + +Jasper Hinchey did not call at the _Whig_ office any morning between +ten o'clock and twelve. It developed that he was engaged in some not +too arduous labor at the quarries of the Eureka Sandstone Company. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Had the fantastic bolt of the Sprague clique been left to its own +courses, Shelby would have borrowed no further trouble, but a +fortuitous matter of radishes and ice-water suddenly put the quarrel on +an altogether different level. About the hour when Bernard Graves +hobnobbed with Jasper Hinchey, the third factor in the Demijohn +District's political muddle sat down to dinner in a neighboring city. +"Chuck" O'Rourke was fond of his dinner. A childhood of squalid +poverty had taught him the joy of a square meal. The story of the +years linking the famished boy to the pudgy red-faced man of the +restaurant is unessential,--an everyday story, sordid, and barren of +romance. The present knew him for a prosperous contractor and +politician whose most conspicuous public service had been the adroit +fashioning of Tuscarora County's minority party into a compact +organization, to which the majority party found it expedient to cast an +occasional sop of patronage. He had lived and thrived in an atmosphere +of deals. Only within the fortnight had he aspired to hold office, +since his party had for years lacked the fighting chance which the +revolt against Shelby created. Tempted at last, he abruptly resolved +to enter the congressional race himself, and this same day had effected +the last dicker with other county leaders which would insure his naming +in to-morrow's convention. + +The day had gone unwontedly sultry, with a sudden flushing of autumn +with dog-day heat, and his active morning had been fraught with +physical discomfort. He had consumed quantities of beer and whiskey in +his rounds, and had looked upon the wine when it was red. His heavy +fall suit was a weariness, and as he entered the restaurant he loosed +his checked waistcoat, unveiling a row of diamond shirt studs which +galvanized the languid waiters to buoyant life. He was escorted with +pomp and circumstance to a seat in the shadiest window, swept by the +torrid breath of an electric fan. + +O'Rourke gulped a glassful of ice-water as he studied the menu card, +and motioned for more. Two other glassfuls went the way of the first, +and the negro refilled the carafe. The man pulled angrily at his limp +collar and discussed his order. Vacillating for a time between broiled +lobster and porterhouse steak with mushrooms, he cut the matter short +by taking both, and buttressed the main structure of the meal with side +dishes of banana fritters and griddle-cakes. He decided that peach +short-cake and tutti-frutti ice cream would stop the gap for desert +[Transcriber's note: dessert?], and expressed a preference for "fizz" +as he scanned the wine list. With a happy afterthought he recalled the +fleeting waiter and ordered him to fetch a cocktail as an appetizer. + +The ice-water carafe was within easy reach, and, pending the coming of +the cocktail, it lowered steadily. Hard by, also, stood a dish of +radishes, out of season, but succulent. He cleared the dish, and +meditated assault on its fellow at the table adjoining. However, the +brave advance of the lobster, the porterhouse, and the champagne bucket +diverted him, and he tucked a napkin under his flabby chin with a +genial smile. Then the smile shrivelled; waiters, porterhouse, +lobster, champagne, winked out in utter blackness, and Chuck O'Rourke +slid heavily to the floor. + +The dead man's associates met the emergency with a sharp move. The +following morning Shelby caught a persistent rumor that the convention, +wanting its slated candidate, proposed to indorse the candidacy of +Bernard Graves; which same thing, after a moving tribute to the fallen +leader, the convention with cheerful promptness did. + +The Hon. Seneca Bowers was unnerved. He had had to cope with no such +outrageous problem in the whole of his honorable career, and in a state +of mind bordering panic he packed his grip and posted to New York for a +conference with the Boss, leaving Shelby to temporize as best he might. +Nor was Shelby inactive. The O'Rourke crowd had been placated in small +matters times out of mind, and he went about the present task in the +usual way, directing one of his people to inquire what they wanted. +These hitherto insatiate gentlemen replied that they wanted nothing, +adding pleasantly that they were well content with what they had. The +possibility of a victory in a gerrymandered district, however won, was +without price. Shelby appreciated their point of view and addressed +himself to measures more feasible. If he could not shake their +allegiance to Graves, he might succeed in preventing Graves from taking +up with them, and the agencies for influencing public opinion which he +could control began accordingly to ridicule the idea of a reform +candidate's accepting such an indorsement. + +Graves refused to be drawn, and for forty-eight hours held his peace +with the aplomb of a veteran. Then Bowers came back. + +"Has he accepted?" The words were out before he could take Shelby's +hand. + +"Not yet." + +"Thank heaven. Tell me what you've done." + +Shelby recapitulated. + +"That's right," approved his senior. "There's nothing more to be done +with Chuck O'Rourke's bandits just now. Graves is the man to consider. +Is he still mum?" + +"As a cigar sign. How does the Boss take it?" + +"Urbanely, as always. He's silkier every time I see him." Bowers's +memory lingered upon the soft-spoken interview with the great state +leader. + +"Well?" Shelby jogged him crisply. + +"He knows all about Graves--as he knows about everybody. Says he has +met the scholar in politics before. Do you remember how he took care +of that kid-gloved aggregation which tried to run him out of business a +year or so ago? He dumped this distinguished kicker into the cabinet, +had another made a plenipotentiary, foisted off number three into some +windy commission on the other side of the planet, and so on down the +list. They said it seemed to be in the air that harmony should +prevail." + +Shelby laughed. + +"The Boss is the smoothest made," he owned. "What does he advise in +this case?" + +Bowers leaned forward importantly. + +"What do you think the young man would say to an author's job--some +French or Italian consulate?" + +"I'll tell you what I say: if the Boss advised that, he's growing +senile." + +"I didn't say he advised it. He merely suggested that literary people +bit at that kind of bait. As a matter of fact, he didn't advise +anything. He said if we couldn't fix things with the O'Rourke crowd, +that the situation would have to develop a bit." + +"Queer sort of talk," Shelby commented. "I wonder what he wants?" He +puzzled over it a moment. "Well, whatever develops, don't talk +consulate to Bernard Graves. The Boss is a pastmaster at side-tracking +soreheads, but there's a point involved in this case that he doesn't +grasp. Disappointed lovers are probably out of his line." + +Bowers shifted his cigar to reply, but thought better of it. His hold +on the wheel was weakening, and he remarked to his wife that night that +this should be his last active campaign. Shelby entertained a similar +opinion. + +When the two men met on the morrow the situation had indeed developed. +Persuaded against his own judgment by Volney Sprague, Bernard Graves +had consented to assume the mantle of Chuck O'Rourke, deceased. To the +repressed amusement of his new allies, he stipulated that the +employment of questionable methods should be left to the common foe, +and that they must accept him absolutely unpledged. + +Shelby ran a gauntlet of chaff to his law office that afternoon, and +found Bowers awaiting him in bilious mood. He was hazing the rooms +with gusts of tobacco smoke, a sign of nervousness in so deliberate a +smoker. They nodded curtly without words, and Shelby ran perfunctorily +through his mail. Presently he raised his eyes and met Bowers's gloomy +scrutiny lowering through the fog. + +"You look like a hired mourner," he remarked, swirling the smoke. + +"I feel like a real one." + +"Well, don't wear your weeds so conspicuously. The enemy will imagine +they have us scared." + +Bowers swore listlessly. + +"They have." + +"Don't include me. I've a little sand left, I hope." + +"It's the most serious fight we've ever had in the district. It's so +unexpected. And I can't see how we are to blame. The organization +backed your nomination cordially. We couldn't foresee that Volney +Sprague would make trouble, any more than we could know that O'Rourke +would gorge himself to apoplexy. And who, for the love of heaven, +would have thought Bernard Graves would step into Chuck O'Rourke's +shoes! I've been in politics for thirty years, Ross, with my fair +share of good luck and bad, but I've never been up against the equal of +this. It's--it's--" He broke off in despair of adequate +characterization. + +"Brace up, brace up. You need a brandy and soda." + +"I've had two." + +"Then take a glass of milk," rallied Shelby; "paregoric, boneset tea, +anything. I'm ashamed of you." + +Bowers smiled wanly. + +"You're a younger man, Ross. You can rebound. I can't any more. I'm +too old. I--I've lost confidence in myself." + +"I haven't lost confidence in myself," ejaculated Shelby. "No such +alliance of thugs and goody-goods shall down me. I'm in this game to +stay and to win." + +His stout words in some degree bolstered the discouraged veteran, and +they turned presently to a discussion of ways and means. The outlook +was not cheering. The fusion of the opposition had fallen at a time +when the funds collected to meet the exigencies of an ordinary campaign +had been mainly expended. + +"The State Committee must help," declared Shelby. "There's no valid +reason why they shouldn't. The corporations have given them everything +they asked this year." + +"I sounded the Boss. He was not encouraging." + +"Damn him," said Shelby, "what does he want?" That question would +recur. + +"We have raised everything locally that our people will stand, and you +may say that of the Demijohn generally. If there's more to be got, it +must come from those most concerned." + +"You mean me, I suppose?" + +"It's your political future that's at stake." + +Shelby drummed his desk. By and by, taking his check-book, he began to +run through the stubs, jotting figures on a pad. + +"I've spent three thousand dollars already," he said at last. "Three +thousand legitimate dollars. I've never footed it up before, and it's +rather staggering. Of course, the big items--the assessments of the +local committee and the other county committees--I had kept in mind. +What I have not realized was the constant drain of small amounts for +this and that,--printing, lithographs, bands, flag-raisings, you know +what. And treats--why, I spent over seventy-five dollars in bar money +alone the day of the Pioneers' picnic, while the County Fair meant the +price of a good horse. It's a good thing for me that the torchlight +idiocy has gone out. Still, the 'Shelby Base-ball Club' is as big a +nuisance. Three thousand legitimate dollars," he repeated. "We now +come to the illegitimate." + +The older man winced. Shelby was too frank for him at times. While he +recognized that vote-buying was of occasion necessary for party +success, he made it his boast between his conscience and himself that +he had never directly taken part in it. So now he hemmed, and merely +said:-- + +"We're fighting a mercenary foe." + +Shelby bent for an instant to his figures. Then, with offhand +abruptness:-- + +"There's something I never told you. When I went into this campaign I +mortgaged my real estate holdings here in town. I tell you now because +I must negotiate a loan on my share in the Eureka, and of course you +are the man to approach." + +Bowers started. + +"Is it that bad, Ross?" + +"Yes; it's that bad. Money's the argument now." + +"Suppose--suppose you lose?" + +Shelby considered the possibility. + +"Then I'm ruined. But I shan't lose. I shall win." + +There was less buoyancy when Bowers had left; more studying of the +check-book, much reflection and calculation. Money, money, money; the +thought hounded him. + +Down in the Temple carriage drive the worried man could see a boy +holding a mettlesome saddle horse, caparisoned for a woman's use. In +fair weather it stood there at this hour every day. To-day it was +suggestive. Shelby sprang to his telephone. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +With the stable boy's assurance that within ten minutes his horse would +stand at the curb, Shelby locked his door against surprise, and, with +an eye on the Temple driveway, made a rapid change to his riding +clothes, which he was accustomed to keep by him for emergencies. As he +finished, Ruth, lissome in her black habit, cantered daintily out with +a laughing nod to Volney Sprague, who was watching her from the _Whig_ +office over the way. His clerk was absent serving papers in Etruria, +and, hanging a mendacious "Back-in-1-Hour" sign on his outer door, +Shelby leaped down the stair. + +In the public eye he grew more sedate, and trotted soberly out of the +business district in a direction contrary to that taken by his +neighbor. Then, of a sudden, he shamed John Gilpin with a right-about, +and, circling by side streets and quiet lanes the course he had just +covered, galloped countryward in pursuit. The manoeuvre was not new to +him. He had employed it on occasion to hoodwink Mrs. Grundy for Mrs. +Hilliard's sake, scrupulously meeting and leaving the lady outside the +corporation limits, a ruse which deceived nobody save the deceivers. +Nor was it effective now. Ruth passed Mrs. Bowers's argus-eyed bay +window, as did Shelby, and Mrs. Grundy had her speculative pickings of +the event. + +Ruth spied pursuit where the turnpike elbowed sharply from the +outskirts. For a demure girl her smile was mischievous. Walking her +wiry little pony till the footfalls of Shelby's chestnut cob beat the +'pike a scant hundred yards behind, she flicked her animal ever so +lightly with her riding crop. The man saw a puff of dust, a twinkle of +little hoofs, and a lithe figure outlined for an instant against the +autumn sky as it sped over a hill and far away. The cob labored to the +crest and pondered his defeat. A half-mile down the unkempt old toll +road, where the goldenrod dropped stately bows to the purple aster, and +Bouncing Bet viewed their livelong philandering with scorn, was the +impertinent runt--walking! Down thundered the cob. No evasion now. +Two hundred yards, one fifty, one hundred yards, seventy-five, sixty, +even fifty--and again the pursued was spirited away in a cloud. + +Shelby bore it thrice, and raised his voice. Ruth's surprise was a +delightful thing to see. + +"I've tried these three miles to overtake you," he scolded. "You must +have heard me." + +Ruth surveyed the smoking cob. + +"We did hear a noise. My pony is so restive." + +"The little beast looks as demure as yourself. I believe you knew it +was I." + +Ruth's glance swept a neighboring field. + +"Have you ever associated cabbages with beauty?" she asked. "Just look +at that reach of blue-green." + +Shelby admired obediently. Then, the occasion seeming to demand a +certain finesse, he said:-- + +"There's a man out this way I must look up--a kind of farmer, drover, +and jockey rolled in one. He influences a bunch of votes. It's very +pleasant to find you riding the same way. I'm glad we met--that is--if +you--" + +Her smile stopped his limping improvisation in mid-career. + +"You needn't invent anything more," she said. "You're not good at it." + +"There really is such a man," he defended, with a contented laugh; "but +he can wait. I'd like to be quit of the political grind for a while. +May I rest?" + +"Yes; you may come," Ruth decided. + +His appeal struck a womanly chord. + +October was spendthrift of its pigments. Every isolated copse was a +mimic forest fire, each bivouacked corn-field a russet foil, the air a +heady wine. Shelby thrilled with dumb pastorals and a vague longing to +do and speak in keeping with the spirit of the scene. A tuft of oxeye +daisies in the shelter of a ruinous worm fence attracted him, and he +reined the cob from the highway to fetch them. To his bewilderment +Ruth's face shadowed at the gift. + +"Poor things--what made you?" she lamented. "I've watched them there +for a fortnight. What clumsy florist could have grouped them with the +tall grasses so exquisitely, and set the little red vine clambering +over all in the fence corner, so satiny and lichen-gray?" + +Shelby was mystified. + +"I thought that they would look smart in your belt--that all women +wanted to pick flowers when they saw them--" he stammered. "I'm afraid +I know little of women's ways." + +Her laugh was a caress. + +"Don't put my rudeness upon the sex," she said. "It's because I dabble +in paints and things that I thought of these flowers first as a +picture. But I assure you I'm just as much given to plundering them to +set off my hair and dress as any daughter of Eve," wherewith she placed +his offering, as he would have it, in her belt. He seemed to her +always a kind of shorn Samson when afield from politics, and now, as +she had often done, she drew him to speak of what he knew best. + +"I used to think you cared little about such things," he told her +presently. "The average woman doesn't care greatly. If she had the +ballot, she'd probably vote for the handsomest man--if the candidate +was a man." + +"I'm afraid I should," owned Ruth. "For instance, I never could vote +for a candidate with mutton-chop whiskers. And fancy having to decide +between two women!" + +"Vote-buying would have a scope which staggers the imagination." + +The comment set her thoughts running on the accusations of corruption +which were bandied from lip to lip during this campaign. + +"Are many votes really bought?" she asked. + +"Yes, many," Shelby answered frankly. "I shouldn't care to have you +quote me, but I'll admit that I've sometimes bought them myself." + +She was dumfounded at his candor, and half regretted it. + +"Is it--is it quite necessary?" + +"I think it is--sometimes. And so it will be till the reformers show +the practical politician a better system, or human nature changes its +spots. Indiana was bought for Lincoln in '64. It would take an +unpractical man, even an unpatriotic man, to deny that the crisis did +not justify the step." + +"Every candidate is not a Lincoln." + +"Nor every year a '64. Timid people compound with their conscience by +calling that Indiana affair a war measure. But we're talking of our +own state, whose political name has justly or unjustly become a hissing +among the nations. I don't deny there's some reason for it. We are +big, with big opportunities for corruption, and the tradition of sharp +practice is of long standing. We bribed, intimidated, and filibustered +in swaddling clothes, and stole a governorship as early as 1791. The +tricks of to-day have all gone stale with handling, for the patriots we +honor were politicians too." + +"That is a novel point of view for me," Ruth admitted. "It's so easy +to think the old time the best time." This was the pleader of the +court-house rally, and she forgot the gaucheries and limitations of a +moment since. + +"All in all, the Catilines meet their Ciceros," said Shelby; "the +Tildens undo the Tweeds. General Jackson once said he was not a +politician, but if he were, he should be a New York politician. You +see the state is an eternal riddle--'pivotal,' as the saying goes--the +mother of parties, the devotee of none; and there lies half its +fascination for the politician--I might say for the statesman. What +passes for mere politics here might well figure as statesmanship +elsewhere. We don't call our commonwealth the Empire State for naught; +its interests are indeed imperial, and it is no mean office to shape +its destinies. It is the man in politics who does this, whether you +will or no. A free government requires parties, parties require +politicians--in last analysis the mouthpiece of the sovereign people. +I dare say you're wondering what all these generalities have to do with +vote-buying in Tuscarora. I'll tell you. It's true that not every +candidate is a Lincoln, that not a few men are personally unworthy of +the offices they hold or seek; but this also is true, that many an +unworthy man is worthy of election, even by bribery,--I say it +deliberately,--because of his party's sake, for that party's success +may signify the country's salvation. You have, of course, heard sad +things said of me. You will hear more, and I shall not run around +among my friends to deny them. Worthy or unworthy, I merge my +personality in that of my party, in whose ultimate patriotism I have +enduring faith." + +Ruth was no logician. + +"I don't believe you unworthy," she said. + +"That's better than a hundred votes," laughed the man, vastly pleased. +"Let me promise you something. If I'm elected to Congress, I will do +and say everything a new member can to wipe out the tariff on objects +of art." + +It was her turn for mystification; if he had his shallows, he also had +his depths. + +Shelby did not ask if she were pleased; he saw it. + +"You wouldn't have thought it of a practical politician--one of the +'aesthetically dead,'" he smiled. "Yet it is the politician you should +seek to interest in these things. He'll see their value if he's +taught. You opened my eyes--did it in a social way, which is the best +way. It's through his social side, be it in barroom or drawing-room, +that the politician is most easily reached, for he's a human being. +Reformers don't see that; they aim at the intellect direct. You didn't +dream, in talking about art to me now and then, that you were doing a +possible public service. That's the key-note of woman's best influence +in politics, I've come to believe--unconscious argument, not +speechmaking. You have influenced me more than I can tell. I've +grown. You have broadened my horizon. Will you make it broader? I +ask you to marry me." + +It was a little moment before she took his meaning, so much did his +blunt proposal seem a part of the staccato chat of politics from which +it issued. + +"I cannot," she said at last. + +"Why?" + +It seemed ridiculous to speak of the affections to this businesslike +creature who apparently counted them not worth mentioning; so she +answered that they were unsuited to one another. + +Shelby shook his head emphatically. + +"I can't agree with you. Are you engaged to marry any one else?" + +Ruth colored under his cross-examination, but replied that she was not. + +"We'll let the question lie fallow for a time," Shelby arranged. +"Think it over impartially." + +She tried to bid him put the thing wholly out of mind, but he adjourned +discussion as summarily as he might a committee meeting, and spoke of +other topics. + +It was sundown when they neared the town, returning by way of Little +Poland and the successive quarries bordering the canal. Shelby dropped +a careless glance at the docks and yards of his own company, now quiet +with the day's work done. Then he looked again. Outlined against the +sky a man climbed to the tow-path and walked away. Shelby recognized +Bernard Graves. + +"Ride on slowly," he directed. "I'll join you in a minute. There's +something needs looking after in the Eureka." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +The intruder wheeled at the hoof-beats and waited. Purpling with rage, +Shelby thrust the cob's nozzle fairly in Graves's face. + +"You're a damned spy," he taunted. + +Graves went pale, but his jaw set. + +"You know better, Shelby," he answered, without passion. "I am here +openly. I came before the quarry shut down for the night, as your men +will tell you." + +"You're a spy," repeated Shelby, fingering his whip. "Come how or when, +you're a spy. I know your back-door tactics. You sly into other men's +private business, as you're trying to sly into politics." + +"I care nothing for any private business of yours which doesn't besmirch +your public character." + +"Besmirch!" Shelby pounced upon the word. "I know your kidney--you pure +souls who shirk jury duty and whine down taxes." + +Graves backed from the nervous whip. + +"I want no words with you," he said. + +"I dare say; but you'll have them." He reined the cob to block Graves's +further retreat, forcing him well upon the string-piece of the dock. +"You're here to smell out canal scandals," he charged. "You want to know +what became of the marketable stone that was taken from the canal prism. +You'll get your wish right here and now. I took that stone, my pattern +of civic virtue; sold it, my pink of reformers. You needn't have screwed +Jap Hinchey for that knowledge. I would have told you the truth any +time, and much good may it do you. Are you ass enough to believe that +the contractors went outside their specifications to dispose of the +spoils banks to my company? They had their warrant from Albany in black +and white. Every act was within the law." + +"The more shame upon Albany and the law; it is the letter of the law +which shelters you." + +Shelby rasped a laugh. + +"I know something of the spirit of laws." + +"I doubt not. You've helped make enough disreputable legislation to +qualify an expert." + +"What right has a dilettante like you to sit in judgment?" he demanded, +the other's barb rankling none the less that he had invited it. "You +have no notion of just political expediency; no notion even of politics +with which you meddle. Politics isn't book knowledge; it's flesh and +blood fact. Party fealty means nothing to you. You've not voted a +straight ticket twice in your life." + +"I know where that shoe pinches," retorted Graves. "You mean I've +consistently neglected to vote for you. Somehow I never could swallow +your assumption of divine right to hold office all the time." + +Shelby's fingers knotted round his whip-handle. + +"I'd like to trounce you," he menaced. "It's a hiding you need." + +"For presuming to run against you? Let me make it plain that I'm not to +be intimidated by you or any of your creatures." + +"I'd like to trounce you," repeated Shelby, hoarsely, beside himself with +the gadfly inquisition of the past few days. "I'm sick of your +pharisaical ways. I bottom your lofty motives well enough. Jealousy +goaded you into politics. You're a reformer because the heiress wanted +none of you. If Ruth Temple--" + +Graves wrenched the whip from Shelby's grasp, and struck with all his +might. The warded blow spent itself on the pommel of the saddle. + +"Stung, eh?" Shelby leaped from his stirrups and closed with him. The +cob took fright at the reeling men and pounded off up the tow-path toward +the town. + +Then another horse loomed of a sudden from out the dusk, and Ruth herself +rode straight upon them, enforcing a separation. + +"How dare you drag my name into a low political quarrel--either of you?" +No one answered her. "Give _me_ the whip." Shelby, who had regained it, +obeyed without a word. Ruth flung it far into the canal. "Now if you +will be brutes, use brutes' weapons." Wherewith she turned an indignant +back and galloped an exit from the scene as spirited as her entrance. + +"You knew she was there," accused Graves. + +"I left her in the road, damn you. I couldn't know she had seen." + +Standing on the dock's sheer edge, they glowered into one another's eyes +through the fading twilight, the great steam cranes behind flinging out +giant arms over the stone heaps, the black water below glancing with +fitful gleams of steel and copper from the sunset's last saffron +afterglow. The yellow headlight of a low-lying grain boat stole nearer, +unheeded till the straining mules toiled by. + +"I don't know what keeps me from--" + +Shelby's lips were tardy of framing what his heart lusted. + +"Fear, perhaps." + +"If you think that, then--" + +A rain of oaths from the driver warned them too late of the trailing +tow-line. They tripped together, and in an embrace of self-preservation +together fell into the cool still waters which ever draw unruffled, +though their banks smoulder with passion and political intrigue from the +Niagara to the Hudson. + +Shelby rose first, half-strangled, and laid hold upon the wall. Still +cursing fluently, the driver pulled him to the string-piece, and both men +peered out over the watery blackness, now cut with a widening shaft of +light from the boat's lantern. Graves seemed to have vanished utterly, +and Shelby made the banks echo with his name, but the canal returned no +answer. The man was now as ready to save as a moment since he had been +ready to destroy, but before he could slip again into the water, the boat +glided past, discovering Graves in dim silhouette against the gray +timbers, swimming at ease. + +With a parting curse, indicative of relief, the driver set off down the +tow-path after his mules, while Shelby waited on the brink till the boat +went by, intending aid if the swimmer's strength should fail. But Graves +was of no mind to cause him the lifting of a finger, and to the watcher's +bewilderment cut directly behind the great rudder into the swirling wake, +headed for the heel-path, which he attained with a dozen vigorous +strokes, and clambering the sloping embankment, disappeared in a clump of +willows. + +The autumn frosts nip Tuscarora betimes, but Shelby sat staring in his +sodden clothes, till he fathomed his rival's motive, and chattered forth +a laugh. Then he hurried across the dock to the little tin-roofed office +of the Eureka. He was without a key, but he rummaged a pick from one of +the neighboring sheds, forced the staple of the padlock, and, popping +into the oven warmth of the cabin, mended the fire in the tiny sheet-iron +stove. His first precaution was to drain his pocket flask, which had +somehow come through unscathed, and, as he peeled away his clinging +garments in the flickering light, he telephoned the Tuscarora House for a +change of clothing. In the reflective half-hour before the coming of the +messenger he felt a genuine regret that Graves had gone his own way. The +affair had dropped already into humorous perspective, and it seemed to +him that, had they stood side by side in this cabin, every barrier must +have fallen and the outcome been wholly good. + +Nature's reaction from the too tense hours of that crowded day was at its +utmost swing as he gained his hotel room and smoothed the roughness of +his quarry toilet. The familiar chamber revolted him; its warring colors +jarred; the nymphs of his favorite picture were devoid of blandishment. +Nor did his cronies of below stairs attract, and the liquor he had taken +left him no appetite for solid food. He craved nothing so much as rest +and human sympathy. + +Mrs. Hilliard was at home. + +"You never fail when I need you," she said, as Shelby couched his jaded +body in the cosy library before an open fire. "Joe is always out, of +course. I don't mind that--now. Milicent too is gone to-night,--a +children's party. I've been lonely--depressed. Since you came--ah, +well, see for yourself what I am." + +A maudlin self-pity, born of alcohol, dimmed Shelby's eyes. + +"It's like a home to me," he confessed, his voice uncertain. "It's like +a home." + +"And some call you hard!" Mrs. Hilliard extended both plump hands to +him. "How they misjudge you." + +"Everybody misjudges me, Cora," Shelby declared, not backward in manual +demonstration himself; "everybody but you." + +The lady released herself adroitly, and fluttered the music at a piano +just beyond the half-drawn portičre of the adjoining room. + +"Shall I play?" she asked. + +Shelby nodded like a sultan from his cushions. + +"Ragtime," he directed. "Something with a tune." The other woman had +surfeited him with classicalities. + +He built air castles as he watched and listened; fabrics furnished after +the manner of the Hilliard home and peopled by two kindred souls. If +this insidious luxury were his--the warmth, ease, leisure, Cora! He +considered the turn of her neck, her profile, the famous shoulders, now +clothed yet not concealed. She was handsome still; ripe, but not +over-ripe, ambitious, capable. They were singularly congenial, he and +she. He could have blundered worse than in marrying her, had not burly +Joe forestalled. _He_--inappreciative hulk!--was no fit mate for her. +She needed sympathy, coöperation, the fellowship of her mind's true +complement: in fine, himself. If the other woman should not--if Joe--! +He clipped the revery of its conclusion. + +In that evening's long intimacy--how long or how intimate neither +realized till afterward--the man bared his financial necessity. + +"God knows why I blab this," he ended. "I've told nobody else the whole +truth, not even Bowers." + +She lagged short of his meaning at first. + +"But you'll have plenty in time," she said. "There will be your +congressional salary and all the new opportunities." + +"Without money I may never draw that salary." + +"You don't mean you'll fail! You don't mean that, Ross?" + +He bowed gravely. + +"But it's impossible. Why, everybody will vote for you--almost +everybody. Joe alone will give you two hundred votes." + +"It will require more than Little Poland's good-will to elect me," he +smiled grimly. + +"You must _buy_ votes?" + +"Yes." + +"And you have nothing?" + +"At this moment I haven't enough ready cash to give me a decent burial." + +"Don't speak like that." She rose impulsively, and unlocked a cabinet in +the chimneypiece. "Here is a little--not much--a hundred dollars +perhaps. I want you to take it; it's mine--some of my allowance. I want +to give it to the party. And there's more. I've a mortgage--my very +own. You shall have that too--for the party." + +Shelby leaped to his feet as she thrust the bills in his hands. + +"My God, Cora," he cried, "I can't take this--your pin money!" + +She caught the notes from his protesting fingers and forced them into his +nearest pocket. + +"You shall," she pleaded; "you shall--for the party." + +He seized her hands and bent to meet her eyes. + +"Cora, Cora," he whispered hoarsely, "you're not doing this for the +party! It's not for the party! It's for me, Cora, for me--" + +"Such a nice party--party--" A fragment of Milicent's treble good nights +drifted in from the sidewalk like an echo. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Shelby waked from a restless night to confront a restless day, in +truth, an anxious week. Two things he set about instanter; he wrote a +manly letter of apology to Ruth, and he returned Mrs. Hilliard's money. +All day long he parried and laughed down fatuous comment on his +supposed cropper into the canal, for the cob had returned to his manger +and founded a theory that his master let gossip accept as true. He +dissembled with greater ease as the hours lapsed, finding reasons why +the inner history of the incident would remain secret; neither Ruth nor +Bernard Graves was likely to tell--he certainly should not. In the +evening it was bruited that Graves was sick, and the morrow's _Whig_ +diagnosed his malady as influenza. Shelby thanked his practical stars +that the ducking had had no such issue for him. By the second evening +he was doubly thankful, for the press despatches were ticking out to +whom it might concern that the distinguished author of the ode on the +"Victory of Samothrace" and other poems lay low with pneumonia. + +In common with hundreds, Shelby sent a message of regret, which, like +its fellow-hundreds, nobody at the Graves cottage found time to read. +Many of these notes and telegrams, however, found their way into the +_Whig_, but Shelby hunted its despised columns in vain for his own. +This seemed to him and to Bowers a deliberate attempt by Sprague to +stamp him as unfeeling,--to coin party capital,--and with the notion of +righting himself in the public eye Shelby determined upon a personal +call at the house. By a piece of good fortune, as unexpected as it was +welcome, he was received by Ruth, who had volunteered to lighten the +burden of the sick man's mother in ways like this. She was +unembarrassed, courteous, even kind in a formal fashion, telling him in +subdued accents what he knew she must know he knew already from the +newspapers. The patient's case discussed from every point of view, the +caller burned to forward his own concerns, to renew his apologies, to +make his peace; but he could find no opening, and shortly went away. +Yet his silence did him better service than speech. Ruth mistook his +unrest for contrition, and pitied him. + +As Graves's disease neared its crisis, with hurried summoning of +consulting physicians and rumors of a resort to oxygen, Shelby found it +impossible to avoid an occasional glance into an immediate future in +which Graves figured merely as a memory; but whatever his speculations, +he was decently chary of voicing them. Some of his party associates +were more outspoken, and the opinion was advanced over the Tuscarora +House bar that, the loss to literature aside, the young man's +taking-off could not but simplify the political situation. The Hon. +Seneca Bowers, being of the old school, quaintly declined both +speculation and discussion. + +The day of the crisis Shelby saw Dr. Crandall step from his phaeton to +his little sham Greek temple of an office at the foot of his lawn, and +followed him. The bluff physician greeted him with a scowl. + +"Well, sir?" he jerked out, fumbling and smelling among his bottles. + +"I wanted news of Graves." + +"I doubt not." + +The words of themselves were innocuous, but the doctor's hammering +emphasis was formidable. + +"I resent your tone," protested Shelby. + +"And I, sir, resent your inquiry." + +"You must have received many like it. However, you may keep your +bulletins. Those of the consulting physicians are probably more +reliable." + +With this shaft he turned, but Dr. Crandall was beforehand and closed +the door. + +"Not yet, sir, not yet," he said grimly. "I have a bulletin for you, +deem its worth what you will. And I have more. I must administer some +nasty medicine. My patient will recover, sir, and no thanks to you." + +"I don't know what you mean." + +"Yes, you do." + +"You accuse me of lying--" + +"Bah, sir, stop your ruffling. Now for your physic. At the instance +of my lifelong friend, Seneca Bowers, I consented against my better +judgment to preside last month at your ratification meeting, and so +lent you, as I may say, my public indorsement. I shall not publicly +stultify myself by repudiating that action, but my vote, thank Heaven, +I never pledged. I warn you, sir, that, as sure as I see the sun rise +on election day, I shall cast my ballot for your opponent, or my name's +not Crandall." + +"Very well," sneered Shelby, coolly. "If your political allegiance +follows your fee, there's no more to be said." + +"I am stoically indifferent to your slanderous imputation," fumed the +doctor, his manner a very Judas to his words; "but I assure you there +is more to be said, and that I purpose to say it. I have yet to tell +you that you are a blackguard, sir, a violent blackguard, whose proper +level is the ward cesspools of the metropolis where crime and politics +stalk hand in hand. Medical science will save the man you would have +done to death." + +Shelby passed the vituperation, puzzling how much the irate doctor knew. + +"Is your patient's delirium contagious?" he asked. + +"Ha!" cried the doctor. "You do take my meaning." + +"It's clear enough that you are hinting at foul play on the flimsiest +of evidence." + +"Evidence, evidence! I want no surer evidence of your intent than poor +Bernard's wanderings; there's method, sir, even in delirium. If I +wished further proof, the fact that you too were in the canal that +night would suffice." + +"Fevered maunderings and a coincidence!" Shelby laughed him in the +face, too contemptuous to set him right. "Keep your vote, you pompous +ignoramus," he jeered, and left him sputtering. + +Worsting the choleric physician in argument was a mere matter of +keeping one's own temper, and Shelby took no pride in his victory. It +was a relief to know that he knew so little, but the possibility +remained that, in the weakness of convalescence, Bernard might let fall +details more damaging than Dr. Crandall's tissue of half-knowledge and +inference. Ruth and pneumonia eliminated, the quarrel might have +become public property and welcome, with a likely chance of its working +to his advantage; but, alas, he himself had dragged Ruth into it past +all elimination, and now Bernard's sickness had whipped up a sea of +maudlin sympathy which exposure might easily precipitate in a political +tidal wave. + +From this day forth, event crowded event. The news from the sick-room +was the signal for renewed activity all along the line of battle, and +the spectre of his great need haunted Shelby with added terrors. +Bernard Graves's allies, apt disciples of the late Chuck O'Rourke as +they were, jumped at the shining possibilities laid open by their +candidate's condition, and, abetted financially by their State +Committee, set a pace in corruption unprecedented in the checkered +history of the Demijohn. Volney Sprague was powerless. The +freebooters listened sedately to his protests and redoubled their +offending, well aware that in their candidate's chamber politics could +have yet no place. Far from the turmoil, the celebrity ate the jellies +of his idolaters, and spent his waking hours in the impractical +companionship of a certain Shelley and one John Keats. + +The beset leaders strained the machine's every cog to meet the +emergency. Out from a corner of the Chairman of the County Committee's +safe came a pudgy manuscript book which few eyes ever saw,--a book made +up of voters' names, their party, and at times their price set down in +strange symbols which the initiated might translate into terms of +dollars and cents. Probably every county committee in the Demijohn +Congressional District could show the like. There was earnest thumbing +of these volumes, with changing of symbols to fit changed conditions, +and the call went out for money. Little came. The State Committee was +deaf to argument or entreaty, and the Demijohn seemed drained. Shelby +and Bowers personally did what they could. For reputation's sake, the +old leader went down deep into his pocket, while Shelby tossed into the +breach everything he realized from his mortgaged quarry interest which +long outstanding debts did not require. Nor were these latter +inconsiderable. Involved in innumerable schemes which sapped his +capital without prospect of ready dividends, it seemed to him that +every land syndicate, stock company, insurance policy, what not, of +them all was demanding instant propitiation. Brave it out with Bowers +as he might, Shelby walked none the less in the shadow of a mighty +fear; and had not Mrs. Hilliard left town for her annual autumn round +of the shops of New York, he could have gone to her prepared to accept +her supremest charity. + +In his blackest hour the distracted man encountered the Widow +Weatherwax. Since her sibylline performances at the camp-meeting he +had seen little of her, the fascination of will-making being +temporarily eclipsed by a local temperance crusade led by Mr. Hewett, +which enlisted the full energy of her not inconsiderable powers for +conscience-guided meddling. The parson had deemed the time ripe for a +war on the groggeries of the Flats, with the outcome that most +bar-rooms of the town, including that of the Tuscarora House, were +found to be violating the Sunday closing law. In the legal +unpleasantness which followed, Shelby's name figured as attorney for +the hotel proprietor, one of the lawyer's regular clients. It was a +purely formal service, without moral implication of any sort, but it +bared Shelby's whole legislative record on the liquor question to +pin-prick attack, and cost him, as he now learned from her shocked +lips, the invaluable political support of the widow. + +Buttonholed while crossing the court-house lawn, and backed into a +corner between the county clerk's office and the jail, Shelby had to +listen with what patience he might to her denunciation of what she +called his vile concord with Belial. + +"Yes, yes, Mrs. Weatherwax," he wedged in finally; "but we can't all +think alike. Now if you were a liquor dealer's wife, you would sing +another song." + +The widow shuddered. + +"Me!" Another shudder. "Me marry a saloon keeper! Me!--a W.C.T.U. +and a I.O.G.T.!" + +Shelby grinned. + +"They say I.O.G.T. means 'I Often Get Tight.'" Somehow he could not +resist the ancient rural fling. + +"You know well 'nuff 'tain't," retorted the widow, indignantly. "It's +the Inderpendant Order ov Good Templars, and I'm an orf'cer with +regalyer. It's purple, and has gold lace." + +"I'm amazed at your wearing such fripperies," teased the man; "but you +must look simply ravishing." + +The widow was bomb-proof against humorous attack. Drawing herself to +her full height, as she might clad in full regalia of purple and gold, +she mouthed:-- + +"'I loath, abhor, my very soul with strong disgust is stirred, when +e're I see, or hear, or tell ov the dark bev'rage ov hell.'" + +The dumpy little figure, swelling like a pouter pigeon's, was so +irresistibly ludicrous that Shelby forgot his troubles and threw back +his head in a gust of laughter. + +"Think it's funny, I s'pose." Her face was vinegar. "'Tain't to be +expected a boy brung up in a distillery 'ud know better." + +Shelby sobered. + +"Confine yourself to facts, please," he interposed. "My grandfather's +entirely respectable distilling business was closed out before I was +born." + +"'Twa'n't b'fore your pa was made a drunkard, Ross Shelby." + +He went red with impotent anger. + +"By God!" he swore. "If--if you were a man--" + +"There you go a-swearin' at a poor weak female." + +"Let me pass," he choked. "Let me pass. I don't know what I may say +to you." + +She stepped aside. + +"Go," she said, with a fat little gesture. "Mebbe you've got pressin' +business. Mebbe you want to write billy-doos to Mrs. Hilliard. Mebbe +them opery glasses needs dustin' off s'more." + +He fled lest she say worse. + +Clearly William Irons had been wax in the widow's hands, and on his +auburn head would have fallen the accumulated spleen of weeks had not +the youth met his employer at the office door with a telegram whose +portentous message engulfed all lesser cares. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Shelby read, pondered, and finally roused from his preoccupation to +meet the bovine stare of his clerk. + +"Railway guide, William," he ordered sharply. + +"Yep." + +"And call up the station agent. Have him wire for a lower berth on the +Lehigh to-night." + +William Irons waited. + +"Go on, go on," called the politician, crossly, glancing up from his +time-table. "Have you foundered halfway?" + +"Nope. You didn't say where to." + +"New York, New York." + +"Yep," said William, placidly. "What train?" + +Shelby left off staring at his blotter for an instant, to fling him the +information. William Irons rubbed one long leg against its fellow as +he leaned to the telephone and ruminated the mystery of this impending +flight into what was for him the great unknown. This air of suppressed +excitement had never attended Shelby's departures. + +"Goin' to use it yourself?" he inquired. + +"Is the station agent aching to know?" + +"Nope," returned William, frankly. "He didn't ask." + +"Then you needn't. Now get Mr. Bowers's residence, and ask if he is +there." + +"Got him," announced the clerk presently, as if he had trapped a rat, +and stood expectantly aside. To his disappointment Shelby merely made +an immediate appointment at the Bowers's home. More bitter still, he +took the message with him. + +"Lightning has struck," Shelby greeted the old man ten minutes later, +handing him the telegram. "I've been ordered down to the Boss. This +means make or break." + +The Hon. Seneca Bowers unslung his glasses and slowly read the summons. + +"I guess it had to come," he commented. + +"Oh, yes. Things have reached lowest ebb. In fact, they're so low +that you must put up my car fare." + +Bowers assented readily. + +"Whatever you need you shall have, Ross. You must go in good style." + +Shelby pocketed the sum which he thought would meet his travelling +expenses and listened to his friend's rather dolorous words of +encouragement. + +"I think he'll do right by you," Bowers concluded feebly. "I think +he'll do right." + +Shelby jerked a grim smile. + +"The Boss always does right--when it pays." + +In the smoking-room of the Pullman that night the traveller was +accosted by an unctuous person who looked like a race-track tout. He +would have described himself as a man "interested" in legislation; he +had been described by other people as a lobbyist, but that was in the +days before the machine absorbed the lobby. + +"And how does the Hon. Calvin Ross Shelby find himself?" beamed the +new-comer, dropping into a seat alongside. "Busy days in Tuscarora, +eh?" + +"Yes; busy days, Krantz," assented the harassed man, concealing his +annoyance under a cordial greeting. If ever he had needed a quiet hour +it was now, and he had sought the smoking-compartment because with a +carful of women and children it seemed to promise solitude. + +"Shall miss you around Albany this winter," Krantz said feelingly, +exploring the pockets of his horsey waistcoat for a cigar. "We always +got along so well together." + +Shelby was silent under this moving reminiscence. + +"I'll have some of my Washington friends look you up," pursued the man. +"They're good fellows, all of 'em." + +"Thanks," said Shelby, without enthusiasm. "Better wait till I'm +elected." + +"My dear sir, can you doubt? Your resplendent gonfalon, if I may so +express myself, has ever been Victory's chosen perch." + +"I've pulled a majority hitherto." + +"And you will, you will. In fact"--his voice fell--"we think it such a +foregone conclusion that one of my friends who is looking over the +prospective House wants to make your acquaintance. You're sure to +jibe. He's interested in the unlucky River and Harbor scheme." + +"Oh." + +Krantz looked out at him from underneath his saurian lids, and blew a +smoke ring toward the rococo ceiling. + +"Through an option or two I'm rather interested myself," he continued +smoothly. "I'd like to see every good man indorse a good thing. I +haven't been told what your opinion is." Getting no answer, he added: +"Of course we expect to pull the thing off in this winter's session. +If not, then the fight goes into your House. Between ourselves, just +where do you stand?" + +"You don't need to be told that it's a gigantic job." + +Krantz's benevolent features expressed blandest regret. + +"Now isn't it a pity that misconception should be so widespread?" he +exclaimed, apparently to the writhing ornaments of the ceiling. "Isn't +it a pity? But it's so often true! Take that street railway bill of +yours last winter: how that enlightened measure was denounced!" + +Shelby scowled. + +"We're talking of Washington." + +"They've a lot in common, Albany and Washington." + +"I don't want them to have for me." + +Krantz laughed. + +"How reform does drop its gentle influence round! Has the fusion +movement in Tuscarora converted you?" + +"No," Shelby answered. "I've grown." + +Krantz looked bewildered, laughed a little, and asked point-blank, +"Shall you come out against us?" + +"You'll know in Washington." + +"If elected," qualified the man. + +"Naturally." + +Krantz rang up the porter to ask if his berth were ready, rose, yawned, +and shed a benevolent smile. + +"From things they're beginning to say about Tuscarora down at +headquarters," he remarked impersonally, "I venture to predict that +we'll know within twenty-four hours. Good night." + +The River and Harbor bogy wove the pattern of Shelby's troubled dreams. +In a way, he had grown, as he liked to think, and by this touchstone he +knew it best. Whatever his practice, his quickened ideals were loftier +than of old, and across the future's broader field, should it be his to +till, the man was honestly ambitious to trace a straighter furrow than +his ploughshare had ever turned. But his past and the insistent +present seemed to hamper every forward step. It was an open secret +that the disciplining of the man he hoped to succeed had issued +directly from his refusal to stand with his colleagues in this +question, and Shelby in his heart approved his course. He did not +anticipate that he should meet a like dilemma; the winter session of +the old House would doubtless settle the matter, as Krantz had said; +but Volney Sprague had harped upon his possible action so incessantly +that he could easily see why the organization might wonder at his +silence. Was the time for speech, then, so near as this creature +warned? + +Yet he took a certain comfort in Krantz's companionship in the morning, +as from the crowded ferry he watched the city's sky line detach itself +from the mist. Notwithstanding his legislative career, New York was +almost an unknown country, and this battlemented mystery overawed him +like a frowning bastion. It challenged the alien to do and dare, but +it quenched his individuality. Krantz, obviously, was hardened to its +lesson. He elbowed the jostling pack in the ferry slip as one of them, +called the elevated road the "L," and was otherwise enviably +sophisticated. Shelby imitated at a distance, but the hall mark of the +outsider was too deep for ready erasure. He would persistently +apologize to people with whom he collided, and surrender his car seat +to standing women. + +He had mentioned a Madison Square hotel as his destination, and on +Krantz's saying that he meant to stop there briefly, too, it fell out +that they approached the room clerk together, and that Krantz +registered for both. So it chanced that, unknown to himself, the +candidate was entered with a fine flourish as the Hon. Calvin Ross +Shelby. The two men breakfasted together, and Krantz presently went +about his business, leaving Shelby in some quandary how he should +employ the interval before the hour appointed by the great leader for +their meeting. For a time he loitered in a window overlooking the +restful oasis of the square, a place of fountains and pleasant leafage, +dominated by a graceful tower which served as footstool for a shining +goddess on tiptoe to greet the morning. His eyes were not long bent +upon the goddess,--he did not "live with the gods,"--nor yet upon the +greenness, since he had lived all his days with shrubs and trees; he +watched the commingling ride of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, watched till +it dizzied and saddened him. What did he count here? + +Presently he returned to the desk with an inquiry concerning his room. +There had been a shift of clerks since his arrival, and the newcomer +asked his name, his impassive scrutiny travelling from the man to the +signature, and from the signature back to the man. A youngish person, +looking the successful broker or lawyer, who had been chatting with the +clerk, saw the movement and imitated it as Shelby walked away. + +"And you said there were no celebrities," he bantered. + +The clerk shrugged listlessly. + +"The 'Hon. Calvin Ross Shelby,'" read the reporter. "There ought to be +a story in a man who has the nerve to subscribe himself like that in a +New York hotel. What do you know about his pathetic case?" + +"Stranger to me," the bored one unbent to say. + +The questioner spied a fellow-reporter whose specialty was politics. + +"Billy," he demanded, pointing to the register, "who is the Hon. Calvin +Ross Shelby?" + +"Candidate for Congress in the Demijohn District," returned the +political expert, promptly, smiling at the signature. "Rather +picturesque fight the honorable is having. He's bucking a fusion +opposition headed by the author of that popular poem about a statue. +Where is he? I want to see him. There's nothing else doing here." + +They pursued the stranger down the corridor, overhauling him at the +entrance of the cafe. + +"The Hon. Calvin Ross Shelby, I believe," said the political reporter, +lifting his hat, and naming the newspaper he represented. His +companion, who looked like a broker, but whose present mission was to +screw copy out of hotel arrivals, followed his example, and the group +was almost immediately increased by three more well-dressed +cosmopolitans with ingratiating manners and a scent for news. + +Five New York reporters hanging on his words! To achieve this giddy +pinnacle on the heels of calling himself an atom seemed to Shelby +almost to pass belief. Somehow he rallied. + +"Gentlemen," he beamed, "I'm glad to see you. Have a drink." + +No liquor distilled could add to Shelby's intoxication. It was not +reporting, this swift interchange of trenchant thought between men of +the world; or if reporting, a sublimated sort, free of note-books and +the disconcerting trademarks of the guild as he had known it elsewhere. + +"I can't understand the hostility felt by some public men for the +press," he remarked, thumbs in armholes, coat lapels thrown benignly +back. "Our relations, I take it, should be confidential." + +Practice followed precept, and in that delightful atmosphere Shelby's +confidences flowered like young May. Tuscarora County was put through +its paces for a gaping world; Clinton's Ditch--"well-spring of New +York's commercial supremacy, gentlemen"--shown in rosiest apotheosis; +the Empire State pedestalled imperially among the nations. Nor could +his versatility be bounded by politics alone. The inevitable allusion +to Bernard Graves's poem involved literature, and to stand, as he did, +under the same roof with the nymphs who had long bodied forth his +pictorial ideal, was to invite a public avowal of his proposed +championship of free art. He was lured the farther into this quagmire +by the guileless questioning of one of his listeners, who lingered in +obvious fascination after his fellows had departed, and, in happy +ignorance that the cherubic youth was the son of an artist of +distinction, and himself no mean critic of things artistic, Shelby +voiced opinions more vigorous than discreet. + +"There was a time," he confessed apropos of the nymphs, "when I thought +those ladies the best ever. Young eyes won't hesitate between a plump +Venus and a lean Madonna." + +"And now?" + +"Well, I haven't altogether renounced the world, the flesh, and the +devil, but my taste has changed. A good animal picture fetches +me,--something like Rosa What's-her-name's 'Horse Fair' you've got +up-town in Central Park. I call that big art." + +"Big art; that's the word," agreed the cherub, shaking hands. "It +measures 197 x 93 1/2," he murmured to his cigarette. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The Boss was an awesome figure to up-state politicians, and Shelby +approached his place of business with a trepidation not wholly owing to +his tangled fortunes. It was his first visit. There had been meetings +between them at Saratoga conventions, and more times than a few he had +furthered the leader's indirect ends in the Albany committee-rooms and +on the floor of the Assembly; but greater than Shelby had found it +impossible to penetrate the great man's inner circle at Saratoga, and +their subterranean dealings in Albany and elsewhere had usually been +transacted by way of Bowers. The Boss's methods were circuitous, cog +fitting smoothly to cog till the remote agent rather than himself +seemed the prime mover. Only in emergencies was he direct. + +His apparent aloofness multiplied his power. He held no office; he +made no speeches; he had no obvious axe to grind. He seemed to count +politics his diversion, not his business, and emphasized this attitude +by a strict supervision of the huge commercial enterprise whose head he +was. He arrived in this company's offices punctually at ten o'clock, +and here he was readily accessible throughout the working day, a figure +as politically unprofessional as one could imagine. Yet politically he +was as absolute as a boss ever is. At once the most abused, hated, +dreaded, liked, and respected man in the state, fables without number +clustered round his elusive personality. One account would paint him a +church deacon, frock-coated, smug; another with cloven hoof. He was +said to be a Hedonist, a Marcus Aurelius; a glutton, an ascetic; a +satyr, a pattern of domestic virtue; an illiterate Philistine, a +collector of book plates and first editions. A legend, widely current, +ran that he played chief bacchanalian at dinners whose vaudeville +accompaniments were too gross for a bill of particulars; while another, +equally plausible, had it that he lunched daily on a red-cheeked apple +raised on the farm which had cradled his undistinguished infancy. He +was popularly known as Old Silky. + +Shelby's card barely preceded him into the Boss's presence. It was not +a sumptuous throne-room; an austere chamber rather, one might without +exaggeration say a roomy cell, with puritanic chairs and khaki-colored +regiments of letter files. There were two concessions to a softer +scheme of life,--a lounge and a bowl of red chrysanthemums, both with +associations. On the lounge, which parenthetically had lesser though +not less interesting memories, a President-to-be had sat a suppliant, +while the bowl, always flower-heaped, recalled an hour when a +tempestuous petticoat, his protégé, had swept straight from operatic +triumphs to shower roses at his feet. This ruddy bowl lit a broad, low +desk from which now advanced a gray-haired man of a certain shy +friendliness and modulated tones. + +"This is right obliging of you," he said over the hand-clasp. "Don't +tell me you've already lunched?" + +Shelby had, but dissembled, his tone dropping in unconscious imitation +of the leader's. Every apprehension forgotten, he yielded instantly to +the charm of his unassuming friendliness. + +"Then you must honor me. Five minutes with these papers and I'll be +with you." He turned to a pile of type-written letters awaiting his +signature, his whole demeanor a graceful protest against this retarding +of their pleasure. "Here are the afternoon papers if you care to look +them over; they come upon us before the ink is dry on the morning's +batch. No, no; not that uncomfortable chair, Mr. Shelby. Take the +lounge, I beg of you. Stand on no ceremony here. This is Liberty +Hall." + +Somebody should write the philosophy of chairs. One may retain +convictions in furniture which is palpably vertebrate; lapped in +billowing upholstery it is a moot question; and like many a caller's +before him, Shelby's brain tissue became a jelly of flattered +complacency. It sufficed merely to simmer in a sense of equality with +the silver-haired gentleman at the desk. The Boss! He had heard that +the great man loathed the homely title his leadership entailed. It was +not pretty; but its rough forceful Americanism had never struck Shelby +as inept till this moment. Applied to this suave yet virile creature +it fell grotesquely short, missing the key-note of his supremacy. Set +back some centuries, this Boss would have been his Eminence the +Cardinal. + +It may be doubted had the Boss actually worn the red hat whether a +procession of liveried messengers could have impressed Shelby more than +did a small desk telephone half concealed by the chrysanthemums. Its +bell tinkled incessantly, and with infinite patience the leader +interrupted his work again and again to answer it, seeming from +Shelby's vantage point to murmur secret messages into the petals of the +flowers. The dismembered half of a telephone conversation is not +ordinarily illuminating, and the Boss's words in themselves said +little. How tremendously much they might connote, the visitor as a +business man and a politician thoroughly appreciated, and his +imagination did the occasion something more than justice. Desk +telephones were unknown in the simpler Tuscarora world. + +Thus the five minutes were lengthened out to ten, and then with +apologies to a quarter of an hour. Shelby's eyes dropped to the +newspapers on his knee and fastened on a headline-- + + "SHELBY AND THE DEMIJOHN." + +It required a second reading. The absorbing present had for the moment +sponged the morning's happenings from his thoughts. To remember +explained without cheapening the sensation. He was used to a relative +prominence in the rural press, but neither this nor the talk with the +reporters had prepared him for inch-high capitals on the first page of +a metropolitan newspaper. What New Yorkers thought of this particular +newspaper was a detail. + + SHELBY AND THE DEMIJOHN. + + A Sidelight on the Storm Centre of + the Most Picturesque Political + Fight in the Empire State. + + The Opponent of the Author of the Ode on the + Victory of Samothrace talks of his Rival + for Congressional Honors and his Book. + + MR. SHELBY'S VIGOROUS VIEWS ON THE + ISSUES OF THE CAMPAIGN. + + +There followed a well-spiced "story" in which Shelby, with his diction +chastened and his colloquialisms omitted save where they lent a racy +strength, was made to say the things the reporter concluded he ought to +have said--it was a party organ--and to sparkle after a fashion which +is actually attained by few in the presence of the interviewer. Even +at his weakest he was caused to shine. A kindly platitude he had let +fall anent Graves's book astonished him as he met it again; the merest +crust upon the waters, under the reporter's manipulation, it returned +to him a filling loaf:-- + +"But," said Mr. Shelby, "is the production of literature, however +delightful, the fittest school for official life? This, I conceive, is +the whole issue between me and this gifted youth whose illness I +deplore." + + +It would have been well had he stopped here; but he turned to the other +papers. There was no repetition of the first page glory, his +eulogist's contemporaries entertaining other ideas of space; but he +found his name in most of them. + +"MR. GRAVES'S OPPONENT HERE" + +"That virtuous spellbinder of county fairs, the "Hon." C. R. Shelby, +reached the city to-day arm in arm with the notorious Jake Krantz. The +character of this aspirant for congressional preferment in the +so-called Demijohn District may be readily judged by the company he +keeps." + + +Shelby needed no plainer signpost than the style to warn him that he +had fallen foul of the caustic journal which had flayed his plagiarism. +He stole a glance toward the desk, wondering whether the Boss had read +these things. Then he ran hastily through the scurrilous perversion of +his words. Could nothing curb this tyranny? + +Yet a greater indignity was in store. His cup brimmed at the discovery +that in the cherub also he had cherished a viper. His mortification +was too keen for the perusal of more than an occasional phrase: "Art's +New Patron"--"The Champion of Canals couches a lance against the tariff +on art"--"his naďve canons of criticism"--"judges a picture by its area +of canvas--the bigger the better." + +"Scoundrels!" he suddenly rapped out, crumpling the papers in his +disgust. + +"I beg your pardon?" said the Boss, gently, peering over the +chrysanthemums. + +"I beg yours. These--these reporters have misrepresented me." + +"Dear me! Do you mind that? You shouldn't. One has to be Jekyll or +Hyde. There's no happy medium. But luckily the public takes care of +that. Trust the public to guess, Mr. Shelby, that you're neither an +art critic nor an ass. And don't be rough on the reporters," he added, +getting up. "They work hard for a living, poor boys. Caricature is +the press's peculiar tribute to the significant." + +Outside the door of the private office Shelby's face suddenly froze. +Several newspaper men had gathered to question the Boss, and among them +the victim recognized one of his detractors. The impulse was strong to +snub, but taught by the leader's example, he smiled instead and dropped +a friendly nod. + +"Seeking whom you may devour, gentlemen?" inquired the Boss. "So am I. +It's past my lunch hour, you know." + +With a dozen words he outlined the matter over which they were +exercised, called one and another by name, shunted an inconvenient +question, told a little story, and had slipped out of the building with +Shelby before the pupil realized that the interview had fairly begun. + +"I like the boys," he declared. "They slate me, but we're good +friends." + +The incident impressed Shelby only less than the desk telephone, and +the walk to luncheon intensified his respect. The Boss explained that +he ate at a mid-air club rather remote from his place of business +because it compelled a chestful of fresh air; and Shelby underwent the +unique experience of promenading busiest Broadway with a man to whom +people bowed on every hand. The Boss took it all as equably as the +country lawyer might his morning salutations between his office and the +Tuscarora House; but to Shelby, from Trinity to St. Paul's, and from +the City Hall to the granite sky-scraper, whose elevator shot them +story after story to the roof, was a splendid triumphal progress. It +was a democratic people's homage to power. + +The big green and white club dining room in the sky took up the +wondrous tale. Greetings everywhere, and jovial beckonings to join +this group and that. At the great man's instance, however, they were +placed at a table for two, whose outlook seemed to the stranger to +embrace the kingdoms of the earth. Life, pulsing life, as far as the +embarrassed eye could carry; life in the mazy streets below; life in +the forking estuary's tide; life, eager red-blooded life, to the crest +of the horizon's hills! Nerve ganglion of a continent, market-place of +a world! Shelby swept the panorama again and again as his host gave +his quiet orders to the waiter, tracing the Hudson from the +shipping-crowded bay till its blueness melted in the haze beyond which +lay the commonwealth, the empire, whose political destinies seemed to +rest in the hollow of this man's hand. It drugged the senses to +attempt to gauge his power. + +The Boss was speaking of Tuscarora and the Demijohn. Out of painful +experience he had come to believe that the truest privacy is the +privacy of the crowd, and indeed the mounting chaff and chatter of the +lunch hour insured isolation most complete. He was speaking of +Tuscarora and the Demijohn, and it had begun over the salad, apropos of +Bowers. + +"His political usefulness is at an end," said the leader. "There was +nothing tangible to be got from him at our last conference, and I +determined to send for you." + +Shelby essayed a middle course between expectation and regret. + +"He says it's his last campaign, poor old chap." + +"Yes," concurred the Boss, without sentiment; "we talked it over. It +was our opinion that the organization requires younger blood--in fine, +your own." + +"Mine?" The query was perfunctory. + +"You logically succeed--on a condition." + +"A condition?" + +"Your election to Congress." + +After a moment Shelby said:-- + +"It's an incentive to work." + +"It's the least you've to work for, if you will permit me to say so." + +"I don't understand." + +The Boss was silent while the servant changed the course. Then he +searched the younger man's eyes. + +"Let me point out what your election may mean," he went on. "It has +been an unusual contest. Mr. Graves's candidacy has interested an +audience which is fairly national in its scope. If victor, you will +take your seat a marked man, equipped with a prestige uncommon to +newcomers in Washington. You will have defeated a celebrity, and you +will stand accredited one of the party leaders of your state." + +Shelby's eyes widened. + +"One of the leaders?" + +"I mean that I like you." + +While the waiter brought the finger bowls the significance of the +simple words burned into Shelby's brain. The two men lit cigars and +waited; Shelby's was gnawed to shapelessness. Left to themselves +again, the Boss said softly:-- + +"Two years from this fall the governorship should go to your section." + +Shelby's color mantled and ebbed, leaving him white. + +"Our choice,"--the Boss's purring note sank--"our choice, if my poor +opinion should carry weight with the convention, our choice will be +you." + +Before Shelby could force a broken word of acknowledgment from his dry +throat the Boss had plunged into a keen analysis of the situation in +the Demijohn. Local statistics, finances, patronage, men's names, +habits, and characteristics, the minutest details, were at his +finger-tips, and the conclusion of the whole matter drove home like a +sledge. + +"Your election hangs on money; on your election hangs your future." + +"I've spent every cent," returned Shelby, with slow distinctness. + +"Yes; I know," was the quiet rejoinder. "I have hoped that the State +Committee would do something. The circumstances are, as you say, +unusual." + +The Boss leaned across the table with a smile. + +"Why mince matters, my dear fellow? You shall have any sum you ask if +you will assure us of one thing. You have left your friends in doubt +as to your attitude toward the River and Harbor unpleasantness. Not +even Bowers could enlighten us. Now as far as the enemy is concerned, +it doesn't matter, but it does matter to the organization. The project +was abused beyond all reason--though that is neither here nor there. +Whatever the captious may call it, the thing has become an organization +measure, and as such a test of loyalty. Are you loyal?" + +Shelby turned his drawn face toward the window. Truly he had been +brought up into a high place and shown the kingdoms of the earth. + +"Yes," he answered; "I'm loyal." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +In leaving his party headquarters up-town two hours later, Shelby trod +air. Accustomed to eschew a too nice scrutiny of means if the end +seemed meet, he merged every doubt and queasiness in the recurring tide +of hope. Everything ministered to his profound content--the great +leader's parting assurances, the flattering reception at headquarters +which followed, the leap from need to affluence. It was another +atmosphere, another sun, another city. + +The afternoon gayety of the streets was wholly to his mood. One need +not be an atom here. To concede a little, to dare a little--that was +the Open Sesame. He held his head sturdily erect. He looked the +impudent city in the face, its equal. With the sense of equality +budded a tolerant liking, a Go-to-Old-Ant-Hill frame of mind, with +admixture of charity. He must study the Ant Hill, find out its +interests and its needs, since from the chrysalis of the country +legislator was shortly to evolve the statesman whose constituency was +the state. The thought was broadening--surely he had grown!--and +fertile of large sweeping views of things and men. Why be petty? A +human signboard advertising Bernard Graves's volume for ninety-eight +cents, with the privilege of return, evoked no unkind thought against +his rival; and from this loftier plane he could see even the morning's +rencounter with the reporters in an indulgent light. He bought later +editions of the afternoon papers that he might rehearse the episode +from his new point of view, and was disappointed to find that where +some fresh sensation had not crowded him from print altogether, he was +dismissed to out-of-the way corners which nobody read. Yet this, too, +he met with a statesman's broad philosophy. + +"Lady in hansom wants to speak with you, sir." + +Shelby had drifted into the shopping district with some vague notion of +visiting a wax-works museum, dear to the rural heart, and was loitering +among the novelty fakirs who lined the crowded thoroughfare. He turned +to confront the liveried carriage attendant of one of the great +department stores, who, indicating a cab at the curb, repeated his +message. With the hansom's doors thrown wide to display her gown, sat +Mrs. Hilliard, smiling. + +The man strode to her side and caught her outstretched hand. + +"Cora," he exclaimed, in undertone, "you're the handsomest woman on the +street!" + +If there had been anything more remote from his purpose than this +meeting, it was this speech. He knew of her presence in the city, he +knew her address; but from prudential motives he did not precisely +formulate he had determined not to go to her. + +"Get in," she murmured, her pleasing color heightening. "We mustn't +block the way." + +Such superior tact in the face of urban conditions impressed him,--he +would have stood gossiping, as in New Babylon's sluggish streets,--and +almost without volition he obeyed. + +"The Avenue," directed Mrs. Hilliard. + +"Which?" asked cabby, his florid face filling the trap. + +"Fifth, of course," said the lady, with annoyance. + +It has been remarked that Mrs. Hilliard aimed to be cosmopolitan, and +it is pertinent to add that one of the chiefest delights of this, her +annual pilgrimage, was to ride the livelong day in hansom cabs. People +in the sort of fiction she was fondest of "called a hansom" at least +once a chapter. + +"You never came to see me," she accused, as they drove on. + +"You can't know how busy I've been." This was well within the truth, as +was his further statement that he knew no good could come of calling at +the Waldorf at this hour. "You have proved that I should have missed +you." + +"But your card wouldn't. It would have had its silent message. Do you +realize that we haven't met since--" + +"We've met now," he interposed hastily; "and I'm another man." + +"Don't tell me the old one's wholly gone." + +"Never fear. I forget nothing. I appreciate what you wanted to do for +me--what you have done; but the necessity is past, thank God! The load +is lifted--there's money to burn--I'm free, free!" + +"Dear friend," said Mrs. Hilliard. "You make me so happy." + +"And I've been honored," he exulted. "I lunched to-day with our great +leader--and, Cora, whatever they say against him, he is indeed +great--and he was more than kind." It was near his lips to hint of the +rosy future, but he spoke instead of a lesser, though nearer prize, +which the day had assured. "He believes in me, and he has asked me to +return home by the governor's own special train!" + +"I knew it, I knew it. I was sure that they would appreciate you at +the last. I've seen the papers, too, and I'm so proud. I want the +people at home to know that the big outside world is awake to your +importance. Even New York journalism pays its tribute." + +"Did you--er--read all the papers? One has to be Jekyll or Hyde, you +know," he added, appropriating the Boss's illustration without +compunction. "Some of them were--facetious." + +"Indeed I did not. I only skimmed the horrid ones; but the others I +read through and through, and sent them home. I threw the spiteful +ones away. They were jealous of your success." + +He smiled a little at this. + +"Not rabidly jealous, I guess." + +"The governor's train!" She made him as elaborate an obeisance as the +hansom's contracted limits would permit. "And yet you condescend to +take the air with humble me." + +He laughed joyously. + +"I feel like a boy with a holiday," he confessed. "I'm free--free!" +He kindled at her suggestion that they make it a holiday in truth, and +repeating, "I'm free," gave himself to the spectacle of the street. + +Mrs. Hilliard suddenly remembered to be cosmopolitan, and bringing her +lorgnon into action, returned stare for stare as their driver threaded +his dexterous way through the clattering, glittering maze of four +o'clock Fifth Avenue. + +With bewildering facility, she named the owners of the great +houses--usually striking amiss, though Shelby could not know--and from +some little experience with New York horse shows, could recognize an +occasional carriage occupant. Her adaptability abashed him, setting +her mysteriously apart from the woman whose past had been so intimately +linked with his, and not until they tacked across the plaza into the +wooded entrance of the park, which somehow suggested Tuscarora, did he +pluck up the old sense of comradeship. There were still glittering +equipages in plenty, and at every turn benches black with sightseers, +for the day was a bit of summer gone astray; but this and that +bright-liveried copse or shining pond or meadow cropped by sheep evoked +the familiar setting of their other rides without effacing the city +towering beyond. + +"I guess you were born for this kind of thing, Cora," he broke the +silence. + +The woman gave a flattered little laugh which tapered to a sigh. + +"You, too, were meant for something wider than Tuscarora," she +returned; "and you will get it,--get it here, perhaps. The great New +Yorkers are usually country-born, you know. You'll find your niche--no +small one; find it and fill it; while I--? Ah, well; this isn't the +talk for your holiday." + +He brushed her sleeve with a light pressure. + +"Make it your holiday, too. Let yourself go." + +"Our holiday, then," she assented; "no past, no future, just here and +now." + +Copying nature's lead, the character of the park changed by and by; the +way rose from a sun-shot ravine and wound a wooded hill full of forest +scents and subdued surf-like echoings of the city's roar. Strange rock +upheavals with writhing strata flanked the by-paths, a mystery and an +invitation, and the man and woman left their hansom to shuffle, a pair +of children, in the fallen leaves. A squirrel, tame to familiarity, +pushed his nut-begging little nose fairly into their fingers. + +"How perfectly Edenic," murmured Mrs. Hilliard. "I feel as if there +wasn't another human being besides you on earth." + +Paradise before the Fall had its dinner problem to discuss, as witness +the apple affair, and so presently had Shelby and Mrs. Hilliard. But +it was the man, not Eve, who put the idea forward as the fitting climax +of a memorable day, as perhaps did Father Adam, though she it was who +ran the garden's resources through, and decided which to choose. The +talk had ranged from Sherry's and Delmonico's to Chinatown and the +Ghetto, when Mrs. Hilliard recollected a place ideally suited to the +occasion. + +"It's on Riverside Drive, and overlooks the Hudson," she explained. +"I've heard Ruth Temple speak of it, though I can't remember the name. +The driver will know; it's historic." + +The driver did know, and whipped them smartly out of a park exit where +the heights fell abruptly away and the elevated railroad far overhead +twisted a wriggling S into Harlem's sixth story. Then the land again +rose sheer on gray curtains of masonry, splashed red with October ivy, +lifting city on city. A cathedral's beginnings, looking a ruin, now +cut sharply against the sky, neighboring a hospital with the facade of +a chateau. Then they skirted a pink and gray university grouped about +a dome, and a great man's tomb which might have been a Titan's +pepper-box, flourishing presently between files of waiting hansoms and +automobiles to their destination. + +The restaurant was crowded, but they luckily succeeded to a just +vacated table by a northern window which swept the valley. A sunset of +myriad tints and opalescent fires made molten copper of the river and a +carnival float of every craft. + +"We have it clear to-night," said their waiter, as if the establishment +somehow deserved the credit. "You'd not think that big cliff to the +left was opposite Yonkers. That's Fort Washington nearer on the right. +A fight came off there up on the heights, you know. Washington had to +look on from the Palisades and see the Hessians bayonet his troops. +They say he wept." + +Mrs. Hilliard considered him through her lorgnon, but the man was busy +with the napery and escaped punishment. + +"The house is pretty famous, too," he went on. "Joseph Bonaparte lived +here for a while, you know, and when Fulton tried his steamboat--" + +"Yes," interrupted Mrs. Hilliard, icily, "we know." + +"Beg pardon," returned the servant, taking the order slip. "Out of +town people generally like to be told." + +"It's no use, Cora," rallied Shelby, at the first opportunity. "You're +handicapped. You'll never pass for a native while I'm along." He +divined that she was vexed, and shifted instantly. "Thank you for +bringing me here. After this day of ours we couldn't have picked a +finer sundown." + +"Sundown--and the end." + +Shelby threw her a glance, and beckoning the waiter, added champagne to +his order. + +"We'll not let the celebration peter out in the dumps," he declared. + +She demurred faintly. She was unused to wine with her meals, she said; +Joe had old-fashioned ideas about women and wine, and so on; but in the +end they shared the bottle equally, and the holiday took a new lease of +life. Night set in before they finished. The river went black and +mysterious, the shipping lights winked forth like glow-worms, and the +illuminated walking beam of a ferry-boat minced a fantastic progress +from shore to shore. The sometime home of the ex-King of Spain +flowered within and without with electricity, and life simplified +itself to cakes and ale. + +From the steps they watched their hansom detach itself from the long +line of yellow-eyed monsters waiting in the outer gloom. + +"It must end now," sighed Mrs. Hilliard. "There's the theatre,--why +not? New York is so big." + +"I must not." + +"Nothing heavy. Say burlesque or vaudeville?" + +"If I dared--" + +Shelby put her in the hansom and gave the driver the name of a music +hall. The lights of the theatrical district charmed the last prudent +doubt away. + +There was a moment's embarrassment at the ticket-office. The little +theatre they had chosen enjoyed a considerable vogue, and the man at +the window could offer nothing less than a box. Shelby was staggered, +but recalling his affluence, flirted a bill through the opening and +neglected to count his change. Not until the usher had brought them to +their box did Mrs. Hilliard comprehend the situation. She whispered, +"Oh, Ross!" hesitated an instant, then entering, laid aside her wraps +under the opera glass inquisition invited by her blond hair. + +"How could you?" she murmured, as the house darkened. + +"I wouldn't back down before that ticket-seller with you there behind +looking so handsome and swell." + +"We should never have come." + +Shelby caught her fingers in a reassuring squeeze. + +"Don't you worry," he enjoined. "This isn't the Grand Opera House of +New Babylon." + +Perceiving that other men smoked, Shelby lit a cigar, and as the +plotless play began to unfold its tuneful fooling Mrs. Hilliard forgot +to be apprehensive. She observed in the audience another woman with +blond hair sipping something from a glass, and wondered if she were +missing an opportunity to be cosmopolitan. If so, she deemed it the +part of wisdom to remain provincial, for it had not escaped her notice +that since dinner her mental processes had undergone some subtle +change. For one thing, her sense of humor had quickened. Joe had +often maintained she had none. If Joe could see her now! No; that was +not her meaning precisely; but at any rate, it had quickened. How +every antic of the comedians appealed to her! The excessively tall and +the excessively short Germans who talked into one another's teeth; the +young person who sang coon songs in a fashion not negro, but all her +own; the giant with a boutonniere which a midget mounted a step-ladder +to spray; the famous plump beauty whom Shelby whispered she +resembled--all the merry-andrew company won her laughter and applause. + +Once Shelby laid a restraining hand upon her arm, but she laughed the +more. When the curtain fell on the first act and the lights went up, +she was laughing still. She wondered why New Yorkers stared so. +Perhaps they, like Shelby, who had oddly shrunk into the shadows of the +box, thought she resembled the plump beauty for whom cigars were named. +She stared back at them collectively, for somehow they seemed to wear +one face. It was a thin, clean-shaven face, with keen eyes behind +glittering glasses; a familiar face--the face of the editor of the +_Tuscarora County Whig_. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +"You had better walk to the hotel," Shelby suggested. With the darkening +of the theatre for the second act he had piloted his companion to the +street. "It's but a little way." + +It proved a great way as he contrived it. Striking across town to one of +the quieter avenues they paced block after block in the teeth of a wind +which smacked of salt. At length Shelby brought their steps to a right +about and headed for their destination, just short of which his charge +abruptly halted with an hysterical in-take of breath. + +"Not yet," she protested. "I can't go in yet. I must think it out here +with you. I daren't alone. I'm afraid of something--of myself--I don't +know what--" + +The man bent a critical glance upon her. + +"No; I guess you're not quite fit," he decided. "On we go." + +"It's awful! He, of all people!" + +"Bad mess." + +"He could ruin me." + +Shelby readily pictured a few ruins of his own, but chivalrously +refrained from their presentment. His predicament occurred to her, +however. + +"And he could defeat you--" + +"Never mind me." + +"I can't stop minding; it's too late. I've minded so long--too long and +too much. I've put you before Joe--before Milicent even. I've--" + +"Don't say anything you'll be sorry for," he interposed, turning into a +side street. "You're on your nerves--flat on your nerves." + +She promptly proved his assertion by slipping without warning from his +side. They had chanced abreast of a rambling little church tucked with +its trees and shrubbery and greensward amidst buildings which dwarfed its +tower to a pretty toy. Some droll giant might have plucked it out of +Trollope and set it here to throw off its atmosphere like a fragrance +from rectory to chantry. Its lich-gate held an image before which Mrs. +Hilliard melted in a welter of devotion. + +"Tommyrot," fumed her guide, nonplussed at this new vagary. + +Ignored, Shelby braced himself patiently against a pillar in the dusky +recess while the penitent knelt and pattered in deeps of contrition which +the ministrations of her low-church rector in New Babylon had never +plumbed. But patience vanished at the sound of footsteps up the street. + +"Quit it, that's a good girl," he begged, reconnoitring. + +Despite the lively devil's deputy at elbow the appeal wavered on. + +"It's a policeman coming. He'll think--" Shelby broke off his +conjecture to utter some banality about the moon, to drown her +invocation. Wayside prayers were no more a novelty than wayside curses +in this region, and the officer rolled indifferently by. "Now go back to +your hotel, and get to bed," pleaded the man, gasping like a criminal +with a reprieve. "Things will look brighter in the morning. I'll be in +to see you before my train leaves." + +Her devotions at an end, she issued docilely to the pavement, saying, +"You can't know the comfort." + +"It's a pity it isn't contagious," commented Shelby, grimly; but before +they quitted the shadows for the lights of Fifth Avenue he added gently +that he begrudged her nothing. + +Directly he saw the elevator whisk her to her room, the man posted back +to the music hall in search of Volney Sprague. What he should say to him +was not clear, but see him he must. Out of the jumble of his thoughts +that idea beset him like an obsession. The audience had begun to trickle +into Broadway, and as the stream broadened to fill the doorway he was +hard put to it to scan every face, but he persisted till the last +loiterer had left. Then an attendant told him that the place had yet +another exit upon another street, which, beyond all doubt, the editor had +used. + +Baffled, but not without resource, he turned again to the newspapers and +rummaged the lists of hotel arrivals for Sprague's unnoteworthy name. +Naturally too obscure for mention! Yet in the same breath it started out +at him from miscellaneous political gossip as one of the day's callers at +the headquarters of a local revolt against the machine. Shelby construed +the visit as a still hunt for funds, and, in the light of his own +financial rebound, meant to have his chuckle from it, should he ever +unhorse the worry by which he was hag-rid. Consulting a city directory, +he set forth on a fagging tramp from hotel to hotel--a quest barren of +result for the excellent reason that Sprague, according to his custom, +had registered at the Reform Club. + +Late to bed, and after persistent sheep-counting, much later to sleep, +Shelby woke with the morning far advanced and the hour of his departure +near. It was necessary to eke out his wardrobe with a purchase or two +against the journey with the governor, and between his shopping and his +breakfast, the deliberate talk he had meant to have with Mrs. Hilliard +bade fair to dwindle to a handshake. As the morning brought no grounds +for optimism, he was not altogether sorry that the interview must be +short; indeed, by daylight his own necessity seemed the more pressing; +but he faced his obligations, and prepared himself for the rôle of Sturdy +Oak to Mrs. Hilliard's Clinging Vine. His astonishment, therefore, was +doubly great when he learned that the Vine had developed a backbone of +its own, and left the hotel, bag and baggage, upward of an hour ago. + +Being a practical man, Shelby promptly made friends with the baggage +agent, who recalled that the "blond lady's" belongings had been forwarded +to the Grand Central Station,--Shelby's own destination,--whose +waiting-hall the perplexed candidate was shortly scouring in pursuit. +The sequel was unexpected. He did not find Mrs. Hilliard, but he did +stumble fairly into the arms of Volney Sprague. + +Startled, but outwardly self-assured, he half offered his hand. + +The editor gave him a perfunctory good morning, but his own right hand +made no movement to free itself from the magazine whose leaves he had +been turning at the news-stand. + +Shelby slid his extended fingers forward haphazard to a learned +periodical, which fell open to a discussion of cuneiform inscriptions. + +"Are you bound for Tuscarora, too?" he inquired. + +"I'm going home." + +"Which train?" + +Sprague named his train after a leisured moment's study of an +illustration. + +"That's my own--or will be, rather, till Albany, where our car gets its +own engine. I'm in for a day or two's campaigning with his Excellency; +rear end speeches, and that sort of thing, you know." + +The editor was unimpressed. + +"If you care to drop in, I'll introduce you to the governor." + +"Thanks, no. We've met." + +Shelby's color mounted under repeated rebuff, and his self-respect was +nil; but a sincere desire to shield the woman whose folly he had abetted, +rose beside the spectre of defeat to drive him on. + +"See here, Sprague," he said abruptly; "that was an awkward thing last +night--" + +"To see me?" + +"The general look of it," came laboriously. "You understand I--she--" + +"Excuse _me_," put in the editor, dropping his magazine and backing off. + +Shelby anchored him by a lapel. + +"We've got to have this out. I want you to understand that she was +unwell--despondent--malaria, you know--and resorted to--" + +"Laughing gas is your plausible defence." + +Shelby went brick-red. + +"Be a gentleman," he said. + +"Gad!" Sprague quenched a wry smile. "And from you! What are you +after?" + +"Are you going to use this?" + +Volney Sprague started, glared, and fell to violent polishing of his +eye-glasses. + +"After all," Shelby blundered on, "she has been your friend--entertained +you--the club and all that--and you couldn't--" + +"Did she send you to me?" broke in Sprague, fiercely. + +"She? No. I'm responsible. I thought perhaps you--it's been a bitter +political fight--you might be tempted--I admit it is a temptation--to +make capital--" + +"Gad!" The editor spat out his favorite ejaculation as if it were a toad. + +"We ought to spare her--to spare a woman." + +"Don't, don't, don't," protested Sprague. "Can't you see--can't you see +that no decent man--no; you couldn't see that. Use a thing of this sort? +Faugh!" He swung on his heel and plunged through a nearby doorway to the +open air. + +The result was tangible, but he had paid for it with the most abasing +quarter-hour of his life, and Shelby, too, craved another atmosphere. +And he obtained it. The governor, his private secretary, one or two +members of his staff, a state senator popularly known as "Handsome" +Ludlow, and the newspaper correspondents who were to accompany the party, +were clustered sociably in the observation compartment of the private +car, and on Shelby's entrance every man jack of them got upon his legs to +welcome him, as if the Boss had twitched them by unseen strings. His +Excellency clapped him graciously on the shoulder, the staff officials +and the secretary reflected and passed on the gubernatorial warmth, the +senator pressed cigars, and the newspaper people, whose habit was to lump +all personages as frail humanity, went through their introductions like +the good fellows that they were. It was unlooked for, delightful, +insidiously flattering--a plain intimation that he had become a star of +greater magnitude. + +"We're due to pull out in three minutes," the governor told him. "I was +really worried about you." + +In their several echoes the secretary and staff conveyed that they too +had known alarm. + +"Fact is, we bank on you to mesmerize the rural vote," put in Handsome +Ludlow, jocosely. "You'll work your passage all right, all right." + +The jest carried a covert truth. They did count on Shelby, and Shelby +did work his passage in sober earnest. The governor who sought +reëlection was a mediocrity of means--a barrel, as the phrase goes--whose +function in campaigning was to draw checks, shed radiance on cheering +crowds, and make way for speakers who had something to utter besides hems +and haws. No one could be less fitted for the five-minute give-and-take +talks from the rear platform than this amiable figurehead, and no one of +his company was so much at home in it as Shelby, on whom the brunt +swiftly fell. The senator, the staff officials, and even the poor +governor were passable in the deliberate evening meetings for which they +were billed in this town and that--though here, too, Shelby frequently +snatched the honors; but the heady victory over the chaffing, brawling, +even missile-throwing packs surging round the car wheels and up the +steps, was always his and his alone. Suggested to fill an unexpected +vacancy, he was quick to appreciate that chance, and the Boss had given +him the opportunity of his life; and with an eye on another campaign two +years hence, and with the heartening thought that by now the State +Committee's dollars were implanting convictions throughout the Demijohn +District's fertile soil, he put forth the impetuous best that was in him. + +Nor was Shelby's best contemptible. The charge up the canal counties had +not measured half its course before the increasing crowds, the space +given his doings by the correspondents whose good graces he seduously +[Transcriber's note: sedulously?] cultivated, the deference of his +Excellency and his chameleon staff, all told him that the glory of what +the party organs courteously styled the "governor's brilliant dash" was +his and not the governor's. + +"What we didn't count on," observed Handsome Ludlow, with a touch of +envy, "was campaigning with a whirlwind." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +So Shelby came in triumph to his own people, the governor at his +chariot wheel, and fought the last stubborn week of his campaign. His +mail was now burdened with invitations to speak, but he made few +speeches. + +"The voter a speech will influence has made up his mind," he said to +Bowers. "The heart-to-heart talk is the trump card of the eleventh +hour." + +To play this card required a prodigious amount of travelling about the +district; and between these activities and the speaking engagements he +was in promise bound to fulfil, Shelby saw little or nothing of New +Babylon till midnight of Saturday, which was the virtual end of the +canvass. Seen again, as he viewed it now, the town would look raw and +provincial despite patriotic throes of self-deception. On moonlit +nights the New Babylon Electric Light and Power Company hoarded its +energies, and an inky pall accordingly lay over the muddy streets which +the pale melon rind in the clouded zenith did nothing to dissipate. +The contrast between this niggardliness and the midnight brilliance of +up-town Broadway was inevitable, and the jolting Tuscarora House free +'bus came readily into unflattering comparison with a certain +rubber-tired hansom cab. Naturally midnight, a jaded body, and the +Tuscarora House free 'bus might well jaundice any scene; but the +returning native recognized these as accidents merely in the phenomenon +of his changed vision. + +The hotel bar-room was boisterous with the usual Saturday night +gathering of the set which in its innocence supposed itself fast, and +the maturer poker crowd, Shelby's own cronies, was in protracted +session elsewhere in the building; but he managed to evade them all and +lock himself in his ugly room. For some sophisticated weeks he had +suspected the household gods here assembled to have feet of clay. Now +he knew it; but with the feeling that the place was a temporary husk at +best, he avoided a too particular inventory of the pseudo-marble clock, +the vases of pampas grass, the album, and the garish pictures against +their background of pink roses blushing in a terra-cotta field, and ran +drowsily over the little pile of accumulated mail. + +With one exception he found a politician's budget, and the exception +brushed its fellows imperiously aside. It was a tinted intriguing +thing, faintly odorous of patchouli; its contents without date, +superscription, or signature, though for the reader the scent was Mrs. +Hilliard writ large; a single straggling line of characterless script. + +"Why," it inquired, "have you forsaken me?" + +The man yawned. + +He awoke refreshed and lay in snug indolence listening to the rival +sextons pealing first bell for Sunday service. Whatever their +doctrinal disputes, the churches of New Babylon made a shift for +concord when it came to bell-ringing, whose stately performance was +regarded by no less a theological expert than the Widow Weatherwax as +"spiritoolly edifyin' and condoocive to grace." Drifting between +cat-naps Shelby usually found it a fillip to the fancy. He would +detect infant damnation and argument for sprinkling in the deep boom of +the Presbyterian bell, and instant dissent in the querulous note of the +Baptist, whose echo droned "i-m-m-e-r-s-i-o-n" to infinity. This was +the cue for a jaunty flaunting of apostolic succession on the part of +the Episcopalian sexton, only to be himself reminded by the First +Methodist that there were bishops and bishops. So on, assertion, +rejoinder, surrejoinder, and rebuttal, till the dispassionate +philosopher in the pillows wearied of his conceit and directed his +thoughts toward breakfast. + +From breakfast Shelby ordinarily turned to the sporting columns of the +Sunday papers, but today he found his thoughts reverting to +church-going as a not unpleasant sedative after the storm and stress of +his campaign. Reasons multiplied: it would be a sop to the prejudices +of no small body of the voting population; an act of tolerance worthy +of a mind open to broad horizons; a lightning-rod for supernatural +approval of his cause; and a simple means of falling in with Ruth +Temple, since by a happy coincidence Ruth Temple and a large block of +the church-going vote worshipped under the same spire. Some little +time later, therefore, Shelby was ushered to a prominent seat in the +midst of a decorous flurry of excitement which stirred the Presbyterian +congregation from choir-loft to rearmost pew. Unknown to the visitor, +the Rev. Mr. Hewett was scheduled to preach on the ethical issues +involved in the present election. + +The minister entered the pulpit almost immediately and laid eyes upon +Shelby as he announced the opening hymn, coloring at the discovery. +His voice wavered perceptibly in the earlier parts of the service as +the absorbed congregation noted; but by sermon time he had conquered +his nervousness, and with set jaw thundered out his text from Jeremiah: +"Why trimmest thou thy way?" With this entering wedge the parson clove +into an analysis of practical politics which did not stick at +instancing corruption near at hand, and whose climax was a bitter +denunciation of ignoble leadership and the doubly ignoble laxity of the +indifferent led. It was as pointed an attack on local conditions as he +could frame without complications with his deacons, who were +politically of divers minds, and the fusion managers might have used +its final exhortation to "vote your conscience" as their own +ammunition, without altering a word. + +Shelby sat under it all like a graven image, careless of the raking +fire of eyes from every point, sang "America" with unction at the +close, and advancing with the benediction to the pulpit stair, +congratulated the bewildered clergyman on his "effort," and before he +could conceive, much less deliver, a coherent reply, slipped down a +side aisle and greeted Ruth. + +"Vigorous, but intemperate," said he, "and typically ministerial. The +right road and the wrong road in politics don't abound in sign-posts, +and pretty frequently both carry grist to the same mill." + +The riddle of his character piqued Ruth at that moment as it never had, +and before they separated he obtained permission to call upon her after +tea--a privilege which he interpreted as license to present himself +betimes and stay to an unconscionable hour. Yet he talked fluently and +well, and went out at length into the night tingling with the +consciousness of having touched fingers with the higher life of his +cherished aspirations. By the token of Ruth's interest, moreover, he +took hope that he had not been found wanting where he was most +ambitious to excel. It was a thing to lay to heart, an epochal page in +his history which sleep alone could fitly round. Nevertheless, a +disturbing impression of something essential left undone haunted the +borderland of dreams to remain formless till morning, when his pocket +handkerchief jerked a note odorous of patchouli to his bedroom floor. + +It was annoying. Of course Mrs. Hilliard had a certain claim, and had +he been less occupied on his return from stumping the state with the +governor he would have gone to her. By rights he should have made the +effort to see her after receiving this message--yesterday, in fact; +yesterday the golden. He would have gone, too, if--frankly, if the +stature of the man he had become had less exacting ideals of womanly +perfection. To the grown man of broadened horizon Mrs. Hilliard had +come indubitably to seem a bore. Still, she had her claim. + +"I'll drop in after election," he decided, and laid his hand to the +day's work. + +It proved a long, hard pull, made up of details petty enough in +themselves, but considerable in their relation to the whole scheme of +his defence. However, he reached its end cheery in the belief that the +sun of Tuesday would light no Waterloo. + +"I'll win," he said to Bowers. "By no walkover, I admit; but I'll win." + +"M-yes; I guess, but by the narrowest margin the Demijohn ever gave. +The slightest flurry might snow us under." + +"I'd stake my head on it." + +"Some who have betted less than that have hedged." + +"Who?" exclaimed the candidate, quickly. + +"Tuscarora House sports--I won't mention names--but poker friends of +yours." + +"Sandy lot, they are," broke out Shelby, contemptuously. "I hope you +counteracted the effect." + +"I instructed some of our people to cover everything they would put +up," Bowers answered dryly. "You know I don't bet myself." + +Shelby guffawed and clapped him on the shoulder. + +"Same way you don't stoop to buy the purchasable? Lord! If the +Tuscarora floaters only knew their Santa Claus!" + +But Bowers merely coughed. + +Tickled with his joke at the expense of his associate whose handling of +the State Committee's saving aid had been masterly, Shelby went to his +evening meal in a humor which even a second note from Mrs. Hilliard +could not damp. In scent, brevity, and chirography it was the +counterpart of the first, telling him that the nameless writer was +wretched, and begging him to come to her. The appeal found him in a +softened mood. Viewed at the close of an irksome day, Mrs. Hilliard's +society had attractions which his hypercritical mind of the morning +hours slighted; and while her message in itself left his withers +unwrung, he concluded that it was perhaps as well to break gently with +"poor Cora" now, as later, when possibly greater growth and broader +horizons might create barriers yet more awkward. Under a show of +letter-writing, accordingly, he lingered in the hotel office till he +was certain that Joe Hilliard had joined his boon companions of the +billiard room, when he let himself quietly out of doors and made his +way to the quarry owner's home. + +"I was afraid you might come, and then that you mightn't," the woman +whispered, in the obscurity of the hall. "Joe had a headache, and said +at first that he wouldn't go out to-night; but he went." + +"Yes; I know. Servants out?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"And Milicent?" he pursued, scorning hypocrisy. + +"I let her go away for the night. The poor child needed a change." + +As they left the hall he discovered that she was in evening dress--the +black gown glittering with jet beads and bugles which she had +introduced at the first autumn meeting of the Culture Club. He held +her hand high, and turned her slowly round after the manner of the +dance. + +"Did you do that for me?" he asked, his face lighting. + +She nodded. + +"I wore it the night of your nomination, and I put it on to-night to +bring you luck at the polls. Was it silly of me?" + +"Not if somebody else doesn't see." + +"Joe'll not see. I shall have gone to my room before he comes. I'll +not keep you long. It's enough that you've proved you cared to come. +It's a crumb of comfort in my wretchedness." + +"You know I've been on the jump," he returned, adding dryly, "You don't +look as wretched as your note led me to expect." + +"You can't know." + +"Not till I'm told." + +"The scene there's been, I mean." + +"Scene? What scene?" + +"With Joe--about you--New York--everything." + +"There wasn't need for a word. Nobody's blabbed. I saw to that. I +went to Sprague in New York." + +"I told Joe," she confessed. "You didn't come that morning--and I was +frightened. I thought if stories were to get to him, I'd best be the +one to tell them. So I left at once." + +"If you had only waited." + +"If you had only got word to me." + +They fell into explanation of their several movements, from which +Shelby, white-faced, suddenly cut loose, saying:-- + +"What does he know? For God's sake, what does he know? What did you +tell?" + +"Oh, that I met you, had dinner, went to the theatre--" + +"Then why--" + +"I'm coming to that. While we were away somebody--Mrs. Weatherwax, I +suppose--filled Joe full of malicious town gossip about our--our +friendship--and he was terrible. Oh, you can't know, you can't know!" + +"But me--me!" cried Shelby, clutching her by the arms. "What about me? +Is he down on me? His votes,--his two hundred votes, you know,--they +could defeat me--ruin me! Tell me--tell me--" + +"No, no; it's not you he blames; not you, Ross. It's I. He thinks I'm +a fool--the brute! He calls me a fool!" + +"Thank God! Thank God!" ejaculated the man, laughing wildly in his +revulsion of relief. + +"But I--I am miserable," sobbed the woman, and clung to him when he +would have released her. "You will go to your triumph and your +future,--what have I left now?" + +Shelby swayed unsteadily with his burden, his eyes on the perfect +shoulders whose curves played and quivered with the labored breath. He +recalled a fragment of poetry--something about "morbid . . . faultless +shoulder-blades," which he had overheard Bernard Graves quote to Volney +Sprague as Mrs. Hilliard passed at the club. Morbid had seemed an +inept word then, but he began to spy out a certain fitness. The house +was too still by far--dangerously still; the stillness of espionage. +With a flash of intuition he lifted his eyes, and in the doorway met +Joe Hilliard. Almost at the same instant the woman in her trumpery saw +him too. + +"Joe!" she called, in an incredulous, husky whisper. "Joe!" + +He loomed there in the dusk like a rock, and with a frightened whimper +she tottered and clung to him as she had clung to Shelby. + +"I'm not a bad woman, Joe," she babbled. "I'm not a bad woman." + +"No one has accused you," replied her husband, putting her gently away. + +"Nor am I what you doubtless think," stammered Shelby. "It's all a +mistake, Joe; a big mistake. It can be explained--it can be +explained--" + +Hilliard doubled and relaxed a mighty fist. + +"No; not under this roof," he said quietly. "Go!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +The scandal derived its impetus from the vulgar circumstance that the +Hilliard washing went to line on Tuesday (Monday having dawned lowering +and ended stormy), thereby exposing more family linen than could +possibly have been foreseen, since the day laundress and Mrs. +Hilliard's housemaid were bound in friendship by a common appetite for +gossip and for tea. Monday's unfinished labors despatched, these +familiars laid their heads together over a pannikin of their favorite +brew, and the laundress, poising her saucer with the elegance which was +the envy of her circle, ventured the opinion that the housemaid was +holding in reserve a palate-tickling morsel concerning the missus; +whereupon the housemaid cloaked herself afresh with mystery and +"suspicioned" that she could tell things if she were one of those +odious persons who carried tales, which of course she was not. + +Blowing and sipping with the calm which is the handmaiden of true +elegance, the laundress conceded both propositions, and edged forward +the suggestion that tale-bearing and confidence between intimates were +horses of dissimilar color. This was readily admitted by the housemaid +with its corollary that anything intrusted in confidence to the bosom +of the laundress was as good as locked in the mute confines of the +tomb. With these time-honored preliminaries the crisis above stairs as +seen from below stairs was promptly bared to the scalpel. + +"Whin he come home lasht night He was here," the housemaid imparted in +a whisper. + +The laundress hurdled the ambiguous pronouns like a thoroughbred. + +"Is it th' trut' ye're tellin' me?" she demanded, forgetting her +graces, and grounding her saucer with a clatter. + +"Cross me hear-rt," said the housemaid, enjoying her sensation. + +"Ye'll excuse me intherruptin'--" + +"Ye're no intherruptin'. 'Tis th' ind iv th' shtory." + +"But phat did th' good ma-an say?" + +As the faithful soul did not know, she remarked that there were some +things which a lady in her delicate position could not confide even to +a bosom friend. She hinted, however, that in the light of what she had +told the laundress a week ago of the family jar occasioned by Her +meeting Him in New York, the present state of things was easy to +conjecture. + +But the laundress thirsted for details. + +"Was his dayparture suddin like?" she asked. + +Feeling that the force of her narrative might suffer from the admission +that she had only entered the house by a side door after she had met +Him walking rapidly away from the front, the housemaid answered merely +by moving sighs. The laundress reasoned from past experience that the +font had gone dry, and suddenly remembered that she was promised to +help with the Bowers's heavy ironing. This was at a quarter before +nine o'clock. + +At ten minutes past nine o'clock the laundress remarked across the +ironing-board to Mrs. Bowers that if she were one of those odious +persons who carried tales, which of course she was not, she could +expose the carryings-on of somebody living not a hundred miles away to +a tune which would bring the blush to New Babylon's outraged cheek. +Mrs. Bowers made haste to answer that she was of principle firmly +opposed to gossip; but as an intelligent woman, she recognized that +certain things require ventilation for the good of the community, and +was accustomed in such emergencies to send personal reluctance to the +rear. The tale of how He coming unexpectedly home found Him with Her +was then put through its paces with such skilful jockeying that not one +in ten would know it for the same dobbin so lately brought limping to +the light. + +As now set forth, He had fathomed Her and Him with more shrewdness than +the world had given him credit for possessing--poor man!--and had been +hoodwinked by their transparent devices for meeting at the golf links +and on lonely country roads no more than had Mrs. Bowers or any other +person of equal virtue and capacity. He had seen, and he had warned. +Then, stolen sweets becoming perilous near home, the culprits had taken +their several ways to New York,--most fit choice for such a pilgrimage! +This too was fathomed and forgiven. O unwise clemency! O base +requital! Violence upon discovery? No doubt. Loaded pistol +constantly in the house since the last burglar scare. At this Mrs. +Bowers recollected shots in the night; Seneca had said "Campaign +fireworks"; but she knew better; shots, of course. Dreadful thing to +happen at one's very door. An immediate separation naturally. By all +the laws of righteousness she should not be given the custody of the +child. + +In affairs requiring ventilation for the common good Mrs. Bowers could +conceive of no instrument so sure as the Widow Weatherwax, who +providentially dropped in to borrow flour at the precise moment Mrs. +Bowers had decided that if she ever meant to run over and copy the +widow's unequalled recipe for floating island, this was the time to do +it. Quite in the same breath with her greetings, therefore, Mrs. +Bowers intimated that were she one of those odious persons who carried +tales, which of course she was not, she could astonish the widow with a +chronicle of happenings not remote in time or scene. But when told, +the widow was not astonished. + +"I've knowed she wuz a Scarlet Woman since the last night ov the +camp-meetin' at Eden Centre," she explained. "It come to me when I see +her a-standin' outside the circle, and it was borne in on me to testify +b'fore the brethren." + +In this, its third edition, the tale gained picturesqueness and +circumstantial weight. To the New York episode the widow contributed +the imaginative touch of a baffled detective, while Mrs. Bowers's shots +in the stilly night passed into the province of undisputed fact. The +circumstance that the widow had only that morning seen the destroyer of +homes walking abroad unmaimed, was but touching evidence that the +husband had been too grief-crazed to send a bullet to the mark. The +widow almost remembered that the destroyer had limped; therefore the +injured man must have resorted to natural weapons. Doubtless the +beginning of proceedings for an absolute divorce hung fire only because +this was a legal holiday. + +As the clock in the town hall struck ten the good women parted company, +and the now able-bodied scandal careered bravely into the world. +Tinctured by personal equation, the respective variants of Mrs. Bowers +and Mrs. Weatherwax had minor differences in the dramatic grouping of +detail, but they were variants, nevertheless, and adhered in all +essentials to the notable fabric these ladies had joined forces to +erect. + +Early in the morning the Hon. Seneca Bowers returned to his home for a +warmer overcoat, and met the petrifying version of his wife. His first +thought was of its bearing on the election. + +"True or untrue, Eliza," he declared, energetically, "this servant's +chatter must go no farther." + +"But if he's a bad man--" began Mrs. Bowers, uneasily. + +"I'm not concerned with his morals; it's the party I'm thinking of. +Not one soul must you tell--understand that clearly--not one soul." + +"I--I did tell one--just one." + +"In God's name, who?" cried her husband. + +"Don't swear, Seneca. And you a church member." + +"Who? Who?" + +"Mrs. W--W--" It was impossible to articulate that tongue-worrying +name with her lord glaring at her so dreadfully. + +The man blenched. + +"Not old Weatherwax!" + +"Y-yes." + +Bowers's jaw hung flaccid. This phenomenon continuing, Mrs. Bowers +took alarm. + +"You've not gone and had a stroke, have you?" she wavered timidly, +feeling for his pulse. + +Bowers revived with a grunt, and bolted for the door. His buggy wheel +protested stridently as he cramped the vehicle at the horse-block, +reassuring Mrs. Bowers that his natural force was not abated; and his +flight down town affronted the ordinance against reckless driving which +he himself had framed. + +Shelby, unnaturally pale, but composed, was issuing from his office +staircase, and joined him directly at the curb. + +"Jump in," said Bowers, making room. + +"No time now." + +"But this is important--critical, in fact." Observing no sign of +compliance. Bowers lowered head and voice, murmuring, "You know I'm no +hand at carrying tales, Ross, but--" + +"You won't have to," cut in Shelby. "I know." + +"You know?" + +"Baffled sleuth--discovery by husband--shots--kicked down +steps--divorce case summons in the morning--you see the whole roorback +has come my way." + +"Roorback!" Bowers caught at the straw. "We can make a sweeping +denial, then?" + +"Whole hog or none." He smiled sarcastically into the face which had +so suddenly gone bright. "The truth has been so far outstripped that +you can't see it with a telescope. Get handbills printed denying the +story, denounce it as a partisan trick, and sign the statement yourself +as chairman of the County Committee. Have them distributed all over +town, and station men--men, mind you, not boys--with a supply just +outside electioneering limits at each polling place. If the yarn +spreads elsewhere in the district, wire our people to take similar +measures." + +"Ross!" Bowers called him back. "I don't need to tell you how glad I +am. I never believed it of you." + +"Thanks for the vote of confidence," laughed Shelby; "but I'd rather +you'd hurry the handbills." + +He had a more urgent reason yet, for wishing Bowers to take himself +off. A block or two up the street, where the trees began to interlace +their denuded branches and the court-house common sparkled with frosty +rime, he had seen the Widow Weatherwax accost Ruth Temple. The girl +had stopped when addressed, but almost immediately walked on, as if to +escape the little busybody who, nothing daunted, trotted at elbow for a +rod or more. Then Ruth came down the slope alone, and was intercepted +by Shelby at her gate. + +"I must speak with you," he said abruptly. "My good name is being +dragged in the dirt, and I must assure you--" + +"No, no," Ruth interposed. + +"I tell you I must. You have heard this calumny. I saw her stop +you--the woman who is peddling it from door to door. I must +speak--it's no time for mincing words--speak to you personally--Bowers +will answer to my constituency--speak to you personally, I say, appeal +to you to believe in me. You don't know what your belief in me has +been--my inspiration, my safeguard. Don't take it away--it's vital; +don't deprive me of all this on hearsay. Say you'll not. Give me a +sign--" + +"Go win in spite of it." In a single wave of generous impulse she had +spoken, put out her hand, and slipped past him, flushing, through the +gate. + +"I can't fail now," he exulted, detaining her an instant. "And victory +means so much. It means--listen: I'll tell you a thing I've breathed +to no one else; success to-day means the governorship two years hence! +It's been fairly promised me--the governorship! That's the great +stake--part of it, rather; you're the rest; you who believe in me and +bid me win. I've not changed my mind since the day we rode together. +I told you to think over what I said, and I've given you time. I meant +then to come to you on the night of my election--a victor--and so I +shall. I couldn't know that I should have the executive mansion to +offer you, but it's none too good. I'll come! I'll come!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +There was more solid ground than mere confidence in his destiny behind +Shelby's bold front. The earliest mail delivery had shed a glimmer of +hope in the shape of a midnight note from Mrs. Hilliard. He did not +require her reminder that the voting strength of Little Poland was no +longer to be counted in his column--he had thought and fought that out in +the small hours; but he did need and pounced upon the statement that +Little Poland's master would be out of town the greater part of election +day. The scrawl ended with an appointment for a clandestine meeting at +eleven o'clock, toward which he now bent his steps on leaving Ruth. + +Mrs. Hilliard had named a cemetery on the immediate outskirts as the +rendezvous--a choice on whose evil omen Shelby wasted no thought. In the +heyday of their flirtation he and Mrs. Hilliard had made frequent use of +it as a Platonic trysting-place, and he climbed the silent paths toward +the summit of the mount, as it was styled in that level land, with no +sentiment save approval of her wisdom in seizing upon the one spot in all +New Babylon whose privacy was certain. + +Mrs. Hilliard, shivering in the lee of a pretentious granite shaft which +bore her family name, was more susceptible. + +"Bleak--desolate," she chattered. "What an end for our Fools' Paradise. +But where else could we escape their prying eyes?" + +"You've heard what they're saying?" + +She nodded listlessly. + +"Who has not heard?" As they huddled in the shelter of the monument she +brooded over the plain below wherein the canal, livid, yet unfrozen +still, half girdled the town in a serpentine fold. Each chimney curled a +light spiral into the nipping air. "Under every one a wagging tongue," +she said. "It's known to every soul except one." + +"You mean he's still in the dark?" + +"He can't know yet. He took an early train to Centreport. It's some +quarry business that could not wait. I remembered it last +night--after--after you had gone; so I wrote. It was past two o'clock +before I dared steal out to post the letter." + +Shelby shrugged into the collar of his ulster. + +"I don't deserve all this," he muttered. + +"Don't say that. You've done things, too. You've stood for--things; +something to pin faith to. You are--" + +"I'm your good friend--remember that." + +"Friend!" + +He drew her farther into shelter, and tucked her furs about her throat. + +"Now concentrate your mind," he enjoined, "and tell me exactly the lay of +the land. Did he communicate with the foreman at the quarry before he +left?" + +"Yes. I overheard him telephone Kiska before breakfast. He said he'd +return at half-past three. There's no train to-day from Centreport till +then." + +"And there is no other till the polls close. He said nothing, then, +about voting the hands before afternoon?" + +"They're at work this morning." + +"On election day! You're sure?" + +"They're working half a day on full day's pay. Joe's hurrying some +contract through. I don't understand it very well, but the stone has to +be shipped before the canal freezes on account of--something--freight +rates--" + +"Never mind that. What did he say to Kiska about voting--that the men +should be ready at such and such a time?" + +"No, no; I know about that. Before anything happened it was arranged +that the men should vote about four o'clock. He merely told Kiska he'd +return at three-thirty." + +"Good, good!" exclaimed Shelby, making ready for action. "Every +naturalized mother's son in Little Poland shall vote for me before the +train can even whistle. Now, you go home, Cora," he charged, "and drink +something hot against this graveyard chill. Keep a stiff upper +lip--that's my creed. Everything blows over in time. The scandal is so +tall that it will topple of itself. Nobody will believe it after +election." + +"But Joe? Think of him when he learns what they're saying, and that +you've outwitted him." + +Shelby grinned. + +"That's the situation's one humorous phase," said he. "The two things +will neutralize one another's effect,--like Kilkenny cats, you know. +He'll not dare raise a row about the votes for fear of lending color to +the scandal." + +But Mrs. Hilliard, whose sense of humor was sluggish this morning, +rejoined bitterly;-- + +"The row will fall to me." + +"He needn't know your part in this--the matter of the votes; and as for +the other thing--well, after all, he is your husband, hard and fast, and +you'd best try and patch things up." + +She straightened, flashing him a stony look, and he braced himself for a +hurricane; but to his equal discomfiture she went down beside the shaft +in a passionate fit of weeping. + +"I should be under here," she sobbed; "I should be under here." + +Shelby, tingling to be gone, shifted from foot to foot, and offered some +blundering solace which she put away. + +"You've ceased to care," she accused. + +He protested, adding indiscreetly that she had done too much for him for +that. + +"You've filled the place he should have filled!" + +Shelby was silent, goaded to torture by the lapse of precious minutes. + +"There's only blackness ahead!" + +"Don't take the dark view," entreated Shelby, groping desperately for a +bright one. "The man can't live always--so much older than you--and +then--your life's your own--" + +The bowed figure shuddered. + +"It's a dreadful thing to do--but I've thought that, too. I can't help +it. You--you are the real one--the real one--" She waited. + +"Yes." It was screwed from him. + +"The real one--and if--I know I don't need your promise--but if--" + +"Yes, yes; of course if--" + +Neither of them would name the contingency. Shelby contrived a +leave-taking, and bounded down the terraced slopes. It was quite noon +when he reached the Tuscarora House, but without a thought of food, he +got his horse and buggy from the livery, speeding the harnessing with his +own hands, and whipped away for Little Poland. + +On reaching the Hilliard quarries he confronted unexpected obstacles. +The men had quitted work and scattered to their homes, and Kiska was to +be discovered neither in nor around the little office. However, the +Polish lad in temporary charge, Kiska's own son, was not slow to +recognize the original of the campaign lithograph which in his home +enjoyed honors second only to a highly-colored Madonna, and went flying +in search of his father. Shelby took instant advantage of his absence to +telephone Bowers, whom he luckily located at his midday meal. He learned +that the handbills had been sown broadcast with encouraging effect, and +that the general opinion of the voting public leaned toward unbelief. +Shelby told his whereabouts, and requested the prompt services of Jasper +Hinchey and three or four kindred spirits, ringing off after certain +mysterious, though concise, directions regarding a concert hall in the +Flats, which he meant shortly to utilize. + +He had barely hung up the receiver when a telegraph messenger from town +brought a despatch for Kiska. Shelby's breath shortened at sight of the +yellow envelope, but he mustered a specious unconcern, telling the boy +that the foreman's return, though certain, was not within immediate +prospect, and volunteered to receipt for the message himself--an offer +readily embraced by the lad, who, without a glance, pocketed the book in +which Shelby scrawled Kiska's own name, and fared away with a head aflame +from the bonfires of the coming night. + +The envelope was loosely gummed, and gave under gentle persuasion. +Shelby threw a glance from either window of the narrow room, and drew the +paper from its cover. It was from Hilliard at Centreport, and announced +that he had missed his train. The reader's delight was qualified by the +succeeding statement that he should come by the canal, and that the men +were to be in readiness. + +"He's hired a launch or tug," commented Shelby. "Horses aren't to be had +to-day for rubies or fine gold." + +He replaced the message, sealed the envelope, and flung it on the table, +catching sight of Kiska, as he did so, striding along the canal bank +toward the office. The big Pole burst into the room a moment later, his +simple face aglow at the meeting, and sputtered broken excuses for +keeping his preserver waiting. Shelby shook both his grimy hands, and +smilingly supposed that Kiska had made up his mind how he should vote. +Kiska's English was uncertain, but there was no misreading his +gesticulation. + +"And Little Poland?" insinuated the candidate, blandly. + +"Leetle Poland ees ein beeg vote," Kiska eagerly assured him; "joost ein +beeg vote for Meester Shelby. Whan you save me, Meester Heelyard he say +eef anybody no want to vote for you, he can joost valk aus de qvarry." + +"Very kind of him," said Shelby. "Now, since you all know your own +minds, I'd take it as a favor if you would get to the polls at the +earliest possible moment. The voting promises to be heavy toward the +close, and I don't care to have my friends inconvenienced. By the way, +Kiska," he broke off carelessly "there's a telegram for you over there. +It came not ten minutes ago." + +By dint of facial contortion Kiska puzzled out the meaning, and handed +the message to Shelby, who gave it grave perusal. + +"Ah," said he. "You see he's anxious about it, too. If there was any +way of reaching him by wire, we could relieve his mind; as there is not, +the wise course is to go ahead. His coming by boat is uncertain. It +will be a nice little surprise for him to find that you've got the votes +all in." + +So it seemed to Kiska, and the business of rallying Little Poland to its +civic duties was instantly got under way. Here, too, were obstacles. +Having been told to present themselves at a later hour, the villagers +were in all states of unreadiness; but by impressing this helper and +that, doing the work of three men himself, and with the reënforcement of +Jap Hinchey and his co-workers, whom Bowers hurried to the scene in a +hired carriage whose bravery of varnish made mock of their rags, Kiska at +last collected his compatriots. The rented vehicle was urged back at a +gallop to Bowers and continued public usefulness, and the whole body of +enfranchised Poles, under the escort of Kiska, Jap Hinchey, and his +fellows, trudged off in groups of five and ten to New Babylon. + +Little Poland lay within the same voting precinct as the Flats, and when +Shelby had assured himself that the straggling column was finally in +motion, he rode on in advance toward this quarter and the concert hall to +which he had made mysterious reference in his telephoned directions to +the Hon. Seneca Bowers. From the elevation of a canal bridge he searched +the waterway for a sign of Hilliard's coming, pondering anxiously whether +a pillar of smoke at the horizon's rim were his herald; but a glance at +his watch reassured. The train which Hilliard had missed was barely due, +and to cover the distance by boat meant an additional hour at least. +Employing a street urchin to lead his horse to its stable, he struck out +on foot for the Flats. + +At the tawdry concert hall everything was as it should be, and in the +brief interval before the arrival of the Poles he received inspiriting +news from one of his workers. Money was flowing, buckets of it, but +beyond doubt they held the longer purse. Their policy of offering high +prices to the floaters at the outset had drained the disciples of the +late Chuck O'Rourke before twelve o'clock, and patriots were now to be +had at bargain rates. Some few conscientious souls who could not see +their way to a Shelby vote had been induced to stay away from the polls +altogether; and at least a dozen irreconcilables had been laid by the +heels with bad whiskey before they had done protesting that not all the +powers of darkness could deter them from casting an unsullied ballot +under the emblem of the Square. + +The Poles came hulking in, Shelby himself keeping tally at the door, and +when Kiska had urged the last loiterer over the threshold, the key was +turned. Drinks were sparingly circulated, and Kiska harangued the crowd +briefly in Polish, hammering in Shelby's instructions for their conduct +in the voting booths, and impressing them with the fact that good cheer +in plenty would await them here on their return. Under the efficient +supervision of Jasper Hinchey and his lieutenants they were now guided to +the polling-place in squads of three or four, returning presently to +unlimited refreshment and a surreptitious two-dollar bill--shining +examples and incentives to such as had not yet voted to speed their going. + +Yet with all their willingness, the affair consumed time, and twice +Shelby went into the dusty wings of the stage to a window overlooking the +canal, and strained to detect the panting of a laboring launch or tug. +But the last quarryman voted, the polls closed, darkness fell, and Joe +Hilliard was not yet come. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A pleasant local custom fell this night into abeyance. Years out of +mind the adherents of the leading political parties had mingled +sociably before a non-partisan bulletin board in the courthouse, much +as hostile camps fraternize in the truce forerunning peace. But the +old, simpler order of things had suffered more wrenches than one in +this acrid congressional campaign, and the warring factions could unite +only on the hibernian proposition that union was impossible. One +party, therefore, made ready to gather in the accustomed place, the +other in the Grand Opera House, while seceding remnants from both +swelled the crowd in the street before the office of the _Whig_, which, +with unlooked-for enterprise, had prepared to announce the returns by +stereopticon. + +At six o'clock Shelby broke his fast with a ravenous meal at the hotel, +which Bowers shared, and three-quarters of an hour later the two men +shouldered through the boisterous mob in the streets to Shelby's law +office, where arrangements had been perfected to receive the returns by +messenger and private wire. The _Whig_ bulletin over the way had +already massed a constituency extending to the Temple lawn, which, in +default of definite news, it was edifying with views of foreign travel +and cartoons bearing on the larger issues of the election. Within +doors the telegraph operator was already installed at the ancient table +which had graced the grand-paternal distillery, and William Irons was +making good the tedium of a dreary day in the deserted office by +goggling from the ticking instrument to a consignment of iced champagne +just arrived from the Tuscarora House. + +Shelby was in rare fettle. + +"William, thou abstemious youth," he addressed the clerk, "I am tempted +to empty one of these cold bottles down your scandalized neck and pack +you off with another for the Widow Weatherwax!" + +He had the youth carry the wine to the rear room and set out glasses +against the coming of his friends, drinking a bumper meanwhile to +William's good health and the sentiment Confusion to Fusion. Never a +solitary winebibber, and William remaining recalcitrant, he returned to +the outer office and demanded "no heeltaps" of the operator and Bowers. +This accomplished to his taste, he crammed a greenback into the dazed +clerk's fingers and dismissed him for the night with the injunction to +buy and blow the biggest tin horn in New Babylon. + +His intimates now began to drift in, and the toast of Confusion to +Fusion enjoyed a wide popularity, the telegraph operator and the county +chairman being the only ones permitted to flag in the exacting +ceremonies which the occasion required. + +"I'll do my hurrahing when the returns are in," said Bowers, and +stripping to his shirt sleeves he took his station under a drop-light +and made ready to figure the local result. + +But the local returns were tardy. It developed early that throughout +the Demijohn split tickets had prevailed to an unprecedented extent. +Heretofore reliable localities ran after strange socialistic and +prohibition gods, to avoid voting for either of the leading candidates; +while Graves and Shelby both gained support in quarters where it would +have been sheer fatuity to hope. The hurrying news from the country at +large shamed the dribble at the threshold. Texas and Vermont, those +stock commonplaces of election night humor, went Democratic and +Republican by the usual majorities, and all signs pointed to a sweeping +victory for Shelby's party in state and Union. And still Tuscarora and +the Demijohn aped the Sphinx. + +Men elsewhere became curious. Bowers received and passed silently to +Shelby demands for a forecast from other county chairmen in the +district; from leaders prominent in the state; from great metropolitan +newspapers which were tabulating the congressional elections of the +nation and studying the complexion of the future House. + +"Claim the district, of course," directed Shelby. "Say we're +deliberate, but true blue." + +The drumming humble-bee [Transcriber's note: bumble-bee?] voice of the +crowd below the windows watching Volney Sprague's bulletin suddenly +lifted in a lion roar. Elation in that quarter was ominous, and Shelby +drew a curtain. It appeared that a minor revolt against the Boss in +New York City, with which the Tuscarora independents had felt +themselves peculiarly in sympathy, had made good its claim for +recognition. Shelby turned from the window with a laugh. + +"Merely a little extra diplomacy for Old Silky," he said. "Within a +twelvemonth each reformer will have a foreign mission." + +A tactless friend embraced the occasion to wonder where the Boss would +banish Bernard Graves should he chance to win; but even idle +speculation on such a possibility was so distasteful to the company +that the blunderer only retrieved his mistake by toasting Confusion to +Fusion anew. + +The returns from the laggard Demijohn presently thickened, and Shelby +left his seat to pace the floor, while Bowers, with an unlighted cigar +between his teeth, and looking very like Grant indeed, figured, +discarded, and figured again as successive reports modified his +calculations. + +"Never saw its equal--never!" he grunted. "Here's our own town hanging +fire till almost the last like some jay village in the Adirondacks. +We've always prided ourselves on being prompt." He caught a flying +sheet from the operator and groaned: "We _are_ the last! By the Great +Horn Spoon!" For Shelby's ear alone he muttered: "The last, Ross; New +Babylon's the last, and the die by which you lose or win. Figure it +yourself." + +Shelby ran through his senior's calculations and nodded without speech. +No one spoke now. Not a wine-glass tinkled. The room sensed a crisis. +By telephone, special messenger, and the instrument at the table the +belated story of New Babylon's vote pieced itself together under +Bowers's pencil. The candidate hovered above him, intent on every +stroke. + +"Good God!" he whispered suddenly; "it hangs on the Flats!" + +"Yes; it's the last precinct. They sent word that the thick-skulled +Poles and the rest had made an awful mess of the ballots. Tom"--to one +of the onlookers--"'phone the Flats again." + +But on the instant the Flats embodied itself in the doorway in the +person of a breathless messenger. Bowers's trembling fingers fumbled +the paper and cast it fluttering toward the floor, but Shelby fastened +on it in mid-air, read it, crumpled it, mechanically made it smooth +again, and laid it gently on his desk. There came a second roar from +the street, a medley of cheers, groans, hisses, and the blare of horns. +Shelby again drew a curtain. On the _Whig's_ screen was displayed a +huge rooster with the legend: IT'S GRAVES! + +Shelby caught a murmuring from the group behind him: vapid expressions +of regret, scorching condolence, pitying oaths; then the voice of a +newcomer, a newspaper correspondent, asking Bowers if they conceded +their defeat. + +He spun about, crying,-- + +"We concede nothing." + +The reporter said that the returns as received indicated a slight +majority for the fusion candidate. + +"We dispute the returns." + +"But, Ross,--" Bowers put in. + +"We dispute the returns. Should the official count be adverse, we +shall dispute that. In view of the methods employed by the allies of +the independents, it becomes nothing less than a public duty to carry +the contest to the floor of the House of Representatives." + +"It will be a House of your political friends," remarked the +correspondent, impersonally. "Shall I then quote you as claiming your +election?" + +"Most emphatically, yes. Quote me as confident of a verdict approving +my public course and rebuking the slanderous attack on my private +character." + +"What's the use?" protested Bowers, as the reporter hurried off in +quest of Bernard Graves. "It's too late to bluff." + +"Use," echoed Shelby. "I tell you, man, there's a blunder in the +returns. Look, man, look!" snatching up the report from the Flats. +"Isn't that arrant nonsense on the face of it? The Flats, mind you; +our own little pocket borough of the Flats! Don't talk to me about the +Poles muddling things; those inspectors of election can give them cards +for stupidity and take every trick. Let me 'phone the Flats." + +And he was right. The inspectors of the belated precinct, conscious of +unwonted delay, nervous from long weighing of defective ballots, +harassed by incessant demands for their report, had capped the climax +of their offending by announcing the result as favorable to Graves. +The mistake was discovered and rectified within fifteen minutes of its +commission. Shelby had carried the precinct, and with it the election +by something less than two hundred votes. + +Giddy with the reaction, the Hon. Seneca Bowers gulped glass after +glass of champagne, toasting Confusion to Fusion like the veriest +roisterer. + +"And we abused the Poles," he said in self-reproach. "Ross, it was the +Poles who saved the day." + +Shelby was the one self-contained being in the room. + +"Yes," he answered soberly, "it was the Poles." + +With stern straightforwardness the _Whig_ bulletin over the way had +promptly set forth the corrected result, and the crowd, now swollen by +more deserters from the tame gatherings in the little theatre and the +court-house, was clamoring for a sight of the victor whom everybody +knew was within hearing. Shelby's jubilant companions were puzzled at +his reluctance to comply with the popular demand. He declined to show +himself, however, till the arrival of a serenading brass band compelled +an acknowledgment, when he stepped from a window to a little balcony +and spoke a few grave words: he had never doubted their support, they +had repaid his trust, he was grateful; as he had championed their +lesser interests in the smaller field, so should he strive to further +their greater concerns in the national lists to which he was to pass +their chosen knight. + +Within the law office preparations were rife for adjourning to the +Tuscarora House as a less restricted arena for the celebration which +the fitness of things demanded. Shelby begged them to go before him, +promising to follow. + +"I need a few minutes to myself, boys," he said. "It's been a strain, +you know." + +They caroused away. Bowers the most jocund bacchanal of all; the +operator boxed over his instrument against harm and slipped out; and +Shelby was left solitary with the litter and the lees. One by one he +extinguished the lights, and in darkness, at length, halted at the +window from which he had so often marked the goings and comings of Ruth +Temple. The old house was brilliantly alight in its lower rooms; lit, +he dared hope, in honor of his triumph and his anticipated return. He +turned and left his office with elastic step. + +Fumbling with the lock in the dim light of the hall, he was spied from +below by a newsboy who came bounding up the stairs. + +"Extry! Extry 'dition of th' _Whig_, Mr. Shelby," he called. "Read +all about yer 'lection an' th' drowndin' accident!" + +"Drowning accident!" Shelby started and seized a paper. "Who is +drowned?" + +The lad did not know. He had not read beyond the headline which seemed +to promise salability. But in the obscurity of the landing Shelby came +upon the particulars swiftly enough. Skimming the brief despatch, here +a sentence, there a sentence seared itself into his memory. + + +"Missed his train at Centreport--conscientious citizen, valuing his +vote--hired a naphtha launch--collision--hampered by clothing--leaves a +sorrowing widow--" + + +"Th' extry 'dition is two cents," reminded the urchin. + + + + +BOOK III + + + +CHAPTER I + +The executive mansion was strewn with the wreckage of the inaugural +reception. A musky odor blent of plant life and massed humanity hung +thickly throughout the spacious rooms and corridors; the bower of palms +and flowery brightness at the foot of the great staircase, which had +fended the orchestra, and incidentally barred an intrusive if sovereign +people from the private apartments, was jostled and awry, its blossoms +half despoiled; here lay a trampled glove, there a shining shred of +braid, beyond an embarrassed cigar stump--dumb emblems of social +Albany, gold-laced officialdom, and the unaristocratic unofficial ruck, +whose mingled tide had beat upon the new governor's threshold in the +late hours of the afternoon. A clock somewhere about the scene of +devastation chimed midnight, and a man with attractive black eyes, who +had been monopolizing his hostess upward of two hours, outstaying all +other guests save one, now took his belated leave. + +"Yes; I prophesy a brilliant season, Mrs. Shelby," he said. "With a +woman of your talents in this house, Albany must at last awake." + +Cora Shelby returned to one of the smaller reception rooms, where an +open fire wrought changing shadows in the face of the Hon. Seneca +Bowers. + +"I think ex-Senator Ludlow is perfectly fascinating," she exclaimed. +"Have you known him long?" + +"All of ten years," returned Bowers, with a little tightening of the +lips. "Most everybody in politics knows Handsome Ludlow." + +"Ah, he is handsome. And so polished, too." + +Bowers found the topic difficult, and changed it. + +"What's your opinion of Ross's inauguration?" he asked. "I call it an +A-1 success." + +"It would have been a success," discriminated Cora, "a pronounced +success, if Ross had approached it with a tithe of the spirit I urged. +But no; simplicity, simplicity! You would have thought the affair a +transfer of Methodist parsons. No military escort to the capitol, no +decorations in the Assembly Chamber to speak of, no music, no anything +that the occasion demanded." + +"Fuss and feathers never did appeal to Ross," said the guest. +"Besides, I guess he thought the last administration had splurged +enough for two." + +"Their fine plumage covered as slovenly housekeeping as I ever saw," +interjected Mrs. Shelby, momentarily diverted from her husband's +shortcomings. "I wish you might have seen what I have seen in +out-of-the-way corners of this establishment. What the servants did +for their wages I can't conceive. But, after all, those people had the +right idea of upholding the dignity of the position. The ex-governor +didn't decline an escort to the capitol when he took office. That puts +me out of patience with Ross every time I think of it. Then, to cap +the climax, he didn't even take a carriage; he walked!" + +"Walked down with me," Bowers chuckled. + +"And, by Jove, nobody knew him. One of the orderlies wanted to keep +him out of the executive chamber." + +Cora shuddered, and the old man bestirred his wits to soothe her +outraged sensibilities. + +"You must remember that he made his run on an economy platform," he +reminded. "He believed it, too, every word. After all, you can't say +that you've not had things your own way here at the mansion." + +"It's a mercy I did. He would have had the house reception and the +staff dinner equally prim if I hadn't put my foot down. I said no; be +as puritanic as you please at the capitol, but the executive mansion +concerns me; I'm governor here." + +"Tolerably big commonwealth, too," commented Bowers, dryly. "Somehow +it puts me in mind of what I thought palaces were like when I was a +boy." + +"Oh, yes; it's well enough, though the decorations aren't to my taste; +but the location is very unfashionable--orphan asylums, hovels, +saloons, and all that under one's very nose." + +"I hadn't noticed the saloons." + +"Well, there's a saloon at any rate. I saw it to-day from one of the +south windows. The state was stupidly short-sighted to buy a house in +this quarter. The executive mansion ought to stand in Quality Row." + +"What's that?" asked Bowers. + +"Not much to look at--just a block or two of houses near the capitol, +not one of which could have cost more than my own place in New Babylon, +for all that famous people have lived in them; but it's the cream of +Albany." + +"Everything else is skim milk, I suppose?" + +Mrs. Shelby eluded the classification. + +"Nearly all that's socially significant is grouped thereabouts," she +pursued; "the cathedral, the Beverwyck Club, Canon North, and Mrs. +Teunis Van Dam. The canon and Mrs. Van Dam are the keys to the social +citadel, I assure you. Probably you noticed them on the platform at +the Inauguration. Then, she helped me receive this afternoon, thanks +to a bit of diplomacy." + +Bowers absorbed these esoteric deliverances in meekness. + +"It takes a woman to bottom such things," he said admiringly. "I guess +you'll pass." + +Cora herself harbored no doubts, but she disclaimed a single-handed +victory. + +"I shouldn't know all these things yet if it were not for the +governor's military secretary, Colonel Schuyler Smith. Do you know +him?" + +"I'm not sure that I can place the colonel," ruminated Bowers. "Is he +that blond young dandy whose sword got tangled in his legs?" + +"Yes, poor dear! He's not used to wearing it yet. But he's a +treasure. He's Mrs. Teunis Van Dam's grandson, you know, and like her +is descended from all those delightful old Dutchmen who make such +enviable ancestors, and have stained glass windows in the cathedral. +He knows who is who, I assure you. Ex-Senator Ludlow does too, for +that matter; though he doesn't care for Mrs. Van Dam's circle. He +thinks it too stately and old régime. He goes with the younger +set--Mrs. Tommy Kidder's--and he says Mrs. Tommy is quite my own style." + +The governor entered the room in the midst of these matters and +listened soberly. Shelby had taken on more years than his +congressional service spanned. His dark hair had grayed at the +temples; his old puffiness of jowl and dewlap had vanished; and the +strong bone framework of his head showed for what it truly was. +Tuscarora ancients, who remembered the pioneer, said that Shelby +favored his grandfather. + +Bowers turned to him with a laugh. + +"It's a mighty good thing you've got a skilled pilot in these waters," +he said. + +"Yes, Cora knows her way around," returned her husband. "I dare say +the world's a brighter place for this varnish, though I've noticed that +when you scrape through it people average much alike. It's meant more +to me to-day to have you here, old friend, than the notables. You gave +me my start." He hesitated, glanced at his wife, and added: "But they +were all welcome. Cora has come into her kingdom, and I wouldn't abate +a single courtier." + +"I've waited for my kingdom," she declared; "waited for it in sackcloth +and ashes. You can't call Washington anything else for a congressman's +wife. Her husband may get glory; she gets snubs. Now my turn has +come, and I've plans galore. Milicent's début is one of them. I'll +bring her out with a ball when she has had enough of her finishing +school. Ex-Senator Ludlow thinks it an inspiration." + +The men exchanged a look. + +"Handsome Ludlow isn't an ideal adviser for young girls," dropped +Shelby, quietly. + +"He's a victim of gossip; he told me so. You and I know too well what +that means to countenance it. Besides, you're going to appoint him +commissioner of something or other--I read it in yesterday's papers; +but that's politics, I suppose." + +Shelby gloomed in his corner, but made no answer. + +Bowers essayed a diversion. + +"I saw Bernard Graves's wife in the assembly chamber this morning," he +remarked. "Seems to me she's looking rather peaked since her marriage." + +"Ruth Graves here!" exclaimed Cora. + +"I saw her too," said Shelby. "She congratulated me later in the +executive chamber. She has been living in New York this winter. +Graves is still lecturing around the country, telling how he wrote his +poem and what it's all about." + +"I presume she couldn't resist coming up to see how we would behave," +Cora reflected, aloud. + +"She is visiting Mrs. Van Dam," added the governor. + +"Of all people!" Mrs. Shelby's wonder was unrestrained. "I do +remember, though," she continued presently, "that she made friends here +when she was in Vassar College. It's plain enough why Mrs. Van Dam has +taken her up again. She wants to know all about us." + +It was an easy step now to the conclusion that perhaps such an old +friend really merited an invitation to the executive mansion. + +The governor brushed his forehead with a weary gesture, drew a chair to +Bowers's side, and unfolded a bundle of manuscript. + +"I know it's late," he said apologetically, "but there's a bit of my +message I'd like to read to you. There'll be no time in the morning if +you're still bent on taking the early train to Tuscarora. I'd like +your opinion whether it's what the plain people want." + +Mrs. Shelby found the reading unspeakably juiceless and went yawning to +bed. Nor did the governor detain Bowers long. A servant entering +presently discovered Shelby before the grate alone. + +"Don't wait up for me," he directed kindly. "I'll see to this fire, +and remember not to blow out the gas." + +The relic of the old régime restrained his surprise at these democratic +doings, smiled decorously, and withdrew. Jocosity slipped out at his +dignified heels. The man before the fire drank deep in self-communion, +and his face was grave. For the first time that crowded day he could +look his future in the face. Yet, evoked by a woman's handclasp in the +long line which had filed by him as he stood in the executive chamber +surrounded by his glittering staff, it was the past which most absorbed +him. It struck him as a wanton caprice of fate that they should have +been flung together that day. Ruth, whom he had promised a share in +these honors; Ruth, whom he had boasted that he would return and claim; +Ruth, whom he had put away because he must, because of a loftier +standard which--grimmest irony of all!--she herself had unwittingly set +up. He wondered--as he had wondered often in the years which had +witnessed her marriage, his own, and his rise to power--whether she +_had_ waited that night; whether she _had_ cared as he, apart from the +red passion of the struggle, could perceive that he had cared. + +A vagrant memory of the morning's inauguration intruded. The moment of +his oath had been a time of solemn consecration for him, a laying on of +hands unseen; the shades of his greatest predecessors stood round +about; the genius of the state was in presence. Then came Cora and +kissed him. Emotional souls in the gallery applauded the act, but the +husband divined its prompting egoism and was cold. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Neither the public nor the honorable body to which it was directly +addressed took the new governor's message stressing general +retrenchment and the pruning of useless offices seriously. Nothing in +the recent course of the party wooed faith in its promises to purge and +live cleanly, and the accident of a huge majority in the late +elections, owing to national issues, had set not a few mouths watering +for fruits of victory which had lately dangled out of reach. The +machine was perfected to its utmost, and the young year was held to +signalize the full flowering of the Boss's topping supremacy. The +great man was now master of the county committees of the metropolis and +the greater cities; of the State Committee; of the Legislature, of the +lieutenant-governor, and apparently of Shelby. The cartoons depicted +the chief executive as a craven monarch yielding his sceptre to the +leering power behind the throne; as a marionette twitched by obvious +wires; as a muzzled dog, ticketed with the Boss's name. + +Whereupon Shelby, in a quiet way, did an audacious thing. By an odd +chance the first enactment of the Legislature which reached his desk +affected Tuscarora County. It was a general measure concerning marsh +lands, philanthropically worded and fathered by an assemblyman from an +eastern county; but its special purpose, as Shelby fathomed, was to +give certain Tuscarora people a selfish advantage in a locality as +familiar to him as his hand. The Swamp, as Tuscarora called it, +embodied his boyhood notion of primeval nature, the one spot untamed +amidst tilled and retilled commonplaceness, the last fastness and +abiding-place of the unknown. Rude corduroy roads threaded the +wilderness in parts, and from this Red-Sea sort of passage the lad had +peered and questioned in delicious fear. Even now the man had but to +shut his eyes to recall it with the senses of the boy. Cowslip, wood +violet, and Jack-in-the-pulpit bloomed again, the scent of mint was in +his nostrils, fairy lakes lured amidst the ferns, and the way wound +through lofty halls whose wonderful pillars set foot in emerald pools +and sprang in vaulting hung high with wild grape. Once in those tender +years he had skirted the spot by night when owls hooted, unnatural +frogs boomed, will-o'-the-wisp stalked abroad, and Old Mystery held +carnival; that breathless experience almost outdid the delights by day. +All this issued from the phraseology of a bill--this, and something +more. He held the measure a day or two and invited its sponsors, +ostensible and real, to a conference. They were trained legislators, +with whom he had served and fraternized, and in this matter furthered +the interests of men in his native county who had backed him from the +beginning of his career. + +"Gentlemen," he said, regarding them quizzically, "this bill reminds me +of a Tuscarora story." They laughed at the familiar beginning, and the +governor laughed with them. "It's about a man who ran a grist-mill on +a creek fed by a certain swamp, which I guess you know about. He was +easy-going, the water was often too low for grinding, and the little +mill had business for six, since there wasn't a rival within thirty +miles. The pioneers came prepared to camp when they brought grist, and +I suppose loafed around pitching quoits and cursing the mill trust by +whatever name they called a monopoly then. One day along came a cute +boy astride a mule with two bags of grain. He sized up the crowd ahead +of him as he carried in his grist, and decided that if he waited his +turn the country would grow up without him. The miller happened to be +tinkering his water-wheel, so the boy got his bags into a dark corner +unobserved, and with a handful of mill dust gave his work the finishing +touch of ripe old age. I dare say you think he took the man in, but he +didn't. 'Bub,' said the miller, 'I used to do that trick myself.'" + +Shelby's old associates in log-rolling took the unmasking +good-naturedly, but declined the amendment he suggested. He dismissed +them with charming civility, jotted a laconic memorandum that the bill +meditated a raid on public property for private gain, and with the calm +of a gardener lopping a weed, withheld his signature. + +It were hard to say whose smart was shrewder, the spoilsmen's who +mourned the backsliding of a pal, or the professional reformers' who +chewed the galling fact that not one of the elect, but a practical +politician, had done this creditable thing. Both joined forces to +fling clods. In the greater world, however, Shelby's simple act won +swift approval. In the cartoonists' fancy the wires of the puppet-show +had gone awry, the dog bit the heel at which it slunk, the usurper's +knuckles were rapped by the sceptre he would have seized. The press +teemed with anecdotes and personal gossip of the governor. Everything +he did or said became of interest: his dress, his habits of work, his +Tuscarora stories, his domestic life. An admirer on Long Island who +bred bulldogs sent him a white pup trained to answer to the name of +"Veto." Triplets in the valley of the Susquehanna were christened +"Calvin," "Ross," and "Shelby," respectively. + +During this time no word passed between Shelby and the Boss. The +leader had not witnessed the inaugural ceremonies. Indeed, he had not +attended the inauguration of a governor since his party regained +control of the state. He and the governor-elect had lunched together +frequently, however, and in concord discussed the forthcoming message +and the party policy of the incoming Legislature. With two years of +common work and intimacy behind them, they felt slight need of +explanations. The machine as it stood was of their joint perfecting. +Accordingly, the Boss viewed the cartoons with his habitual serenity, +noted that a fund of good will was accruing to the party through the +personal popularity of the new executive, and smilingly assured the +reporters, who scented a quarrel, that Shelby was the right man in the +right place. He found no thorn in a special message reminding the +fortnight-old Legislature that, with the chief financial measures yet +untouched, the bills already introduced called for the outlay of +millions; nor did the speedy pruning of several sinecures, one of which +was held by that tried veteran, Jacob Krantz, dash his cheery +confidence. Krantz and the ousted were quietly found corporate +business openings of glittering promise, and the campaign slogans were +proved no mere catch-vote generalities. + +Meanwhile the ancient city of Albany privily assorted its impressions +of Shelby's wife, and awaited the dictum of Mrs. Teunis Van Dam. +Although it was by deeds, rather than speech, that she made her +judgments public, Mrs. Van Dam among her intimates did not deny herself +the luxury of a stout opinion vigorously expressed. + +"Mrs. Shelby's a fool," asserted the old lady in her positive way to +Canon North, "but, after all, one of our own church people and the +governor's wife." + +"Either claim is weighty," smiled North; "tenderness for the family +skeleton, respect for the state. United they're irresistible." For a +social autocrat the canon took his position simply. Indeed he would +have been rather astonished to learn that he was anything of the kind. +"But the governor--he's genuine," he continued musingly; "I'm drawn to +the man. He seems to me a power to be reckoned with--presidential +timber, perhaps. Of course all our governors are heirs apparent by +virtue of their office; but unlike so many of them, he isn't of a +stature to be dwarfed by the suggestion. I think him rather +Lincolnesque in a way, though I don't press the comparison. Perhaps +it's merely his smile--have you noticed it?--the 'sad and melancholy +smile on the lips of great men' that Amiel tells us is the badge of the +misunderstood." + +"Pshaw!" returned Mrs. Van Dam. "I've known two or three great men who +wore sad smiles. When a disordered liver wasn't at the bottom of it +'twas the wife." + +North gave over the argument. + +"Nobody would impeach Shelby's liver," he laughed. "He's as robust as +a patent medicine witness after taking." + +"Oh, I don't accuse Mrs. Shelby," rejoined Mrs. Van Dam, quickly. "The +governor's smile isn't the issue. One and one don't make one in the +state of matrimony any more than elsewhere on the globe, and whether he +and his wife agree or disagree doesn't interest me in the slightest. +What does concern me is the important fact that the mistress of the +executive mansion of the great state of New York appears not to know +certain things she ought, chief among them the true character of +ex-Senator Ludlow." + +"I'm afraid it's true," owned the canon. + +"Before Ruth Graves left I suggested that she intercede. She has tact, +knows the Shelbys well, and had received an invitation to visit them. +But she declined visit, intercession, and all. I'm sorry. Somebody +must speak to Mrs. Shelby, and an old acquaintance could carry off such +a mission with better grace." + +"Why didn't Graves come on with his wife?" inquired the canon, +irrelevantly. + +"Don't mention the simpleton! I've no patience with him--or with Ruth +for marrying him. We never can see the reason for other people's +marriages, but that one above all others was incomprehensible. If ever +a woman needed to marry a dynamo to bring out her best it was Ruth +Temple. And she married Bernard Graves--a man who has degenerated into +a _poseur_ before women's clubs. Marriages made in heaven indeed! +Give me Darwin and natural selection." + +"You really have something of the kind," laughed North. "She was a +free agent, his plumage evidently attracted in the old, old way, and so +she made her choice." + +"Fiddlesticks! Don't tell me that she made a fool of herself of her +own free will. That man isn't capable of stirring the emotions of a +poster girl with orange skin and purple hair, let alone a flesh and +blood woman. Something outside herself--don't laugh; I'm a woman and I +know--somebody, not Graves himself, bred that folly. If she were +another sort of nature, I'd say she married for spite; but she--" + +"For respite, perhaps--respite from herself. I've known cases. But +we're far afield from the Shelbys. Shall I approach the governor?" + +"No," said Mrs. Van Dam, with decision. "The wife is the one to see, +if I know anything of women, and this is a woman's task; I, clearly, am +the instrument, and shall not shirk." + +"You would have made an eminent surgeon," remarked North, with his slow +smile. + +The unflinching Good Samaritan selected an hour two days later when the +governor's wife was likely to be alone, and sent up her card. Not a +few women had sighed for a sight of Mrs. Teunis Van Dam's calling card, +and sighed in vain; but Cora Shelby, who had heard of these yearnings, +thanked her God that she was not as other women are, and glanced at the +pasteboard with indifference. + +"Yes; I suppose I'm at home," she said languidly, posturing for the +maid, and for a full half-hour left the august visitor waiting below +stairs while she turned the pages of a novel. + +The influence of Mrs. Tommy Kidder had determined this petty course. +This sprightly young person, being herself a real social force, shared +little of the awe in which Mrs. Teunis Van Dam was held by most of her +townsfolk and by all newcomers, and Cora, with her own ideas of the +part which she, as the governor's wife, should play, had taken Mrs. +Tommy's frothy nonsense at rather more than its surface value. She was +more than ever alive to Mrs. Van Dam's importance--her grandson, the +military secretary, was an ever present reminder; but she cherished a +quickened sense of her own importance, too, and was vigilantly alert to +withstand any sign or symptom of what Mrs. Tommy called "Knickerbocker +domination." + +Her first shaft, however, fell wide of the mark. Mrs. Van Dam serenely +assumed that her tardy hostess meant to pay her the compliment of a +more elaborate toilet, and employed the interval in an interested +survey of the changes wrought in the reception room's arrangement by +its new mistress. So absorbing did she find this occupation, that she +utterly missed the glacial temperature of Cora's greeting. + +"I must congratulate you on resurrecting that bit of mahogany," +declared the old lady, indicating a table. "I've missed that piece for +three administrations. Wherever did you find it?" + +"Really, I can't remember," fibbed Cora, resolving straightway to +banish it. + +The military secretary had suggested its restoration, and she jumped to +the conclusion that he had been inspired by his grandmother. + +"It's a real link with the past," added Mrs. Van Dam, with a far-away +look in her eyes. "I can recall it as long ago as Governor Tilden's +time." + +The great Mrs. Van Dam's cordiality thawed Cora in spite of herself, +and she was well in the way of unconditional surrender to her charm +when the caller cut straight into the pith of her errand. + +"Without beating about the bush, my dear," she began, "I'm here on a +meddlesome business which you mustn't take amiss. As an old woman who +has seen something of the world in general, and much of this queer +little Albany corner of it in particular, you must permit me to tell +you that you have been too generously lenient with a person who has +forfeited the right to darken decent people's doors. I mean ex-Senator +Ludlow; and I presume I needn't specify his misdeeds." + +"No. You need not," rejoined Cora, stiffening. "I'm not interested in +scandal." + +Mrs. Teunis Van Dam straightened rigidly in her chair. + +"I fear that, after all, I must particularize," she replied. +"Obviously you can't know the truth of things." + +"I know that his wife divorced him, and I have heard a dozen or more +malicious tales about his present life. I doubt if you can add to the +collection." + +"You put me in a false position." + +"And you reflect on mine in assuming to dictate whom I shall receive. +This house belongs to the state. Every citizen is welcome." + +Mrs. Van Dam had gathered her furs and risen, but at this she paused. + +"There," she exclaimed, with a little laugh, "what women we are! I've +been talking of one thing, you of another. You have the right view of +your official obligations precisely. Of course the man is free to come +to your public receptions. The state can't establish a moral +quarantine, more's the pity." + +"Ex-Senator Ludlow is free to come to my house at all times," cut in +Cora, with a brilliant crimson dot in either cheek. "I do not sit in +pharisaical judgment on the unfortunate. I've had his story as well as +that of you who are against him. I believe him a misjudged man who +deserves a courageous friend." + +"Oh, if it is a question of friendship--" and Mrs. Van Dam terminated +sentence and interview with a shrug. + +Yet Cora had not seen the last of her visitor's stately back before she +repented her open championship of Handsome Ludlow. Knickerbocker +domination, not conviction, had forced her hand. Since she had hung +her banner on the walls, however, she resolved to stand fast, and the +following Sunday morning issued an unmistakable declaration of war. On +her way to service she saw Ludlow crossing the park before the capitol, +and stopped her carriage. + +"'Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remember'd,'" quoted the man, +his handsome, impudent eyes on hers. + +"I propose that you'll do that for yourself," Cora retorted archly. +"Get in." + +She had intended going to the cathedral, but withal sudden resolve she +ordered the carriage driven to an older church just at hand, which time +out of mind had made special provision for the head of the state, down +whose central aisle she marshalled Ludlow, and installed him in the +governor's pew. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Had the protest against Knickerbocker arrogance languished at this +pass, history would be the poorer, but Cora Shelby found it impossible +to stop with this show of independence. Her ambition was whetted for +an exercise of actual power, and the outcome was the famous battle of +Beverwyck, whose story still lacks its balladist. + +Early in her survey of Albany society, Cora had met with the Beverwyck +Club. + +"It is the local academy of immortals," instructed the military +secretary. "Its judgments may not be infallible, but they're beyond +appeal. It is the pink of exclusiveness; it worships etiquette above +all other gods; and its receptions to incoming governors demand the +reddest lettering in the calendar." + +When Shelby's turn for this signal honor drew near, and the military +secretary, to whom Fortune, not content with sending him into the world +a grandson of Mrs. Teunis Van Dam, had added membership in the +Beverwyck Club, approached him to discuss preliminaries, the governor +cheerfully referred him to his wife in whose social knowingness he +placed an abounding trust. Of Albany other than as a legislative +workshop he knew next to nothing. His social progress in the salad +days of his first term in the Assembly had begun in a saloon behind the +capitol much frequented by departmental clerks, whence through hotel +corridor intercourse he evolved by his second session to a grillroom, +patronized by public servants of higher cast who gave stag dinners and +occasional theatre parties, which called for evening dress. Up to this +period Shelby had never found evening clothes essential to his +happiness. His little sectarian college had rather frowned on such +garments, and he, too, for a time had vaguely considered them +un-American. Yet, taught by the grillroom, he assumed this livery, +wore off its shyness, and grew to like it for the best it signified. +Here evolution paused. Mrs. Teunis Van Dam, Canon North, and the +Beverwyck Club, so far as they stood for anything, peopled a frigid +zone of inconsequence which he had no wish to penetrate. Washington, +influence in his party, and intimacy with its leaders sophisticated him +before his return; behind every mask he now discerned a human being; +and no social ordeal terrified. Nevertheless, something of his +old-time diffidence toward the unknown country beyond the grillroom +lingered, and it made for peace that his wife seemed so competent to +guide. + +On the score of her competency, Cora entertained no misgivings, and the +day following Handsome Ludlow's public elevation to sanctity she met +the club's representatives, the military secretary, and an august judge +of the Court of Appeals, with a self-possession she felt would grace +the daughter of a belted earl. The judge, after some ponderous +compliments, told her that the committee in charge, having assured +itself through the secretary that the governor and herself had no +conflicting engagement, had agreed upon a near date for the reception, +which he named. Cora promptly decided that in not consulting her the +military secretary had been wanting in respect, and to punish him +invented a previous engagement out of hand. Withered by his senior's +Jove-like frown, the young man apologized in hot-skinned contrition for +his ignorance of the unknowable. + +"It's barely possible I didn't mention it," dropped Cora, scrupulously +fair. + +This gracious intercession for the culprit had no weight with the +judge, who continued to regard the secretary with severity, and left +him wholly out of the discussion of a date which should meet her +wishes. This matter settled without further affront to her dignity, +the judge expanded under her flattering attention, and gossiped of the +reception itself. + +"Between ourselves," he confessed, "the invitation list is bothering us +unconscionably. You see, it has expanded beyond our space. At the +last governor's reception the club-house was invaded by a mob--a mob, +madame,--there is no other expression,---which I need not add is out of +keeping with our traditions. But how draw the line without offence?" + +With the dregs of her wrath against Mrs. Van Dam stirred afresh by the +disciplining of the grandson, Cora perceived and seized the opportunity +for a swingeing blow. + +"There's an absurdly simple remedy," she returned thoughtfully; "but of +course it would hardly become me to offer suggestions." + +"My dear madame," the judge protested, "it would be an act of charity." + +After a politic interval of coaxing, Cora explained:-- + +"The reception is meant to be official in spirit, isn't it? Then why +not make it so in fact? Limit your invitations to the official circle. +If all the townspeople unconnected with the government are excluded, no +one need take offence." + +A few days afterward the invitations went forth, restricted according +to Cora's plan, and the heart-burnings which were kindled scorched the +club's self-esteem like nothing in its staid career. But while others +merely bewailed the amazing fact of their exclusion, Mrs. Teunis Van +Dam, with characteristic energy, determined to probe the indignity to +its author, and summoned her grandson to an absorbing interview. + +"Schuyler Livingston Smith," she inquired, "what is Mrs. Tommy Kidder's +relation to public affairs that she should receive an invitation to the +Beverwyck Club?" + +The secretary named an insignificant board of which Mr. Kidder was a +member. His grandmother rapidly instanced a dozen other names, and +repeated her question. In most cases the young man had to confess his +ignorance of their claims. + +"So," she commented in the end; "so. And I, whose people have helped +govern this community since there was a colony to govern, am beyond the +pale! But who was Peter Stuyvesant beside Mrs. Tommy Kidder's husband? +Nobody. Who was Abraham de Peyster? who was Gerardus Beekman? who was +Rip Van Dam? And the Schuylers, Livingstons, and Van Rensselaers? All +nobodies. My dear child, what lunatic in the Beverwyck Club suggested +this official classification, which even the Archangel Michael could +not carry out?" + +Her grandson, with no friendly recollections, named the judge. + +"The silly old man!" exclaimed Mrs. Van Dam. "And who inspired him?" + +He cheerfully told her, with the added detail that Mrs. Shelby and the +judge had subsequently gone over the invitation list together. She was +silent for a time, and then dismissed him. Alone with her thoughts, +she elaborated a countermine, whose energy was specially directed +against the Beverwyck Club, though she had no objection to hoisting the +governor's wife in the explosion, albeit she refused to consider her +the real antagonist. The true offender was the exclusive organization +which had prostituted itself to such ignoble influence. + +Within an hour of her grandson's departure Mrs. Teunis Van Dam +despatched an invitation of her own. The Beverwyck Club reception was +scheduled to run its formal course from nine to eleven o'clock; Mrs. +Van Dam asked the governor and his lady to dine with her on the same +evening at the hour of eight. + +All hinged now on the personal equation of Cora Shelby, whose vagaries +the old lady owned herself quite unable to forecast. Nor in this +respect was Cora herself a much wiser prophet. Her first instinct, +mixed with wonder, was to decline, and she held to this opinion the +better part of an hour. Yet before the impulse could stiffen into +resolution, it met the neutralizing influence of the old town, which, +partly through the military secretary, partly through the scoffing +Ludlow, she had unwittingly assimilated. By these teachings she had +learned the flattering, almost royal, significance of Mrs. Teunis Van +Dam's dinner invitations. She was seized afresh by a curiosity to +observe how they did things in Quality Row, and became of two minds +forthwith. Appointed for the same evening as the club reception, the +dinner had, moreover, the look of a peace overture, a concession to her +power, even an admission of defeat, which was soothing. She could +hardly present the matter to Shelby in this light, as she had withheld +all mention of the Ludlow business from his ear; but with a generosity +which astonished herself, she dwelt on Mrs. Teunis Van Dam's undoubted +prestige, and ended by advising acceptance. + +Shelby, preoccupied with an appeal for the pardon of a consumptive +forger, mechanically agreed. + +"Sooner or later we'd have had to endure both functions," he said. "It +is time saved to pack them into one evening." + +Cora bridled. It was a prodigious affair for her that he took so +indifferently. + +"Time, time," she reprimanded; "the state doesn't expect its governor +to grub like a clerk." + +Shelby promised to mend his ways; but the dinner and reception occupied +his thoughts so little that he worked beyond his usual hour at the +capitol on the afternoon of the appointed day, and, coming tardy home, +was late in dressing and late in setting forth. Cora was indignant to +the boiling-point. She meant to be behind-hand at the reception, as a +display of what she deemed good form; but a dinner was a dinner, as her +husband, in the privacy of the carriage, was taught past all +forgetting. Yet his fault lost its gravity before Mrs. Van Dam's +welcome. + +"If you're really late, I'm delighted," she returned to Cora's +embarrassed excuses; "for you see, I've just found that I must +apologize for a delay myself. What a boon servants run by clockwork +would be! But it won't be very long." + +It was long, though neither of the guests suspected it. Shelby was +diverted by Mrs. Van Dam's unimagined vivacity; while his wife had no +immediate room for any impression save satisfaction that this autocrat, +who held that punctuality should be the politeness of democracy no less +than princes, had been caught napping. It was clear that she meant to +bury the hatchet, and Cora, with her own point carried, saw no reason +why she should not add a shovelful of symbolic earth herself. Thus, +beginning with a trickle, the flow of her good humor presently +broadened to the width of the sluice-gate, as she entered upon an +absorbing scrutiny of the quaint old house which by tradition had +served one of the earlier governors. It was a rambling structure of +unexpected turns and endless alcoves stored with curios, art treasures, +and trophies of travel. + +Perceiving their interest in their surroundings, Mrs. Van Dam gladly +played the cicerone. + +"That chair and desk came from the Senate Chamber of the old State +House," she said, following Shelby's eyes. "They were used by my +grandfather, and I luckily got them at the demolition. His wooden +inkstand and pounce-box are there too. That Stuart over the +mantelpiece is his portrait." + +"I've heard of him," answered Shelby, warmly. "He upheld De Witt +Clinton's hands in the fight for the canal." + +She left him momentarily to give Cora the history of a faded Flemish +tapestry that lay in a cabinet, and then included them both in the +romantic tale of a Murillo, unearthed in a Mexican pawnshop, which she +assumed would interest so steadfast a champion of art as the governor +had shown himself in his congressional career. Cora basked in the +exquisite flattery of being treated as a person of greater cultivation +than she was, and strained on tiptoe to merit her reputation. Had her +mind been free to register its ordinary impressions, two things might +have struck her as singular; the absence of other guests, and, stranger +still, in a temple of punctuality, the lack of clocks. + +The same happy atmosphere enveloped the dinner itself, whose perfection +of service and cookery betrayed no hint of delay. Mrs. Shelby found +her views of life and the sphere of woman sought for and appreciated, +and the governor was enticed into political by-paths illustrated by +Tuscarora stories told in his happiest vein. He was frankly charmed. +Many women had attracted him in many ways, ranging from the earthy +fascination of the sometime Mrs. Hilliard to that commingling of +girlish impulse, mature good sense, and an indefinite something else in +Ruth which swayed him still; but none of them had met him on quite the +serene plane of this delightful old woman of the world. By her +birthright she seemed to bridge the present and the past, and under her +spell the quaint-gabled Albany of another century rose again. Once +more Arcadian youth picnicked in the "bush" and coasted down Pinkster +Hill past the squat Dutch church; the Tontine Coffee House sprang from +dust, and through its doors walked Hamilton and Burr, Jerome Bonaparte, +and a comic-pathetic _émigré_ marquis, who in poverty awaited the +greater Bonaparte's downfall, cherishing his order of Saint Louis and +powdering his poll with Indian meal; the Livingstons and Clintons +divided the land between them; Van Buren and the Regency came to power. + +There was more of this when the dinner had ended, and they lingered in +the library over their coffee and Mrs. Van Dam's priceless collection +of relics of the time of the royal province and the yet earlier New +Netherland. + +"A plague on the reception!" exclaimed the governor in the carriage, +when the good nights had finally been said. "I could have talked with +her till morning." + +There was a lively stir and bustle about the entrance of the Beverwyck +Club as they approached, which Cora took to be that of late-comers like +themselves. She would have preferred that she be conspicuously the +last,--the climax. Seen nearer, the flurry was peculiar. If the idea +were not preposterous, she could believe that people were actually +leaving the club--leaving before they met the governor in whose honor +they assembled--leaving before _she_ came! + +"Your watch, Ross, your watch," she exclaimed suddenly. + +"I did not wear it." + +She bethought her of a recently acquired carriage clock whose face the +lights of a passing trolley made plain. She looked, gasped, and looked +again in horrid fascination. The punctilious Beverwyck Club had +decreed that its reception should end at eleven, and the decrees of the +Beverwyck Club were rigidly enforced. The carriage clock pointed its +inexorable hands to a quarter past. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Thenceforth Cora Shelby's respect for the fearless strategist in +Quality Row verged upon awe. If Mrs. Teunis Van Dam now deigned to +assist at one of the weekly house-openings, the occasion savored of an +aroma which the united patronage of Mrs. Tommy Kidder and the ladies of +the lieutenant-governor, the secretary of state, the controller, the +treasurer, and the entire bench of the Court of Appeals could not +exhale. Cora made sure of her good offices for the legislative +reception weeks in advance, and in all matters, save only Handsome +Ludlow, deferred anxiously to the great exemplar's code. + +No one who thought twice about Mrs. Van Dam escaped the reflection that +she was a descendant, and Cora with her mind running continually on +this shoot of a peculiarly sightly family tree, was as fired by this +truism of natural law as if it had lain all the centuries awaiting her +discovery. Those delightful magicians of figures, who as easy as +asking prove William the Conqueror the mathematical begetter of us all, +had hitherto contented her; but such sweets cloyed before Mrs. Van +Dam's august line of Dutch and English forebears, who had considerately +made history and bequeathed portraits and plate. But the path of +Japhet in search of a father was primrose beside the American's in +search of an ancestor, and Cora's researches were long barren of +result. The labyrinth of Brown, her maiden name, she speedily forsook, +though at the outset it seemed to run promisingly to knighthood, +literature, and art; Huggins, her mother's name, was impossible, and +Hilliard, more sounding, clearly out of the question; while the +Shelbys, to whom she turned in last resort, seemed hopelessly +commonplace. Ross's father, to her own knowledge, had done little but +drink; and the grandfather, though of sterner stuff, as became a +pioneer, was handicapped by his unlucky distillery. The governor's own +notions about his family were the vaguest. Like many Americans, he had +the impression that its beginnings traced to two brothers who +immigrated to this country prior to the Revolution in which they served. + +"The Revolution seems to be the Norman Conquest of American genealogy," +he remarked in the course of his wife's cross-examination. + +"But don't you know their names, or what they did in the war?" she +queried anxiously. + +Shelby shook his head. + +"Perhaps they were teamsters," he laughed. + +Cora was too pained to jest. Mrs. Van Dam was a "daughter" of this and +that society by virtue of descent from generals. + +For a time the chase now circled teasingly round a southern branch +whose achievements were notable, but the unconcern of the distiller +with regard to vital statistics balked a happy union of North and +South, and goaded Cora to that last desperate ditch of the +ancestor-hunter--a blind leap over seas. In the fortunate isles where +choice forefathers flourish thick as buttercups, Cora made her foray +with hunger's lawless haste, enlisted the aid of an indigent person +skilled in blazonry, and in good season brought her spoils to the +governor. + +"I've had bother enough getting this," she said, exhibiting a coat of +arms; "but I must say it's far prettier than the one we saw in Mrs. Van +Dam's library." + +"Runs mainly to red, doesn't it?" Shelby ventured, gravely considering +the work. + +"That's gules," explained Cora, learnedly; "the color of the field. +Books of heraldry describe the arms as: 'Gules, two boars' heads +displayed in chief and a mullet in base, sable; crest, a dexter arm, +embowed, grasping a cimeter--'" + +"I took that for a crumb-scraper," put in the governor, jocularly. + +"The motto," went on Cora, soberly, "is, 'I achieve.' I think the +purple of the mantling highly effective--purpure, that's called--which, +taken with the red and black, would give a most romantic light to our +hall in New Babylon if we put a window at the turn of the stair. +Tomorrow morning I shall order a die made for my stationery." + +"So this is ours," said Shelby. "Did the original owner acquire it in +the Holy Wars, or was he a rich brewer who endowed a hospital?" + +Cora reddened. + +"He was Owen Shelby, a Welsh soldier of the Commonwealth." + +"A near relation of mine?" + +"You are undoubtedly his descendant. Of course I can't supply every +trifling link--your people were so careless of their records; but there +is no question in my mind that you are entitled to his arms, and you +ought to be grateful to me for my pains." + +"I am, I am," protested Shelby, with a chuckle. "But before the +engraver begins work on the crumb-scraper and the prize pigs let me +suggest that you add a detail which has been overlooked. I mean a bar +sinister." + +"Ross!" + +He slipped his arm round her waist with a laugh. + +"One of the state library people said that you were trailing the +foreign Shelbys, and I glanced at your references. The fact I remember +best is that Owen Shelby, late of Cromwell's Ironsides, died a +bachelor." + +She flung from him in stormy anger. + +"I've twice been fool enough," she flashed, "to marry a man unable to +appreciate me." + +He winced. The reproach, more wanton than any she had ever framed, +lashed him on the raw. The manner of his succession to Joe Hilliard's +shoes had fostered an almost morbid solicitude for her well being which +had not seldom over-topped his better judgment. If he had failed of +his duty, it was not for lack of striving. + +"I've tried, Cora," he answered bitterly. + +Neither broached a formal reconciliation--such crude devices fell into +disuse early in their marriage; but the man gave her social hours he +could ill afford in the press of the closing session, and presently a +tremendous event from the outside patched, if it could not heal, the +breach. This was nothing less than the launching of Shelby's +presidential boom. + +Three factors contributed to this movement: the return of prosperity, +the governor's personality, and the Boss. Shelby won his election in a +midnight of universal hard times; his inauguration saw the dawn; the +legislative session closed amidst a sunrise of splendid promise. By +the deathless fallacy which credits or blames the ruling powers for +everything, natural or supernatural, Shelby's party reaped abundantly +where it had sown with niggard hand. The governor's personal deserts +were more solid, the public recognizing his retarding ratchet as the +cause of the machine's continence and the lowered tax-rate. Apparently +the Legislature bore him no ill will for his curbing hand. A quiet +word had issued from the Boss that the governor's vetoes must stand, +and Shelby's one pet measure, the appointment of a commission to deal +with the improvement of the canals, had passed both Houses by a vote +which was almost non-partisan. A spontaneous demand seemed to well +from the people that this faithful steward be sent higher. + +But Shelby knew something of the rearing of that tenderest of plants in +the political garden--the spontaneous demand. In the voice of the +people he had so often read the will of the Boss. The inspired +laudations of country editors, the resulting echoes in the city press, +the interviews with the knowing ones who withheld their names, the +genuine momentum lent by the easily impressed--all the covert workings +of spontaneity were known to him from the days of apprenticeship at the +Boss's feet. The method was transparent, the motive only was hazy; yet +he divined the motive itself with sufficient accuracy. The Boss +thought he knew too much. It is well to make your own governor, but to +make him too well is ill. It was this one's drawback that he had +passed the No Admittance sign of the workshop and got the trade secrets +of the boss business at his finger ends. The pupil smiled sometimes +when he recalled the first great rencounter with the master. The birch +and frown no longer terrified. Evidently the Boss knew this, and +failing the birch, dangled a prize. + +What Shelby did not divine was the incentive force of pique. While the +leader gave his smiling interviews to the reporters on the subject of +the governor's vetoes, he had too often had to dissemble that his +earliest information came from them. He did not resent the vetoes, if +they made party capital; nor did he resent Shelby's popularity, for he +liked him. The bitterness of the cup was that the ingrate took no +pains to inquire whether he cared or not. It is true that in large +questions Shelby had uniformly sought his counsel, and the session had +been fairly prolific in legislation redounding to the party credit; but +the governor's independence in the lesser matters attainted his +loyalty. What the one man considered upholding the dignity of his +office, the other interpreted as leze-majesty. + +Shelby's attitude toward the presidential chit-chat was frankly human. +Too modest to measure himself beside the greater successors of +Washington, he yet knew himself to be as well equipped as many who had +held the office; and, without troubling his sleep, determined that +should the boss-made boom attain genuine popularity, it might drift +where it would without hindrance from him. Precisely this occurred. +The governor's practicality smoothed the way to his indorsement by men +whose foremost interest was business rather than politics, and a +banquet given him late in April by a great commercial organization of +New York, which approved his policy of letting the city mind its own +affairs, set him definitely in the race. + +Throned in a gallery above the diners; courted by heroines of by-gone +horse shows, the hem of whose garments she had never dreamed to touch; +with the White House looming mistily through the sheen of silver and +crystal and napery under tinted lights, Cora viewed the taking +spectacle as a personal apotheosis. A silly periodical for "ladies" +had recently printed an article about her which ascribed Shelby's +making to herself, and she, in this rosy hour believing, looked upon +her handiwork, and saw that it was tolerably good. Statesmen, +diplomats, captains of industry, the smiling Boss--a very parliament of +brains--did the governor honor, and the most famous after-dinner +speaker in the land proclaimed him New York's favorite son. + +To most of his listeners Shelby's reply seemed admirable. A morning +paper called it "a little classic of straightforwardness"; but his +king-maker aloft thought his bearing too simple by far. If he listened +to her, he would tip his presidential lightning-rod more showily. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Summer leaped a hotbed growth from spring, and Cora Shelby, tiring of +golf, the country club, and Albany's now mild pastimes, took herself +off for a round of fashionable resorts with Mrs. Tommy Kidder. The +governor had other occupations. So far as a man could do such a thing, +he put his presidential chances out of mind and bent his energies upon +a study of the canal problem, whose solving he was ambitious to make +the monument of his administration. As a legislator he had been +recognized as an authority upon this his hobby; but the knowledge of +the assemblyman was shallow beside that of the governor, who asked no +fairer laurel than to link his name with the regenerated Erie Canal as +the second Clinton had associated his name with its beginnings. + +Throughout the languid heated term whose official calm only the +occasional request of a fellow governor for requisition papers +disturbed, Shelby plodded over the bewildered mass of estimates, maps, +and mazy statistics which his special committee was accumulating. A +more brilliant man doubtless would have left much of this arid drudgery +to subordinates, contenting himself with the sum of things, without a +close scrutiny of detail; but this was never Shelby's way. When he +mastered a subject it was his blood and bones, and his passion for the +Ditch transmuted its story, howsoever told, into stuff that splendid +dreams are made on and modern empires built. + +Those arduous months were the happiest he had known. He toiled +mightily, but he wrought at a labor of love, while his leisure hours +fostered friendships as novel as they were attractive. Cora Shelby's +campaign of the watering-places had not embraced Milicent, and the girl +returned from school in June to find her mother already gone. She +dutifully made known her arrival in Albany, and in time deciphered from +a patchouli-scented scrawl postmarked "Bar Harbor" that Albany was an +excellent spot for her to remain. + +"She says that summer hotels are no places for young girls," Milicent +told her stepfather. "Why then does mamma care about them?" + +The governor was nonplussed: but he quietly set himself to make Albany +tolerable for this astonishing young person, yet scant of seventeen, +who had suddenly flowered into the outward semblance of a woman. He +devised excursions on the river and pilgrimages to historic spots about +the city and the countryside, acquiring strange antiquarian lore of the +Schuyler house, the Van Rensselaer mansion, and the Vanderheyden +Palace, and, more curious still, a perception of his deep capacity for +affection. This child of the Hilliards' better selves, with her +father's frankness, her mother's earlier beauty, and with a winsomeness +all her own, awoke his slumbering instinct of fatherhood. + +The wholesome new relation quickened his insight amazingly. He divined +that however much the girl might care for these wayside rambles with +him, her youth must still crave youth, and in this strait he turned to +Mrs. Van Dam, who forthwith became Milicent's captive, too, and a fairy +godmother into the bargain. So Shelby came much to frequent a +vine-screened upper veranda off Mrs. Van Dam's library, where she was +fond of serving coffee after dinner, and one could dip down over the +red roofs and tree-tops to the stripling Hudson changing its coat of +many colors in the sunset. As this corner was a haunt of Canon +North's, also, it fell out that a friendship sprang up between the men +which strengthened into intimacy. Shelby had never dreamed of making +friends with a clergyman. The sectarian college had put him out of +joint with priestery. But North was in a class by himself. He had no +sacerdotal air or jargon--that negative virtue was his earliest +passport; and he was from crown to sole a robust manly man. The +governor took to dropping into the canon's book-lined study near the +cathedral after office hours, and North would come to the executive +mansion and smoke half the night away; for the canon was a judge of +tobacco no less than men. Not once in their intercourse did he mention +church-going or creeds; he did not "talk religion." Yet, whatever the +canon's religion was, Shelby was aware that he lived it. The air was +full of little stories of his helpfulness of the sort people told of a +man North once alluded to as "Saint" Phillips Brooks. + +Milicent went to the Catskills late in August as the guest of a school +friend, and after a day or two of novel loneliness, the governor +decided to carry out a recently formed plan for supplementing the work +of his committee with a personal inspection of a part of the canal +system. As it seemed to him that he could get at the best results by +quiet means, his journey was presented to the press in the light of a +business trip to his old home. For forty-eight hours his leisurely +progress with his private secretary escaped remark. Then the +newspapers upset his apple-cart. Shelby had become too interesting a +figure for the rôle of Haroun-al-Raschid, and the paragraphers rang +astonishing changes on his adventures at the few points where he had +succeeded in making observations unrecognized. What he saw thereafter +was accompanied by the click of cameras and the fatuity of local +bigwigs brimming with eagerness to tie their fortunes to the car of the +coming man. + +At New Babylon, where he became the guest of the Hon. Seneca Bowers, +the minute espionage upon his doings ceased, and Shelby felt less a +personage than at any time since his inauguration. The town was proud +of him, but too faithful to its ancestral reserve to tell him so. +People who had called him "Ross" all his days addressed him in this +fashion still; and the Widow Weatherwax calmly imposed an audience in +the matter of her last will and testament, which the new-fledged +lawyer, William Irons, had bungled, and spiced the renewal of their +relations with her old-time candor and a full chronicle of the past, +present, and probable scandal of the county. In little ways, however, +the governor perceived what close-mouthed Tuscarora really felt. They +had hung a crayon portrait of him in the court-house, and the Pioneer +Association, which was about to hold its annual picnic beside Ontario, +asked him to deliver the address. + +Shelby accepted the invitation, and, saturated as he was with the +homespun history of his county, excelled himself. But he did something +more than retell a familiar tale. A product of this life, he +nevertheless saw it from the outside and in its wide relations, and the +canal-begotten civilization, which was his immediate theme, led +irresistibly to the vast economic problem that lay near his heart, and +to a suddenly formulated plan for its solution. By one of those +inspirations of the moment which public speakers know, yet dare not +count upon, the vexing details of his summer's drudgery shifted and +rearranged themselves into a coherent pattern and policy whose +fulfilment should place the historic waterway, not merely abreast of +the age, but bulwarked for the future. It was a significant utterance +which carried far. Shelby could give no copies of his speech to the +press, since the speech had largely shaped itself in the making; but +the correspondents who covered what had promised to be a purely bucolic +assignment, were not slow in seeing their error and retrieving it. +What the Tuscarora pioneers and their descendants heard, the whole +state read; and the discerning perceived that, wherever the party, the +party machine, or the party boss might stand, the governor had scaled +the high plateau of statesmanship, where public opinion is less catered +to than led. + +Late in the afternoon Shelby shook the last brown hand in the +serpentine line of country people which coiled in and out the stuffy +parlor of the Lakeview Inn, and cutting loose from the reception +committee under cover of a headache, slipped away into the trees. The +fringe of the wood was defaced with the litter of picnickers, and smelt +of lunch; the din of the agents for new-fangled reapers and ploughs, +whose gaudy paint was doubly garish against the sober background, had +routed the squirrels and birds; but the remoter paths held only silent +lovers, and the camp-ground, where the Widow Weatherwax had mouthed and +played the prophet, stripped of its tents, its zealots, its wavering +torchlights, was full of wholesome sunlight and forest peace. + +The spot stirred ghosts, and the governor turned to the murmuring shore +with its gentle mimicry of ocean. Half sheltered by a clump of sumach +sat a woman upon a bit of driftwood and flung pebbles in the lake. He +stared, and then went slowly down to her. + +"Ruth," he said, "you here!" + +"Your Excellency startled me." + +Her banter puzzled him, but the handclasp was warm. + +"Forget my office," he petitioned. + +"After your tremendous speech to-day? You were his Excellency the +governor of New York with that, and I was properly impressed. It +struck me that you would make a benevolent czar." + +"Are you mocking me?" + +"God forbid, your Excellency!" + +"I'd rather be plain Shelby," he said, studying her profile. "I'm glad +you heard me--glad that you liked it. It was sincere, and you value +sincerity. But I had no notion that you were listening. I supposed +you somewhere with the fashionables." + +"I reached home yesterday, and came at once to my lake cottage. I +heard that you were to speak, and braved the picnic to hear you. I +trust you appreciate the sacrifice." + +"And--your husband? Is he here too?" + +Ruth flung a pebble. + +"I believe he's addressing a woman suffrage convention in Chicago +to-day." She gave him a lazy glance. "And Mrs. Shelby--is she here?" + +"She's in Saratoga, I believe." + +"Belief again? We really ought to read the papers." + +He tried to search her face, but the pebble-throwing prevented. The +Widow Weatherwax had expatiated on the topic of Mrs. Bernard Graves's +unhappiness, with tedious variations on the saw about marrying in haste +to repent at leisure. He wondered--he scarce knew what. She drew him +with all the old attraction, but an elusive something had vanished. He +guessed that it was the essence of youth, though the form lingered. + +"Are you happy, Ruth?" he asked abruptly. + +She looked him in the eyes, and laughed. + +"That reminds me of your unofficial self," she said. "You never could +invent small talk for the feminine mind." + +"You were never the kind of woman who wanted it." + +"I better appreciate its uses nowadays. It conceals either the absence +or presence of thought. Bless me! there's an epigram. But I'm afraid +it's merely an echo of Voltaire." + +He was not listening. A midsummer madness rioted in his brain. + +"But are you happy?" + +"Small talk, small talk," she insisted. "See how that yacht's sails +take the sun. Isn't the water a splendid sapphire? Do you like to +fish? Do you prefer Tennyson or Browning? Meredith or Hardy? Isn't +it warm? Isn't it cool?" + +"But are you?" + +She rose and faced him with strange eyes. + +"What do you want?" + +"Want," he repeated mechanically, rising too. + +"Why have you come here in your pomp of governorship and promise of +greater things to harass me?" + +"Harass you, Ruth! If you knew--" + +"Know? I know too much. I'm unlearning things now. That's the key to +happiness--forgetting. And here come you, as you used to come, an +untamed, masterful force--that's what you are, a force!--and instead of +forgetting you ask me to remember. What is it you're really seeking in +this probing of my happiness? What must you be told?" + +"Nothing." With the revelation of the flaw in her armor he conquered +self. "I know--God help me!--I know." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +The Boss questioned the wisdom of the Tuscarora speech, and the fall +widened the unacknowledged breach between him and the governor. The +September primaries had assured the leader a firmer control of the +state convention than he had ever exercised, and it was well understood +to be his, and his alone, made to his order, and the docile register of +his will. That this victory clinched his ownership of the delegation +to the national convention of next year was self-evident; and that a +presidential candidate with New York's backing would attract allies +from several eastern and at least two southern boss-ruled states, was +well warranted by the tale of the great politician's excursions into +national affairs in the recent past. By implication of the April +banquet the leader's personal choice, Shelby, had therefore no trivial +chance of capturing the nomination; and in the Boss's opinion the +favored pawn owed a decent deference to the master chess-player. So +Shelby thought, too; but they split over definition of terms in the +same old way. + +"You juggled millions like a Napoleon of Finance," complained the Boss +at a breakfast for two shortly after the state convention. "Is that +the kind of talk for people just recovering from hard times?" + +His tone chafed the governor. + +"It's the kind of talk for a proper handling of the canal problem," he +retorted crisply. "The canal has been the prey of peanut politics too +long." + +"The speech was ill-advised--ill-advised," persisted the Boss, +irritably. "You should have consulted somebody." + +Shelby provoked him with a smile. + +"That was my idea, precisely," he returned. "I thought I'd consult the +people." + +A difference springing from the November elections strained their +relations farther, and goaded Shelby's patience to its utmost reach. +Although they favored the organization as a whole, the elections +wrought certain damaging changes in detail, one of which involved the +fortunes of Handsome Ludlow. Early in his term the governor had +appointed the man to a temporary commission, at the urgent plea of the +Boss, who painted the ex-senator in the light of a faithful soldier +haply fallen outside the breastworks by reason of the ingratitude of a +fickle city constituency. Ludlow had regularly drawn a salary, which +his subordinates earned, and divided his abundant leisure between the +diversions peculiar to Mrs. Tommy Kidder's coterie and schemes for the +recovery of his senatorial seat. In the latter business he met with a +defeat more telling than he had yet experienced. But Ludlow was an +office-seeker of resource. Through a channel which he did not +disclose, he got wind of a judgeship whose forthcoming vacancy was +known to the governor and those in his confidence, and promptly +undertook a still-hunt for the place. Presently his name came to +Shelby with the strong recommendation of the Boss. + +The governor was angry to the core. As a lawyer alone he recoiled from +raising even temporarily to the bench a man whose activities had been +notoriously political, and his law practice innocent of a single case +in a court of record; as a husband whose ears tingled with gossip of +this same Ludlow's summer attentions to his wife, which the Boss, whom +nothing escaped, must have heard too, his hurt was shrewder. His +refusal was curt. + +The Boss met the governor's move with silence, but under his own roof +Shelby had crossed a politician less self-contained. Ludlow owed his +fore-knowledge of the judicial vacancy to Cora, who flew in high +dudgeon to her husband to demand why he had refused this favor to her +valued friend. + +Shelby was dumfounded. + +"These affairs don't concern you," he said, after a moment's +incredulous scrutiny of her face. + +"Why did you refuse to make him a judge?" she repeated hotly. + +"Ludlow is a discredited political hack. I had no alternative." + +"It's jealousy." + +Shelby whitened. + +"If you mean to press the thing into that region," he answered sternly, +"I'll own that there is an element of jealousy. I've had to open my +eyes lately to many things which concern you and Ludlow. Bar Harbor +stories, Saratoga stories, Albany stories, too, of things you've kept +from me--God knows what hasn't filtered my way. I am jealous--jealous +for your good name, and mine, and Milicent's." + +She wept at that, saying that he misconstrued her warm sympathy with +the unfortunate; and he, proof against anything but the feminine +tear-gland, as she knew, protested his faith. It was near his lips at +this moment to beg her to treat Ludlow henceforth with mere civility, +but he refrained. When he broached it afterward her pliant mood had +vanished. + +"You would have Albany saying that you believe its tittle-tattle," she +argued; and he deferred for the hundredth time to her superior +perception of the mental processes of the social world. + +Till the Legislature met in January, the governor was absorbed in the +writing of his annual message, whose recommendations he proposed to +devote almost exclusively to the canals. His committee had completed +its work, and his great plan was muscular and vertebrate in all its +structure, for he contemplated a far-reaching system of legislation +rather than a simple makeshift appropriation of the out-worn type; and +the ultimate goal of it all was to lift the politics-ridden waterway +out of politics altogether. Before he gave his final revision to the +printers, he submitted a proof to the Boss, who returned it with the +comment that his intellect was of an order quite too everyday to +criticise a project obviously framed for the millennium. From the man +reputed to own the Legislature, whose committees, certainly, were cut +and dried in his office weeks before it met, this sarcasm was gloomily +prophetic; but since his Tuscarora speech, Shelby had personally +sounded many senators, assemblymen, and representatives of the several +canal interests, and he was not dismayed. + +The reception given by the newspapers to what they styled "The +Governor's Splendid Dream" heartened Shelby, though he deprecated its +form. He insisted that the scheme was no more his than the +committee's, whose elaborate report he submitted with his message, and +that it was no dream at all, but the businesslike remedy for an +admitted ill. As in De Witt Clinton's case, however, the public +brushed aside the idle question of genesis, and honored the untiring +advocate. + +There were plenty who agreed with the governor. Famous economic +experts and civil service reformers wrote their approval, great +financiers wired congratulations, and the public hearings on the bills +embodying his ideas, which friendly legislators shortly introduced, +were attended by representatives from the exchanges, boards of trade, +merchants' associations, and chambers of commerce of every city +directly concerned. + +A reporter remarked upon this striking showing to the Boss. + +"Yes," said the great man, "the governor seems to have the unanimous +support of the college professors and the New Yorkers who claim +residence in Newport, Rhode Island; but I wonder what the taxpayer +thinks." + +This figurative taxpayer personified for him the rural vote whose +strength was his strength, and whose thought he made his own. He was +hearkening to the murmur of the counties which the canal did not touch, +but whose memory of its flagrant abuses was long, and the conclusion +that he reached the country newspapers of his system began speedily to +express. One editor bewailed the "Hundred-Million-Dollar-Millstone" +which the governor proposed to hang about the people's neck; another +attacked the consistency of the man who would to-day scatter like a +prodigal what he had scrimped yesterday to save; while a third +pertinently inquired whether such a spendthrift were fit timber to put +in Washington as a check upon the waxing extravagance of Congress? By +dint of repetition these things attained wide currency. + +Shelby was untroubled. + +"Millions, to be sure," he replied to a query of his wife's. "The +commercial supremacy of a state is perforce a question of millions." + +"But they're saying you risk your presidential chances," she lamented. +"Do take every care to strengthen yourself. It's the fondest dream of +my life to see you President. You must let nothing stand between you +and the nomination." + +"Thank heaven I'm not stung that badly!" the governor ejaculated. + +"But for my sake! If I should ask you--beg you on my knees?" + +"I'd say you should be in better business." + +He answered her lightly, and playfully pinched her ear, but she saw +that no word of hers could sway his purpose, and hated him. For the +hour, however, even this teasing vision of herself as first lady of the +land paled before the very present topic of Milicent's début. Despite +Shelby's advice and her own pleadings, the girl had not been allowed to +return to her school in the autumn; for when they met at the summer's +end, the revelation of her daughter's good looks and unconscious +girlish charm, by her mother called manner, revived a shadowy project +of Cora's for an elaborate coming-out ball which had enticed her in the +early days of life in Albany. Neither Milicent's reluctance nor her +stepfather's protest against the launching of so young a girl availed. + +"Only last week I saw her playing with a doll," said Shelby, routed at +every turn. + +"What an argument! I played with dolls after I was married to Joe. If +you postponed a woman's début till she tired of dolls, you would +conflict with her funeral." + +This sally displayed such unexpected humor that Shelby laughed, and his +wife seized the favoring moment to end discussion. + +"It's my duty to my child," she declared; "and of that, a mother is the +best judge." + +Although the event was to be deferred till late February, as the +crowning glory of the season which Lent would close, Cora's plans were +on foot by Thanksgiving Day. Among her earliest preliminaries was the +enlisting of Mrs. Van Dam, whose friendship for Milicent she had +determined to exploit as soon as she learned of its existence. This +was not difficult. Of the wisdom of the thing Mrs. Van Dam said +nothing,--she had had her fill of advising Mrs. Shelby,--but her +sympathy for Milicent was keen, and it drew her into a rather +distasteful share in Cora's programme, in the hope of lessening the +girl's ordeal. Where Mrs. Teunis Van Dam led, Albany naturally +followed; and with Albany subdued, Cora directed her conquering march +toward other worlds. In the year of her publicity she had, through +Mrs. Tommy Kidder and other agencies, brushed here and there at the rim +of the magic inner circle of metropolitan society, for every inch of +which she now encroached an ell. Shelby gained his first knowledge of +the astonishing extent of his wife's acquaintance when he scanned the +invitation list of a thousand names, and was told by the military +secretary that New York's quota was coming by special train. + +About five o'clock on the evening of the ball, the governor came home +fagged and depressed. Aside from canal reform, still drifting through +seas of talk, the legislative session presented several insistent +public questions which seemed to have imposed their cumulative worry on +his morning hours; later had come an acrimonious hearing over the +removal of an incompetent district attorney; then a quarter-hour's +fencing with the press correspondents, who wanted to know things which +it was inexpedient to tell; and, finally, a rasping conference with the +Boss, who, using the ball as a cover for one of his rare pilgrimages to +Albany, had, throughout the day, held levee in his hotel parlors with +such vogue that at moments both Senate and Assembly all but lacked a +quorum. + +Mrs. Tommy Kidder's brougham blocked the porte-cochčre as Shelby +mounted the steps of the executive mansion, and at the door he met the +volatile lady herself. + +"I've been watching the workmen give the finishing touch, governor," +she gushed. "You are about to set foot in fairyland." + +Shelby put her in her carriage, and entered the house. It did not seem +fairylike. Only a dim light shone here and there through the dusk, and +the floors were not yet clear of the rubbish of the decorators. From +one of the smaller rooms came the sound of Handsome Ludlow's voice. He +too, apparently, had been watching the finishing touch. The governor +passed on to his own apartments in quest of peace. It was a vain +search. His quarters had been invaded and curtailed for the event, and +the corner left him was confused and forlorn. He lit a cigar, smoked a +brief moment, heard a feminine cough on the farther side of a door +leading to one of the rooms from which some guest had dispossessed him, +and desisted. + +He went downstairs presently, and left the house for the conservatory, +a favorite haunt of his, usually troubled by no one else save Milicent. +He scarcely knew one flower from another, but he delighted to potter +about, smelling here and there, and the Scotch gardener idolized him as +heartily as he detested the wife, who cared nothing for these treasures +in themselves, and openly avowed that she preferred the odor of +patchouli. + +The greenhouses proved rather forlorn too, denuded as they were of so +many potted things for the glory of the mansion; but their quiet +obscurity ministered to Shelby's jaded mood. Then he perceived that he +was not alone. Low voices drifted from another aisle--Ludlow's and +Cora's--doubtless still absorbed in the finishing touch. After an +instant's hesitation the governor moved toward them, till a vivid +little picture framed by the fronds of a drooping fern brought him to a +standstill. He beheld a deliberate kiss. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +The scene so nearly paralleled that crucial moment in his own life, +under Joe Hilliard's roof, that the quarry owner seemed fairly to +twitch his sleeve. Then, as the dead man had done before him, Shelby +stayed his hand. Hilliard had respected his hearthstone because it +held the ashes of a burned-out love; the governor respected his office. +Unseen by the rapt pair, he left the conservatory, and regained his +disordered room. + +How should he act? There was scant opportunity for reflection. The +dinner hour was presently upon him, with a chattering tableful of +Cora's friends who were staying in the house. Shelby seldom shone in +these mixed companies, and to-night he seemed to himself to stand off +in wondering detachment, while somebody clothed in his likeness said +and did many things. He made clear a bit of political slang for the +woman in yellow on his right; he smiled appreciation of the quip of a +young thing in pink three places distant down the left; he explained to +a foreign gentleman, whose English was irreparably broken, that Albany +was not the capital of the United States; and all this time he watched +his vivacious wife at the table's end, and marvelled at her hypocrisy. +So Joe Hilliard had probably wondered. Hilliard was very real to him. +He seemed to have incased himself in Hilliard's personality. A little +later, when Milicent, all exhilaration now that the bursting of the +cocoon was instant, came in her bravery for his approval, he kissed her +like one who knows no care, and extravagantly admired the roses he +forgot that he had sent. The same mechanical self stood beside his +wife and stepdaughter at the coming of the guests, spoke its automatic +greetings, and extended its automatic hand. + +For one brief instant the opiate lifted. The endless smirking +procession had cast Ludlow to the front. The man was lingering with +easy assurance between mother and daughter. + +"Which is the débutante?" he asked. + +Shelby could have felled him for taking the girl's hand--Cora's +mattered nothing. But what of his own hand? Milicent's fan suddenly +escaped its fastening, and as suddenly he caught at the pretext for +which he groped. Again in his place, Ludlow had drifted by with no +word spoken between them. He sighed with relief, and in the same +breath cursed himself and the conventions which compelled such cunning. +In a rational world he could have knocked him down. + +Once again that evening they came face to face. It was late--past one +o'clock--and the governor issuing from the smoking-room met Ludlow at +the threshold. No one was within earshot; fate itself seemed to have +ordered the meeting, and till that moment Shelby had desired to +confront Ludlow with a fierce desire. Yet they passed with a nod. +Long uncertain before many offering courses, Shelby on the instant made +his choice. + +The orchestra hushed, the last good night spoken, Milicent gone to her +dreams, the house half in darkness, he intercepted Cora in the corridor +leading to her apartments. + +"Ten minutes of your time," he requested. + +She stared, yawned, and stared again. + +"At this hour?" + +"Now." + +She led the way into her dressing-room and sent away her maid. Shelby +waited silently by the open grate till they should be alone. + +"You're rather pale," observed his wife, languidly, in passing to a +chair; and with finger tip lightly brushed his cheek. + +He shrank involuntarily. + +"Pale and nervous," she added, "and a fit subject for bed. Was Old +Silky disagreeable to-day? I thought him as sweet as peaches tonight. +Did you notice Mrs. Van Dam's famous diamonds? It's not often she +wears them all. Milicent got her to do it." + +"I was in the greenhouse before dinner, Cora," said Shelby, speaking +with slow emphasis. "I saw you and Ludlow." + +"Oh, yes," returned the woman, glibly, "we were wondering whether the +large drawing-room needed a few more palms." + +"I saw you and Ludlow in one another's arms," pursued her husband in +the same hard staccato. "I saw him kiss you." + +She half rose, eying him fearfully; then, reassured by what she saw, +sank back in her seat, fingering the long glove she had partly drawn +from one white arm. As on that other night, her faultless shoulders +rose from a black setting of laces and shining jet, and, manlike, +Shelby took the garment for the same which had helped to warp the +fabric of his life from its design. The remembrance maddened him. + +"Speak, you devil," he charged. + +"I love him," she returned defiantly. "I love him." + +"And my wife!" + +"I was Joe's wife--before." + +"You've the right to say it," he owned. + +"Well, then, meet me halfway. Since you know the truth, what do you +advise me to do?" + +"Advise you?" he echoed. + +"Precisely. Put yourself in my place. Suppose that you were in love +with somebody." + +He started. + +"I--" + +"So hard, is it? Suppose it, anyhow. Suppose yourself a human being +instead of--well, say a personified canal; a human being married to +another human being--the wrong one--with your love for the right one +growing stronger every day. What would you do?" + +"Master my passion. Preserve my self-respect." + +She laughed at the trumpet note of his answer. + +"You've the cocksure remedy of one who has never tried." + +He strangled a retort. + +"Try to comprehend my feelings," she pursued. "If you were in love +with me, I shouldn't ask it. But you're not in love with me. Frankly +now, are you?" + +"I am your husband." + +"And I'm your wife. Does that prove a love affair? No, no. The naked +fact is that neither cares, and because of that I ask you plainly how +we can best arrange the matter." + +"This is nonsense." + +"It isn't. It's common sense. A New York woman I know--I met her at +Narragansett--was in the same position. Her husband was broad-minded, +and they settled everything without an unkind word. She lived +somewhere in the Dakotas for a few months, married again as soon as the +judge signed the decree, and made a roundabout journey home her wedding +trip." + +"And you would imitate this programme?" + +"In some respects--yes. I've not thought it out in detail. Your +practical mind ought to shed abundant light. If you weren't my +husband, I'd retain you as my lawyer." + +"By Heaven, I've stood enough of this!" flashed Shelby. "Are you +destitute of even the moral rags and tatters a Hottentot may boast? +You ask my advice. Have it you shall, and follow it you must. I have +forfeited the right to reproach you as man to wife--granted that I +never had it; as a man I waive my personal affront. But as the +governor of this state to the mistress of this, the state's house, I +warn you that this brazen mockery of decency must end. When I am +governor no longer you may go your way in such fashion as you will. +Till then you must take no step which shall discredit my office or the +position to which my office raises you. You will tell Ludlow this, and +when you have told him, you will hold no private speech with him until +my successor takes his oath. Promise." + +His volcanic outburst cowed her flippancy. + +"I promise," she said. + +Before the week elapsed the newspapers announced that Ludlow had +decided to resume the practice of law in New York. Cora made no +comment; but Shelby read into the retreat her purpose to keep their +sorry truce inviolate, and strove to shut his mind to every thought +alien to his work. + +The public business was absorbing enough in truth. His great canal +project, which during a month of hearings, conferences, committee +enmeshments, and the like, had hung in jeopardy, was wrecked beyond +repair. Nor was this the worst. The governor's forcing of the issue +had convinced the Boss that a popular demand for canal legislation of +some sort really existed, and he prepared to respond with a measure +after his own heart. A vicious substitute, which it was given out that +the organization fully indorsed, glided facilely to its final reading +after the manner of bills bearing the mystic sign manual of the Boss. +Foreseeing disaster, Shelby sought at least to rescue the wise +provision of his plan which looked to the administration of the canals +along business lines, and to this end used his personal influence with +various members of the Legislature. Achieving little here, he even +appealed to the leader himself. + +The Boss wrote him in his ironic mood. + +"Naturally I cannot forecast the action of the Legislature," he said, +following his modest custom of disclaiming foreknowledge of the events +he shaped; "but in my opinion any measure which ignores the legitimate +expectation of patronage on the part of the party in power is too +idyllic for this workday world." + +Shelby was at no loss to give this dictum its true interpretation. His +own scheme had secured the party's legitimate rights sufficiently--he +was too clear-sighted to overlook that. It was the party's illicit +greed for spoils which he had failed to satisfy--the greed which the +Boss had framed his makeshift to meet. The opportunity for jobbery was +left as wide as before, perhaps wider; for while under color of economy +the appropriation cut the reasonable sum Shelby had suggested as a +beginning, it was a vast amount still. So conceived, and at the +eleventh hour saddled with an amendment directing the building of a +costly feeder which the engineers had declared needless, the travesty +of all the governor's good intentions passed both Houses by a narrow +vote, and reached Shelby himself. + +Jacob Krantz, whose interest in this particular bit of legislation was +keen, in his own vernacular hit off the situation. + +"It's time for a show-down," said this observer of things as they are. +"The Boss has put it up to the Champion of Canals to make good his +bluff." + +Shelby realized this truth clearly enough in the ten days given him by +the constitution for his decision; but he took no one into his +confidence, and fought his dreary battle alone. It was a hard choice +that destiny had offered him in the end--total shipwreck of his brave +dreamings, or a salvage of what perhaps might better sink. Had his +duty by the people been absolutely plain, he would have acted +instantly, for he had striven to be the people's governor; but in the +ten days of his ordeal the people seemed to speak with a hundred +differing tongues, whose single coherent message proclaimed what he +already knew--that for him there could be no middle way. The bill was +in the form of a concurrent resolution to submit the appropriation to +popular vote; but Shelby had no mind to dodge his responsibility. With +his record, with his conception of his trust, he must confront the +issue squarely--sign or reject. + +One of the most clamorous of the newspapers favoring the bill phrased +his choice yet more narrowly, quoting copiously from his speeches and +bidding him "sign or stultify." But appeals to his consistency found +him deaf. The man who never changed his mind and the man who never +changed his coat were to him equally ridiculous; time had its sport +with each of them. Another attack, made when he had held the bill for +upward of a week and a rumor of a veto was rife, drew blood. Volney +Sprague's _Whig_ which, without ever thinking good of Shelby, had long +since returned to the party fold, embraced the occasion to revive the +old scandals linking Shelby's name to unsavory canal contracts, with +the insinuation that the governor's real quarrel with the bill which +had passed lay in the fact that it exposed too few millions to +thievery. The erratic editor's virtual allegiance to the Boss whom he +once had flayed, might have caused Shelby a smile, had he not been +saddened by the thought that any human being could misunderstand him so +completely. To him it was a transparent truth that because he had +known the canal's abuses as a politician, so surely must he wish to end +them as governor of the state. + +The veto rumor, which Shelby neither fathered nor encouraged, +precipitated two things: the Boss sent word through his nephew, a not +infrequent messenger, that the party's interests plainly required that +the party's governor waive his personal disappointment and sign the +bill at once; while Cora, for some days past of a repentent mind, +requested the same small favor as a reward of virtue. + +"Show in this way that you forgive my folly," she cajoled. "You'll +never be President without the Boss's aid--everybody says so. Do as he +wishes and as I wish too." + +"And give you a chance to intrigue with the Handsome Ludlows of +Washington?" + +By and by, as he sat writing in his study, he would have unsaid the +taunt, and resolved that he would talk rationally with her of his +dilemma and of the course he was prepared to take; but no opportunity +befell that evening, and on the morrow, the last day left him but one, +he breakfasted alone. Partly with the intention of speaking to her, +partly for freedom from the button-holing of the grillroom where he +usually lunched, he left the executive chamber shortly before one +o'clock and set out on foot for his home. + +As he turned from the capitol park into his own street, Mrs. Van Dam's +carriage halted abruptly at the curb, and the old lady beckoned him. + +"I'll not ask you to get in," she said, "for I'm sure you need the +walk, but I've news to tell you of a friend of ours. Ruth Graves's +husband died in Los Angeles yesterday after an operation for +appendicitis." + +Time had softened the rougher memories of his brief rivalry with the +dead man, and the circumstance that each had in some degree given +distinction to their common birthplace threw Bernard Graves into a +light which made his early taking off mildly pathetic, but in this +moment Shelby's mind could compass only the one great fact--Ruth was +free! + +Canal, governorship, presidency forgotten, he stared into the muddy +street as the carriage whipped away, till a knot of school children +gathered at his heels with round eyes centred on the cobbles which +apparently engrossed him. Shelby recalled himself, and hurried on to +his own door. + +"I shall lunch at home to-day," he said to a servant in the hall. +"Please tell my wife." + +The man handed him a sealed note explaining:-- + +"Mrs. Shelby went out about an hour ago. She asked me to give you +this." + +Shelby carried the note to his room before he opened it. + +"I can't keep my promise," it ran. "I saw him to-day. He wants me. +Good-by." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +He, no less than Ruth, was free! There was no dissociating the two +facts. They shouted their message together. He was rid of his +incubus--why mince the word now!--rid of her gadfly vulgarity, her +shallow emotions, her pinch-beck ideals, her hideous selfishness. By +her own rash act she had freed him to marry the woman he loved with all +his rugged strength--the woman who that memorable September day had +proved loved him. What was the transient chatter of the world beside +this verity! What might he not achieve in the new life! What station +could he not now find confidence to fill! + +A knock distracted, without wholly rousing him. Milicent entered. + +"I hear you're to lunch at home, father," she said. "The gong has +sounded twice." + +He stared vacantly into her young eyes; her very existence had been +blotted from his recollection. + +"Aren't you well?" She came to him. "I shall be glad when the +Legislature stops worrying you and goes home." + +He crushed his wife's note into a pocket. + +"Yes; I'm well," he answered slowly. "Just worried--as you say. +That's all. I thought an hour at home would help--home quiet, you +know--home--" + +There was a frightened widening of her gray eyes, and Shelby pulled +himself together. + +"But I can't lunch with you after all, little girl," he told her +hurriedly. "I find I must go back. It seems your mother is--is out. +Perhaps you know--" + +He stopped. What did she know? + +"I'm just in from a turn about Washington Park," explained the girl. +"The maple buds are all bursting. And you should see the crocuses." + +"Your mother has been called out of town. She will be gone all night, +probably--perhaps longer. You had best ask some friends in to stay +with you. It will cheer us up. Now go down to your luncheon. You +mustn't let me spoil it for you." + +"But you're _not_ well," she insisted. + +"I am--I am indeed." Out of a window he caught sight of his wife's +coupé. "I'll take that down town," he said. + +They descended together. In the hall he warned again, "Don't let your +luncheon spoil." + +His foot on the carriage step, he questioned the coachman:-- + +"Did Mrs. Shelby catch her train?" + +"Yes, sir," the man replied cheerfully. "I saw to that. A close +shave, though. I heard it pull out as we drove away." + +"That was at what time?" + +"One twenty-five, sir." + +"No baggage?" + +"Just hand satchels," put in the footman. "Mrs. Shelby said her trunks +weren't ready." + +"Drive to Canon North's," directed the governor, jumping in. "He's +near the cathedral, you know." + +The carriage jolted from cobbles to asphalt, rounded the looming +capitol with its chateau-like red roofs cut sharply against the pure +spring sky, grated the stones again, and halted at the canon's door. +The governor had the carriage door open before the footman could leap +down, and told the man that he would make his own inquiries. + +The maid said that he had missed the clergyman by five minutes. +Possibly he could be found at the cathedral; perhaps at the Beverwyck +Club. + +Shelby bade the coupé follow, and hurried on foot to the church, which +lifted its temporary wooden roof above the clustering episcopal +buildings near at hand. Two or three cabs waited at the curb, from one +of which fluttered a facetious knot of white ribbon tied to an +axletree. A smell of stale incense pervaded the vestibule. The +murmured words of a liturgy drifted down the long nave as he passed +within. North was reading the marriage service. Shelby bided +restively in the shadow of a column till the ceremony should end. + +It was a small wedding party, merely a handful of onlookers, chiefly +teary women, grouped around the courageous pair, whose stanch "I will" +woke derisive echoes aloft. + +"For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health +. . . till death do us part." + +The youngsters pattered the awful words so glibly! Then North's prayer +went forth over their kneeling figures, they rose, took his hand an +instant, and turned to face an applauding world. The watcher pitied +them with a great pity. + +Shelby followed North from chancel to vestry. The priest had laid +aside stole and surplice, and stood meditatively in his cassock as the +caller entered. Some men the cassock effeminates; not so North, whose +virile shape it emphasized, modelling his muscles like an antique +drapery. He seemed to radiate strength. + +The canon remarked his friend's strained face, greeted him as if +governors made a practice of popping into his vestry unannounced, and +bade a negro, who was folding vestments, to finish his task later. + +"What has happened to you?" he asked, directly they were alone. + +"My wife has eloped." + +North started at the bald announcement, but asked quietly:-- + +"Did she leave by the one twenty-five train?" + +"You saw her?" + +"I saw him." Ludlow needed no naming. "I came in from the west at +that time for this wedding." + +Shelby jerked out his watch. + +"That train is an accommodation, making nearly all stops. They were +probably too excited to consider the fact, or care. Any one taking the +Southwestern Limited twenty minutes from now would make New York half +an hour before them--provided they're bound for New York. Of course, +there's the chance that they will change at some point to the express, +which left a quarter of an hour ago. Somebody must intercept them." + +"And it's your present misfortune to be governor of New York," added +the canon, ripping at the buttons of his cassock. "Permit me to fill +your place." + +"It's a hateful thing to ask of you. I could ask it of no other man." + +North nodded, and caught up his hat and coat. + +"You did right to come to me, my friend." + +"Say to her"--they passed again into the silent nave on the way to the +carriage--"say that one of the best little girls who ever lived is +waiting for her mother to return from--from shopping, what you please. +Say that I--" He broke off, and fronted North in the stillness. "By +God! no," he burst out suddenly. "No message from me yet. I can't do +it yet--" + +The governor went back to the executive chamber, and heard, one by one, +the stories of the callers who had massed the antechamber during his +prolonged absence. From all sections, of all degrees, of all political +types, their importunities were variants of a single theme--the thing +he could give. Him they gave nothing, not even encouragement. Five +o'clock came at last, and he left the plain little work-cell behind the +sumptuous panelling of the executive chamber for a ten-minute bout with +the press correspondents. Was it true that he had decided to sign the +canal bill? Was a veto imminent? Did he propose to let it become a +law without his signature? Had he and the great leader severed their +relations? Was a breach in the party machine a possibility? What was +his position with regard to the presidential nomination? Did he +approve of an out-and-out indorsement of the gold standard? + +He was through with them finally, and the office-seeking, news-hungry +world, supposing him gone to his home, left him alone in his cell to +complete his interrupted work. Half-past five o'clock! His thoughts +strayed to follow the course of two trains. By now the fugitives were +below the Highlands; North must already be entering the city. Fort +George and the bridges of the Harlem were above his head, the long, +straight streets reeled away like the spokes of a giant wheel. +Presently he would pace the platform at Forty-second Street. In an +hour they would meet. + +Shelby forced his mind back to his desk. The closely written sheets of +manuscript which had filled his evening yesterday lay before him. He +called his private secretary from the adjoining room. + +"Have the stenographers all gone?" + +"All but one, governor," said the secretary. "He is working past hours +on a personal matter for me." + +"Let me borrow him." + +For an hour the governor slowly dictated from his sheets. + +"You will miss your regular dinner over this," he said to the man, at +the end, and pressed a bank-note upon him. "We'll need several copies, +of course." + +The stenographer went to his typewriter, and Shelby walked out to his +secretary's desk. + +"He's working on this," he explained, showing him a page of the +manuscript. "I suppose he doesn't leak news?" + +The secretary flushed a little over the hasty reading. + +"He is wholly trustworthy," he replied. + +"There is nothing of the Star Chamber order about the matter, but I +always prefer to be the source of information. I should have put this +through to-day if a personal affair hadn't prevented. Have the +formalities in readiness for the morning. Good night." + +He again consulted his watch. They had met! Without seeing him he +walked past an orderly with a telegram. The man overtook him at the +elevator. + +"So soon?" said the governor, absently. + +The orderly exchanged glances with the elevator boy. + +Shelby tore open North's message. It said "Come," and named a +Forty-second Street hotel. One of the fastest trains in the world was +due in less than a half-hour. In fifteen minutes he gained the +station. With the time which remained he wired North of his coming, +and telephoned Milicent a cheery message that he should not return till +late. She told him that she had her friends with her, and he even +caught a gay little echo of their chatter. + +It occurred to him that he had eaten nothing since morning, and as the +train cleared the river and raced southward on its long flight, he +ordered food. But he scarcely tasted it. No food could appease the +hunger of his mind, the starvation of a lifetime, which the canon's +message prefigured. His ugly thoughts kept pace with the roaring +monster which bore him; but, unlike the monster, he made no real +progress; spun vainly, rather, like a top. After all, what was he, +what was human striving everywhere, but a vainly spinning top. He +dozed over his drear philosophy, and from dozing slept. + +He woke as the train swung at Spuyten Duyvil from the valley of the +Hudson to the valley of the Harlem, freshened his face with cold water, +and stepped from the car at his journey's end clear-eyed and alert. +Beyond the iron barrier of the train shed stood North. + +Shelby caught his hand. + +"Well?" + +"It is well." + +"Where is she?" + +"Waiting at the hotel--waiting for the word you could not send." + +They made an intensely quiet islet amidst the buffeting human tide. +The governor's face was drawn, and in the electric glare looked pasty +white. + +"That is why you sent for me?" he asked. + +"That is why. Believe me, it was necessary." + +"I believe you," Shelby answered slowly. "Tell me what you have done." + +"It's a short story. About five o'clock I passed them. Their train +was at a standstill, mine was running slowly because of a washout. I +saw your wife at a window. Then we made an unexpected stop near a +station, and I left my train for theirs." + +"Then?" + +"That's all. I think neither was sorry to see me. I came at the +reaction--the psychological moment." + +Shelby thought North wished to spare him the recital, which was true in +a measure. Yet the canon's reticence had its taproot in the natural +man who perforce did his strong deeds simply. + +"Good night," he added cheerily, putting out his hand. "I find that I +can get a train back soon." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A few minutes before eleven o'clock Shelby and his wife got out of a +carriage at a west-side ferry. With North's assurance that her husband +was surely coming, Cora's thoughts turned to the conventions which in the +morning she had blithely whistled down the wind. It happened that a +friend in the Jersey suburbs had within the week suggested that they +visit Lakewood together, and the invitation no sooner recurred to her +than she sent a message saying that she had found it possible immediately +to join her at her home. Shelby had assented to this plan, and directly +set about escorting her to her destination. No dread of Ludlow prompted +this vigilance. He discerned that that glamour had forever waned. The +woman's jerking nerves made him fear a collapse. Stripped of shams for +once, she had his pity. + +As he paid the cabman at the ferry-house entrance an incoming boat +discharged its passengers, who from habit scurried forth as if it were +morning, and the day's work lay all before. Two men issued with the +foremost, one of whom spied Shelby as he followed his wife through the +dingy swinging doors. + +"Great guns!" he said; "the governor!" + +The Boss wheeled. + +"What's that, Krantz?" he demanded sharply. + +Without replying Jacob Krantz darted into the ferry-house, slipped into +the waiting line before the ticket-office, and watched Shelby make his +purchase. The governor left the window without noticing him, and joining +his wife at the wicket passed on to the boat. + +Krantz shot out of doors with his heavy lids propped wide. + +"He bought tickets for Orange, and there's no return train before +daylight--I heard him inquire. Do you see what he has done for us? He's +out of the state--_out of the state_! See? The lieutenant-governor can +sign the bill!" + +The Boss drew him quietly aside. + +"No, no," he returned. "This is New York--not Montana." + +Staring out at the clamoring cabbies, the leader reflected. If this +secretive governor intended either to veto or to sign the canal bill, he +would scarcely leave Albany the evening before the last day given him to +act. Did his absence not argue that he meant to let the measure become a +law without his signature? Despite his representations to Shelby, this +was the course the Boss actually expected the governor to take. It was +the course which he, given the man's difficulties, would himself follow +were he in Shelby's place. But he had found it unsafe to forecast this +man's actions by his own, and by temperament he counted nothing certain +till he knew it as a fact accomplished. The governor would undoubtedly +return to Albany sometime to-morrow; it therefore behooved him to delay +that return until the time for hostile action should expire. Searching +out a telegraph office, he ascertained the point at which a message would +intercept the train, and wired Shelby a peremptory request for a meeting +in New York on the morrow at ten o'clock. + +"I'm making a morning appointment with the governor," he told Krantz. + +The satellite slanted his head knowingly. Past midnight the answer +reached the club where the Boss made his bachelor home. If Shelby was +amazed at Old Silky's intimate knowledge of his movements, his message +did not betray it. Nor did the Boss betray his own amazement at his too +apt pupil's prompt evasion of a snare. What he read was this:-- + +"The governor's office hours are nine to five." + +Krantz in his eagerness would have laid profane hands on the missive, but +the Boss permitted him neither to touch nor see. + +"It seems that he intends returning to Albany to-night," he said calmly. +"It occurs to me, after all, that he can reach New York by trolley. +Probably he'll take the paper train which leaves about three. Energetic +man--very." + +"Then you'll see him to-night?" + +"No; not to-night," rejoined the Boss, dryly. "I'm going to bed." + +Krantz watched the reverend figure out of the smoking-room with his +narrow eyes, and for a time sat as motionless as a dozing crocodile. +Finally he roused and lounged toward the door, where he received a +revelation. Bag in hand, the Boss, whom he imaged above stairs between +sheets, was unostentatiously letting himself out into the night. + +Shelby went directly to his berth on reaching the station, and while the +car remained in the train shed, slept. The departure wakened him, and +after useless striving he resigned himself to his insomnia, raised his +window curtain, and lay watching the staid procession of Dutch-named +towns picketting the river banks. A mimic tempest fretted the Tappan +Sea, whose bravado dwindled to mere guerilla marauding in the Highlands, +and vanished altogether where the Storm King held the pass and heralded +the dawn. Presently the purple Catskills marched and countermarched into +line with cloud banners streaming rose-red in the sunrise. Yesterday was +blotted in to-day. The watcher also put yesterday away, dressed, and +left his train all in a tranquillity which even the knowledge that a +stateroom door neighboring his berth had just emitted the Boss could not +have ruffled. + +At his accustomed hour the governor entered the executive chamber. Like +the steaming earth and the park elms without in their tender green, this +stately room seemed swept by the breath of spring. The warm tones of the +hangings, the Spanish leather, the lavish mahogany, glowed responsive to +the fingering sunlight, and the painted simulacra of his predecessors +looked down almost benignantly from their gilded frames. The little cell +behind the wainscoting, into which the increasing complexity of affairs +had forced the recent executives, claimed him during most of his working +hours; but it was as rightful tenant of this vast chamber that he felt +most the governor of New York. It epitomized for him not merely the +commonwealth of the present, huge as it was, but the whole historic past +since the September day when Hendrik Hudson's _Half Moon_ dropped anchor +down yonder in the stream. He felt himself no more the successor of +these frock-coated moderns whose oil presentments covered panelling and +frieze than of the periwigs who ruled before them. He was the heir of +Stuyvesant, Dongan, and Lord Lovelace no less than of Cleveland, Van +Buren, and John Jay. There had been sturdy souls among that company; men +who had hoped mightily, striven mightily, sometimes achieved mightily. +Some few had attained the presidency of the United States; some barely +missed the prize; some pursued it to their bitter graves. Where would he +rank? According to a newspaper he carried in his hand, it lay with him +this day to determine. Yet for one so omniscient, the editor was chary +of counsel. + +Shelby went on to his little inner room and took up the day's routine +with his secretary, who casually dropped the news that the Boss had that +morning arrived in Albany and begun to receive the faithful at an early +hour. Whether owing to this cause or not, Shelby's own quota of +legislative callers was small. At ten o'clock he met briefly the +delegates of a labor organization, who in an embarrassed fashion had much +to say of plutocrats and trusts; and with their departure came a +fluttering invasion from a young ladies' boarding-school, headed by a +chaperone laboriously intent on improving the girlish mind. All +requested autographs, which were readily supplied from the stock in hand, +and a round half-dozen asked the private secretary in strictest +confidence if the governor were a married man. + +He had but just returned to his desk when an orderly handed him the card +of the Boss. + +"You'll see him here?" asked the man. + +"No. In the executive chamber," answered Shelby. + +The Boss stood beside the massive fireplace, gazing pensively up at a +portrait of Washington. + +"Ah, good morning, governor," he called, turning slowly. "I trust I'm +well within the official hours." + +"Quite." + +"Mahomet is somewhat stricken in years, and night travel impairs his +digestion, but if need be, he can come to the mountain still." + +"It was the governor of the state your message offended," said Shelby, +quietly. "Personally I'm not thin-skinned, as you know." + +"Yet, in my poor way--" the Boss included the chamber in a comprehensive +gesture. + +"Yes; in last analysis you put me here. I don't forget that." + +The leader shrugged. + +"You were always so devilishly direct, Ross," he let fall good-humoredly. +"It's your besetting sin, and spoiled the making of a clever politician. +You lack the diplomatic instinct." + +Shelby proved him in the right immediately. + +"You've come about the canal bill," he said. "Sit down." + +"Yes; the canal bill--and other matters." + +He laid his hat and stick upon a desk, and drawing a chair beside +Shelby's near a window embrasure, leaned to him, chin in hand, as in the +days of their hand-in-glove intimacy. "Between us two plain speech after +all is best," he went on. "You've no mistaken notions about me. You +recognize the newspaper bogy which goes by my name as a caricature. You +know that I am as proud of this state in my way as you are in your way. +You know also the manner and method of my ascendency in state affairs, +and by the same insight you know its scope." + +"Yes. I know its scope." + +"So far as knowledge of method goes, you are as capable of party +leadership as I. Indeed, if that were all, you might set up a rival +shop, as some of the editors kindly suggest, and attempt to put me out of +business. Naturally you don't share that delusion." + +"No." + +"No; you're too sane. My tenure doesn't rest on mere control of the +purse-strings. My great asset is forty years' dealing with all sorts and +conditions of men. Nobody else has quite my equipment." + +"Why tell me what I know? All talk of my setting up a machine of my own +is idle. I am aware of the extent of your influence. You have tacitly +offered me the state delegation to the national convention in June, and +it is within your power to deliver it--probably to name the candidate. +Have you come to withdraw the offer?" + +The Boss straightened. + +"I have come in a spirit of compromise," he returned. "We've differed +widely on this question of a greater canal. You have evolved a plan best +suited to Utopia; my own is aimed to meet the human nature I know +best--the human nature De Witt Clinton, in whose steps you evidently +aspire to tread, comprehended and took into the reckoning. Be practical +as he was practical--as you were in the early days of our acquaintance. +I no longer ask you to sign the bill; I respect your punctilio. I only +beg that you will permit this measure which your party has espoused to +become a law without your signature. Everybody will understand your +position. You will occupy an honorable middle ground." + +"For me there is no honorable middle ground. It lies with me to approve +or reject." + +The Boss got upon his feet. + +"I dislike coercion," he said. + +The governor rose. + +"You need use none. No amount of it could hypnotize me into seeing a bad +bill as a good bill." + +"Do you count the presidency so lightly?" + +"No American can count it lightly." + +"You face political suicide. Do you fancy your renomination for this +office possible?" + +"No. I have weighed that, too." + +"And your virtue is unshaken?" + +The governor smiled at the sneer. + +"Oh, I'm past all that," he said. "I took the precaution to veto the +bill before you came to tempt." + +With uncertain step the old leader turned and made his way to the door, +where he paused to vent his bewildered, yet sincere judgment. + +"I've never met anybody quite like you in politics, Shelby," he owned, +almost kindly. "You are a paradox--a sort of admirable fool." + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Henchman, by Mark Lee Luther + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HENCHMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 19148-8.txt or 19148-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/1/4/19148/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** + diff --git a/19148-8.zip b/19148-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c9c3d8 --- /dev/null +++ b/19148-8.zip diff --git a/19148.txt b/19148.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9645aeb --- /dev/null +++ b/19148.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9279 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Henchman, by Mark Lee Luther + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Henchman + +Author: Mark Lee Luther + +Release Date: August 31, 2006 [EBook #19148] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HENCHMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +THE HENCHMAN + + +BY + +MARK LEE LUTHER + + + +AUTHOR OF "THE FAVOR OF PRINCES," "THE RECKONING," "THE LIVERY OF +HONOR," ETC. + + + + + +New York + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. + +1902 + +All rights reserved + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1901, + +BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + + + + +TO + +GEORGE RICE CARPENTER + +OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY + + + + +Those familiar with the early history of Western New York will know the +"Tuscarora Stories" of this volume for twice-told tales which the +author has ventured to adapt from the suggestive "Pioneer History of +Orleans County," by Judge Arad Thomas. + + + + +BOOK I + + +The Henchman + +CHAPTER I + +It was the custom of the geographers of a period not remote to grapple +somewhat jejune facts to the infant mind by means of fanciful +comparison: thus, Italy was likened to a boot, France to a coffee-pot, +and the European domain of the Sultan to a ruffling turkey. In this +pleasant scheme the state of New York was made to figure as a couchant +lion, his massy head thrust high in the North Country, his forepaws +dabbled in the confluence of the Hudson and the Sound, his middle and +hinder parts stretched lazily westward to Lake Erie and the Niagara. +Roughly speaking, in this noble animal's rounding haunch, which Ontario +cools, lies the Demijohn Congressional District whose majority party +was now in convention assembled. In election returns and official +utterances generally the Demijohn District bore a number like every +district in the land, but the singular shape lent it by the last +gerrymander had settled its popular title till another political +overturn should distort its outline afresh. + +The spokesman of the defeated faction had been recognized by the chair, +and was moving that the convention's choice of the gentleman from +Tuscarora County be declared unanimous. His manner was even more +perfunctory than his words. + +"The name of Calvin Ross Shelby," he ended colorlessly, "spells +success." + +"Screws it out as if it hurt him," whispered the Hon. Seneca Bowers to +the nominee. "I tell you, Ross, there's no argument like delegates." + +Bowers was a thick-set man of the later sixties, with a certain surface +resemblance to General Grant of which he was vain. So far as he could +he underlined the likeness, affecting a close-trimmed beard, a campaign +hat, and the inevitable cigar; when the occasion promised publicity +sufficient to outweigh the physical discomfort he even rode on +horseback; and he was a notable figure on Decoration Day and at all +public ceremonies of the Grand Army of the Republic. Shelby was his +protege. + +The present member of Congress from the Demijohn District, whose seat +Shelby coveted, may be most charitably described as a man of tactless +integrity. His course in Washington had been a thorn in the side of +the organization by whose sufferance he rose, with the upshot that the +Tartar neared the end of his stewardship backed by a faction rather +than a party. The faction clamored for his renomination and pushed +their spirited, if poorly generalled, fight to the floor of the +convention. In debate they were eloquent, in logic unanswerable; nor +did any one attempt to answer them. With the best of possible causes +they lacked but the best of possible worlds to insure success. The +whole story of their failure was packed into the Hon. Seneca Bowers's +succinct phrase, "There's no argument like delegates." + +The vanquished clustered in a little group apart marked by a suggestion +of tense nerves, but the gathering was noticeably of a kind. Country +lawyers, bankers, merchants, stockmen, farmers, in its units, it was +sealed as a whole with the seal of New England which had sent forth +these men's grandfathers and great-grandfathers in their ox-carts to +people and leaven the West. The transplanted New Englandism had +sloughed certain traits of the pioneers who laid the axe to the forests +of the Genesee Country and the Holland Purchase. Only the older people +of the Demijohn District now computed their dealings in shillings; +mentioning one's conscience on week-days was an eccentricity; the +doctrine of Original Sin had lapsed from among burning topics of +conversation; family records were less and less scrupulously kept; and +the _Mayflower's_ claim to consideration as the Noah's Ark of the only +ancestors worth reckoning had assumed a mask of comedy. Yet, all said, +the Yankee blood cropped out in face and limb and speech--particularly +in speech; the folk of the Demijohn District did not employ the dialect +of Hosea Biglow, nor a variant of it, but the insistent drawling R to +be heard on every second lip was of no doubtful lineage. + +The victor, who sat with folded arms as the perfunctory motion was +seconded and carried, was bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh. +Not a few there could recall his sturdy grandfather, a pioneer of +Massachusetts birth, and everybody remembered his spendthrift father +who had squandered the substance of three generations in drink. The +man's own story was an open page which needed no thumbing of the +Tuscarora County history to find. Born under the administration of +Buchanan, the lad's palm was callous with work by the surrender of Lee, +and it knew no softening till his seventeenth year; yet somehow he got +the marrow from the common schools, and in good time won a competitive +scholarship in a narrow little sectarian college which boastfully +called itself a university. Here he acquired two wholesome things: a +perception that the college is but the beginning of education, and a +lasting disgust with bigotry of every stripe. There followed some +years of school-mastering by day and law-book drudgery by night, whose +end was his admission to the bar and a partnership with the man sitting +by his side. Then politics drew him, and, step by step, through rough +and ready service at the polls, in town caucus, county convention, what +not, he secured his footing and finally a seat in the lower house of +the State Legislature. In politics a hobby is often a useful piece of +property, and Shelby, who had a hobby, rode it to success; it made him +a marked man in the first month of his term, it gave him a popular +title, it compelled his renomination and reflection. Nowadays chairmen +always introduced him as the "Champion of Canals," and even at this +moment the catchword with cries of "speech" greeted him from every +quarter of the dingy convention hall. He unfleshed his strong teeth in +a wide-mouthed smile, rose, squared his shoulders, and walked alertly +down an aisle to the platform. Brought thus into the open, under the +yellow glare of a gas-light chandelier, he showed for a simply clad, +businesslike person, with a well-set head and a shaven jaw, whose +firmness a cushion of superfluous flesh could not disguise. + +"Thank you, boys," he said. + +The offhand fashion of address provoked a fresh demonstration which the +nominee acknowledged with a good-humored nod. His eye sauntered over +the delegates, and with a shrewd twinkle halted on the dejected group +which had fought his nomination. + +"This happy occasion reminds me of a Tuscarora County story," he began, +with a little drawl; "the story of Tired Tinkham's election as overseer +of highways at Noah's Basin--a pioneer classic which some of you have +doubtless heard. It happened in the early days of Noah's Basin, when +that interesting village contained perhaps a score less people than +walk its changeless streets to-day. Tired Tinkham was the local Rip +Van Winkle--the children's friend and labor's foe. No one could +whittle green willow whistles in the springtime like Tired Tinkham, or +fashion bows and arrows with such fascinating skill. Like Rip also he +drank whenever a drink was forthcoming, but unlike Rip he did not hunt. +Minks, coons, and squirrels were plentiful, with here and there a deer +or bear, but Tired Tinkham was too weary to hunt. He fished; fished +day in and day out in the canal basin, which gives the place its name; +fished till the packet captains came to know him and point him out as a +fixture in the scenery. But, lazy as he was, Tired Tinkham didn't +monopolize all the laziness in Noah's Basin. In one particular +laziness was epidemic, even among the otherwise industrious, and it +took the form of shirking the road tax. No roads were wretcheder than +theirs; nobody cared less than they. In his personal view of life +Tired Tinkham was a fit exponent of the local theory of public duty, +and some village humorist accordingly hit upon the idea of nominating +him for overseer of highways. Tired Tinkham looked more than commonly +fatigued at the suggestion, but did not put the crown away. His +election was unanimous. Then Noah's Basin woke up. The jubilee +bonfires were scarcely ashes before Tired Tinkham delivered at the +corner grocery what he called his inaugural address. 'I cal'late I +know why I wuz 'lected; he said. 'T' loaf 'n' let ye loaf. I cal'late +ye've mistook suthin'. Ye'll work.' And work Noah's Basin did as it +had never worked before." + +Shelby noted that the anecdote won even a thin-lipped grin from the +hostile camp. + +"The Tired Tinkhams aren't so rare in politics," he went on. "We +sometimes put them in the White House. Americans have a way of growing +up to their responsibilities, and perhaps even I shall prove another +sort of man than I've been ticketed." His tone quickened suddenly, and +his glance fastened on the defeated anew. "I should count this honor +less had it fallen as a ripe fruit falls, the prize of the first comer. +We've had our battle; we wear our scars; no battle worth the name is +without its scars; but I assume to speak for every man present when I +say that the blows we give and take do not rankle to the prejudice of +the common cause. Our quarrels are wholly in the family, where speech +is free, for it is a fundamental article of our party creed that the +will of the majority should prevail. The will of the majority made +plain, it is our healthy custom to strip off our coats, and go to work: +The party, not the individual, is of moment;--the historic party of our +fathers, the party of the living present, the party of the future whose +bounds no man may set." + +As he dropped into his seat, Shelby added a foot-note. + +"If that didn't jam their duty down those soreheads' throats," he told +Bowers, "I'll take another guess." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Meanwhile the nominee's fortunes and traits of character underwent +dissection in his own town at the first autumn assembly of the Culture +Club which, as always, met with Mrs. Hilliard. There were two profound +reasons for this constancy to Mrs. Hilliard,--her house boasted the +largest double parlors in New Babylon, and her husband had a billiard +table. The intimate association of billiards with the pursuit of +sweetness and light may at first seem grotesque, but Mrs. Hilliard +proved it to be not without warrant in sound philosophy; by her simple +formula billiards stood to culture as the Salvation Army to the +decorous body of the Church Militant, both alliances resting on the +basic truth that some souls will prick ears only to the beating of +tom-toms. + +Theory aside, the fact was not to be blinked that she knew how to clash +cymbals to the unregenerate and drum up in the name of culture such a +varied company as no other woman could muster short of a silver +wedding. In the winning of the cultivated, Mrs. Hilliard took no +pride. They lent their countenance to any educational project, and she +owned to herself that given a like cause any capable woman with double +parlors could have them for the asking. It was rather in the hooking +of men of the stamp of the Hon. Seneca Bowers and her own husband that +she gloried, for in their candid souls they styled great Shakespeare +rot and voted Ibsen and Tolstoi sheer bedlamites at large. While mind +met mind below stairs these honest gentlemen contentedly knocked the +balls about the green, smoked hospitable Joe Hilliard's cigars, and +sampled the choicest liquors of his sideboard. By such diplomacy every +important walk in the town's life came to have its representative in +what in her heart of hearts Mrs. Hilliard called her salon. + +The first autumn meeting should have gladdened the hostess. Her house +had never lighted to better advantage; everybody admired the new +decorations; she herself felt no impulse to quarrel either with nature +or her dressmaker; the programme had run with consummate +smoothness,--Volney Sprague, the editor of the _Tuscarora County Whig_, +reading a scholarly paper on Shakespeare's anachronisms, and his fast +friend Bernard Graves leading the discussion in his usual clever way; +furthermore, the ices which had been ordered for this very special +occasion had proved everything that ices should be. Yet Mrs. Hilliard +was dissatisfied. + +"The club positively loses a vital something of its individuality when +Mr. Bowers and Mr. Shelby are absent," said she. + +Mrs. Bowers, a large placid personage of indefinite waist-line, +remarked that nothing except politics could have dragged her husband +away. + +"What a pity that the Hon. Seneca had to miss your anachronisms, +Volney," murmured Bernard Graves, who was a personable young gentleman +of thirty. + +"And Shelby," queried the editor, "hasn't that choice spirit your pity +too?" + +Mrs. Hilliard caught nothing of their sarcasm save Shelby's name. + +"I miss his criticism," she declared. "It's so practical." + +The editor fell to polishing his eye-glasses for lack of a reply. + +"And so helpful," pursued the lady. "He has the faculty of ending a +tangled discussion with a word." + +"The dear man usually changes the subject," muttered the editor +savagely under cover of an amiable platitude put forth by Mrs. Bowers. + +"Or fogs it round with one of his Tuscarora yarns," dropped Graves. + +The topic apparently knew no bottom for Mrs. Hilliard. + +"How he will shine in Congress!" she went on. "Of course he'll get the +nomination?" She referred the query to Sprague. + +"Probably." His reply was lukewarm. + +"And isn't there news of the convention? You ought to know, who get +straight from the wires what ordinary mortals must wait to read. Has +he won?" + +"There was nothing definite when I left the office. They hadn't begun +to ballot." + +Mrs. Hilliard sensed an increasing dryness in the editor's manner. + +"We're not talking literature, are we?" she laughed. + +Bernard Graves considered the moment ripe for a paradox. + +"The by-laws of the ideal literary club would forbid all literary +talk," he declared. "Then there would be nothing else." + +"Cynic," rebuked the lady, threatening punishment with her fan. "We +shall talk politics if we choose." + +Disseminating culture and an odor of patchouli she drifted down the +drawing-room to join another group, and the two men caught a fragment +of feminine comment from a divan hard by. + +"Cora Hilliard is handsome," asserted a voice. "Look at those +shoulders." + +"She manoeuvres to show them. Besides, she's too stout." + +"What can you expect, my dear, after thirty-three years of idleness?" + +"She's thirty-six," came the scrupulous correction. + +"You don't mean it? And a blonde!" + +"Oh, I know it's so. We were classmates in the seminary. Besides, her +Milicent is a year and two months older than my Georgie, who will be +thirteen in October, and when Milicent was born her mother was +twenty-two." + +"She says she feels twenty-two now." + +"Well, she looks--" the gossip languished to an indistinct murmur. + +"More literary discussion," said Sprague. + +"It's as literary as politics." + +"You're capable of saying it's as interesting." + +"Why not? It's very human." + +"So is politics." + +"We are drifting on the rocks of an argument. You and I can't agree +about politics, and we'd better stop trying. What absorbs you bores +me--this tiresome Shelby above all." + +"Oh, surely you're not serious," protested Sprague, eagerly. "It isn't +possible that you care nothing whether Shelby or the honest man he's +scheming to supplant represents you in Washington." + +"He attracts me neither as a man nor as a problem in ethics. But don't +be harsh with me. The fault is congenital, I'm sure. Every masculine +American is supposed to be interested in politics,--I wonder if the +Irish invented the notion,--but I can't conform; I don't know why." + +"Gad," fumed the editor. "Your indifference is criminal." + +"I like to hear you say 'gad,'" Graves observed. "You remind me of +Major Pendennis." + +Sprague shrugged his thin shoulders impatiently. + +"I tell you it's a crime for you to sit by as unconcerned as a mud idol +while other men struggle for civic decency." + +"Picturesque as usual," applauded the delinquent, unruffled; but he +added, more seriously: "It's natural that you should feel strongly +after your newspaper war on Shelby. Is he so sure of the nomination?" + +"If he's not sure, there's no virtue in packed caucuses." + +"There, that interests me," cried Graves, brightening. "I'd like to +see a caucus packed. The slang attracts me somehow. Is it very +shocking?" + +Sprague laughed in spite of himself. + +"In things political your artlessness is prehistoric," he said. "You +belong in the Stone Age. All in all, you and Ross Shelby aren't far +removed: he's politically immoral; you are politically unmoral." + +"We'll go and talk to Ruth Temple," decided the younger man, his eye +lighting on the central figure of a group, chiefly masculine. "Who can +look at her and maintain that the higher education of women is a mere +factory for frumps?" + +"Ruth has a quaint rareness all her own," Sprague answered, watching +the play of the girl's mobile face. "She had it as a mere tot. Is it +her mouth, her simple dress, her hair?--One can't say precisely what." + +"Don't try. You're squinting at her like an entomologist over a +favorite beetle. Take her for what she seems, and chuck analysis. She +is decorative. She satisfies the optic nerve." + +"Which is intimately allied with other nerves, my bachelor." He +counted the men around the sofa where the girl sat beside little +Milicent Hilliard, and announced, "Seven; it's Queen Ruth always." + +"And, like a true monarch, bored to extinction by her courtiers. +Behold Dr. Crandall browbeating the Rev. Mr. Hewett like a hanging +judge. I'll warrant they're talking politics too. The atmosphere is +drenched with it." + +Sprague bent his head to listen. + +"Wrong," he chuckled slyly. "It's literature this time, or what passes +as such. They're threshing out the immortal ode on the 'Victory of +Samothrace.'" + +Bernard Graves laughed, also, at some jest well understood, and moved +to watch this eddy in the astonishingly widespread discussion of an +anonymous poem, of a certain rhetorical vigor, which had been +Interpreted by some critics as a plea for woman suffrage. At this +juncture Mrs. Hilliard suddenly bore down upon them, flourishing a +yellow paper. + +"Such news, such news!" she called. "Here's a telegram--a telegram +from our candidate. He is nominated! Mr. Shelby is nominated. Think +of it! One of our members! And he has wired the good news to us first +of all!" She searched vainly for her glasses--her big blue eyes were +astigmatic--and finally, with an impatient "You read it to them all," +thrust the message into Volney Sprague's reluctant fingers. + +He unfolded and read the paper, in lively quandary whether her choice +were as haphazard as it seemed:-- + +"Nominated on first ballot. Home ten-thirty. Coming directly to club. +It stands first. + +"C. R. SHELBY." + + +"Isn't that simply dear of him?" demanded Mrs. Hilliard. "_We_ come +first. He remembers us in his hour of triumph. It shows the true +nature of the man." + +"It does indeed," grumbled Sprague, shifting within pinching distance +of Bernard Graves, whom he had seen grinning in the background during +the reading. "It's a barefaced bid for votes." + +Mrs. Hilliard's enthusiasm demanded a vent. + +"He'll be here in five minutes," she exclaimed, peering at the hall +clock. "The message was delayed somehow, and his train is due now. We +must devise a reception. We owe it to him. He thought of us. We must +think of him. What shall we do? Think, think, you clever people!" + +"That preposterous woman means to turn this into a ratification +meeting," groaned the editor under his breath. "I must get out." + +His hostess was of another mind, however, and barred retreat when he +attempted to make his excuses. + +"You shan't desert us," she declared roguishly. "You can't," she +immediately added, at the sound of carriage wheels on the gravel of the +drive. "He's here! The hall, the hall! Into the hall!" And into the +hall Mrs. Hilliard masterfully bundled the Culture Club of New Babylon, +grouping it theatrically around the newel-post and up the winding stair. + +"Gad," muttered Sprague, struggling to efface himself, "knock me in the +head." + +Bernard Graves gleefully struck an attitude behind a friendly palm, and +Mrs. Hilliard threw wide the door. + +"Welcome to your own people," she cried, and Shelby, closely followed +by Bowers, crossed the threshold into the light. Then big Joe +Hilliard, whom the unwonted commotion had attracted from the billiard +room, led a boisterous cheer, which the candidate received with +modestly bowed head. He flushed, and wrestled with his diffidence like +a schoolboy, as the house grew still and they waited for him to speak. + +"I--I don't claim the credit, friends," he stammered. "It's your +victory." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Midway in the following forenoon Shelby sat in his law office revising +for the seventh time the last will and testament of the Widow +Weatherwax. It was the seventh revision of her third last will and +testament, to speak by the card, for the widow had a bent for +will-making, which the lawyer had noticed was of periodic intensity. +Once, in a moment of drollery, he entered a jocose memorandum in the +"tickler," under the first week-day of several successive months: +"Revise Mrs. Weatherwax's will;" and such was his foresight that twice +only during that term did she frustrate his prophecy. + +This day, as always, she attained the topmost step outside his office +door breathless, and, as always, Shelby gravely lent a hand to deposit +her plump little person in the softest of his old-fashioned office +chairs. The ceremony ended regularly with the panting announcement, +"The Lord has spared me for another month." + +It was the man's custom at such times to allot equal praise to +Providence and the widow's marvellous vitality for this happy issue, +and to hazard a guess that she had thought of important changes for her +will. The widow would nod assent over a heaving bosom, and slowly fan +herself back to normal respiration. The relict of a leather-lunged +Free Methodist preacher, she affected a garb of ostentatious +simplicity. No godless pleats or tucks or gores or ruffles or sinful +abominations of braid defaced the chaste sobriety of her black gown; +buttons were tolerated merely as buttons, without vain thought of +ornament; and the strange little bonnet, which she perched above hair +whose natural coquetry of curl was austerely sleeked away, was of a +composition so harshly ugly that more worldly-minded women shuddered at +the sight. The worldly-minded, indeed, were prone to the criticism +that the material of Mrs. Weatherwax's garments was beyond cavil, but +this surely was her own concern. It were sheer impertinence to finger +the texture of a zealot's sackcloth. + +Shelby busied himself with his papers, pending her recovery. + +"Them stairs alluz give me sech a turn," she sighed, at length. She +enunciated her R's with the merciless fidelity of her section at its +worst, saying stair-urs and tur-urn. + +"Too bad the town's boom stopped short of elevators," sympathized +Shelby. + +"Shouldn't use 'em, anyway," returned the widow, firmly. "They give me +a wuss turn than the stairs." + +"They're trying moving stairways in some places,--a French invention, I +believe." + +"Shouldn't use them contrapshuns neither. The French are a godless +people, full of vanity and all uncleanness." + +Shelby's imagination balked at suggesting another alternative, and he +held his peace. The visitor's jetty eyes forsook his face and pounced +upon the clerk, who, with tongue in cheek, was filling out narrow slips +of paper at a battered table clothed in a baize of a dye traditionally +held to have been green. + +"How's your ma's lumbago, Willie Irons?" she demanded. + +The youth stammered a husky reply, and blushed far into his +brick-colored hair. He was of an age when a babyish diminutive becomes +a thorn unspeakable. Mrs. Weatherwax glanced tranquilly past his +writhings to the ancient table. + +"Ross," she asked, "wa'n't that your grandfather's?" + +"Yes. He used it in his place of business." + +"I call to mind seein' it in the old distillery when I was a girl," +pursued the widow, who never called a spade an agricultural implement. +"Distillin's a wicked business." + +"People thought differently about many things in my grandfather's day." + +The widow sniffed. "Wrong's wrong. Is that Seneca Bowers's roll-top +desk?" + +"It was Mr. Bowers's. I bought it when we dissolved partnership." + +"Law books, too?" + +"Yes." + +"Threw in the pictur's, I s'pose?" indicating some dingy lithographs of +political worthies past and present. + +"Yes," admitted Shelby with superhuman good nature; "they came to boot." + +The widow sniffed again. "'Pears to me," said she, "you've got nothin' +new." + +The man wheeled in his chair to a neighboring safe and took a +tape-bound document from a pigeon-hole. + +"Shall we begin?" he asked. + +"Yes--if you're so rushed," she returned, and composed her features to +fitting solemnity. As the lawyer slowly read the instrument, which he +could have rattled off from memory, Mrs. Weatherwax punctuated the +pious phrases of its exordium with approving wags. "'Frail and +transitory,'" she interpolated; "that's jest what life is. I might be +took any minute." At the reference to the payment of her lawful debts +she recovered her spirits sufficiently to put in that she did not owe a +"red cent," as everybody knew. Finally she called a halt. "Needn't go +any farther," she directed. "The first part's what I like to hear +best. Exceptin' one thing, all the rest about my green rep sofy +a-goin' to Cousin Phoebe, the pickle-caster to Brother Henry, the old +dishes what can't be sold to my beloved nephew, Jason Weatherwax, and +my best tablecloths and sheets and pillow-slips to his little Ann Eliza +when she gets a husband what's a good provider, is fixed jest as it hed +ought to be. What I want now is a postscript." + +"Another codicil? Very well." + +He made note of her wishes concerning a cherished feather bed which it +had struck her was too good for that "shiftless coot," Cousin Phoebe's +husband, to lie upon, and, bidding her bring her witnesses on the +morrow, bustled the will into his safe and fell upon his papers after +the manner of all lawyer kind since Chaucer's sergeant of the law who +"semed besier than he was." + +The widow eyed his movements placidly. + +"In a stew to hev me go?" she asked. + +"Of course not," Shelby protested. "What put that in your head?" + +"Your squirmin' round. Seein' I'm entirely welcome, I'll set a piece." + +Shelby restrained the delight he said he felt and returned to his +papers under her relentless scrutiny. + +"Telegraphs of congratulashun, I s'pose," the visitor presently +observed. + +"Yes; my friends are rejoicing with me." + +"Everybody tickled?" + +"All but the common enemy, I trust." + +"I ain't hed a chance to go about much and ask," said the widow, with a +preliminary sniff; "but I've met some as wa'n't tickled or enemies +neither." + +"No? Well, after all, this isn't paradise, but New York politics." + +"At Tompkins's--I alluz go to him for my Oolong--I heard that Doc +Crandall won't vote for you after your dead set at the place. He's one +of your party, isn't he?" + +"Yes. The doctor is one of us. Good fellow, too." + +"And at Brady's, where I get my corn meal, I heard somebody say you've +got the Irish down on you." + +"Oh, I hope not," returned the candidate, cheerfully. "They're a most +respectable and industrious factor in our town's life. I like the +Irish." + +"I s'pose." + +He searched her face and concluded that her irony was unconscious; she +undeceived him. + +"Butter wouldn't melt in your mouth now you're runnin' for office," she +said, laboring to her feet. "I'm s'prised you hevn't wings." + +Shelby affected to relish the hoary jest, and escorted her gayly to the +door. "I'll look for you to-morrow," he assured her. + +"Don't strain your eyes," said the widow. + +The Hon. Seneca Bowers passed her on the stairs. Greeting the lawyer, +he seated himself behind the clerk's back, with a meaning slant of his +Grant-like head. + +Shelby understood. "Leave those notices of trial for the present, +William," he ordered, "and get this stipulation signed. If the man +isn't in his office, try the county clerk's." + +Bowers pulled with clock-work precision at his cigar, while the boy +uncoiled his long legs from his chair, and with furtive little pats at +his necktie and fiery shock, made ready to go out. Shelby stumbled +upon the waste-paper basket as the door slammed at his clerk's heels, +and with vicious satisfaction he kicked it to the room's far end. + +The caller's eyes twinkled. + +"The Widow Weatherwax been administering spiritual balm?" he asked. + +"I could wring her neck," Shelby averred. + +"Her will again?" + +"Of course." + +"You'll have it as long as you practise law. I did. It goes with the +office. Remunerative as ever?" + +"Talk about 'benefit of clergy,'" exploded the younger man; "that +mediaeval bonanza isn't to be mentioned in the same week with the +ministerial half-rates, donations, and hold-ups we moderns put up with. +This pulpit pounder's shrew pays me no more than she pays the doctor, +the grocer, the butcher, and the rest. What a ukase I could issue if I +were Czar of these United States." + +"Cousin Phoebe's 'sofy,' beloved Nephew Jason's unsalable dishes, and +Brother Henry's pickle-caster still extant?" + +"Yes, yes," groaned Shelby. + +"And little Ann Eliza's sheets and pillow-slips, I dare say. It's +astonishing how they endure." + +"It's astonishing how I endure." + +"You must--at any rate, till the Tuesday after the first Monday in +November. Did the pious gossip tell you any pleasant personal news?" + +"She has heard talk that the Micks are sore and that Doc Crandall has +had an attack of virtue." + +"You needn't lose sleep over the handful of Irish in our camp; they +know who butters their parsnips. And I'll take care of the doctor. +He's an innocuous mugwump. She didn't mention Volney Sprague?" + +"Sprague," said Shelby, wearily; "what is that man up to now?" + +Bowers rose, paced the room, and returned, big with news. + +"The _Whig_ has bolted," he announced. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Shelby's amaze spent its force in an oath. In a moment he asked, +calmly:-- + +"What does he say?" + +"Not much; mainly that the manner of your nomination debars his +printing your name at the head of his editorial page." + +"Endorses the rest of our party ticket, doesn't he?" + +"Yes; it's a personal bolt." + +Shelby ruminated earnestly. + +"It's only a one-horse country daily," he declared finally. "The +_Whig_! You'd think Henry Clay still above ground." + +"Strikes you that way, does it?" Bowers emitted with a cloud of smoke. + +"Why, yes. You don't consider such a paper dangerous?" + +"All newspapers are dangerous in politics; there's none too mean to +have its following. The _Whig_ has influence." + +"It's a one-horse paper," reiterated Shelby. + +"M-yes; it is a slow coach," Bowers admitted; "but it suits a lot of +people. They respect it because it keeps the old name and jogs along +in the old gait it had under Volney's father before him. It's been a +stanch party paper, too, and that without soliciting a dollar's worth +of public advertising or political pap of any description. The _Whig_ +doesn't often kick over the traces. The Greeley campaign was its last +bolt." + +"Well, the milk's spilt," said Shelby, with strenuous cheerfulness; +"we've one reason the more to make next week's ratification meeting a +rousing success. What did you think of our little welcome at the club +last night?" + +Bowers grinned. + +"Mrs. Hilliard managed it first-class," he said; "but I felt cheap when +we came in." + +"So did I. The scheme seemed a good one when she suggested it, but +when it came right down to pulling it off I would have sold out for +thirty cents on the dollar. It takes lovely woman to do those things. +She has her uses in politics, eh?" + +"M-yes," Bowers answered in half assent; "but she's an uncertain +quantity. Like grandsire's musket, she's as likely to kill behind as +before." + +The vine-screened window in which they now talked overlooked the +neighboring Temple house, a dignified sentry at the point where the +leisured street forsook the chaffer of the town to climb amidst arching +elms and maples, above whose gaudy autumn masses rose the dome of the +courthouse and the spires of many churches. It was an old-fashioned +Georgian structure with white columns clear-cut against its weathered +brick; at either side of the low steps a great hydrangea, its glory +waning with the summer, lifted its showy clusters from an urn; while +walk and carriage drive alike sauntered to the street through hedgerows +of box. The mouth of the driveway at this moment gleamed white from +the kerchiefs of a knot of Polish children estray from the quarry +district, who, at a laughing nod from Ruth, swooped, a chattering +barbaric horde, on the fallen apples dotting a bit of sward with yellow +and red. Shelby smilingly watched the scramble to its speedy end, and +turned to the giver of the feast, who sat in a sheltered corner of her +veranda with a caller. The latter proved to be Bernard Graves, sunning +himself with a cat's content. + +"Industrious young man," Shelby observed with the irony of whole-souled +dislike. "Inherits a comfortable property, goes to an expensive +college, dawdles through Europe, and then comes home to play carpet +knight and read poetry to girls. Why doesn't he go to work?" + +Bowers made no reply to the gibe. He was watching Ruth. Presently in +his slow way he checked off her qualifications:-- + +"Handsome girl, good education, kind disposition, rich, no airs, and no +incumbrances, barring her companion, the old maid cousin, who could be +pensioned. Ross, she'd do you more good than a brace of married women." + +Shelby threw off the laugh of a contented man. + +"I'm not in the marrying class." + +"Then you'd better enter." His hand on the door, Bowers asked, "Your +contribution for the county campaign fund ready?" + +"Draw you a check any time," the candidate returned jauntily. + +Nevertheless, when the county leader had gone Shelby gave a diligent +quarter-hour to his bankbook. By and by he took an opera glass from a +drawer and focussed it on the pair below. So his clerk came upon him, +compelling a ruse of adjusting the instrument. + +"One lens has dust in it," he declared. Perceiving Bernard Graves pass +down the box-bordered path, he left his office for the day. + +That evening Shelby took certain steps to prosper his coming rally at +the court-house, one of which was duly noted by Mrs. Seneca Bowers. It +was this lady's habit in summer evenings to discuss the doings of her +immediate neighbors from her piazza, but now that the nights were cool +she had shifted to the bay window of a room styled by courtesy the +library from a small bookcase filled with Patent Office Reports and +similar offerings of a beneficent government. This station embraced a +wide prospect of shady street flanked by pleasantly sloping lawns and +dwellings of various architectural pretence. Most proximate and most +interesting to Mrs. Bowers was the Hilliard house, and while she rocked +placidly over her darning, she contrived to hold this gingerbread +edifice in a scrutiny which permitted the escape of no slightest +movement of chick or child. She saw the newsboy leave the evening city +papers; Milicent Hilliard dance down the leaf-strewn walk to a last +half-hour's play; a white-capped maid sheet the geranium beds against +possible frost; and, finally, the householder himself emerge and light +a cigar whose ruddy tip winked for a second in the thickening dusk. +Listing from side to side, big Joe Hilliard tramped heavily down and +away to his nightly haunt in the billiard room of the Tuscarora House. +As the quarry owner's great bulk vanished Shelby entered the scene, +briskly crosscut the Hilliard lawn, and bounded up the steps just +quitted by the substantial Joe. + +"There; he's done it again!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowers. + +"Who has done what?" grunted her husband, from the lounge. He was +coatless and shoeless, and had spread a newspaper over his bald spot to +the annoyance of a few superannuated yet active flies. + +"Ross Shelby. He's gone to Cora Hilliard's again!" + +"Well, let him," said Bowers, from beneath the news of the day. "It's +a free country." + +Mrs. Bowers smoothed a mended sock and rolled it into a neat ball with +its fellow by aid of an arc light which sizzled into sudden brilliance +among the maples. + +"'Tisn't his going that's such a scandal," she discriminated. "All the +men run there. It's the way he goes. This is the ninth time I've +known him to wait till Joe Hilliard had left the house." + +"Looks as if he didn't dote on Joe's society," chuckled Bowers. "I +can't say that I do myself." + +"It's a scandal," repeated Mrs. Bowers, firmly. Her husband remaining +indifferent, she assumed her wifely prerogative to pass rigorous +judgment upon his conscience. "And it's your plain duty, Seneca +Bowers, to speak to him." + +The old man flung off his newspaper with a snort. + +"What call have I to set up as a censor of public morals?" he demanded +testily. "I'm not Shelby's guardian. He's of age. He's cut his eye +teeth. Talk sense, Eliza." + +Mrs. Bowers essayed a flank attack. + +"You're the Tuscarora boss, aren't you?" + +"Yes, I'm county leader." + +"What you say goes?" + +"I suppose so." + +She pushed her Socratic pitfall a step farther. + +"When you say run so-and-so, he runs, doesn't he?" + +Bowers permitted himself a dry smile in the dark. + +"Most generally." + +"Then you're responsible," she argued triumphantly. "You got Ross +Shelby into politics; you've run him for this and that; he's your +charge." + +The Hon. Seneca Bowers turned his disgusted face to the wall. + +"So you've the Sunday-school idea of politics," he threw over his +shoulder with heavy sarcasm. "I'm to teach a Bible class and pass out +dinkey little reward-of-merit cards to the prize pupils! Bah!" + +His wife presently fetched her outdoor wraps and adjusted them before a +mirror in the dimly lit hall. + +"I'm going to take a tumbler of jelly to poor lonely Mrs. Weatherwax," +she announced from the door. + +Bowers roused suddenly. + +"I hope, Eliza, you don't intend raking them over the coals with her," +he protested, rummaging for his slippers; but his consort was beyond +hail. + +A literal transcript of the talk in progress over the way would have +confounded the evil thinking; to illustrate the blameless text with an +equally faithful record of Shelby's actions might salt the narrative. +He had a lawyer's perception of the values of words as words, and +through extended practice with Mrs. Hilliard excelled in that deft +juggling of pregnant trifles without which Platonic friendships must +die of inanition. He now thanked the lady for her successful coup at +the club without specifically naming it--to hint at prearrangement were +too fatuous; and Mrs. Hilliard admired his tact. Parenthetically she +reflected that Joe had no tact. Without specifically naming it, Shelby +contrived to suggest that she could do him yet greater service by +shepherding society at his ratification meeting. + +"To be significant, that sort of thing should be broadly +representative," said he. + +His words were impersonal, but there was no misreading his look. + +Mrs. Hilliard offered her aid with equal thrift of speech and +prodigality of glance. She rejoiced in transparent subtleties. Joe +was never subtle. + +"But I've no right to ask it of you--I don't ask it," Shelby deprecated +with his lips. + +"You have every right, dear friend," she reassured. "Friend! We are +more than friends, you and I. We are spiritually akin. We fairly +speak without words." + +"Exactly." His business despatched, Shelby prepared to go. "My time +isn't my own now," he explained. "It belongs to the party." + +"Selfish party," she pouted. "I hate it." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +By the night of the meeting it was clear that that bugaboo of +politicians, a general apathy, had blanketed the candidate's own +community. Shelby should have stirred local pride. Not for years, in +fact not since Bowers himself sat in Congress, had the nomination come +to Tuscarora County out of the several counties which the Demijohn +District comprised. Nor had the interval since the convention been a +time for folding of hands. Mrs. Hilliard rounded her social circle, +rallying the members of the Culture Club to stand by their own, and +appealing to such outside its membership as seemed desirable on the +ground of local pride. Shelby became all things to all men. To the +club people he was the Club Candidate; to the unclubbed townsfolk he +was New Babylon's Candidate; while among the quarry workers and other +socially impossible flotsam and jetsam of the voting public other +agencies than Mrs. Hilliard's heralded him as the People's Candidate. +Yet the fog of apathy refused to lift. + +There can naturally be little of the herdlike crushing at the doors of +a political gathering in the country which marks the urban rally. The +rural citizen has elbow-room to take his politics sedately and order +his going with temperate pulse and judicial mind. Of such mettle +normally were the New Babylonians who took their leisured way beneath +the fluted columns of the court-house into Shelby's rally; but this +audience felt itself more than normally temperate and judicial. +Despite Mrs. Hilliard, despite the Hon. Seneca Bowers, despite Shelby's +own striving, it had come less to encourage than to try and weigh. + +The high places were immutably fixed. The bench of the courtroom, +surmounted by a pitcher of ice-water and adorned by crayon portraits of +New Babylonians learned in the law, of course stood consecrate to the +speakers. The arm-chairs within the railed precinct set apart for +members of the bar were by unwritten canon the peculiar haunt of +citizens of light and leading, while the jury-box and its neighboring +benches by custom immemorial bloomed with the pick of feminine good +society. It was a privilege of the socially elect to enter such +meetings at the court-house by way of the court's own staircase behind +the bench, and so came Bernard Graves. Spying a vacant seat beside +Ruth Temple, the young man slipped into it as unobtrusively as Mrs. +Hilliard's acute sense of her responsibility as society's chief whip +would permit. + +"The club has responded nobly," she confided in a stage whisper across +the intervening millinery. "That eccentric Volney Sprague is +positively the only recreant. And isn't the audience representative?" + +She beamed impartially round upon the just and the unjust through her +jewelled lorgnon. Mrs. Hilliard rejoiced in her lorgnon. It +compensated fully for her defect of vision, and lent her a distinction +which she felt to be wholly cosmopolitan. She aspired to be +cosmopolitan. + +The New Babylon Brass Band fell lustily upon a popular two-step at this +moment, and an usher thrust a bundle of campaign leaflets into Graves's +hands. One of these pamphlets contained a half-tone portrait of +Shelby, with an account of his career and a few phrases from the more +noteworthy of his public addresses. Graves gave these latter a caustic +scrutiny, and read aloud one of the italicized quotations. + +"'It has been said, that Egypt is the gift of the Nile; Tuscarora +County is no less the gift of the Erie Canal!' Now what can you say of +a man who couples those two ideas with a sober face? He is +aesthetically dead." + +"At least, he's enthusiastic," smiled Ruth, "which is refreshing +nowadays. The canal is his master hobby, the poetry of his prosaic +existence. Mr. Shelby is nothing if not practical." + +"Offensively practical." + +"Practicality achieves." + +Graves thought he detected an implication levelled at himself, and +laughingly accused her. + +Ruth made no denial. + +"The world weighs achievement," she returned, "not barren cleverness." + +Outwardly serene, the young man was inwardly ruffled. It was no new +thing for her to reproach him with napkined talents, and he was wont to +count it as an earnest of her liking. The novelty of this situation +lay in her presenting Shelby as a pattern of fruitfulness, and it irked +him. The agile leap of the brass band from the half-finished two-step +to "Hail to the Chief," suddenly put this out of mind, and he watched +the speakers of the evening file up the judge's staircase to the +rostrum. With the subsidence of the musicians the Hon. Seneca Bowers +aligned himself with the water-pitcher. + +"How much he looks like Grant!" exclaimed Mrs. Hilliard, with +originality. + +With soldierly calm Bowers waited for the applause to cease, and +submitted a slated list of officers for the meeting. It was +straightway manifest that he had made good his promise to take care of +Dr. Crandall. Speech-making was the breath of the worthy, if pompous, +physician's nostrils, and Bowers had shrewdly judged that to offer him +the chairmanship would clinch his wavering allegiance. The crowd which +always relished his grandiloquence, voted him into office with a shout, +and cheered his soaring periods to their peroration. A quartet of +young voters now proceeded in catchy doggerel to laud the virtues of +the party and the commanding genius of its candidates, thereby giving +the blown doctor a much-needed respite. He came up in good form +presently, winged another flight with Shelby's name as its climax, and +while Mrs. Hilliard split a new pair of gloves in ineffectual applause, +the candidate rose and faced his well-wishers and his foes. + +"Mr. Chairman," he began, "men and women." + +Bernard Graves was surprised into approval of his unexpected good +taste, never dreaming that a chance remark of Ruth's had moved Shelby +to discard the more hackneyed form of address. Before ever he +presented himself as a candidate for public office, Shelby had been +rated in the note-book of the Secretary of the State Committee as an +effective speaker on "canals, local issues, and currency," with the +further information that he was "strong in rural neighborhoods." This +entry foreshadowed the development of an art which he had since rounded +to high facility. He was considered a spellbinder of uncommon power. + +"There are some among you who think harsh things of the way by which +the honor of a congressional nomination has come to the community we +love," he went on boldly. "I ask all such--my honest critics, I make +no doubt--and I ask my avowed supporters to listen to a story. It's an +old story, nearly as old as New Babylon itself, and many of you must +have heard it from the honored lips of the Tuscarora pioneers whose +deeds it chronicles. It is a story of our town in that rough-hewn past +before railroads were dreamed of, before 'Clinton's Ditch' had touched +our wilderness with its mighty wand and made it blossom like the rose. +We owe a vast debt to De Witt Clinton," he digressed to add. "He was +our Moses, and I can never think upon his great achievement without a +thrill of gratitude. I confess to a mania for the Erie Canal." + +A man in the body of the audience whom Graves recognized as a canal +bank watch whose appointment Shelby had brought about, called for +three-times-three, but Shelby interfered, saying, "I'd rather you'd +listen than cheer." + +"I speak," he continued, "of New Babylon before the coming of the canal +put an end to the log cabins, the spinning-wheels, the ox-sleds, the +corduroy roads, the miasmatic swamps, the wolves, the bears, the fever, +the ague, the blue pill, and all the rude makeshifts and backwoods' +evils which to your forefathers and mine were stern reality. These +were the days when men wore their coat collars high in the back and +small clothes were lengthening into trousers; when veterans of the +Revolution still walked the land hale and strong, and the second war +with the mother country was an uncicatrized memory. In short, I mean +New Babylon of the critical hour when the Legislature wisely saw fit to +erect Tuscarora County, and appointed a commission to choose a +county-seat. 'Then was the tug-of-war.' New Babylon coveted the +award, pined for it, panted for it as the hart for the water brooks. +But so did Etruria, our strapping rival." + +A ripple of appreciation of his version of the familiar legend ran from +jury-box to door, and Shelby, a psychologist, like every real orator, +perceived it with stirring pulse. The instrument he knew best lay +attuned to his hand. + +"How little could we boast," he said, adroitly identifying his +listeners with the past. "The surveyors assured us that the canal was +pointed our way, though no one was sanguine of its speedy coming. We +did occupy the geographical centre of the new county, and with that +ends the tale of our pretensions." + +"We had Penelope Chubb!" + +The suggestion came from an old man in one of the arm-chairs +immediately below. + +Interruptions never disconcerted Shelby. + +"I forgot Penelope Chubb," he admitted smilingly. "Yes, we had her, +the best dress-maker in Tuscarora, whom even Etruria was keen to +employ. But you wouldn't have had us offer Penelope Chubb to the +commissioners as an inducement," he added, and won a laugh for his +readiness. "It was far different with Etruria. It lay on the great +Ridge Road, and the stages from the East tooled and trumpeted straight +through its long main street. It had stores and shops and factories, +it had a grist-mill, a distillery, a tavern--" + +"Two taverns," corrected the hoary critic below. + +"Two taverns, a bona fide doctor, a licensed preacher, the only +academy, the only meeting-house, the only printing-press, and the only +newspaper within the county limits. The Etrurians were so cock-sure of +victory that they raised the price of village lots. Yet we presumed to +hope. Great emergencies focus on individuals; so with ours. New +Babylon found its saviour in Israel Booth." + +Booth's name was the signal for an outburst. The older generation held +him in equal reverence with the fathers of the republic. + +"It was Israel Booth who saw that our one hope lay in a natural +resource, and set himself to conjure one from Red Jacket Creek. Genius +has seldom worked with less promising material. Red Jacket Creek isn't +an imposing stream to-day as it skirts our town,--I am told few of the +historic streams are imposing,--and there was hardly more of it then. +It yielded adequate power to run the sawmills only during the spring +freshets when the swamps overflowed, and it was our ill luck that the +legislative commission decided to visit Tuscarora in dog-days while +Etruria's stage line was doing a land-office business and our poor +little resource was wasted to a long-drawn-out puddle choked with +cat-tails and lily-pads. But what dismayed other men seemed to spur +Israel Booth, and one night, a bare fortnight before the commissioners' +coming, his great conception saw its birth. Before he slept he took +counsel with the leading settlers." + +Shelby broke off to address one of his audience. + +"Your father was in the secret, Mr. Hewett," he said; "and yours, Dr. +Crandall--and my grandfather, and many another upright citizen." + +The gentlemen singled out for reflected fame stirred consciously in the +effort to appear unconscious. + +"Now Red Jacket Creek woke from its summer sleep. The spiders in the +mill yards were dispossessed; lumber that had been hauled away was +replaced and piled conspicuously; the dams and flumes were repaired, +and the water-gates were shut; the backwater began to flood the ponds +and agitate the colony of frogs; prominent men were heard to pray for +rain, and Israel Booth was seen carrying water by night from his well +to the raceway; New Babylon was big with mystery. You all know the +sequel. You know how the commissioners came to us hungry from Etruria; +how Booth and his helpers met them in Sunday butternut and shirt frills +without spot; how we flattered our visitors' distinguished yet entirely +human stomachs with the toothsome dishes of our grandmothers; how we +cracked dusty bottles of Madeira brought years before from New England; +and how we brewed a waggish punch from the output of our rival's own +distillery. You know how they were driven presently about our cleanly +streets, every dooryard raked spick and span against their coming, and +were brought at last to the mills. You know how the Red Jacket, pent +to bursting from a providential thunder-storm of the night, blustered +down through the race with the pride of a Danube; how the saws sang, +the logs rolled, the teamsters shouted, and the commissioners admired. +You know, too, that the guests left before the waters abated or the +punch-bowl knew drought; and that by the same token we won our fight. +Does any of you in his inmost heart censure the pioneers for their +stratagem? I think not. They worked with what tools lay to their +hands, and the profit is their children's and their children's +children's." + +He wisely left it to his listeners to point the parallel, and turned to +discuss the larger issues of the campaign. His canvass chanced among +one of the several battles waged over the national currency, a thorny +topic at best, but Shelby threw a life into the juiceless principles of +his theme which roused the dullest. At the last, referring to the +hardships a depreciated currency might entail on the nation's +pensioners, he turned to the Hon. Seneca Bowers as if his Grant-like +figure typified the great war's heroism, and delivered an impassioned +eulogy upon the soldier dead. It was naturally, convincingly done, and +the audience was loath to find it his peroration. + +There was no doubt of his sweeping triumph. With its formal close the +meeting transformed itself spontaneously into a reception, and, under +the spell of his eloquence still, men prophesied that his brilliant +career would halt not short of the governorship. Mrs. Hilliard would +be satisfied with nothing less than the presidency. + +"The world his oyster," said Bernard Graves. He had pocketed a sheaf +of stenographic notes, with which he had busied himself during the +latter part of Shelby's speech, and mounted a bench with Ruth, the +better to watch the crowd surge round the foot of the platform. "Shall +we go now?" he asked at length. + +Ruth turned from the scene with shining eyes. + +"I promised I would tell him what I thought," she answered. + +"You promised Shelby!" + +"He called the other day--after you had gone. He talks well of +politics. I was interested." + +Bernard Graves swallowed something unpalatable. + +"And the speech?" he said. "What do you think?" + +"That it was remarkable--even brilliant, as they're saying." + +"Great is buncombe." + +"Don't," she begged. "Why spoil it for me? If nothing more, it proves +him a born orator, who can do what he will with men. I believe in him." + +Shelby approached them presently, with the melting of the throng, and +Graves had to listen to an antiphony of praise, sung by Ruth and Mrs. +Hilliard. In a lull he asked Shelby if he admired the oratorical +methods of General Garfield. + +"Eh!" said Shelby, abruptly. + +"Your manner suggests his at times." + +"Yes--oh, yes. I see. Powerful speaker, Garfield. No bad model, you +know." + +"Yes, I know," Graves answered. + +Shelby turned again to the circle of women, and Graves left the +building. A few minutes later he entered the _Whig_ office and made +his way to Sprague's cluttered sanctum. + +"Volney," he announced, as the editor peered genially from underneath +the green drop-light, "I want to browse in your file of the +Congressional Record. And you've Garfield's Works down here, too, +haven't you?" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Shelby stretched himself awake and contentedly surveyed his bachelor +bedroom in the Tuscarora House. He had boarded at this establishment +upward of five years, and his chamber had been decorated and, to a +degree, furnished in accord with his notions of elegant comfort. The +wall paper was a pattern which William Morris and his disciples would +have writhed to behold,--a hideous terra-cotta ground overrun with +meaningless scrolls and stiff garlands of roses of an unearthly pink. +There were stuffy maroon lambrequins above the window casements, and +two large blue vases, containing many-dyed plumes of pampas grass, +flanked like rigid sentinels a pseudo-marble clock upon the truly +marble mantelpiece which somehow suggested a mausoleum falling to +decay; while the blue motive was further emphasized by a plush +photograph album, with a little mirror let into its cover, standing in +a metallic holder on the bureau, whose sombre walnut matched the bed +and chairs. The pictures included a chromo, depicting an impossible +castle set in an equally impossible landscape, a print or two of race +horses, a lithograph of a poker game in supposably high life, and a +photogravure of a painting familiar to the habitues of a great +metropolitan hotel, popularly fancied in the country to be daring in +the extreme. At first sight of the original, over the rim of a +cocktail, Shelby had been fired with the resolve to own some sort of +copy, and even now, after several years of possession, he esteemed it +one of the world's masterpieces of pictorial art. + +He dressed himself in the same content which had flushed his waking +revery. The plaudits of last night's mass-meeting still rang +harmoniously in his ears, and the praise of Ruth Temple and Mrs. +Hilliard was sweeter in retrospect than it had been in reality. This +happy serenity bore him company through the bare echoing corridors of +the hotel to the office, to be heightened by the gratulations of the +landlord and the help, who seemed to feel that a vicarious honor had +been done the house, a most insinuating form of hero-worship which +attained its climax in the homage of the true-penny who set forth his +morning bitters on the bar. + +Extended notices of the meeting had been telegraphed to the neighboring +cities by local correspondents, and Shelby ran through the newspaper +accounts in the cheerless dining room, which he thought to-day by no +means comfortless. There was a flattering deference in the manner of +the waitresses, and the lessening of their pert familiarity told him, +more plainly perhaps than anything else, that he had become a +personage. He failed to remind them that the oatmeal was burned, the +rolls soggy, and the coffee reminiscent of chicory. He ate all that +was set before him, and was still content. The hotel barber-shop +seemed a blithe spot indeed, as he sat for his daily shave, and the +admiring barber a prince of good fellows. Sweet also were the +greetings of the market-place, as, cigar in mouth, he sauntered through +Main Street to his law office. All his paths were pleasantness and +peace. + +The first discordant note was struck, oddly enough, by his faithful +satellite, William Irons, who, at his employer's entrance, abruptly +left off an attempt to coax his red shock into lovelocks, slid his +pocket mirror under a heap of papers, and fell to hammering the +typewriter with unnatural energy. Shelby accepted the subterfuge, and +wished him a hearty good morning. + +"Did you attend the rally, William?" he inquired, as he slit the +envelopes of his morning's mail. + +"Yep," said William Irons. + +"Everybody seemed pleased?" + +"Nope." + +"No?" Shelby repeated, lifting his eyes. "And who was disgruntled?" + +"The Widow Weatherwax." + +"Ah! That's unfortunate," returned Shelby, blandly. "What is the +widow's grievance?" + +"She's put out because you told a story makin' light of drinkin' punch. +She belongs to all the temp'rance societies doin' business, you know." + +"No; I didn't know." + +"And she says none of her church 'll vote for you after your +countenancin' such a cryin' sin." + +"Her list of cardinal sins is extensive." + +"Yep," agreed William. "Won't even let me play my fiddle in the house. +Says it's a vanity." + +"I'd forgotten that you had gone to live with her." + +"Do chores for my keep," explained the clerk. "Have codfish three +times a day, Monday morning to Saturday night, and no warm victuals +Sundays. Makes me keep my fiddle in the barn and play it behind the +woodpile." + +Shelby laughed, and sought to woo back his mood of charity toward all, +but it was futile. The widow's mite of hostile criticism had leavened +the whole lump with bitterness. Nevertheless, he bridled his tongue. + +Work came hard for the moment, and his eyes strayed past his papers +through an open window and spied Ruth Temple's slender shape in the +lawn below. The dewy freshness of the morning seemed to touch her +youth as it did the asters and belated hollyhocks of the quaint garden +into which she passed as he watched. Then Bernard Graves suddenly cut +into the picture, and drew a newspaper from his pocket, directing her +attention to something which amused him. But Ruth did not laugh. +Shelby clearly saw her color change. + +A heavy step outside his door heralded the coming of the Hon. Seneca +Bowers. The county leader was in no mood for idle words, and looked as +Grant may have looked when about to pass judgment on a disgraced +soldier. + +"Seen the _Whig_?" he asked curtly, when William Irons had been +despatched to the post-office. + +"The _Whig_! No, I don't take it." + +"I'd advise you to subscribe." + +Shelby's face sobered with a premonition of misfortune. + +"What's to pay now?" he asked. + +Bowers struck open a copy of Volney Sprague's newspaper, and with +stubby rigid thumb guided the candidate's glance to an editorial. + +"Read that, sir." + +His tone was a new thing in their intercourse, but without remark +Shelby read:-- + + +"AN ELOQUENT THIEF" + +"Before a crowded mass-meeting last evening, Calvin Ross Shelby, +congressional candidate for the suffrages of an intelligent people, +stultified alike his hearers and himself. We shall not dignify his +specious appeal to local pride with the easy exposure of its fallacy; +the victory were too cheap; but since he glibly sought to establish a +parallel between his own questionable political methods and the +legendary deeds of the founders of our community, we too will frame +from his eloquence a parallel which we commend to the orator and to his +electors. In the newspaper business we call it the deadly parallel. + + "Do you realize what this "When you can enlarge + talk about the dollar means, if your farm by changing the + true? It means that all you figures in your deeds; when + need do to increase the acreage your dairymaid can make more + of your farm is to change butter and cheese by watering + the figures in your title deeds; the milk; when you can have + it means that your creameries more cloth by decreasing your + will yield a better product if yardstick one-half; when you + you water the milk; it means can sell more tons of merchandise + that when the housewife shops by shortening your pound + she will buy more linen, or one-half,--then, and not until + gingham, or calico, if the then, can you increase the value + merchant moves the brass tacks of your property or labor by + of his counter yard measure decreasing your standard of + nearer together." values." + + CALVIN ROSS SHELBY. JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD, + Faneuil Hall, Boston, + September 10, 1878. + + + "These fanatics say that if "But this is the first time I + foreign nations don't want the ever heard a financial philosopher + sort of money we choose to express his gratitude that we + coin they can go without, and have a currency of such bad + that we should be glad that repute that other nations will not + they don't. We've some receive it; he is thankful that it + other things that foreigners is not exportable. We have + don't want. We've peaches a great many commodities in + with the yellows, and weeviled such a condition that they are + wheat, and rancid butter, and not exportable. Mouldy flour, + ancient eggs, but I've yet to rusty wheat, rancid butter, + meet a farmer who wants to damaged cotton, addled eggs, and + corner the market. They spoiled goods generally are not + remind me of a town that was exportable. But it never + moved to build a gallows occurred to me to be thankful for + because all its neighbors had this putrescence. It is related + them. I don't need to add in a quaint German book of + that it was not an American humor that the inhabitants of + town. And one of the wise Schildeberg, finding that other + city fathers was so carried away towns, with more public spirit + by his patriotism that he tried than their own, had erected + to make the council pass a gibbets within their precincts, + resolution that the gallows be resolved that the town of + reserved for that town's Schildeberg should also have a + inhabitants exclusively." gallows; and one patriotic member + of the town council offered a + CALVIN ROSS SHELBY. resolution that the benefits of + this gallows should be reserved + exclusively for the inhabitants + of Schildeberg." + + JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD, + House of Representatives, + June 15, 1870. + + + "If each grave had a voice "If each grave had a voice + to tell us what its silent tenant to tell us what its silent tenant + last saw and heard on earth, we last saw and heard on earth, we + might stand, with uncovered might stand, with uncovered + heads, and hear the whole story heads, and hear the whole story + of the war. We should hear of the war. We should hear + that one perished when the first that one perished when the first + great drops of the crimson great drops of the crimson + shower began to fall, when the shower began to fall, when the + darkness of that first disaster at darkness of that first disaster at + Manassas fell like an eclipse on Manassas fell like an eclipse on + the nation; that another died the nation; that another died + of disease while wearily waiting of disease while wearily waiting + for winter to end; that this one for winter to end; that this one + fell on the field, in sight of the fell on the field, in sight of the + spires of Richmond, little dreaming spires of Richmond, little dreaming + that the flag must be carried that the flag must be carried + through three more years of through three more years of + blood before it should be planted blood before it should be planted + in that citadel of treason; and in that citadel of treason; and + that one fell when the tide of that one fell when the tide of + war had swept us back till the war had swept us back till the + roar of rebel guns shook the roar of rebel guns shook the + dome of _the_ capitol, and dome of _yonder_ capitol, and + re-echoed in the chambers of the re-echoed in the chambers of the + Executive mansion. We should Executive mansion. We should + hear mingled voices from the hear mingled voices from the + Rappahannock, the Rapidan, the Rappahannock, the Rapidan, the + Chickahominy, and the James, Chickahominy, and the James, + solemn voices from the Wilderness, solemn voices from the Wilderness, + and triumphant shouts from and triumphant shouts from + the Shenandoah, from Petersburg, the Shenandoah, from Petersburg, + and the Five Forks, mingled and the Five Forks, mingled + with the wild acclaim of with the wild acclaim of + victory and the sweet chorus of victory and the sweet chorus of + returning peace." returning peace." + + CALVIN ROSS SHELBY. JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD, + Arlington, Va., + May 30,1868. + + +"Of these three passages, rightly thought by Calvin Ross Shelby's +audience the most telling of his speech, the first and second are +unmistakably plagiarisms of ideas, while the third, differing from its +original in but one telltale, damning word, is shameless, flat-footed +theft. Either of the first two offences committed singly might be +unconscious; conjoined they betray deliberation; united with the third +they 'smell to heaven.' It is high time for the voters of this +congressional district to ask themselves the question. Shall we vote +for a thief?" + + +"Well, sir, well?" exploded Bowers at last. + +Shelby tossed the paper aside with a laugh. + +"It's well done." + +"Well done!" Bowers dropped one of his infrequent oaths. "Have you +nothing else to say?" + +"Yes; it's true, more or less." + +"You admit it?" + +"Keep cool. It was this way: I was pressed for time when I prepared my +speech,--you know that,--and it occurred to me to adapt one or two of +Garfield's illustrations. I've studied him some, and he said many +things that fit in nowadays as well as they ever did. Plenty of +speakers quarry there I guess. I honestly meant to give him the credit +of that soldier business in my peroration, but somehow the quotation +marks were lost in the shuffle. There was but one chance in a thousand +that anybody would notice." + +"Somebody did," growled Bowers, and spat our his mangled cigar. + +"Yes; I ran against a man with a memory." + +"It wasn't on the square, Ross. It'll hurt you." + +Shelby eyed him shrewdly. + +"You read speeches in Washington that I wrote," he reminded. + +"That's different. Lots of congressmen do that,--even senators. +They're not posted on everything." + +"No," Shelby agreed, with an irony too subtle for Bowers; "they +certainly are not. However, there's no need to borrow trouble over +this thing. People will laugh a little, say it was a good speech, +wherever I got it, and vote the straight party ticket despite Bernard +Graves." + +"Graves," said Bowers. "What has he to do with it?" + +"Everything; he's the little joker with the memory." + +Bowers whistled. + +"What is he after?" + +Shelby jerked his head toward the Temple doorstep where Bernard still +lingered. + +"After her." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +"Humor a silk stocking according to his crotchet, that's my maxim," +submitted Bowers as they threshed the matter out in its latest aspect. + +"I can't see its application to Graves. He's outside politics; hates +the very name, they say." + +"Practical politics is applied human nature. If a rule is sound in +politics, it will work anywhere this side of the pearly gates. Graves +may not care a tinker's dam for politics, but evidently he does get +queasy when another man's ideas are misappropriated. Perhaps that's +his crotchet. Writes himself, doesn't he?" + +"Some rubbish or other," returned Shelby, contemptuously. + +"That's where he is susceptible, to my thinking. I don't cotton to +your woman theory. I say leave women out of politics. So conciliate +him; humor his crotchet." + +"I can't see why I should kotow to him, or what further harm he can +do," said the candidate, but he deferred to Bowers's judgment. "I'll +look him up this afternoon," he agreed; "though I've no stomach for the +job. I never liked the cuss." + +He abundantly appreciated this long-standing antipathy as he cast about +for some common ground of interest in the little reception-room of the +house shared by Bernard Graves and his mother. It seemed to the +waiting caller a drab and lifeless home, uninteresting in its +appointments, and out of keeping with the wealth known to have been +inherited by the widow and her son. The young man's study was visible +down the vista of a series of low-ceiled apartments, and Shelby saw +that it was crammed with books. None of the many pictures could cope +in dash and color with his own collection and, what seemed to him +singular in a Protestant home, they were chiefly of the Madonna; all in +all, a tame assortment beside his copy of the secular masterpiece in +the great metropolitan hotel. Over one of the crowded bookcases was +the cast of a winged woman. It was armless and headless, and Shelby +wondered by what accident it had become so damaged, and why it was not +banished to the attic. + +The maid came presently to tell him that Mr. Bernard had gone for a +walk to the golf links. + +Shelby was relieved. He felt ill at ease in this queer drab dwelling, +and doubtful of the course he ought to pursue with its tenant. It +would be another matter altogether in the open air. Returning to his +law office, he bade William Irons to telephone the Tuscarora House +livery-stable to send around his horse and buggy. + +At the farm-house on the outskirts which served the golf devotees for a +headquarters Shelby was told that Graves had gone yet farther, taking +the direction of the Hilliard quarries--geologizing bent, the speaker +thought. Unassociated with practical results, this had always +presented itself to Shelby as a trivial pursuit akin to botany, +embroidery, and other employments distinctly feminine. He forebore +comment, however, and presently struck down a road which wound into a +little suburb peopled by Polish quarry-workers. It was essentially an +alien community in whose straggling streets and lanes one heard English +but seldom. Tow-headed children, shy elves peeping from odd +hiding-places, swarmed a half-dozen and upward to a house. Work was +the key-note of Little Poland, as it was called. While the men toiled +in the sandstone quarries the women did a man's stint in the fields of +the outlying farms, and bore more children. Childbirth was a mere +detail in these thick-waisted women's lives; some hours, a day perhaps, +and they were stooping in the fields again. And the children early put +shoulder to the wheel; those too small for the fields begged food in +the streets of the town. Little Poland was virtually a fief of Joe +Hilliard's. Men, women, and elves looked up to him as to a benevolent +feudal lord, and the naturalized males voted Joe Hilliard's party +ticket with mechanical precision. + +The politician approached the quarries with an interested eye. Among +his many irons in the fire he had acquired part ownership in another +quarry to the westward, like this bordering the towpath of the canal. +Bowers held the controlling interest, though neither his name nor +Shelby's figured prominently in its management. They called it the +Eureka Sandstone Company. + +Shelby tied his horse near the office, and, putting his head among the +morning-glories curtaining an open window, stated his errand to +Hilliard, whose vast bulk was humped ludicrously upon a high stool. +The big fellow stopped thumbing his ledger, greeted him with a jovial +shout, and directed him toward a stratum of rock which the workmen had +recently unearthed. + +"Look it over," he called after him. "It promises to pan out +scrumptious. We struck A-1 rock seven feet below the surface." + +"That discounts the Eureka," said Shelby. "We've never done better +than twelve." + +He picked his way through the yards, the hammers of the stone dressers +clinking out a not unmusical chorus from every shed, and skirting the +docks where the ponderous cranes swung the great slabs to the canal +boats, scrambled down a rough roadway into the quarry proper amidst all +the hurly-burly of the teamsters and the hoarse steam drills. The +walls of sandstone rose sheer around him, sliced down by the blasts +like sugar with a scoop. Some of the formation was not unlike sugar +little refined; some, lighter, with streaks of grayish pink, like sides +of bacon; and some, a rich deep brown which architects specified the +country over, was said to have no equal the world around save only in +Japan. In the newly uncovered tract Shelby spied Bernard Graves +pecking about with a little hammer. + +"Prospecting for gold?" he asked jocularly. + +"No; fucoids." + +"Eh?" + +"Fossils, you know; a sort of seaweed. The only kind we can discover +in this formation." + +"My little freshwater college wasn't strong on the sciences," said +Shelby, speculating whether this particular crotchet required humoring. +As the young man's own interest in the topic seemed languid, he decided +against this course and frankly told him that he wanted to talk with +him. "Suppose we move away from the clatter of the drills," he +suggested. + +Graves assented, and they shifted from beneath the overhanging bank of +sandy loam to the shade of an unused derrick. + +"Smoke?" queried the politician, affably. + +Graves declined a cigar, explaining, "I merely take a cigarette now and +then, usually after dinner." + +Shelby's contempt for cigarettes was boundless, but he dissembled his +opinion, and lit the strongest cigar in his case. + +"It's up to me, Bernard," he confessed with a laugh. "It's my move, +and I'm right on the spot like a little man, though humble pie isn't my +favorite tidbit by a large majority." + +"Meaning what?" asked Graves, without animation. + +Behind the candidate's urbane mask rioted a lust to mar and maim, but +his political self explained blandly:-- + +"Meaning that your checkmate in this morning's _Whig_ was well played." + +"I didn't write that editorial." + +"I know you didn't. It had the Volney Sprague earmarks. But you did +what is more important,--you inspired it." + +"Well?" + +"Just this: in a general way I admit its justness, and come frankly to +tell you so." + +"Why should you trouble yourself?" + +Shelby throttled his mounting ire. + +"Because," he returned slowly, "I recognize your ability and want your +support. If you mean to interest yourself in politics, I can be of +service to you. I know, of course, you don't think politicians are +necessarily scamps." + +"I judge no class of men so summarily," Graves opened his mouth to +protest. "That is too much like Burke's indictment against a whole +people, you know." + +The allusion was not familiar, but Shelby said, "Exactly," with labored +calm. He fancied that he detected a note of condescension, and +resented it passionately. + +"The average politician isn't such a bad lot," he went on. "His +methods don't always square with the Decalogue, but he means well, and +in the long run does well. I don't say this to pat myself on the back. +You know me. I'm a plain, practical man, and try to steer by +common-sense. If I'm elected to Congress, I'll do my best to make the +district proud of me, and I'll promise you personally, right here and +now, that I will deliver no man's speeches but my own." + +Graves wished that he would make an end of his excuses and go away. +The whole episode bored him, and his mind wandered even while he +listened. He was thinking that that muscular Pole directing the +planting of a steam drill below the sand-bank a rather statuesque +figure for these prosaic days. The man had jumped upon the tripod of +the drill in ordering the work, and loomed large and competent. Graves +thought him in feature not unlike his great compatriot John Sobieski, +and tried to picture him in the Polish king's armor which he remembered +to have seen in some European collection. Shelby's silence recalled +him. + +"Really, there's no necessity for you to explain or promise anything to +me," he rejoined coldly. "I'm not in politics, and I don't care to be." + +Shelby had reached his last ditch. + +"You think you're too damned good for it," he broke out. "It's the +lily-fingered people of your stripe who make reform a byword and a +laughing-stock." + +Graves's face flamed, and he shrank inwardly with a scholar's +repugnance from the rencounter. Outwardly, however, he was truculent. + +"Such bar-room personalities are characteristic of you," he retorted. +"Your place--" + +But it was fated that Shelby should not learn his place. A sharp +warning cry from a workman heralded the crumbling fall of a great +section of the bank overhanging the drill which Graves had idly +watched, and, as idly, watched still. A dreamer of habit, his will +failed immediately to rally to the naked fact and its demands. It was +unreal, a picture, a play, a poet's conception of chaos--that was it! +The thing was Dantesque or Miltonic. The gaping rent, the jumbled +rocks, the thick spurt of steam issuing from the buried drill, it was +all tumultuous, primeval; and that grimy workman, heaving aside the +dirt and scrambling to the air, was suggestive of Milton's earth-born +"tawny lion, pawing to get free." + +"Good God, man, wake up!" Shelby shook him roughly by the arm and +dragged him toward the scene of the catastrophe. "There are men under +that heap." + +A little knot of Polish laborers forthwith congregated, ox-eyed and +inert. Shelby tore a shovel from a paralyzed hand and began to dig, +ripping out crisp oaths at their stupidity. + +"Find shovels for these cattle," he commanded. + +By signs Graves roused the unnerved men to action, but he could find no +sort of tool for himself, and stood empty-handed apart, conscious of +unfitness. The politician, burrowing like a woodchuck, showered him +with red earth. + +"English? Anybody speak English?" he panted without stopping. "How +many are under here?" + +One of the workmen understood, chattered excitedly with his fellows, +and held up one soiled finger. + +"Ein," he said. "Kiska, he vork here." + +Shelby's shovel grated on the cylinder of the buried drill. From +underneath its tripod protruded the booted leg of a man. + +"Go easy, boys," he cautioned. + +With his own hands he skilfully uncovered the victim's head and trunk. +Graves saw that it was the giant of his day-dream. The man's rugged +face was earth-stained and still; his great chest motionless. Shelby +mastered the situation with a glance, thrust his hand into the coarse +shirt, and felt for the heart. + +"There's life in him," he announced. "Over with him into the shade." +Between them all they bore him to a shelf of level rock. "Off with his +shirt," said Shelby to his helper, and they two stripped the body to +the waist. It was the torso of a gladiator. Shelby rolled the garment +and thrust it underneath the bare back below the shoulders. "It's not +high enough," he decided instantly. "Something else--a coat--anything." + +Kiska's compatriots could not have complied had they understood, being +coatless to a man. Bernard Graves took off a new golf coat which +Shelby ruthlessly crumpled and stuffed into place. An instant later he +was astride the Pole's hips, his hands grasping the powerful chest on +either side. Bracing his elbows, Shelby bore his whole weight forward, +counted three, sat back upon his knees, counted two, and so continued, +down "one-two-three," up "one-two," with the quiet assurance of a +surgeon. + +The younger man watched his every movement with wondering respect. The +operator interrupted his meditations. + +"Get hold of his tongue with your handkerchief," he ordered. "That's +right--hold it by the tip. On one side--on one side. Now take both +his wrists and pin them above his head--so." + +All the while the steady pressure and relaxation went on, compelling +the lungs to their function. Presently came the faintest quiver of a +nostril, and Shelby smiled. + +"Kiska will do his own breathing pretty soon," he said. Presently he +suggested: "Better fetch Hilliard now. And have him 'phone Doc +Crandall to come to Kiska's house in Little Poland. I'll take Kiska +home in my rig when his bellows gets well under way." + +Graves did his errand, outlining the disaster and rescue as he hurried +with the quarry owner to the scene. Joe Hilliard was divided between +sympathy for Kiska, whom he declared was the pick of his men, and +admiration for Shelby's presence of mind. + +"He's got gumption, that man," he exclaimed, "gumption, simon-pure." + +Graves's own impressions were mixed, and the stress of the accident +passed, he resumed his ruined coat with a vague sense of personal +slight. Something of this sort prompted him to say rather +patronizingly to Shelby as they parted:-- + +"You made skilful use of that method of resuscitation. Where in the +world did you pick it up?" + +"Every schoolboy knows it," returned the politician, shortly; "or every +schoolboy should." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Shelby's forecast of the effect of the _Whig's_ exposure was +brilliantly fulfilled. People did laugh over it and say that it was a +good speech, whatever its source. In popular conception literary theft +is at worst a venial sin whose very iniquity is doubtful unless found +out. The culprit's average fellow-townsman accepted the incident as +fresh evidence of his acknowledged cleverness and promptly forgot it in +the nine days' wonder over his exploit at the Hilliard quarries. + +The town's attitude mirrored that of the congressional district and the +state. Volney Sprague's editorial occasioned some little paragraphing +here and there among up-state newspapers and by brief mention in +_Associated Press_ despatches roused a metropolitan daily of opposite +political faith to one of the satirical thrusts for which it was +famous; whereupon one of its more serious contemporaries found a text +for a thunderous jeremiad on the decay of political morality. Yet +where one person read of Shelby's plagiarism, a score devoured the +sensational accounts of his rescue of Kiska, while of those who read +both, an illogical but human majority considered his atonement complete. + +Sprague himself was disposed to gauge Shelby's vogue with the +groundlings as greater than before, and lamented it to Bernard Graves, +who fell wholly into his mood for once and deplored the fatuity of +popular judgment with unlooked-for warmth. + +His friend listened with unqualified approval. + +"Thank Heaven, you're beginning to take an interest in politics!" he +exclaimed. + +The young man flushed. + +"There are some things in this man's canvass one can't ignore," he +carefully explained, and tried to think he meant plagiarism. + +He had not discussed recent happenings with Ruth Temple. When he took +her the _Whig_ article the morning after the mass-meeting she had +displayed a disconcerting willingness to cloud the vital fact and +excuse Shelby. Indeed, he finally left with the disgusted conviction +that she had pilloried not the sinner but himself,--a not uncommon +outcome in a clash of wits between a woman and a man. After that, he +told himself, she might form what fantastic opinion of this freebooter +she chose without let or hindrance from him, and at the same time he +resolved that she should see less of him. The latter resolution proved +as flimsy as a New Year's vow, but while it needed less than a smile to +whistle him back, the whole distasteful subject of Shelby became +tacitly taboo. + +As Ruth was a very woman, often saying less what she really thought +than what she knew would stir dissent, her innermost opinions were less +stable than he fancied. She had not had speech with Shelby since the +mass-meeting, but he had found time that night to ask her to drive with +him, and she anticipated the outing with a zest whose disproportion to +its surface cause she did not analyze. + +On the appointed afternoon she saw his horse and buggy brought from the +Tuscarora House and hitched at the curb below his office, and as it +lacked little of the hour set she thrust home the last hat-pin and +stood jacketed and gloved by a window, waiting his coming. The hour +struck and brought no Shelby, though punctuality was the first article +of his creed. Out in the drowsy thoroughfare a sprinkling-cart jarred +heavily past, spurting ineffectually at the yellow dust which rose +perversely under its baptism and surged beneath the awnings of the +shops. It was Saturday, universal shopping-day in the farmland, and a +ramshackle line of rustic vehicles--buggies, democrats, sulkies, lumber +wagons--with graceless plough horses slumbering in the thills, +stretched in ragged alignment down the curb. Shelby's smart turnout +seemed fairly urban by contrast, and Ruth saw that it met with the +critical approval of the loungers. + +A quarter of an hour slipped by; no Shelby. His cob fretted at the +autumn flies and whinnied to be gone. A half-hour elapsed, unfruitful; +an hour. Then did Queen Ruth, on whose imperious nod a little world +had hung from babyhood, perceive the recreant come calmly down from his +law office in company with some creature of relatively common clay, +shake hands, chat further, shake hands again, take up his reins amid an +interchange of badinage with the bystanders, and so, gossiping still, +jog deliberately on--to her! + +She spun on her heel as he turned in at the drive and rang for her maid. + +"If Mr. Shelby should call," she directed, wrenching at her gloves, +"say I'm not at home." + + +Shelby's occupations in the meantime had been absorbing. In the course +of an earnest conference at the Tuscarora House the evening of the +quarry accident, the Hon. Samuel Bowers had removed his cigar to let +fall a sententious observation. + +"As long as an all-wise Providence saw fit to dump that sand-bank on +one of the Polacks," said he, "I call it a piece of downright Ross +Shelby luck that it fell on Kiska." + +"I should have worked as hard over a dago," rejoined Shelby; "or a dog +either, I guess." + +"M-yes; I reckon. But you're not complaining that it wasn't some dago +who doesn't know a ballot from a bunch of garlic? No, I reckon not." +His eyes twinkled, and Shelby flickered a responsive grin. "Note a +rule for candidates: When about to effect the spectacular rescue of one +of the toiling masses which are the bone and sinew of this fair land of +ours, pick a man who holds a block of the foreign vote right in the +pocket of his jeans." + +It was perhaps appreciation of this aphorism's significance, perhaps +sheer abundance of the milk of human kindness, perhaps a harmonious +blending of both, which inspired Shelby's warm welcome to Kiska as he +was about to leave his office to join Ruth Temple. + +"You shouldn't have come out so soon, Kiska," he protested, urging the +big Pole to a chair, and bringing him a glass of water. "Did you walk +all the way from Little Poland to see me?" + +"I valked," answered Kiska, simply, his face working. "I vould like to +haf roon, Meester Shelby." + +"Oh, I wouldn't run much just yet," laughed Shelby, kindly, trying to +head off the man's expression of gratitude. "Have another drink? +Perhaps you'd prefer some whiskey?" + +Kiska declined, and harked back to his message. + +"I vould like to haf roon to tank you, Meester Shelby. I got vife to +tank you. I got mooch cheeldren to tank you. I no taalk good. Dat +Eengleesh hard,--so? Eef I no taalk, I tink. I tink all day: Tank +you, Meester Shelby, tank you, Meester Shelby." + +"You speak English very well," said Shelby, patting him on the +shoulder. "But you mustn't say any more about the matter." + +He led him presently to talk of the quarry-workers and their families, +their wages, their hours, their recreation, their parish church, their +priest, their school; for Little Poland was sufficient unto itself; and +Kiska saw that he questioned with sympathy and understanding, and was +pleased. On the dial of his office clock Shelby noted the hour of his +appointment come and go, and from his window he caught a fleeting +glimpse of Ruth at hers. She wore his favorite hat, with a gleam of +red, which became her dark hair so well, and he divined that she had +put it on because of him. He longed to be out and away with her +between the autumn hedgerows, but there sat Kiska, garrulous of Poland +over seas and Little Poland by the quarries, and to Kiska the +politician inclined a patient ear. + +The Pole rose at last, after a delighted hour, and Shelby saw his eye +light on a package of campaign lithographs of himself, which had come +that morning from the printers. + +"Want one?" he asked. + +Kiska exploded in incoherent gratitude. + +"Take several," said Shelby, snapping an elastic band around a sheaf of +the pictures. "Give 'em to your friends to hang in their front +windows. That's what we do with 'em in town, you know. It's American. +You're all good Americans in Little Poland, aren't you?" A thought +struck him, and from a roll of banknotes, destined for campaign uses, +he extracted a ten-dollar bill. "I dare say Joe Hilliard will pay your +doctor, Kiska," he went on, "but there'll be other things you'll want. +Winter's coming; buy the yellow-haired kids some shoes; get the wife a +warm dress. You can pay me when Poland gets its independence." + +Kiska took the money. "I vould like to vork for you," he exclaimed. + +"Would you?" laughed the politician. "I think perhaps you may some +day." + + +The minor social conventions, which, after all, are possibly the major +ones, were consistently ignored by Shelby. + +"Not at home?" he repeated after Ruth's maid. "I guess you're +mistaken. I saw Miss Temple at the window as I drove in the gate. +Just look around a bit, and you'll find her." + +He walked calmly past the bewildered girl to the drawing-room. In the +centre of the apartment stood Ruth, her cheeks waving crimson, like a +poppy field astir. + +"Angry?" said the man. + +Ruth waited till the open-mouthed maid had retreated down the hall. + +"I'm furious," she answered, and looked the part. + +"Think I'm a boor?" + +She could not trust herself to reply. Had he dared smile then, she +would have swept by him, but he was wholly grave. + +"I'll tell you what you're thinking," he said quietly. "You are +thinking that I have fallen short of your notion of me. You listened +the other night at the court-house and thought kindly things. Then you +were told by my enemies that I had used in part what was not my own. +You were vexed, for it impeached your judgment of character. Then I +failed of my appointment, and did you a more grievous wrong--I piqued +your woman's vanity." + +Ruth gasped. + +"Your effrontery is--is fascinating." + +Shelby's eyes hinted a smile. She had said what she thought. + +"I shall not defend myself to you against the charges of the _Whig_," +he went on. "I doubt even if I shall answer them publicly. Greater +men than I have had their names blackened in a campaign, and deemed +silence the wisest answer. People don't ascribe many virtues to the +politician, but even he occasionally turns the other cheek. As for my +tardiness to-day--well, I could have avoided it." + +"You admit it?" blazed Ruth. + +"Yes. I had my choice." + +"And you chose--" The shabby figure she had seen descend from Shelby's +office visualized itself sharply. + +"Yes--poor devil--I chose Kiska." + +Her mood veered, and she whirled impulsively toward him, all +womanliness and contrition. + +"Forgive me. How could I know? I thought--I thought--" + +"That it was some heeler with a vote to sell?" + +Her face betrayed her. + +"Forgive me," she repeated. "You would have done wrong to turn him +away because of me. I know of your noble deed--who does not? I am +proud of you, and wished to tell you so. I wanted to see you for +this--to praise your heroism. I've been your friend in that--that +other thing. I could see how the crowd, the exhilaration, the sense of +mastery, might lure one on. I looked at it dispassionately--with a +friend's eyes. I was loyal till I thought you held my friendship +lightly, and put politics before it. I own my mistake--my injustice." + +Shelby had not dreamed of vindication so sweeping, and, with a word of +modest disclaimer, led the talk to pacific commonplace. It was too +late for the promised drive, and indeed neither of them thought of it +again till the door had shut between them. + +In leaving, the man's glance was arrested by an object on the piano. + +"What is that called?" he asked abruptly. + +"The cast? That is my Victory--the famous Victory of Samothrace, which +suggested the poem everybody's reading. It's my despair. I've failed +at drawing it for years. The original is in the Louvre, and towers +gloriously over a staircase. I can shut my eyes and see it perfectly." + +"Pretty old?" ventured Shelby. + +"Oh, yes; it's an antique. See how ruffian Time has dealt with it." + +The man walked slowly round the goddess, surveying her from every side. + +"A day or two ago," he said simply, "I saw that image in a house, and, +in my ignorance, thought a servant had broken it. I wondered why the +people didn't pitch it out." + +His tone went straight to her sympathy. + +"Many are strangers in the kingdom of Art," she returned gently. "Most +of us must come to it like little children." + +Shelby was silent for a moment. Then he said:-- + +"In Bernard Graves's opinion I am aesthetically dead--I believe those +were his words." + +The girl started. + +"I never repeated them," she protested. + +"What," laughed Shelby, grimly, "has he told you that, too? He's +evidently fond of the phrase. Perhaps he is right. Yet I hope not. +I'd rather think I'm merely unborn. I am not a voluntary Ishmaelite. +I simply haven't had the chance to learn." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A fault recognized, it was Ruth's nature to be lavish of atonement, and +by way of further expiation she consented a day or two later to make +one of a driving party of Mrs. Hilliard's to hear Shelby speak in a +village located "down north," as the local vernacular had it, near the +shore of Lake Ontario. Ruth cared little for Mrs. Hilliard. She saw +her through feminine eyes, and Mrs. Hilliard was not popular with +women. But Shelby had privily told her of the project and begged her +to accept. + +"I had planned to rent the Tuscarora House tallyho and go with some +eclat," the lady lamented at the eleventh hour, "but the way people +have disappointed me is positively harrowing. There was Bernard +Graves--I pinned my childlike faith on him; but he sent regrets. And +Mr. and Mrs. Bowers. Wouldn't you think that they, of all people, +would wish to go? But no; Mrs. Bowers said it did her rheumatic +shoulder no good to traipse around nights,--that was her +expression,--and Mr. Bowers actually told me that he was too busy +organizing political meetings to want to attend them. Isn't he droll? +Then Mr. Hewett had a sermon to prepare; and Dr. Crandall had a case of +diphtheria to watch; and Volney Sprague--well, I really did not dare +ask him, he was so horrid in his paper about Mr. Shelby's splendid +speech. So one and all they began to make excuses, as the Bible says, +till it has simmered down to you, dear Ruth, and Joe, and Mr. Shelby, +and me." + +"Oh," said Ruth, with misgiving. + +"A sort of survival of the fittest, don't you know, as somebody or +other says. Was it Shakespeare? He really seems to have written all +the clever things." + +"No," Ruth replied with gravity; "it wasn't Shakespeare." + +"Really? I thought it sounded Shakespearian. Well, as I was telling +you, it has come to a jolly little company of four in my surrey, which, +after all, is perhaps nicer than a dozen in a tallyho, though of course +it won't impress the voters as much." + +Ruth's eyebrows arched. + +"Is that the object of our going?" + +"What an idea, my dear!" Nevertheless, she colored. "We'll start +early enough for a fish supper at the Lakeview Inn," she rattled on. +"You know how good their fish suppers are. And perhaps we shall have +time to stop at the camp-meeting of those ridiculous Free Methodists +which is in full swing at the grove behind the hotel. Joe says that it +will be the last night of the camp, and equal to Barnum's Three Rings +and Mammoth Hippodrome. Doesn't that sound just like Joe? I'm sure we +can manage to see something of it. Mr. Shelby's meeting won't begin +till eight-thirty and Eden Centre can't be ten minutes' drive from the +grove." + +She sowed without conception of the harvest. The pleasuring so idly +planned, the religionists whose vagaries provoked her laughter, were in +time to bulk huge in a clairvoyant light of revelation. + +It fell a ripe autumn day with the haze mantling the orchards like the +purple of a plum, a day in whose magic atmosphere even common things +wore an air of poetry. The very canal was transfigured. + +"There is a bit of Holland," said Ruth, as they crossed the waterway on +the ragged hem of the town. "If this were Europe and the courthouse +over there could triple its age and take another name, this bridge +would swarm with the 'personally conducted' admiring the view. I don't +wonder that artists are beginning to paint the canal." + +"They say a house-boat party came through last week," Mrs. Hilliard +remarked. + +"Tied their scow near my place," put in her husband. "Had the hold all +rigged up with a piano and curtains and rugs. Harum-scarum looking lot +of men and women you wouldn't trust to paint a barn. They overran the +quarries and made pictures of the Polacks." + +"Bernard Graves met them," Ruth added. "They told him that Little +Poland was a second Barbizon for peasant models, with an 'Angelus' or a +'Man with the Hoe' around every corner." + +Joe Hilliard guffawed. + +"Guess they meant the woman with the hoe; she's the agriculturalist in +the Polack matrimonial team." + +Shelby was discreetly backward in these quicksands which the quarry +owner did not fear to tread, but the canal stirred his imagination, +too, and in a characteristic way. + +"It takes seven figures to express last year's tonnage down the Ditch +to tidewater," he told them; "stone, lumber, food. Why it dumped over +three-quarters of a million tons of food alone into New York City's +maw. Yet they say it's antiquated and can't compete with the +railroads. What else has kept the railroads within bounds? Ask any +Tuscarora shipper what happens yearly when navigation closes. Abandon +it! We'll see. The canal counties swing a pretty vote in this state." + +Hilliard laughed. + +"Think you're addressing the Legislature, Ross?" + +"I heard you address the Assembly once," Ruth said. "I was a Vassar +girl then, visiting Albany friends. You spoke about the canals, and +the other members stopped gossiping and writing letters to listen." + +"The canal is a part of my religion," Shelby answered. + +They crossed the ancient shore line of the lake, the Ridge, +so-called,--successive highway of the Iroquois, the pioneer, the +stage-coach, and the ubiquitous trolley,--and caught presently the +distant shimmer of Ontario, sail-dotted, intensely blue. That first +glimpse of the inland sea always stirred Ruth to the depths. It was +not the romance of New France alone which it evoked--that picturesque +procession of redmen, _coureurs de bois_, friars, Jesuits, soldiers of +fortune, La Salle, Frontenac, the conquering English, the +conqueror-conquering American--but the mystery of the vaster tidal sea +toward which it drew, whose supremest witchery none may know save the +yearning inland-born. + +"Calm as a puddle to-day," said Joe. "You can almost hear the Canucks +singing 'God Save the Queen.'" + +Dusk had set in when they left the deserted piazzas of the summer hotel +for the camp-meeting in the grove. The flare of torches wavered afar +between the tree boles, and above the lapping of the waves walled a +drear hymn. + +Mrs. Hilliard skipped girlishly in the woodland path. + +"They've begun, they've begun," she exulted. "We shall see the fun +after all." + +"It's too early for the meeting in the big tent," Shelby told Ruth; +"but if you've never seen anything of the kind, the scene which goes +before will be quite as curious." + +Skirting a makeshift village of tiny tents and shanties they issued to +a torch-lit clearing in the wood whose central object was the greater +tent, which, frayed, weathered, and patched as it was, yet stood to +these zealots of an iron creed as the chosen tabernacle of a very God. +Its rough benches were empty now, but before its dingy portal swayed +and groaned a rapt circle of men and women, hand in hand, in whose +midst an old man with a prophet's head and a bigot's eye was gyrating +like a dervish as he mouthed the hackneyed phrases of the sanctified. +As the new-comers pressed among the bystanders hemming the inner circle +of the faithful, the performer with a last frantic whirl dropped +exhausted, and rolling down a slight declivity lay stark and deathlike +at their feet, his white beard and hair strewn with russet leaves. + +Ruth recoiled with a shudder. The swaying circle redoubled its +incantations, and left him to his envied beatitude. Their indifference +seemed inhuman to the girl, and she would have stooped to the prostrate +figure but for Shelby's detaining hand. + +"Merely the 'Power,' as they say," he whispered, adding cynically, +"Epilepsy can be feigned, you know." + +She desisted, and a new actor waltzed rhythmically into the glare of +light. Her short rotund body writhing not unlike an Oriental dancer's, +the Widow Weatherwax had assumed the centre of the ring. The +sanctified were without sense of humor, but the unregenerate onlookers +were not proof against the comic aspects of emotional religion, and +from the dark outskirts rang a ribald laugh. + +"Why doesn't that dreadful woman wear a corset?" demanded Mrs. Hilliard +in a stage whisper of Ruth, whose face went suddenly aflame. + +"The widow would make the fortune of any Midway, Ross," Joe Hilliard +chuckled, digging Shelby in the ribs. + +"Woe, woe, woe," chanted the widow, spurred to anathema by derision. +"Woe upon scorners! Woe upon them that sit in the seats of scorners! +'Ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in +yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.'" + +Scripture-quoting was reckoned among the fine arts in the widow's +circle, and an applauding chorus of Praise Gods and Amens greeted her +dexterous use of the beloved weapon. She rounded the chain once more +in her grotesque dance; then, suddenly spying the little group of her +neighbors peering through the girdle of the sanctified, she halted, +directly fronting them, and, singling out Mrs. Hilliard, who was +conspicuous in a red tailor-made gown, she transfixed her with her +beady eyes. + +"Woe, woe, woe," she wailed again, rocking to and fro. "Woe upon +Babylon! 'Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the +habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of +every unclean and hateful bird!'" + +The brethren thrilled at the well-understood allusion to the speaker's +abiding-place, while the outsiders, scenting a veiled scurrility, +craned to listen and to watch. + +Secure of her audience, the widow paused as if waiting the descent of +the prophetic afflatus. Then:-- + +"'And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my +people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not +of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath +remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and +double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she +hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, +and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she +saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no +sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and +mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire.'" + +Ruth vacillated between fascination and disgust. The flickering +torches, the soughing wind, the lapping waves, the old, old words, lent +the denunciation a solemnity which transcended the bizarre mouthpiece. +She shook off the impression, however, and asked Shelby to take her +away. + +"Yes; it's time to leave for the rally," he acquiesced. "I'll speak to +the Hilliards." + +As they turned, they saw that Mrs. Hilliard's eyes were riveted on the +widow's in an hypnotic stare. In shrill singsong the woman was +declaiming:-- + +"'So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a +woman sit upon a scarlet beast, full of names of blasphemy, having +seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and +scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, +having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations--'" + +Whereupon Mrs. Hilliard suddenly stopped her ears and grovelled on her +knees full in the light of the torches, her shoulders quivering with +hysterical sobs. There was a ripple of sensation at the prominence of +the convert, and triumphant peals of "Saved by His precious blood," +"Saved by the Lamb," "Look to Him, sister, look to Him," and the like. +Then big Joe Hilliard stolidly thrust himself into the ring, and, +raising the stricken woman, bore her away into the outer darkness. +Apart from the crowd, Hilliard shook his wife with rough kindness. + +"Wake up, girl," he said. "Nightmare's over. I guess you need a dose +of camomile." + +In the inky outskirts she presently threw off the obvious marks of her +hysteria, but by little signs another woman might read, Ruth saw hours +afterward that the spell possessed her still. Its gloom seemed to +overcast the entire evening. Either through insufficient advertising, +or the crass stupidity of the enfranchised of Eden Centre, who thought +less of their political enlightenment than the noisy saving of their +souls, Shelby's meeting proved a pitiful fiasco. Hardly a score had +gathered in the low-ceiled schoolhouse, fetid with reeking kerosene +lamps and wilting humanity; and of this beggarly handful two-thirds +were women. Shelby assumed a cheerful front, declaring that a small +audience so assembled was deserving of his best, but hewing to this +line was another matter. Womankind are proverbially indifferent to +politics; and a stouter resolution than his would have flagged in the +presence of that preoccupied feminine two-thirds, whose eyes were +centred on Mrs. Hilliard's tailor-made gown and Ruth Temple's fall hat. +Used as he was to easy victory, this first disappointment of his +campaign seemed bodeful of evil days to come. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Yet when mischief speedily befell, it wore so curious a guise that +Shelby missed its import and laughed it aside for a random fling of +jocund Fate. It began with a publisher's announcement of a volume +containing the collected poems of the author of the admired, imitated, +parodied, and derided ode on the "Victory of Samothrace," anonymous no +longer, but the avowed offspring of Bernard Graves. Dazed, +incredulous, and slow to do him honor, the prophet's own country +advanced a theory of mistaken identity. But reluctant New Babylon had +soon to recognize the young man's vogue. Through its supposed advocacy +of woman suffrage the poem had all but founded a cult, and the +disclosure of its true author, after months of guesswork and +silly-season gush, bounced and ricochetted among the newspapers with +astonishing ado. With the _Whig_ in the forefront the local press +began to echo the gossiping paragraphs and character sketches which, +true, half true, and of whole cloth, padded the lean columns of a +mediocre literary season, and New Babylon had faith. The last doubting +Thomas yielded when it became necessary to convey the celebrity's mail +to his home in a special bag; not even the ensuing plague of special +correspondents, biographical dictionary solicitors, photographers, and +worshipping pilgrims so stirred the local imagination; this surely was +fame! + +To Ruth Temple, who by some sorcery guessed his secret before its +public revelation, Graves went with his laurels thick upon him. + +"How does it feel to be a celebrity?" he said, meeting her volley of +questions collectively. "Much like a breakfast cereal, a patent +medicine, or a soap. Byron said that the first thing which sounded +like fame to him was the tidings that he was read on the banks of the +Ohio. It's different nowadays. The first taste usually comes from +seeing your name placarded on a dead wall between some equally +distinguished rolled oats and a new five-cent cigar. Personally I +think I first saw the 'gypsy' face to face when the Hon. Seneca Bowers +told me that save 'Betsey and I Are Out' he had read no poem but mine +in twenty years. That was my 'Ohio,' though of course Mrs. Hilliard's +request for an author's reading at the Culture Club was an annunciation +in itself. Am I becoming fabulously rich from my royalties? Alas! no; +I must buy too many presentation copies for people who fancy that I +obtain gratis really more than I know what to do with. Shall I write +for the stage? I could as easily write a cook book. Do I give my +autograph? Always, if a stamped envelope is enclosed. One of our +hardest-working presidents daily set apart a time for autographs; why +then should a popular writer pretend that it bores him? He is secretly +tickled, and probably collects autographs himself." + +Ruth laughed, but denied that he had exhausted her questions. + +"Why did you withhold your name from your masterpiece?" she asked. + +"Partly because it was my masterpiece,--it would be false modesty to +deny that I know it,--and I had some notion of digging a pit for the +critics. But the main reason was to confound my Uncle Peter." + +"I didn't know you had an uncle." + +"I haven't in the flesh. 'Uncle Peter' is generic--a polite lumping +together of my chronic fault-finders within the family and without. +You know him. Both masculine and feminine, he's eternally an old +woman. Everybody knows Uncle Peter, the first to censure and the last +to praise. Now, as I've been his especial tidbit and awful example for +years, I had to school myself to the thought of snatching the daily +morsel of gossip from his mouth. The murder out, Uncle Peter's grief +is pitiful. How much sharper than a serpent's tooth is a prophecy of +evil unfulfilled! It's not that he considers I've gone to work, +incorrigible vagabond that I am; it's the fact that my intolerable +idling has produced money which sets his teeth on edge--money, the +golden calf of Uncle Peter's narrow idolatrous soul." + +Ruth had no liking for his moments of acid mockery. + +"Don't let Uncle Peter overshadow your friends," she warned. + +"I'll not," promised the man. "And you--by what witchery of friendship +did you find me out?" He shifted his seat, seeking her eyes. "Ruth, +was it love?" + +She did not answer immediately. + +"Be my wife, Ruth," he said. + +"It was not love," she replied simply. + +It was one of the oddities of his temperament that at this moment he +saw himself objectively. What a subdued neutral tinted thing was life! +By all the canons of romance it was now his cue for perfervid speech. + +"What then?" he asked quietly. + +"Liking--a real liking." + +"Will it grow warmer?" + +"I cannot tell." + +"I will teach you to love me," he declared, his artistic self nudging +him meanwhile that he had dropped into the worn formula of the ages. + +Ruth did not deny him the attempt, and he undertook a lesson on the +spot, pointing out that they saw life through similar eyes; that art, +music, literature spoke with a common voice; that if true marriage were +perfect companionship, the auguries were not uncertain in their happy +omen; so on till he wearied her with argument. + +"All those things refine love," she put in at last, a little wistfully; +"they are not its essence. A man may be a barbarian and yet lovable." + +He desisted at that, and presently went away. Out of doors her words +clothed themselves with a personal application. Shelby--lovable +barbarian!--was entering the gate. + +Of what immediately followed neither man retained a clear recollection. +It was a clash of temperaments hopelessly at odds, in which the spoken +word weighed little beside the mute antipathy jaundicing the mind. Yet +the word played no small part in the sequel. Graves assured Shelby +that he should spare no effort to compass his defeat; while Shelby in +his turn suggested that the zest of the campaign would be doubled if +Graves were only his ridiculous opponent. + +Puzzling how the quarrel could have begun and hurried to its climax so +swiftly, Bernard Graves swung up the street heedless of his steps. +Then the bland colonial facade of the public library confronted him +like a smirking face and, as his vagrant fancy trifled with the +conceit, its lips opened to emit two chattering girls. + +"I was the tenth on the waiting-list," said one. + +He saw that she spoke of his own volume which she held in a triumphant +embrace with a box of caramels, and was filled with a nauseated disgust +for his handiwork. Retracing his steps he climbed to the _Whig_ +office, and finding Sprague at his desk, he swept a pile of exchanges +from a chair and drew it to the editor's elbow. + +"Volney," he asked, "does this talk of an independent movement against +Ross Shelby amount to anything?" + +Sprague's eye lit. + +"It's gathering headway every minute," he declared. "We require just +one thing--a candidate of prominence and backbone." + +Graves reached past the paste-pot to capture a fugitive match. + +"What do you say to me?" + +"What do I say!" Unwinding his long legs from his chair rounds the +editor dealt his friend a clap between the shoulders which sent his +cigarette spinning to the floor. "I say you're a trump." + +Sprague had not a little in common with the type in the political +cosmos which is contemptuously styled cloistered. Of New England +stock, like most of Tuscarora, he had been born of a later migration +than the pioneers', and was hence less tempered by New York influences +for good or ill. Begotten a generation earlier, he would have tended +transcendental pigs at Brook Farm. His earliest political +recollections were associated with heated quotations from Garrison and +Wendell Phillips, and the sharpest-etched memory of his childhood had +to do with a runaway slave harbored in his father's garret. As a man +he was given to printing Emersonian nuggets in the editorial columns of +the _Whig_, his favorite sentiment being, "Hitch your wagon to a star," +whose practical application led him over highways which knew not +macadam. He now perceived nothing grotesque in Bernard Graves's +proposal, nor did it astonish him. From his office window he had +chanced to overlook the stormy meeting of the suitors, but he gave +Graves no hint. + +"With any other candidate I can think of," he declared, "this movement +would merely signify the protest of a self-respecting minority; with +you, the author of the famous Samothrace ode,--gad! I think it augurs +victory by a handsome majority." + +Graves colored. + +"I had forgotten the ode," he confessed. "Couldn't we eliminate that +from the campaign?" + +"Eliminate it! Why, boy, it's half your platform." + +"Is it?" said the novice, drearily. "Oh, very well. I thought I +should like to run on the moral issue. Shelby is corrupt, and the +other party is certain to name some creature who would out-Shelby +Shelby if he got the chance. That seems to me issue enough for a third +candidate without dragging in my verses. I'm sick of them." + +"Do you find your royalties a nuisance?" + +"Don't be banal, Volney. You understand me. I don't want to be the +one-sided artist merely; I want to do things as well as write about +them, and I want the provinces separate." + +Sprague laughed paternally. + +"If I'm not to be banal, neither must you be impracticable. It's the +ode that makes you available and enables you to do things, and there +can be no question of dividing your personality as King Louis +something-or-other tried to do. You have placed yourself in my hands. +Very good. I assure you that I can nominate you. You should therefore +defer to my judgment. You owe me that." + +"Of course." + +"Yes; well, then. Congressman Graves that is to be, here is the +situation in a nutshell: In Tuscarora Shelby has gained ground because +of the Kiska affair. Little Poland has his lithograph in every window. +Elsewhere in the Demijohn I've reason to know that he's in exceedingly +bad odor, and that a third ticket would draw no end of support from +thinking voters who like Shelby little, but the other party less. At +present, you see, it's frying-pan or fire for them." The editor paused +to charge a discolored corn-cob pipe. "Now your coming changes all +that," he continued, tilting back in the wreathing smoke. "I tell you +it warms my heart to think of you opposing Shelby; it's a draught of +Falernian, no less. It's logically, it's romantically, fitting that +you who unmasked his plagiarism should battle with him at the polls. +Moreover, your discovery puts such a feather in your cap at the outset. +You've proved your political acuteness; you've won your spurs. It's +town talk that the credit is yours,--I acknowledge it whenever +asked,--and now that you are to enter the field, I'll blazon it to the +four winds." + +"If the world takes it as placidly as New Babylon, it will do us little +good." + +"Ah, but the world isn't so stupid," retorted Sprague, beginning to +rummage his chaotic desk. "There, sir," he went on, dragging a bundle +of newspaper clippings to the surface, "there is the world's opinion of +the exposure. Rochester, Buffalo, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, +Troy--you'll find the comments of every important city in the state +voiced by reputable journals; New York--why, New York gave it three +editorials, not one of them less than two sticks. No utterance of the +_Whig_ ever attracted such attention. I tell you, man, that, your poem +aside, your advent in politics with this thing to your credit makes you +a figure of state importance; with the ode--gad, sir, your canvass is +of national concern." + +"It sounds like a dream of Colonel Mulberry Sellers's," laughed Graves, +but he warmed to the editor's mood. "You're sure I can have the +nomination? We're flying in the face of the Boss and all his works." + +Sprague flung out his thin hands impatiently. + +"I have told you that it rests with me." + +The tyro dropped an acute, if indiscreet, observation. + +"It seems to me," said he, "that you are something of a boss yourself." + +"Every cause must have a leader. I have been the consistent head and +front of the protest against Shelbyism, and the independent movement is +of my creating. Why shouldn't I name the candidate?" + +Bernard Graves retreated hastily from this ticklish corner, and put +forward a vague supposition that there would have to be "caucuses, +conventions, and things." + +"Independent nominations are made by certificate." + +"Oh," said the young man, meekly, "I see;" which was disingenuous. He +silently debated whether this meant a species of letter of +recommendation, but was shy of asking. + +Sprague mercifully enlightened him. + +"I've the law right here," he went on, tapping a calf-bound manual +which Graves eyed with profound respect. "An independent nomination +for Congress requires at least a thousand signers who must be electors +of the district. We've ample time; it's a good three weeks before we +need file our certificate with the Secretary of State, and a fortnight +would answer to secure the minimum. But we'll not content ourselves +with the minimum; the greater our list of signers, the stronger our +argument in the campaign. Voters are gregarious, you know." + +"I've noticed the importance of bell-wethers," Graves remarked dryly. + +"Oh, but don't asperse the intelligence of the flock," deprecated the +reformer quickly. "I've been thought to idealize The People; perhaps I +do, but it is good for a man to keep sweet his faith in humanity. +There's a saying of Emerson's that fits the case if I could remember +it." He scoured his memory absently for an interval. "Well, no +matter. It occurs to me that we'll need an emblem for our ticket. The +law requires us to select some device. The eagles, ballot-boxes, +roosters, stars, and the like have all been preempted, and aren't +strikingly significant anyhow. We want something telling--a graphic +symbol of our aim. You are a man of imagination; what is your notion?" + +The man of imagination considered, and the editor's excess of nervous +force spent itself in idle forays about his desk, one of which brought +forth a foot-rule; whirling in the eager fingers, it proved an +inspiration. + +"Why not--" Graves began; "no, not that--a square, a carpenter's +square. It symbolizes everything we stand for." + +"Bravo! It's a slogan to win with. Square issues, square dealing, +square men! We'll placard every fence and barn door in the district. +A woodcut will cost next to nothing, and I'll run the posters off right +here on the premises." + +The suggestion bruised Graves's sensibilities. + +"Is that necessary?" he protested mildly. "I'd really prefer to leave +all that sort of vandalism to the other side; it's so philistine, you +know." + + + + +BOOK II + + +CHAPTER I + +Volney Sprague's flaming posters in black and red menaced Shelby from +the selvage of the district to the threshold of his door. The State +Committee had despatched him on a brief stumping tour, embracing a +handful of canal counties, a section of the grape belt, and certain +strategic points in the Southern Tier, and he had kept in fairly +regular communication with Bowers; but while that leader's letters were +usually as terse and meaty as Caesar's campaign jottings in Gaul, they +somehow failed to impress the candidate with the actual condition of +his political fences. It was therefore with the shock of almost +complete surprise that he entered his proper bailiwick to find Bernard +Graves's opposition regarded seriously. Saloons, cigar stores, street +corners, the billiard room of the Tuscarora House, all his familiar +haunts, buzzed with the vote-getting possibilities of an independent +ticket in a community where regularity had become well-nigh a fetich. + +Bowers was rudderless and irritable. + +"I advised you to conciliate young Graves," he fretted. "And what +have you done? Stroked him the wrong way ever since. I hope it's a +lesson to you to keep politics and petticoats apart." + +Shelby jeered at his inconsistency. + +"You were good enough to suggest that I make up to the woman in the +case." + +"Not in the thick of a campaign." + +Shelby's optimism was not easily dashed and he laid an energetic +shoulder to the lagging wheel. His associate's rebound from depression +was less elastic, and the candidate's thoughts furrowed a channel they +had frequently taken of late. It was plain to him that the older man +was no longer equal to the requirements of his leadership. Sound in +judgment, shrewd in the reading of men, vigorous in action as he once +had been, and on occasion could be still, he was nevertheless of an +earlier and more leisured school of politics than the present lively +generation which knew not Joseph. They knew other things--the +youngsters--strange methods of the city ward; and the philosophic +observers, who on all sides think they descry evidence of the +corruption of the country by the city, would have glibly explained to +the Hon. Seneca Bowers the causes of his inefficiency. He had come to +rely more and more on his sprightly deputy, till now, virtual county +leader and his party's candidate, Shelby, double-weighted, prepared to +wage the battle of his life. + +The demands upon his time were incessant. He would rise in his +unlovely room at the Tuscarora House, leaden from insufficient sleep, +to be buttonholed before he breakfasted--sometimes, even before he +dressed; this man must be placated, that threatened, the other +convinced by reason; another must be visited in sickness, another found +work, for yet another must gratuitous lawyering be done--all this with +jovial front and a camel's capacity for drink. This was his +domesticity, amidst which must be sandwiched conferences and +journeyings in Tuscarora County and the other counties of his district, +and speeches on behalf of the party outside the Demijohn, entailed by +too successful stumping in the past. Capping all was the perverse +closet-reformer, Sprague, and his figurehead, Graves. + +Shelby was a believer in short campaigns, and the time left the +independents for attack was brief. They retrieved the handicap by +added vigor, and subjected his every public act to merciless scrutiny. +Sprague formulated the case against him in an early issue of the +_Whig_:-- + +"We are asked," he wrote, "to publish our specific reasons for +rejecting this candidate. We gladly comply. The counts of his +indictment are many; we select five:-- + +"We refuse to support a candidate of any party whatsoever whose +nomination issues from dishonest primaries. It is notorious that the +caucuses preliminary to this man's nomination were packed. Can you +gainsay it, Mr. Shelby? + +"We refuse to support a candidate, be his nomination never so spotless, +who degrades himself and the office to which he aspires by the theft of +another's intellectual property. Can you deny your plagiarism, Mr. +Shelby? + +"We refuse to support a candidate, be his nomination irreproachable, +his sense of mine and thine otherwise undulled, whose legislative +record is tainted by traffickings peculiar to the Black Horse +Cavalry--wanton blackmailers of corporate rights. It is of common +knowledge that this man introduced in the last session a bill aimed at +the legitimate profits of a great surface railway system, which he +withdrew for no reason of public record. Can you make affidavit that +the subsequent sale of a block of that same railway's stock by your +business associate was without relevance, Mr. Shelby? + +"We refuse to support a candidate, be his nomination unimpeachable, his +intellectual honesty unchallenged, his legislative record without +stain, who, posing as the champion of our canals, nevertheless lends +himself, through connivance at fraudulent contracts and the appointment +of needless officials, to the squandering of the moneys set apart for +their use. We invite you to disprove your complicity in the wasting of +the state's millions, Mr. Shelby. + +"We refuse, lastly, to support a candidate, be his nomination as +unsullied as his personal integrity, and his legislative career as free +from 'strikes' as his advocacy of our pirate-infested waterways is +disinterested, who is yet so slavishly the henchman of his party +machine that no measure it may propose is too unsavory to enlist his +Dugald Dalgetty loyalty. By your closed lips you countenance the +land-jobbing steal which your great state Boss failed by the merest +fluke to saddle upon the River and Harbor Bill passed by the last +Congress, and purposes to press anew;--dare you vote against your +owner, Mr. Shelby?" + +To all of which, reiterated and emphasized in pamphlet, broadside, +poster, and stump speech, Shelby said publicly never a word, professing +himself a believer in the policy of dignified silence. He touched the +matter after an impersonal fashion with Bowers, however, as they read +the onslaught. + +"Give me the liquor habit, the tobacco habit, the opium habit, singly +or all together," said he, "but preserve me from the vice of rhetoric." + +Bowers had not this fine detachment. + +"I don't wish to nose into your private concerns, Ross," he began, with +visible embarrassment, "but this third count implicates me. I'd like +to ask whether that stock I sold for you in Wall Street last winter was +yours by--by--" + +"By bona fide purchase?" whipped in Shelby. "Yes, sir; out and out. +Do you think me as big a fool as this dream-chaser pretends I am?" + +"No, no." + +"Nobody should know better than you why that bill was introduced. You +brought it to me from the Boss. Those railway people forgot that their +party can't run campaigns on wind, and in his own way he jogged their +memory. I saw that. As for the stock--your skirts are clear. You +merely sold in a rising market what I bought in a falling one. If my +position gave me a speculative advantage, it's my own business--nobody +else's--not even the Hon. Seneca Bowers's." + +The county leader's working features did not resemble General Grant's. +In that unhappy moment he experienced the pangs of unhonored parenthood. + +Presently he put out his hand. + +"I'm sorry I offended you, Ross. I supposed myself too seasoned a +campaigner to mind mud-slinging." + +Shelby laughed apologies away and they parted friends. On the +threshold it occurred to Bowers to ask:-- + +"Who is this Dalgetty fellow Sprague mentions? I never heard of him in +politics." + +"Nor I. Some ward heeler he thinks I resemble, I guess." + +"He'd have made his point stronger by taking somebody that the plain +people know. That's something mugwumps never learn." + +"And there's another thing they don't grasp," Shelby added. "One +personal talk with the average voter will outweigh enough high-toned +editorials to sink a ship. When the reformer begins to rub shoulders +in all sorts of places with all sorts of men his halo won't be so +luminous; perhaps he won't call himself a reformer at all--just +politician, perhaps; but he'll saw wood." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +As a matter of fact, the independent candidate did give the +shoulder-rubbing process a trial. Within the by no means contracted +limits of Volney Sprague's paper-and-ink horizon the flurry of the +attack on Shelby threw its ripples far, but Graves shortly damped the +editor's professional delight by the remark that he had been assured of +no man's vote because of it. + +"There's the pity of our lack of time," frowned Sprague. "An +educational campaign can hardly be too long. Many a demagogue has +failed of election because we vote in November and not in dog-days." + +"You'll have to admit that you've merely revamped old material. It's +no news that Shelby has packed caucuses, stolen speeches, blackmailed +corporations, jobbed canal contracts, and grovelled to the Boss." + +"True," admitted Sprague, ruefully. + +"We need the concrete to convince. Take this canal scandal: we've seen +contracts go to Shelby's adherents on unbalanced bids, and the Ditch +swarms with his useless inspectors at four dollars a day; but can you +bring wrong-doing home to him?" + +"To prove the Champion of Canals' complicity--what a master stroke!" + +The morning after he popped into the young man's study, to the lasting +detriment of a triolet. + +"We can prove it," he exclaimed. "Gad! We can prove it!" + +Graves regretfully dropped a blotter over his manuscript and advanced a +chair. + +"I've suspected that there were men in this town who could lay Shelby +by the heels, were they to tell all they knew. The problem was to draw +them." + +"You can't expect his understrappers to quarrel with their bread and +butter." + +"No; that has been the stone of stumbling precisely, but we've got +around it. In this blessed case, Shelby himself did the quarrelling, +and thereby delivered himself into our hands." + +Bernard Graves sat up. + +"What have you found out?" + +"I've found a man who seems to know of Shelby's crookedness, and is +willing to tell what he knows." + +"Well?" + +"Jap Hinchey." + +Graves's face lengthened. + +"That beast," said he. + +"Did you expect a Sir Galahad for such a service?" + +"What would the word of such a man avail?" + +"As much as any informer's; it isn't a chivalrous office." + +"Nor is ours in employing it, to my thinking; informer and reformer +sound perilously near alike. Still, as you delicately imply, we're not +Knights of the Round Table. What has the sot had to say to you?" + +"Well, the fact is he hasn't told me anything specific," Sprague had to +admit. "The matter is still under negotiation, as one may say. Jasper +is coy." + +"Oh!" + +The lukewarm monosyllable voiced disillusionment. With a partial +return to the academic calm of his normal life Bernard Graves candidly +told himself that the actual basis of his resentment against Shelby was +trivial; that the editor's outlook on politics was Quixotic, not to say +Micawberesque; and that his own wisdom in venturing for such a cause, +with such a pilot, on such uncharted seas, was questionable to a degree. + +Sprague was not devoid of intuition. + +"I'm not rainbow-hunting this time," he put in quickly. "The fellow +knows something interesting, and he's ready to out with it. He was +employed in the Eureka quarries during the canal improvement, and saw +things, he says, that we would like to hear." + +"You talked with him?" + +"Yes; he accosted me in a side street late last night." + +"If he's anxious to inform and reform, why doesn't he? I don't like +the look of it. What does he want?" + +"You." + +"He wants me?" + +"He said he would speak plainly with you." + +Graves's revulsion was fairly physical. + +"You manage it, Volney," he entreated. "You will know how." + +Sprague shook his head. + +"He was positive on that point. It must be you or nobody." + +"I doubt if it's worth while." + +The editor lost patience. + +"It was you who reminded me that we lacked the concrete. Now I offer +it to you." + +"But in such a shape!" + +"Can you quibble over that--and in politics?" + +"No one who knows Jap Hinchey's character would believe him under oath." + +Sprague's reply was astute. + +"I'm thinking of those who don't know him," said he. "The district is +wide." + +"And an affidavit is an affidavit?" His smile was sardonic. "Very +well. I'll see him. What is Jap's At Home?" + +"You will find him fishing on the dock behind his shanty, probably. +I'd follow this thing up promptly, Bernard." + +"Yes," promised the candidate, listlessly. "I will." + +Alone, he fingered his manuscript, read it drearily, and of a sudden +tore it into little bits, the mood which gendered it gone beyond +recall. The sordid necessity of seeing Hinchey taught him afresh the +folly of his dabbling in politics at all, and his whole being revolted +against the contact with humanity in the raw which even mugwumpery +seemed to entail. Left to himself, Sprague might have headed his own +John Brown raid into the established order of things; led it with +brilliancy perhaps, in any case with honest zeal. Yet the root of his +discontent struck rather deeper than Jasper Hinchey and the cold +waterish zone of reform; Ruth had her part in it. He somehow reasoned +that his course merited her approval and encouragement; it had met with +banter. So gyved, lagged the hope of the independents to his task. + +Few towns, however small, lack their moral plague-spot, and Graves's +errand bent him toward New Babylon's, a web of alleys styled the Flats, +spun behind the business centre among the docks and rotting warehouses +of a vanished commerce. The Flats had its business too--groggeries and +a music hall where "sacred concerts" were given on Sunday nights and +men had been stabbed on pay-day; groggeries, the music hall--and worse. +The young man threaded gingerly into its dingy precincts, and by dint +of a handful of Italian, picked up in a Roman winter's sojourn to be +oddly practised on a local washerwoman sousing gay garments in the +amber fluid of the Erie Canal, he singled out the Hinchey hovel from +the squalid score it resembled. Before the sagging threshold tumbled a +many-complexioned brood of children,--they seemed a very dozen,--and in +the doorway, with arms akimbo and hands on massive hips, gaped Jap's +mulatto wife, for of such measure was the man. Graves crossed the +alley, suppressing such of his five senses as he could shift without, +and ascertained that the degenerate Jasper, true to prophecy, was +fishing from the dock in the rear. + +"Good afternoon," said the caller, affably, he thought. + +Jasper grunted without lifting his eyes from his float. + +"What do you catch here?" pursued the candidate, beaming +good-fellowship. + +The line suddenly drew taut, and a muddy fish whipped through the +sunshine within a scant inch of Graves's nose. + +"Bullheads," answered the laconic Hinchey. + +The visitor was disconcerted. + +"You--er--eat them?" he remarked blankly, eyeing first the +beery-looking water and then the ugly fish. + +"Naw," sneered Jap. "I'm foundin' 'n 'quarium." He tossed the +bullhead into a pail, and, spying a piccaninny scudding round a corner, +called: "Here, you chocolate drop, take this yer fish ter yer mammy. +Two mor,' 'n' I'll hev 'nuff fer supper. Set down," he added to his +guest. + +"Thanks," said Bernard, hunting vainly for a clean spot on the +string-piece. He lit a cigarette as a sanitary precaution, and +bethought him to offer one to Hinchey. + +"None o' them coffin-nails fer me," declined the Spartan. "I smokes +men's terbacker." + +Graves gave him a cigar which he chanced to have about him. + +"I don't seem to have a match left," he observed, fumbling in his +pockets. + +Jasper Hinchey calmly relieved him of his cigarette, lit his cigar with +it, and restored the costly importation, malodorous of fish. At the +earliest opportunity Graves dropped it in the canal, a transaction duly +noted by Jap. + +"I've been told you have something to say to me," the young man said +briskly, his social obligations seeming fully paid, and his eagerness +to be gone swamping diplomacy. + +Jasper rebaited his hook, impaling the wriggling earthworm with a +solicitude worthy of comparison with Isaac Walton's refined martyrdom +of frogs. + +"Yes," he drawled; "I kind o' 'magine I hev." + +Bernard curbed his impatience while Jap spat with deadly aim at an +eddying chip. + +"S'pose you know I've knocked round in pol'tics some?" + +The young man said that he did. He thought "knocked" a felicitous +word. Jasper Hinchey's public services had been heavy-fisted, relating +chiefly to voting blocks of drunken Poles and Italians in warmly +contested town elections. + +"I've helped 'lect mor'n one feller t' office in my day. Take Ross +Shelby now: both times he run fer th' 'Sembly I worked like a nailer. +'Cause why? He done right by me. Why I luved that cuss like--like--" +he hesitated for a simile--"like my own son," he added, with the +passing of one of his brood, and forthwith whacked the youngster for +overturning the bait can. "Jes' like my own son. An' so I should +still ef he hedn't done me dirt; ef he'd ben square. Now, you're +square." + +"I try to be," returned Bernard, ravished by the tribute. "That's my +platform in this campaign, you know." + +"Yes; jes' so. An' I rather 'magine I'll vote yer way." + +"Thank you." + +"Pro-vi-ded," Jasper added, "pro-vi-ded we c'n 'range things." + +"Arrange things?" + +Jasper's eyes wandered musingly over his interlocutor's face. + +"'Range things, I sez, an' I sez it again." + +He abandoned something of his drawl. "I 'magine I c'd tell sumpin ef I +tuk a notion." + +Graves brooked his tone with difficulty. + +"I shouldn't be here if I didn't think so too," he answered coolly. + +"Jes' so," agreed Jasper, absorbed in a sinker. "I c'd tell sumpin +erbout a party thet I 'magine you'd cock yer ear t' hear." + +"Shelby?" + +"I 'magine I didn't jes' quite say. No, I 'magine not." + +"If you will exercise your imagination less, Mr. Hinchey, and say +plainly what you have to say, I shall be obliged," retorted Bernard, +exasperated by his shiftiness. + +Jasper was unmoved. + +"Easy t' see _you_ ain't ben in pol'tics long. Wall, whut I've got t' +say is this: I used t' work fer this party off 'n' on,--this party +whose name I ain't a-mentionin'. He wuz in pol'tics too. Likewise run +a quarry an' s'm'other things t' num'rous t' mention. 'Twas in the +quarry I worked, mostly erbout 'lection time. Cur'ous, ain't it, whut +good pay a feller'll git fer light work erbout 'lection time? Wall, +this year I ain't hed proper treatment. This party 'lows money is +tight, an' he's filled his quarry up with dagoes, damned dagoes." He +paused to scowl over the shanties of his immediate neighbors and at the +industrious washerwoman up the dock. "Wouldn't it make you sick th' +way furrin labor's a-crowdin' out th' true 'Merican? I jes' despise +dagoes." + +Graves was too disgusted to reply. He recollected having heard a negro +speak contemptuously of Jews, but this case seemed yet more extreme. + +"Wall," pursued the true American, "I wuz with this party a spell when +th' state tuk a notion t' sink a few s'perfluous millyuns in this ole +ditch." + +The listener became all attention. + +"Queer doin's I seen long erbout then. Contractors is a scand'lous +lot. Many's the load o' dirt I seen hauled out thet easy, whut th' +state paid fer ez blasted rock. My, yes. But my party wuzn't workin' +at contractin'; he wuz workin' at contractors, an' he knew 'em, lock, +stock, and bar'l. He jes' owned th' whole blim pack. Thet's where his +rake-off come in. 'Twant all dirt them daisies tuk out. There wuz as +fustclass sandstun ez my party ever shipped f'm his quarry, an' f'm his +quarry docks it went." + +"You mean that this man connived with the contractors to misappropriate +state property?" + +"I 'magine I do." + +"And your party is Shelby?" + +"Never said no sech thing." + +"It's what you imply clearly enough. Now, if you wish to help us, as +you told Mr. Sprague, you must say precisely who and what you mean, and +swear to it before Mr. Sprague, who is a notary public." + +Jasper straightened. + +"Fer nothin'?" His tone was inimitable. + +Bernard Graves looked him coldly in the eye. + +"We're not bribing people." + +The loafer raised his hulking body and leered over him; the young man +got upon his feet, half expecting assault. + +"Anything we can do for you in a legitimate way, we will do," he added +steadily. + +"I want t' know." + +"You can find me at Mr. Sprague's office any morning between ten and +twelve." + +Jasper Hinchey surveyed him with scorn as he turned to go. Fumbling in +his rags, he extracted a greasy card. + +"P'r'aps you'd buy a twenty-five cent ticket fer th' Jolly Rovers' +picnic," he insinuated. "Mebbe it's not too stiff fer yer purse. They +say ez how 'tis well lined, Mr. Graves." + +"Do you know that the Penal Code makes soliciting a candidate to buy +tickets a misdemeanor?" + +Hinchey smirked. + +"A party whut I know buys 'em without askin'," said he. + +Jasper Hinchey did not call at the _Whig_ office any morning between +ten o'clock and twelve. It developed that he was engaged in some not +too arduous labor at the quarries of the Eureka Sandstone Company. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Had the fantastic bolt of the Sprague clique been left to its own +courses, Shelby would have borrowed no further trouble, but a +fortuitous matter of radishes and ice-water suddenly put the quarrel on +an altogether different level. About the hour when Bernard Graves +hobnobbed with Jasper Hinchey, the third factor in the Demijohn +District's political muddle sat down to dinner in a neighboring city. +"Chuck" O'Rourke was fond of his dinner. A childhood of squalid +poverty had taught him the joy of a square meal. The story of the +years linking the famished boy to the pudgy red-faced man of the +restaurant is unessential,--an everyday story, sordid, and barren of +romance. The present knew him for a prosperous contractor and +politician whose most conspicuous public service had been the adroit +fashioning of Tuscarora County's minority party into a compact +organization, to which the majority party found it expedient to cast an +occasional sop of patronage. He had lived and thrived in an atmosphere +of deals. Only within the fortnight had he aspired to hold office, +since his party had for years lacked the fighting chance which the +revolt against Shelby created. Tempted at last, he abruptly resolved +to enter the congressional race himself, and this same day had effected +the last dicker with other county leaders which would insure his naming +in to-morrow's convention. + +The day had gone unwontedly sultry, with a sudden flushing of autumn +with dog-day heat, and his active morning had been fraught with +physical discomfort. He had consumed quantities of beer and whiskey in +his rounds, and had looked upon the wine when it was red. His heavy +fall suit was a weariness, and as he entered the restaurant he loosed +his checked waistcoat, unveiling a row of diamond shirt studs which +galvanized the languid waiters to buoyant life. He was escorted with +pomp and circumstance to a seat in the shadiest window, swept by the +torrid breath of an electric fan. + +O'Rourke gulped a glassful of ice-water as he studied the menu card, +and motioned for more. Two other glassfuls went the way of the first, +and the negro refilled the carafe. The man pulled angrily at his limp +collar and discussed his order. Vacillating for a time between broiled +lobster and porterhouse steak with mushrooms, he cut the matter short +by taking both, and buttressed the main structure of the meal with side +dishes of banana fritters and griddle-cakes. He decided that peach +short-cake and tutti-frutti ice cream would stop the gap for desert +[Transcriber's note: dessert?], and expressed a preference for "fizz" +as he scanned the wine list. With a happy afterthought he recalled the +fleeting waiter and ordered him to fetch a cocktail as an appetizer. + +The ice-water carafe was within easy reach, and, pending the coming of +the cocktail, it lowered steadily. Hard by, also, stood a dish of +radishes, out of season, but succulent. He cleared the dish, and +meditated assault on its fellow at the table adjoining. However, the +brave advance of the lobster, the porterhouse, and the champagne bucket +diverted him, and he tucked a napkin under his flabby chin with a +genial smile. Then the smile shrivelled; waiters, porterhouse, +lobster, champagne, winked out in utter blackness, and Chuck O'Rourke +slid heavily to the floor. + +The dead man's associates met the emergency with a sharp move. The +following morning Shelby caught a persistent rumor that the convention, +wanting its slated candidate, proposed to indorse the candidacy of +Bernard Graves; which same thing, after a moving tribute to the fallen +leader, the convention with cheerful promptness did. + +The Hon. Seneca Bowers was unnerved. He had had to cope with no such +outrageous problem in the whole of his honorable career, and in a state +of mind bordering panic he packed his grip and posted to New York for a +conference with the Boss, leaving Shelby to temporize as best he might. +Nor was Shelby inactive. The O'Rourke crowd had been placated in small +matters times out of mind, and he went about the present task in the +usual way, directing one of his people to inquire what they wanted. +These hitherto insatiate gentlemen replied that they wanted nothing, +adding pleasantly that they were well content with what they had. The +possibility of a victory in a gerrymandered district, however won, was +without price. Shelby appreciated their point of view and addressed +himself to measures more feasible. If he could not shake their +allegiance to Graves, he might succeed in preventing Graves from taking +up with them, and the agencies for influencing public opinion which he +could control began accordingly to ridicule the idea of a reform +candidate's accepting such an indorsement. + +Graves refused to be drawn, and for forty-eight hours held his peace +with the aplomb of a veteran. Then Bowers came back. + +"Has he accepted?" The words were out before he could take Shelby's +hand. + +"Not yet." + +"Thank heaven. Tell me what you've done." + +Shelby recapitulated. + +"That's right," approved his senior. "There's nothing more to be done +with Chuck O'Rourke's bandits just now. Graves is the man to consider. +Is he still mum?" + +"As a cigar sign. How does the Boss take it?" + +"Urbanely, as always. He's silkier every time I see him." Bowers's +memory lingered upon the soft-spoken interview with the great state +leader. + +"Well?" Shelby jogged him crisply. + +"He knows all about Graves--as he knows about everybody. Says he has +met the scholar in politics before. Do you remember how he took care +of that kid-gloved aggregation which tried to run him out of business a +year or so ago? He dumped this distinguished kicker into the cabinet, +had another made a plenipotentiary, foisted off number three into some +windy commission on the other side of the planet, and so on down the +list. They said it seemed to be in the air that harmony should +prevail." + +Shelby laughed. + +"The Boss is the smoothest made," he owned. "What does he advise in +this case?" + +Bowers leaned forward importantly. + +"What do you think the young man would say to an author's job--some +French or Italian consulate?" + +"I'll tell you what I say: if the Boss advised that, he's growing +senile." + +"I didn't say he advised it. He merely suggested that literary people +bit at that kind of bait. As a matter of fact, he didn't advise +anything. He said if we couldn't fix things with the O'Rourke crowd, +that the situation would have to develop a bit." + +"Queer sort of talk," Shelby commented. "I wonder what he wants?" He +puzzled over it a moment. "Well, whatever develops, don't talk +consulate to Bernard Graves. The Boss is a pastmaster at side-tracking +soreheads, but there's a point involved in this case that he doesn't +grasp. Disappointed lovers are probably out of his line." + +Bowers shifted his cigar to reply, but thought better of it. His hold +on the wheel was weakening, and he remarked to his wife that night that +this should be his last active campaign. Shelby entertained a similar +opinion. + +When the two men met on the morrow the situation had indeed developed. +Persuaded against his own judgment by Volney Sprague, Bernard Graves +had consented to assume the mantle of Chuck O'Rourke, deceased. To the +repressed amusement of his new allies, he stipulated that the +employment of questionable methods should be left to the common foe, +and that they must accept him absolutely unpledged. + +Shelby ran a gauntlet of chaff to his law office that afternoon, and +found Bowers awaiting him in bilious mood. He was hazing the rooms +with gusts of tobacco smoke, a sign of nervousness in so deliberate a +smoker. They nodded curtly without words, and Shelby ran perfunctorily +through his mail. Presently he raised his eyes and met Bowers's gloomy +scrutiny lowering through the fog. + +"You look like a hired mourner," he remarked, swirling the smoke. + +"I feel like a real one." + +"Well, don't wear your weeds so conspicuously. The enemy will imagine +they have us scared." + +Bowers swore listlessly. + +"They have." + +"Don't include me. I've a little sand left, I hope." + +"It's the most serious fight we've ever had in the district. It's so +unexpected. And I can't see how we are to blame. The organization +backed your nomination cordially. We couldn't foresee that Volney +Sprague would make trouble, any more than we could know that O'Rourke +would gorge himself to apoplexy. And who, for the love of heaven, +would have thought Bernard Graves would step into Chuck O'Rourke's +shoes! I've been in politics for thirty years, Ross, with my fair +share of good luck and bad, but I've never been up against the equal of +this. It's--it's--" He broke off in despair of adequate +characterization. + +"Brace up, brace up. You need a brandy and soda." + +"I've had two." + +"Then take a glass of milk," rallied Shelby; "paregoric, boneset tea, +anything. I'm ashamed of you." + +Bowers smiled wanly. + +"You're a younger man, Ross. You can rebound. I can't any more. I'm +too old. I--I've lost confidence in myself." + +"I haven't lost confidence in myself," ejaculated Shelby. "No such +alliance of thugs and goody-goods shall down me. I'm in this game to +stay and to win." + +His stout words in some degree bolstered the discouraged veteran, and +they turned presently to a discussion of ways and means. The outlook +was not cheering. The fusion of the opposition had fallen at a time +when the funds collected to meet the exigencies of an ordinary campaign +had been mainly expended. + +"The State Committee must help," declared Shelby. "There's no valid +reason why they shouldn't. The corporations have given them everything +they asked this year." + +"I sounded the Boss. He was not encouraging." + +"Damn him," said Shelby, "what does he want?" That question would +recur. + +"We have raised everything locally that our people will stand, and you +may say that of the Demijohn generally. If there's more to be got, it +must come from those most concerned." + +"You mean me, I suppose?" + +"It's your political future that's at stake." + +Shelby drummed his desk. By and by, taking his check-book, he began to +run through the stubs, jotting figures on a pad. + +"I've spent three thousand dollars already," he said at last. "Three +thousand legitimate dollars. I've never footed it up before, and it's +rather staggering. Of course, the big items--the assessments of the +local committee and the other county committees--I had kept in mind. +What I have not realized was the constant drain of small amounts for +this and that,--printing, lithographs, bands, flag-raisings, you know +what. And treats--why, I spent over seventy-five dollars in bar money +alone the day of the Pioneers' picnic, while the County Fair meant the +price of a good horse. It's a good thing for me that the torchlight +idiocy has gone out. Still, the 'Shelby Base-ball Club' is as big a +nuisance. Three thousand legitimate dollars," he repeated. "We now +come to the illegitimate." + +The older man winced. Shelby was too frank for him at times. While he +recognized that vote-buying was of occasion necessary for party +success, he made it his boast between his conscience and himself that +he had never directly taken part in it. So now he hemmed, and merely +said:-- + +"We're fighting a mercenary foe." + +Shelby bent for an instant to his figures. Then, with offhand +abruptness:-- + +"There's something I never told you. When I went into this campaign I +mortgaged my real estate holdings here in town. I tell you now because +I must negotiate a loan on my share in the Eureka, and of course you +are the man to approach." + +Bowers started. + +"Is it that bad, Ross?" + +"Yes; it's that bad. Money's the argument now." + +"Suppose--suppose you lose?" + +Shelby considered the possibility. + +"Then I'm ruined. But I shan't lose. I shall win." + +There was less buoyancy when Bowers had left; more studying of the +check-book, much reflection and calculation. Money, money, money; the +thought hounded him. + +Down in the Temple carriage drive the worried man could see a boy +holding a mettlesome saddle horse, caparisoned for a woman's use. In +fair weather it stood there at this hour every day. To-day it was +suggestive. Shelby sprang to his telephone. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +With the stable boy's assurance that within ten minutes his horse would +stand at the curb, Shelby locked his door against surprise, and, with +an eye on the Temple driveway, made a rapid change to his riding +clothes, which he was accustomed to keep by him for emergencies. As he +finished, Ruth, lissome in her black habit, cantered daintily out with +a laughing nod to Volney Sprague, who was watching her from the _Whig_ +office over the way. His clerk was absent serving papers in Etruria, +and, hanging a mendacious "Back-in-1-Hour" sign on his outer door, +Shelby leaped down the stair. + +In the public eye he grew more sedate, and trotted soberly out of the +business district in a direction contrary to that taken by his +neighbor. Then, of a sudden, he shamed John Gilpin with a right-about, +and, circling by side streets and quiet lanes the course he had just +covered, galloped countryward in pursuit. The manoeuvre was not new to +him. He had employed it on occasion to hoodwink Mrs. Grundy for Mrs. +Hilliard's sake, scrupulously meeting and leaving the lady outside the +corporation limits, a ruse which deceived nobody save the deceivers. +Nor was it effective now. Ruth passed Mrs. Bowers's argus-eyed bay +window, as did Shelby, and Mrs. Grundy had her speculative pickings of +the event. + +Ruth spied pursuit where the turnpike elbowed sharply from the +outskirts. For a demure girl her smile was mischievous. Walking her +wiry little pony till the footfalls of Shelby's chestnut cob beat the +'pike a scant hundred yards behind, she flicked her animal ever so +lightly with her riding crop. The man saw a puff of dust, a twinkle of +little hoofs, and a lithe figure outlined for an instant against the +autumn sky as it sped over a hill and far away. The cob labored to the +crest and pondered his defeat. A half-mile down the unkempt old toll +road, where the goldenrod dropped stately bows to the purple aster, and +Bouncing Bet viewed their livelong philandering with scorn, was the +impertinent runt--walking! Down thundered the cob. No evasion now. +Two hundred yards, one fifty, one hundred yards, seventy-five, sixty, +even fifty--and again the pursued was spirited away in a cloud. + +Shelby bore it thrice, and raised his voice. Ruth's surprise was a +delightful thing to see. + +"I've tried these three miles to overtake you," he scolded. "You must +have heard me." + +Ruth surveyed the smoking cob. + +"We did hear a noise. My pony is so restive." + +"The little beast looks as demure as yourself. I believe you knew it +was I." + +Ruth's glance swept a neighboring field. + +"Have you ever associated cabbages with beauty?" she asked. "Just look +at that reach of blue-green." + +Shelby admired obediently. Then, the occasion seeming to demand a +certain finesse, he said:-- + +"There's a man out this way I must look up--a kind of farmer, drover, +and jockey rolled in one. He influences a bunch of votes. It's very +pleasant to find you riding the same way. I'm glad we met--that is--if +you--" + +Her smile stopped his limping improvisation in mid-career. + +"You needn't invent anything more," she said. "You're not good at it." + +"There really is such a man," he defended, with a contented laugh; "but +he can wait. I'd like to be quit of the political grind for a while. +May I rest?" + +"Yes; you may come," Ruth decided. + +His appeal struck a womanly chord. + +October was spendthrift of its pigments. Every isolated copse was a +mimic forest fire, each bivouacked corn-field a russet foil, the air a +heady wine. Shelby thrilled with dumb pastorals and a vague longing to +do and speak in keeping with the spirit of the scene. A tuft of oxeye +daisies in the shelter of a ruinous worm fence attracted him, and he +reined the cob from the highway to fetch them. To his bewilderment +Ruth's face shadowed at the gift. + +"Poor things--what made you?" she lamented. "I've watched them there +for a fortnight. What clumsy florist could have grouped them with the +tall grasses so exquisitely, and set the little red vine clambering +over all in the fence corner, so satiny and lichen-gray?" + +Shelby was mystified. + +"I thought that they would look smart in your belt--that all women +wanted to pick flowers when they saw them--" he stammered. "I'm afraid +I know little of women's ways." + +Her laugh was a caress. + +"Don't put my rudeness upon the sex," she said. "It's because I dabble +in paints and things that I thought of these flowers first as a +picture. But I assure you I'm just as much given to plundering them to +set off my hair and dress as any daughter of Eve," wherewith she placed +his offering, as he would have it, in her belt. He seemed to her +always a kind of shorn Samson when afield from politics, and now, as +she had often done, she drew him to speak of what he knew best. + +"I used to think you cared little about such things," he told her +presently. "The average woman doesn't care greatly. If she had the +ballot, she'd probably vote for the handsomest man--if the candidate +was a man." + +"I'm afraid I should," owned Ruth. "For instance, I never could vote +for a candidate with mutton-chop whiskers. And fancy having to decide +between two women!" + +"Vote-buying would have a scope which staggers the imagination." + +The comment set her thoughts running on the accusations of corruption +which were bandied from lip to lip during this campaign. + +"Are many votes really bought?" she asked. + +"Yes, many," Shelby answered frankly. "I shouldn't care to have you +quote me, but I'll admit that I've sometimes bought them myself." + +She was dumfounded at his candor, and half regretted it. + +"Is it--is it quite necessary?" + +"I think it is--sometimes. And so it will be till the reformers show +the practical politician a better system, or human nature changes its +spots. Indiana was bought for Lincoln in '64. It would take an +unpractical man, even an unpatriotic man, to deny that the crisis did +not justify the step." + +"Every candidate is not a Lincoln." + +"Nor every year a '64. Timid people compound with their conscience by +calling that Indiana affair a war measure. But we're talking of our +own state, whose political name has justly or unjustly become a hissing +among the nations. I don't deny there's some reason for it. We are +big, with big opportunities for corruption, and the tradition of sharp +practice is of long standing. We bribed, intimidated, and filibustered +in swaddling clothes, and stole a governorship as early as 1791. The +tricks of to-day have all gone stale with handling, for the patriots we +honor were politicians too." + +"That is a novel point of view for me," Ruth admitted. "It's so easy +to think the old time the best time." This was the pleader of the +court-house rally, and she forgot the gaucheries and limitations of a +moment since. + +"All in all, the Catilines meet their Ciceros," said Shelby; "the +Tildens undo the Tweeds. General Jackson once said he was not a +politician, but if he were, he should be a New York politician. You +see the state is an eternal riddle--'pivotal,' as the saying goes--the +mother of parties, the devotee of none; and there lies half its +fascination for the politician--I might say for the statesman. What +passes for mere politics here might well figure as statesmanship +elsewhere. We don't call our commonwealth the Empire State for naught; +its interests are indeed imperial, and it is no mean office to shape +its destinies. It is the man in politics who does this, whether you +will or no. A free government requires parties, parties require +politicians--in last analysis the mouthpiece of the sovereign people. +I dare say you're wondering what all these generalities have to do with +vote-buying in Tuscarora. I'll tell you. It's true that not every +candidate is a Lincoln, that not a few men are personally unworthy of +the offices they hold or seek; but this also is true, that many an +unworthy man is worthy of election, even by bribery,--I say it +deliberately,--because of his party's sake, for that party's success +may signify the country's salvation. You have, of course, heard sad +things said of me. You will hear more, and I shall not run around +among my friends to deny them. Worthy or unworthy, I merge my +personality in that of my party, in whose ultimate patriotism I have +enduring faith." + +Ruth was no logician. + +"I don't believe you unworthy," she said. + +"That's better than a hundred votes," laughed the man, vastly pleased. +"Let me promise you something. If I'm elected to Congress, I will do +and say everything a new member can to wipe out the tariff on objects +of art." + +It was her turn for mystification; if he had his shallows, he also had +his depths. + +Shelby did not ask if she were pleased; he saw it. + +"You wouldn't have thought it of a practical politician--one of the +'aesthetically dead,'" he smiled. "Yet it is the politician you should +seek to interest in these things. He'll see their value if he's +taught. You opened my eyes--did it in a social way, which is the best +way. It's through his social side, be it in barroom or drawing-room, +that the politician is most easily reached, for he's a human being. +Reformers don't see that; they aim at the intellect direct. You didn't +dream, in talking about art to me now and then, that you were doing a +possible public service. That's the key-note of woman's best influence +in politics, I've come to believe--unconscious argument, not +speechmaking. You have influenced me more than I can tell. I've +grown. You have broadened my horizon. Will you make it broader? I +ask you to marry me." + +It was a little moment before she took his meaning, so much did his +blunt proposal seem a part of the staccato chat of politics from which +it issued. + +"I cannot," she said at last. + +"Why?" + +It seemed ridiculous to speak of the affections to this businesslike +creature who apparently counted them not worth mentioning; so she +answered that they were unsuited to one another. + +Shelby shook his head emphatically. + +"I can't agree with you. Are you engaged to marry any one else?" + +Ruth colored under his cross-examination, but replied that she was not. + +"We'll let the question lie fallow for a time," Shelby arranged. +"Think it over impartially." + +She tried to bid him put the thing wholly out of mind, but he adjourned +discussion as summarily as he might a committee meeting, and spoke of +other topics. + +It was sundown when they neared the town, returning by way of Little +Poland and the successive quarries bordering the canal. Shelby dropped +a careless glance at the docks and yards of his own company, now quiet +with the day's work done. Then he looked again. Outlined against the +sky a man climbed to the tow-path and walked away. Shelby recognized +Bernard Graves. + +"Ride on slowly," he directed. "I'll join you in a minute. There's +something needs looking after in the Eureka." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +The intruder wheeled at the hoof-beats and waited. Purpling with rage, +Shelby thrust the cob's nozzle fairly in Graves's face. + +"You're a damned spy," he taunted. + +Graves went pale, but his jaw set. + +"You know better, Shelby," he answered, without passion. "I am here +openly. I came before the quarry shut down for the night, as your men +will tell you." + +"You're a spy," repeated Shelby, fingering his whip. "Come how or when, +you're a spy. I know your back-door tactics. You sly into other men's +private business, as you're trying to sly into politics." + +"I care nothing for any private business of yours which doesn't besmirch +your public character." + +"Besmirch!" Shelby pounced upon the word. "I know your kidney--you pure +souls who shirk jury duty and whine down taxes." + +Graves backed from the nervous whip. + +"I want no words with you," he said. + +"I dare say; but you'll have them." He reined the cob to block Graves's +further retreat, forcing him well upon the string-piece of the dock. +"You're here to smell out canal scandals," he charged. "You want to know +what became of the marketable stone that was taken from the canal prism. +You'll get your wish right here and now. I took that stone, my pattern +of civic virtue; sold it, my pink of reformers. You needn't have screwed +Jap Hinchey for that knowledge. I would have told you the truth any +time, and much good may it do you. Are you ass enough to believe that +the contractors went outside their specifications to dispose of the +spoils banks to my company? They had their warrant from Albany in black +and white. Every act was within the law." + +"The more shame upon Albany and the law; it is the letter of the law +which shelters you." + +Shelby rasped a laugh. + +"I know something of the spirit of laws." + +"I doubt not. You've helped make enough disreputable legislation to +qualify an expert." + +"What right has a dilettante like you to sit in judgment?" he demanded, +the other's barb rankling none the less that he had invited it. "You +have no notion of just political expediency; no notion even of politics +with which you meddle. Politics isn't book knowledge; it's flesh and +blood fact. Party fealty means nothing to you. You've not voted a +straight ticket twice in your life." + +"I know where that shoe pinches," retorted Graves. "You mean I've +consistently neglected to vote for you. Somehow I never could swallow +your assumption of divine right to hold office all the time." + +Shelby's fingers knotted round his whip-handle. + +"I'd like to trounce you," he menaced. "It's a hiding you need." + +"For presuming to run against you? Let me make it plain that I'm not to +be intimidated by you or any of your creatures." + +"I'd like to trounce you," repeated Shelby, hoarsely, beside himself with +the gadfly inquisition of the past few days. "I'm sick of your +pharisaical ways. I bottom your lofty motives well enough. Jealousy +goaded you into politics. You're a reformer because the heiress wanted +none of you. If Ruth Temple--" + +Graves wrenched the whip from Shelby's grasp, and struck with all his +might. The warded blow spent itself on the pommel of the saddle. + +"Stung, eh?" Shelby leaped from his stirrups and closed with him. The +cob took fright at the reeling men and pounded off up the tow-path toward +the town. + +Then another horse loomed of a sudden from out the dusk, and Ruth herself +rode straight upon them, enforcing a separation. + +"How dare you drag my name into a low political quarrel--either of you?" +No one answered her. "Give _me_ the whip." Shelby, who had regained it, +obeyed without a word. Ruth flung it far into the canal. "Now if you +will be brutes, use brutes' weapons." Wherewith she turned an indignant +back and galloped an exit from the scene as spirited as her entrance. + +"You knew she was there," accused Graves. + +"I left her in the road, damn you. I couldn't know she had seen." + +Standing on the dock's sheer edge, they glowered into one another's eyes +through the fading twilight, the great steam cranes behind flinging out +giant arms over the stone heaps, the black water below glancing with +fitful gleams of steel and copper from the sunset's last saffron +afterglow. The yellow headlight of a low-lying grain boat stole nearer, +unheeded till the straining mules toiled by. + +"I don't know what keeps me from--" + +Shelby's lips were tardy of framing what his heart lusted. + +"Fear, perhaps." + +"If you think that, then--" + +A rain of oaths from the driver warned them too late of the trailing +tow-line. They tripped together, and in an embrace of self-preservation +together fell into the cool still waters which ever draw unruffled, +though their banks smoulder with passion and political intrigue from the +Niagara to the Hudson. + +Shelby rose first, half-strangled, and laid hold upon the wall. Still +cursing fluently, the driver pulled him to the string-piece, and both men +peered out over the watery blackness, now cut with a widening shaft of +light from the boat's lantern. Graves seemed to have vanished utterly, +and Shelby made the banks echo with his name, but the canal returned no +answer. The man was now as ready to save as a moment since he had been +ready to destroy, but before he could slip again into the water, the boat +glided past, discovering Graves in dim silhouette against the gray +timbers, swimming at ease. + +With a parting curse, indicative of relief, the driver set off down the +tow-path after his mules, while Shelby waited on the brink till the boat +went by, intending aid if the swimmer's strength should fail. But Graves +was of no mind to cause him the lifting of a finger, and to the watcher's +bewilderment cut directly behind the great rudder into the swirling wake, +headed for the heel-path, which he attained with a dozen vigorous +strokes, and clambering the sloping embankment, disappeared in a clump of +willows. + +The autumn frosts nip Tuscarora betimes, but Shelby sat staring in his +sodden clothes, till he fathomed his rival's motive, and chattered forth +a laugh. Then he hurried across the dock to the little tin-roofed office +of the Eureka. He was without a key, but he rummaged a pick from one of +the neighboring sheds, forced the staple of the padlock, and, popping +into the oven warmth of the cabin, mended the fire in the tiny sheet-iron +stove. His first precaution was to drain his pocket flask, which had +somehow come through unscathed, and, as he peeled away his clinging +garments in the flickering light, he telephoned the Tuscarora House for a +change of clothing. In the reflective half-hour before the coming of the +messenger he felt a genuine regret that Graves had gone his own way. The +affair had dropped already into humorous perspective, and it seemed to +him that, had they stood side by side in this cabin, every barrier must +have fallen and the outcome been wholly good. + +Nature's reaction from the too tense hours of that crowded day was at its +utmost swing as he gained his hotel room and smoothed the roughness of +his quarry toilet. The familiar chamber revolted him; its warring colors +jarred; the nymphs of his favorite picture were devoid of blandishment. +Nor did his cronies of below stairs attract, and the liquor he had taken +left him no appetite for solid food. He craved nothing so much as rest +and human sympathy. + +Mrs. Hilliard was at home. + +"You never fail when I need you," she said, as Shelby couched his jaded +body in the cosy library before an open fire. "Joe is always out, of +course. I don't mind that--now. Milicent too is gone to-night,--a +children's party. I've been lonely--depressed. Since you came--ah, +well, see for yourself what I am." + +A maudlin self-pity, born of alcohol, dimmed Shelby's eyes. + +"It's like a home to me," he confessed, his voice uncertain. "It's like +a home." + +"And some call you hard!" Mrs. Hilliard extended both plump hands to +him. "How they misjudge you." + +"Everybody misjudges me, Cora," Shelby declared, not backward in manual +demonstration himself; "everybody but you." + +The lady released herself adroitly, and fluttered the music at a piano +just beyond the half-drawn portiere of the adjoining room. + +"Shall I play?" she asked. + +Shelby nodded like a sultan from his cushions. + +"Ragtime," he directed. "Something with a tune." The other woman had +surfeited him with classicalities. + +He built air castles as he watched and listened; fabrics furnished after +the manner of the Hilliard home and peopled by two kindred souls. If +this insidious luxury were his--the warmth, ease, leisure, Cora! He +considered the turn of her neck, her profile, the famous shoulders, now +clothed yet not concealed. She was handsome still; ripe, but not +over-ripe, ambitious, capable. They were singularly congenial, he and +she. He could have blundered worse than in marrying her, had not burly +Joe forestalled. _He_--inappreciative hulk!--was no fit mate for her. +She needed sympathy, cooeperation, the fellowship of her mind's true +complement: in fine, himself. If the other woman should not--if Joe--! +He clipped the revery of its conclusion. + +In that evening's long intimacy--how long or how intimate neither +realized till afterward--the man bared his financial necessity. + +"God knows why I blab this," he ended. "I've told nobody else the whole +truth, not even Bowers." + +She lagged short of his meaning at first. + +"But you'll have plenty in time," she said. "There will be your +congressional salary and all the new opportunities." + +"Without money I may never draw that salary." + +"You don't mean you'll fail! You don't mean that, Ross?" + +He bowed gravely. + +"But it's impossible. Why, everybody will vote for you--almost +everybody. Joe alone will give you two hundred votes." + +"It will require more than Little Poland's good-will to elect me," he +smiled grimly. + +"You must _buy_ votes?" + +"Yes." + +"And you have nothing?" + +"At this moment I haven't enough ready cash to give me a decent burial." + +"Don't speak like that." She rose impulsively, and unlocked a cabinet in +the chimneypiece. "Here is a little--not much--a hundred dollars +perhaps. I want you to take it; it's mine--some of my allowance. I want +to give it to the party. And there's more. I've a mortgage--my very +own. You shall have that too--for the party." + +Shelby leaped to his feet as she thrust the bills in his hands. + +"My God, Cora," he cried, "I can't take this--your pin money!" + +She caught the notes from his protesting fingers and forced them into his +nearest pocket. + +"You shall," she pleaded; "you shall--for the party." + +He seized her hands and bent to meet her eyes. + +"Cora, Cora," he whispered hoarsely, "you're not doing this for the +party! It's not for the party! It's for me, Cora, for me--" + +"Such a nice party--party--" A fragment of Milicent's treble good nights +drifted in from the sidewalk like an echo. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Shelby waked from a restless night to confront a restless day, in +truth, an anxious week. Two things he set about instanter; he wrote a +manly letter of apology to Ruth, and he returned Mrs. Hilliard's money. +All day long he parried and laughed down fatuous comment on his +supposed cropper into the canal, for the cob had returned to his manger +and founded a theory that his master let gossip accept as true. He +dissembled with greater ease as the hours lapsed, finding reasons why +the inner history of the incident would remain secret; neither Ruth nor +Bernard Graves was likely to tell--he certainly should not. In the +evening it was bruited that Graves was sick, and the morrow's _Whig_ +diagnosed his malady as influenza. Shelby thanked his practical stars +that the ducking had had no such issue for him. By the second evening +he was doubly thankful, for the press despatches were ticking out to +whom it might concern that the distinguished author of the ode on the +"Victory of Samothrace" and other poems lay low with pneumonia. + +In common with hundreds, Shelby sent a message of regret, which, like +its fellow-hundreds, nobody at the Graves cottage found time to read. +Many of these notes and telegrams, however, found their way into the +_Whig_, but Shelby hunted its despised columns in vain for his own. +This seemed to him and to Bowers a deliberate attempt by Sprague to +stamp him as unfeeling,--to coin party capital,--and with the notion of +righting himself in the public eye Shelby determined upon a personal +call at the house. By a piece of good fortune, as unexpected as it was +welcome, he was received by Ruth, who had volunteered to lighten the +burden of the sick man's mother in ways like this. She was +unembarrassed, courteous, even kind in a formal fashion, telling him in +subdued accents what he knew she must know he knew already from the +newspapers. The patient's case discussed from every point of view, the +caller burned to forward his own concerns, to renew his apologies, to +make his peace; but he could find no opening, and shortly went away. +Yet his silence did him better service than speech. Ruth mistook his +unrest for contrition, and pitied him. + +As Graves's disease neared its crisis, with hurried summoning of +consulting physicians and rumors of a resort to oxygen, Shelby found it +impossible to avoid an occasional glance into an immediate future in +which Graves figured merely as a memory; but whatever his speculations, +he was decently chary of voicing them. Some of his party associates +were more outspoken, and the opinion was advanced over the Tuscarora +House bar that, the loss to literature aside, the young man's +taking-off could not but simplify the political situation. The Hon. +Seneca Bowers, being of the old school, quaintly declined both +speculation and discussion. + +The day of the crisis Shelby saw Dr. Crandall step from his phaeton to +his little sham Greek temple of an office at the foot of his lawn, and +followed him. The bluff physician greeted him with a scowl. + +"Well, sir?" he jerked out, fumbling and smelling among his bottles. + +"I wanted news of Graves." + +"I doubt not." + +The words of themselves were innocuous, but the doctor's hammering +emphasis was formidable. + +"I resent your tone," protested Shelby. + +"And I, sir, resent your inquiry." + +"You must have received many like it. However, you may keep your +bulletins. Those of the consulting physicians are probably more +reliable." + +With this shaft he turned, but Dr. Crandall was beforehand and closed +the door. + +"Not yet, sir, not yet," he said grimly. "I have a bulletin for you, +deem its worth what you will. And I have more. I must administer some +nasty medicine. My patient will recover, sir, and no thanks to you." + +"I don't know what you mean." + +"Yes, you do." + +"You accuse me of lying--" + +"Bah, sir, stop your ruffling. Now for your physic. At the instance +of my lifelong friend, Seneca Bowers, I consented against my better +judgment to preside last month at your ratification meeting, and so +lent you, as I may say, my public indorsement. I shall not publicly +stultify myself by repudiating that action, but my vote, thank Heaven, +I never pledged. I warn you, sir, that, as sure as I see the sun rise +on election day, I shall cast my ballot for your opponent, or my name's +not Crandall." + +"Very well," sneered Shelby, coolly. "If your political allegiance +follows your fee, there's no more to be said." + +"I am stoically indifferent to your slanderous imputation," fumed the +doctor, his manner a very Judas to his words; "but I assure you there +is more to be said, and that I purpose to say it. I have yet to tell +you that you are a blackguard, sir, a violent blackguard, whose proper +level is the ward cesspools of the metropolis where crime and politics +stalk hand in hand. Medical science will save the man you would have +done to death." + +Shelby passed the vituperation, puzzling how much the irate doctor knew. + +"Is your patient's delirium contagious?" he asked. + +"Ha!" cried the doctor. "You do take my meaning." + +"It's clear enough that you are hinting at foul play on the flimsiest +of evidence." + +"Evidence, evidence! I want no surer evidence of your intent than poor +Bernard's wanderings; there's method, sir, even in delirium. If I +wished further proof, the fact that you too were in the canal that +night would suffice." + +"Fevered maunderings and a coincidence!" Shelby laughed him in the +face, too contemptuous to set him right. "Keep your vote, you pompous +ignoramus," he jeered, and left him sputtering. + +Worsting the choleric physician in argument was a mere matter of +keeping one's own temper, and Shelby took no pride in his victory. It +was a relief to know that he knew so little, but the possibility +remained that, in the weakness of convalescence, Bernard might let fall +details more damaging than Dr. Crandall's tissue of half-knowledge and +inference. Ruth and pneumonia eliminated, the quarrel might have +become public property and welcome, with a likely chance of its working +to his advantage; but, alas, he himself had dragged Ruth into it past +all elimination, and now Bernard's sickness had whipped up a sea of +maudlin sympathy which exposure might easily precipitate in a political +tidal wave. + +From this day forth, event crowded event. The news from the sick-room +was the signal for renewed activity all along the line of battle, and +the spectre of his great need haunted Shelby with added terrors. +Bernard Graves's allies, apt disciples of the late Chuck O'Rourke as +they were, jumped at the shining possibilities laid open by their +candidate's condition, and, abetted financially by their State +Committee, set a pace in corruption unprecedented in the checkered +history of the Demijohn. Volney Sprague was powerless. The +freebooters listened sedately to his protests and redoubled their +offending, well aware that in their candidate's chamber politics could +have yet no place. Far from the turmoil, the celebrity ate the jellies +of his idolaters, and spent his waking hours in the impractical +companionship of a certain Shelley and one John Keats. + +The beset leaders strained the machine's every cog to meet the +emergency. Out from a corner of the Chairman of the County Committee's +safe came a pudgy manuscript book which few eyes ever saw,--a book made +up of voters' names, their party, and at times their price set down in +strange symbols which the initiated might translate into terms of +dollars and cents. Probably every county committee in the Demijohn +Congressional District could show the like. There was earnest thumbing +of these volumes, with changing of symbols to fit changed conditions, +and the call went out for money. Little came. The State Committee was +deaf to argument or entreaty, and the Demijohn seemed drained. Shelby +and Bowers personally did what they could. For reputation's sake, the +old leader went down deep into his pocket, while Shelby tossed into the +breach everything he realized from his mortgaged quarry interest which +long outstanding debts did not require. Nor were these latter +inconsiderable. Involved in innumerable schemes which sapped his +capital without prospect of ready dividends, it seemed to him that +every land syndicate, stock company, insurance policy, what not, of +them all was demanding instant propitiation. Brave it out with Bowers +as he might, Shelby walked none the less in the shadow of a mighty +fear; and had not Mrs. Hilliard left town for her annual autumn round +of the shops of New York, he could have gone to her prepared to accept +her supremest charity. + +In his blackest hour the distracted man encountered the Widow +Weatherwax. Since her sibylline performances at the camp-meeting he +had seen little of her, the fascination of will-making being +temporarily eclipsed by a local temperance crusade led by Mr. Hewett, +which enlisted the full energy of her not inconsiderable powers for +conscience-guided meddling. The parson had deemed the time ripe for a +war on the groggeries of the Flats, with the outcome that most +bar-rooms of the town, including that of the Tuscarora House, were +found to be violating the Sunday closing law. In the legal +unpleasantness which followed, Shelby's name figured as attorney for +the hotel proprietor, one of the lawyer's regular clients. It was a +purely formal service, without moral implication of any sort, but it +bared Shelby's whole legislative record on the liquor question to +pin-prick attack, and cost him, as he now learned from her shocked +lips, the invaluable political support of the widow. + +Buttonholed while crossing the court-house lawn, and backed into a +corner between the county clerk's office and the jail, Shelby had to +listen with what patience he might to her denunciation of what she +called his vile concord with Belial. + +"Yes, yes, Mrs. Weatherwax," he wedged in finally; "but we can't all +think alike. Now if you were a liquor dealer's wife, you would sing +another song." + +The widow shuddered. + +"Me!" Another shudder. "Me marry a saloon keeper! Me!--a W.C.T.U. +and a I.O.G.T.!" + +Shelby grinned. + +"They say I.O.G.T. means 'I Often Get Tight.'" Somehow he could not +resist the ancient rural fling. + +"You know well 'nuff 'tain't," retorted the widow, indignantly. "It's +the Inderpendant Order ov Good Templars, and I'm an orf'cer with +regalyer. It's purple, and has gold lace." + +"I'm amazed at your wearing such fripperies," teased the man; "but you +must look simply ravishing." + +The widow was bomb-proof against humorous attack. Drawing herself to +her full height, as she might clad in full regalia of purple and gold, +she mouthed:-- + +"'I loath, abhor, my very soul with strong disgust is stirred, when +e're I see, or hear, or tell ov the dark bev'rage ov hell.'" + +The dumpy little figure, swelling like a pouter pigeon's, was so +irresistibly ludicrous that Shelby forgot his troubles and threw back +his head in a gust of laughter. + +"Think it's funny, I s'pose." Her face was vinegar. "'Tain't to be +expected a boy brung up in a distillery 'ud know better." + +Shelby sobered. + +"Confine yourself to facts, please," he interposed. "My grandfather's +entirely respectable distilling business was closed out before I was +born." + +"'Twa'n't b'fore your pa was made a drunkard, Ross Shelby." + +He went red with impotent anger. + +"By God!" he swore. "If--if you were a man--" + +"There you go a-swearin' at a poor weak female." + +"Let me pass," he choked. "Let me pass. I don't know what I may say +to you." + +She stepped aside. + +"Go," she said, with a fat little gesture. "Mebbe you've got pressin' +business. Mebbe you want to write billy-doos to Mrs. Hilliard. Mebbe +them opery glasses needs dustin' off s'more." + +He fled lest she say worse. + +Clearly William Irons had been wax in the widow's hands, and on his +auburn head would have fallen the accumulated spleen of weeks had not +the youth met his employer at the office door with a telegram whose +portentous message engulfed all lesser cares. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Shelby read, pondered, and finally roused from his preoccupation to +meet the bovine stare of his clerk. + +"Railway guide, William," he ordered sharply. + +"Yep." + +"And call up the station agent. Have him wire for a lower berth on the +Lehigh to-night." + +William Irons waited. + +"Go on, go on," called the politician, crossly, glancing up from his +time-table. "Have you foundered halfway?" + +"Nope. You didn't say where to." + +"New York, New York." + +"Yep," said William, placidly. "What train?" + +Shelby left off staring at his blotter for an instant, to fling him the +information. William Irons rubbed one long leg against its fellow as +he leaned to the telephone and ruminated the mystery of this impending +flight into what was for him the great unknown. This air of suppressed +excitement had never attended Shelby's departures. + +"Goin' to use it yourself?" he inquired. + +"Is the station agent aching to know?" + +"Nope," returned William, frankly. "He didn't ask." + +"Then you needn't. Now get Mr. Bowers's residence, and ask if he is +there." + +"Got him," announced the clerk presently, as if he had trapped a rat, +and stood expectantly aside. To his disappointment Shelby merely made +an immediate appointment at the Bowers's home. More bitter still, he +took the message with him. + +"Lightning has struck," Shelby greeted the old man ten minutes later, +handing him the telegram. "I've been ordered down to the Boss. This +means make or break." + +The Hon. Seneca Bowers unslung his glasses and slowly read the summons. + +"I guess it had to come," he commented. + +"Oh, yes. Things have reached lowest ebb. In fact, they're so low +that you must put up my car fare." + +Bowers assented readily. + +"Whatever you need you shall have, Ross. You must go in good style." + +Shelby pocketed the sum which he thought would meet his travelling +expenses and listened to his friend's rather dolorous words of +encouragement. + +"I think he'll do right by you," Bowers concluded feebly. "I think +he'll do right." + +Shelby jerked a grim smile. + +"The Boss always does right--when it pays." + +In the smoking-room of the Pullman that night the traveller was +accosted by an unctuous person who looked like a race-track tout. He +would have described himself as a man "interested" in legislation; he +had been described by other people as a lobbyist, but that was in the +days before the machine absorbed the lobby. + +"And how does the Hon. Calvin Ross Shelby find himself?" beamed the +new-comer, dropping into a seat alongside. "Busy days in Tuscarora, +eh?" + +"Yes; busy days, Krantz," assented the harassed man, concealing his +annoyance under a cordial greeting. If ever he had needed a quiet hour +it was now, and he had sought the smoking-compartment because with a +carful of women and children it seemed to promise solitude. + +"Shall miss you around Albany this winter," Krantz said feelingly, +exploring the pockets of his horsey waistcoat for a cigar. "We always +got along so well together." + +Shelby was silent under this moving reminiscence. + +"I'll have some of my Washington friends look you up," pursued the man. +"They're good fellows, all of 'em." + +"Thanks," said Shelby, without enthusiasm. "Better wait till I'm +elected." + +"My dear sir, can you doubt? Your resplendent gonfalon, if I may so +express myself, has ever been Victory's chosen perch." + +"I've pulled a majority hitherto." + +"And you will, you will. In fact"--his voice fell--"we think it such a +foregone conclusion that one of my friends who is looking over the +prospective House wants to make your acquaintance. You're sure to +jibe. He's interested in the unlucky River and Harbor scheme." + +"Oh." + +Krantz looked out at him from underneath his saurian lids, and blew a +smoke ring toward the rococo ceiling. + +"Through an option or two I'm rather interested myself," he continued +smoothly. "I'd like to see every good man indorse a good thing. I +haven't been told what your opinion is." Getting no answer, he added: +"Of course we expect to pull the thing off in this winter's session. +If not, then the fight goes into your House. Between ourselves, just +where do you stand?" + +"You don't need to be told that it's a gigantic job." + +Krantz's benevolent features expressed blandest regret. + +"Now isn't it a pity that misconception should be so widespread?" he +exclaimed, apparently to the writhing ornaments of the ceiling. "Isn't +it a pity? But it's so often true! Take that street railway bill of +yours last winter: how that enlightened measure was denounced!" + +Shelby scowled. + +"We're talking of Washington." + +"They've a lot in common, Albany and Washington." + +"I don't want them to have for me." + +Krantz laughed. + +"How reform does drop its gentle influence round! Has the fusion +movement in Tuscarora converted you?" + +"No," Shelby answered. "I've grown." + +Krantz looked bewildered, laughed a little, and asked point-blank, +"Shall you come out against us?" + +"You'll know in Washington." + +"If elected," qualified the man. + +"Naturally." + +Krantz rang up the porter to ask if his berth were ready, rose, yawned, +and shed a benevolent smile. + +"From things they're beginning to say about Tuscarora down at +headquarters," he remarked impersonally, "I venture to predict that +we'll know within twenty-four hours. Good night." + +The River and Harbor bogy wove the pattern of Shelby's troubled dreams. +In a way, he had grown, as he liked to think, and by this touchstone he +knew it best. Whatever his practice, his quickened ideals were loftier +than of old, and across the future's broader field, should it be his to +till, the man was honestly ambitious to trace a straighter furrow than +his ploughshare had ever turned. But his past and the insistent +present seemed to hamper every forward step. It was an open secret +that the disciplining of the man he hoped to succeed had issued +directly from his refusal to stand with his colleagues in this +question, and Shelby in his heart approved his course. He did not +anticipate that he should meet a like dilemma; the winter session of +the old House would doubtless settle the matter, as Krantz had said; +but Volney Sprague had harped upon his possible action so incessantly +that he could easily see why the organization might wonder at his +silence. Was the time for speech, then, so near as this creature +warned? + +Yet he took a certain comfort in Krantz's companionship in the morning, +as from the crowded ferry he watched the city's sky line detach itself +from the mist. Notwithstanding his legislative career, New York was +almost an unknown country, and this battlemented mystery overawed him +like a frowning bastion. It challenged the alien to do and dare, but +it quenched his individuality. Krantz, obviously, was hardened to its +lesson. He elbowed the jostling pack in the ferry slip as one of them, +called the elevated road the "L," and was otherwise enviably +sophisticated. Shelby imitated at a distance, but the hall mark of the +outsider was too deep for ready erasure. He would persistently +apologize to people with whom he collided, and surrender his car seat +to standing women. + +He had mentioned a Madison Square hotel as his destination, and on +Krantz's saying that he meant to stop there briefly, too, it fell out +that they approached the room clerk together, and that Krantz +registered for both. So it chanced that, unknown to himself, the +candidate was entered with a fine flourish as the Hon. Calvin Ross +Shelby. The two men breakfasted together, and Krantz presently went +about his business, leaving Shelby in some quandary how he should +employ the interval before the hour appointed by the great leader for +their meeting. For a time he loitered in a window overlooking the +restful oasis of the square, a place of fountains and pleasant leafage, +dominated by a graceful tower which served as footstool for a shining +goddess on tiptoe to greet the morning. His eyes were not long bent +upon the goddess,--he did not "live with the gods,"--nor yet upon the +greenness, since he had lived all his days with shrubs and trees; he +watched the commingling ride of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, watched till +it dizzied and saddened him. What did he count here? + +Presently he returned to the desk with an inquiry concerning his room. +There had been a shift of clerks since his arrival, and the newcomer +asked his name, his impassive scrutiny travelling from the man to the +signature, and from the signature back to the man. A youngish person, +looking the successful broker or lawyer, who had been chatting with the +clerk, saw the movement and imitated it as Shelby walked away. + +"And you said there were no celebrities," he bantered. + +The clerk shrugged listlessly. + +"The 'Hon. Calvin Ross Shelby,'" read the reporter. "There ought to be +a story in a man who has the nerve to subscribe himself like that in a +New York hotel. What do you know about his pathetic case?" + +"Stranger to me," the bored one unbent to say. + +The questioner spied a fellow-reporter whose specialty was politics. + +"Billy," he demanded, pointing to the register, "who is the Hon. Calvin +Ross Shelby?" + +"Candidate for Congress in the Demijohn District," returned the +political expert, promptly, smiling at the signature. "Rather +picturesque fight the honorable is having. He's bucking a fusion +opposition headed by the author of that popular poem about a statue. +Where is he? I want to see him. There's nothing else doing here." + +They pursued the stranger down the corridor, overhauling him at the +entrance of the cafe. + +"The Hon. Calvin Ross Shelby, I believe," said the political reporter, +lifting his hat, and naming the newspaper he represented. His +companion, who looked like a broker, but whose present mission was to +screw copy out of hotel arrivals, followed his example, and the group +was almost immediately increased by three more well-dressed +cosmopolitans with ingratiating manners and a scent for news. + +Five New York reporters hanging on his words! To achieve this giddy +pinnacle on the heels of calling himself an atom seemed to Shelby +almost to pass belief. Somehow he rallied. + +"Gentlemen," he beamed, "I'm glad to see you. Have a drink." + +No liquor distilled could add to Shelby's intoxication. It was not +reporting, this swift interchange of trenchant thought between men of +the world; or if reporting, a sublimated sort, free of note-books and +the disconcerting trademarks of the guild as he had known it elsewhere. + +"I can't understand the hostility felt by some public men for the +press," he remarked, thumbs in armholes, coat lapels thrown benignly +back. "Our relations, I take it, should be confidential." + +Practice followed precept, and in that delightful atmosphere Shelby's +confidences flowered like young May. Tuscarora County was put through +its paces for a gaping world; Clinton's Ditch--"well-spring of New +York's commercial supremacy, gentlemen"--shown in rosiest apotheosis; +the Empire State pedestalled imperially among the nations. Nor could +his versatility be bounded by politics alone. The inevitable allusion +to Bernard Graves's poem involved literature, and to stand, as he did, +under the same roof with the nymphs who had long bodied forth his +pictorial ideal, was to invite a public avowal of his proposed +championship of free art. He was lured the farther into this quagmire +by the guileless questioning of one of his listeners, who lingered in +obvious fascination after his fellows had departed, and, in happy +ignorance that the cherubic youth was the son of an artist of +distinction, and himself no mean critic of things artistic, Shelby +voiced opinions more vigorous than discreet. + +"There was a time," he confessed apropos of the nymphs, "when I thought +those ladies the best ever. Young eyes won't hesitate between a plump +Venus and a lean Madonna." + +"And now?" + +"Well, I haven't altogether renounced the world, the flesh, and the +devil, but my taste has changed. A good animal picture fetches +me,--something like Rosa What's-her-name's 'Horse Fair' you've got +up-town in Central Park. I call that big art." + +"Big art; that's the word," agreed the cherub, shaking hands. "It +measures 197 x 93 1/2," he murmured to his cigarette. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The Boss was an awesome figure to up-state politicians, and Shelby +approached his place of business with a trepidation not wholly owing to +his tangled fortunes. It was his first visit. There had been meetings +between them at Saratoga conventions, and more times than a few he had +furthered the leader's indirect ends in the Albany committee-rooms and +on the floor of the Assembly; but greater than Shelby had found it +impossible to penetrate the great man's inner circle at Saratoga, and +their subterranean dealings in Albany and elsewhere had usually been +transacted by way of Bowers. The Boss's methods were circuitous, cog +fitting smoothly to cog till the remote agent rather than himself +seemed the prime mover. Only in emergencies was he direct. + +His apparent aloofness multiplied his power. He held no office; he +made no speeches; he had no obvious axe to grind. He seemed to count +politics his diversion, not his business, and emphasized this attitude +by a strict supervision of the huge commercial enterprise whose head he +was. He arrived in this company's offices punctually at ten o'clock, +and here he was readily accessible throughout the working day, a figure +as politically unprofessional as one could imagine. Yet politically he +was as absolute as a boss ever is. At once the most abused, hated, +dreaded, liked, and respected man in the state, fables without number +clustered round his elusive personality. One account would paint him a +church deacon, frock-coated, smug; another with cloven hoof. He was +said to be a Hedonist, a Marcus Aurelius; a glutton, an ascetic; a +satyr, a pattern of domestic virtue; an illiterate Philistine, a +collector of book plates and first editions. A legend, widely current, +ran that he played chief bacchanalian at dinners whose vaudeville +accompaniments were too gross for a bill of particulars; while another, +equally plausible, had it that he lunched daily on a red-cheeked apple +raised on the farm which had cradled his undistinguished infancy. He +was popularly known as Old Silky. + +Shelby's card barely preceded him into the Boss's presence. It was not +a sumptuous throne-room; an austere chamber rather, one might without +exaggeration say a roomy cell, with puritanic chairs and khaki-colored +regiments of letter files. There were two concessions to a softer +scheme of life,--a lounge and a bowl of red chrysanthemums, both with +associations. On the lounge, which parenthetically had lesser though +not less interesting memories, a President-to-be had sat a suppliant, +while the bowl, always flower-heaped, recalled an hour when a +tempestuous petticoat, his protege, had swept straight from operatic +triumphs to shower roses at his feet. This ruddy bowl lit a broad, low +desk from which now advanced a gray-haired man of a certain shy +friendliness and modulated tones. + +"This is right obliging of you," he said over the hand-clasp. "Don't +tell me you've already lunched?" + +Shelby had, but dissembled, his tone dropping in unconscious imitation +of the leader's. Every apprehension forgotten, he yielded instantly to +the charm of his unassuming friendliness. + +"Then you must honor me. Five minutes with these papers and I'll be +with you." He turned to a pile of type-written letters awaiting his +signature, his whole demeanor a graceful protest against this retarding +of their pleasure. "Here are the afternoon papers if you care to look +them over; they come upon us before the ink is dry on the morning's +batch. No, no; not that uncomfortable chair, Mr. Shelby. Take the +lounge, I beg of you. Stand on no ceremony here. This is Liberty +Hall." + +Somebody should write the philosophy of chairs. One may retain +convictions in furniture which is palpably vertebrate; lapped in +billowing upholstery it is a moot question; and like many a caller's +before him, Shelby's brain tissue became a jelly of flattered +complacency. It sufficed merely to simmer in a sense of equality with +the silver-haired gentleman at the desk. The Boss! He had heard that +the great man loathed the homely title his leadership entailed. It was +not pretty; but its rough forceful Americanism had never struck Shelby +as inept till this moment. Applied to this suave yet virile creature +it fell grotesquely short, missing the key-note of his supremacy. Set +back some centuries, this Boss would have been his Eminence the +Cardinal. + +It may be doubted had the Boss actually worn the red hat whether a +procession of liveried messengers could have impressed Shelby more than +did a small desk telephone half concealed by the chrysanthemums. Its +bell tinkled incessantly, and with infinite patience the leader +interrupted his work again and again to answer it, seeming from +Shelby's vantage point to murmur secret messages into the petals of the +flowers. The dismembered half of a telephone conversation is not +ordinarily illuminating, and the Boss's words in themselves said +little. How tremendously much they might connote, the visitor as a +business man and a politician thoroughly appreciated, and his +imagination did the occasion something more than justice. Desk +telephones were unknown in the simpler Tuscarora world. + +Thus the five minutes were lengthened out to ten, and then with +apologies to a quarter of an hour. Shelby's eyes dropped to the +newspapers on his knee and fastened on a headline-- + + "SHELBY AND THE DEMIJOHN." + +It required a second reading. The absorbing present had for the moment +sponged the morning's happenings from his thoughts. To remember +explained without cheapening the sensation. He was used to a relative +prominence in the rural press, but neither this nor the talk with the +reporters had prepared him for inch-high capitals on the first page of +a metropolitan newspaper. What New Yorkers thought of this particular +newspaper was a detail. + + SHELBY AND THE DEMIJOHN. + + A Sidelight on the Storm Centre of + the Most Picturesque Political + Fight in the Empire State. + + The Opponent of the Author of the Ode on the + Victory of Samothrace talks of his Rival + for Congressional Honors and his Book. + + MR. SHELBY'S VIGOROUS VIEWS ON THE + ISSUES OF THE CAMPAIGN. + + +There followed a well-spiced "story" in which Shelby, with his diction +chastened and his colloquialisms omitted save where they lent a racy +strength, was made to say the things the reporter concluded he ought to +have said--it was a party organ--and to sparkle after a fashion which +is actually attained by few in the presence of the interviewer. Even +at his weakest he was caused to shine. A kindly platitude he had let +fall anent Graves's book astonished him as he met it again; the merest +crust upon the waters, under the reporter's manipulation, it returned +to him a filling loaf:-- + +"But," said Mr. Shelby, "is the production of literature, however +delightful, the fittest school for official life? This, I conceive, is +the whole issue between me and this gifted youth whose illness I +deplore." + + +It would have been well had he stopped here; but he turned to the other +papers. There was no repetition of the first page glory, his +eulogist's contemporaries entertaining other ideas of space; but he +found his name in most of them. + +"MR. GRAVES'S OPPONENT HERE" + +"That virtuous spellbinder of county fairs, the "Hon." C. R. Shelby, +reached the city to-day arm in arm with the notorious Jake Krantz. The +character of this aspirant for congressional preferment in the +so-called Demijohn District may be readily judged by the company he +keeps." + + +Shelby needed no plainer signpost than the style to warn him that he +had fallen foul of the caustic journal which had flayed his plagiarism. +He stole a glance toward the desk, wondering whether the Boss had read +these things. Then he ran hastily through the scurrilous perversion of +his words. Could nothing curb this tyranny? + +Yet a greater indignity was in store. His cup brimmed at the discovery +that in the cherub also he had cherished a viper. His mortification +was too keen for the perusal of more than an occasional phrase: "Art's +New Patron"--"The Champion of Canals couches a lance against the tariff +on art"--"his naive canons of criticism"--"judges a picture by its area +of canvas--the bigger the better." + +"Scoundrels!" he suddenly rapped out, crumpling the papers in his +disgust. + +"I beg your pardon?" said the Boss, gently, peering over the +chrysanthemums. + +"I beg yours. These--these reporters have misrepresented me." + +"Dear me! Do you mind that? You shouldn't. One has to be Jekyll or +Hyde. There's no happy medium. But luckily the public takes care of +that. Trust the public to guess, Mr. Shelby, that you're neither an +art critic nor an ass. And don't be rough on the reporters," he added, +getting up. "They work hard for a living, poor boys. Caricature is +the press's peculiar tribute to the significant." + +Outside the door of the private office Shelby's face suddenly froze. +Several newspaper men had gathered to question the Boss, and among them +the victim recognized one of his detractors. The impulse was strong to +snub, but taught by the leader's example, he smiled instead and dropped +a friendly nod. + +"Seeking whom you may devour, gentlemen?" inquired the Boss. "So am I. +It's past my lunch hour, you know." + +With a dozen words he outlined the matter over which they were +exercised, called one and another by name, shunted an inconvenient +question, told a little story, and had slipped out of the building with +Shelby before the pupil realized that the interview had fairly begun. + +"I like the boys," he declared. "They slate me, but we're good +friends." + +The incident impressed Shelby only less than the desk telephone, and +the walk to luncheon intensified his respect. The Boss explained that +he ate at a mid-air club rather remote from his place of business +because it compelled a chestful of fresh air; and Shelby underwent the +unique experience of promenading busiest Broadway with a man to whom +people bowed on every hand. The Boss took it all as equably as the +country lawyer might his morning salutations between his office and the +Tuscarora House; but to Shelby, from Trinity to St. Paul's, and from +the City Hall to the granite sky-scraper, whose elevator shot them +story after story to the roof, was a splendid triumphal progress. It +was a democratic people's homage to power. + +The big green and white club dining room in the sky took up the +wondrous tale. Greetings everywhere, and jovial beckonings to join +this group and that. At the great man's instance, however, they were +placed at a table for two, whose outlook seemed to the stranger to +embrace the kingdoms of the earth. Life, pulsing life, as far as the +embarrassed eye could carry; life in the mazy streets below; life in +the forking estuary's tide; life, eager red-blooded life, to the crest +of the horizon's hills! Nerve ganglion of a continent, market-place of +a world! Shelby swept the panorama again and again as his host gave +his quiet orders to the waiter, tracing the Hudson from the +shipping-crowded bay till its blueness melted in the haze beyond which +lay the commonwealth, the empire, whose political destinies seemed to +rest in the hollow of this man's hand. It drugged the senses to +attempt to gauge his power. + +The Boss was speaking of Tuscarora and the Demijohn. Out of painful +experience he had come to believe that the truest privacy is the +privacy of the crowd, and indeed the mounting chaff and chatter of the +lunch hour insured isolation most complete. He was speaking of +Tuscarora and the Demijohn, and it had begun over the salad, apropos of +Bowers. + +"His political usefulness is at an end," said the leader. "There was +nothing tangible to be got from him at our last conference, and I +determined to send for you." + +Shelby essayed a middle course between expectation and regret. + +"He says it's his last campaign, poor old chap." + +"Yes," concurred the Boss, without sentiment; "we talked it over. It +was our opinion that the organization requires younger blood--in fine, +your own." + +"Mine?" The query was perfunctory. + +"You logically succeed--on a condition." + +"A condition?" + +"Your election to Congress." + +After a moment Shelby said:-- + +"It's an incentive to work." + +"It's the least you've to work for, if you will permit me to say so." + +"I don't understand." + +The Boss was silent while the servant changed the course. Then he +searched the younger man's eyes. + +"Let me point out what your election may mean," he went on. "It has +been an unusual contest. Mr. Graves's candidacy has interested an +audience which is fairly national in its scope. If victor, you will +take your seat a marked man, equipped with a prestige uncommon to +newcomers in Washington. You will have defeated a celebrity, and you +will stand accredited one of the party leaders of your state." + +Shelby's eyes widened. + +"One of the leaders?" + +"I mean that I like you." + +While the waiter brought the finger bowls the significance of the +simple words burned into Shelby's brain. The two men lit cigars and +waited; Shelby's was gnawed to shapelessness. Left to themselves +again, the Boss said softly:-- + +"Two years from this fall the governorship should go to your section." + +Shelby's color mantled and ebbed, leaving him white. + +"Our choice,"--the Boss's purring note sank--"our choice, if my poor +opinion should carry weight with the convention, our choice will be +you." + +Before Shelby could force a broken word of acknowledgment from his dry +throat the Boss had plunged into a keen analysis of the situation in +the Demijohn. Local statistics, finances, patronage, men's names, +habits, and characteristics, the minutest details, were at his +finger-tips, and the conclusion of the whole matter drove home like a +sledge. + +"Your election hangs on money; on your election hangs your future." + +"I've spent every cent," returned Shelby, with slow distinctness. + +"Yes; I know," was the quiet rejoinder. "I have hoped that the State +Committee would do something. The circumstances are, as you say, +unusual." + +The Boss leaned across the table with a smile. + +"Why mince matters, my dear fellow? You shall have any sum you ask if +you will assure us of one thing. You have left your friends in doubt +as to your attitude toward the River and Harbor unpleasantness. Not +even Bowers could enlighten us. Now as far as the enemy is concerned, +it doesn't matter, but it does matter to the organization. The project +was abused beyond all reason--though that is neither here nor there. +Whatever the captious may call it, the thing has become an organization +measure, and as such a test of loyalty. Are you loyal?" + +Shelby turned his drawn face toward the window. Truly he had been +brought up into a high place and shown the kingdoms of the earth. + +"Yes," he answered; "I'm loyal." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +In leaving his party headquarters up-town two hours later, Shelby trod +air. Accustomed to eschew a too nice scrutiny of means if the end +seemed meet, he merged every doubt and queasiness in the recurring tide +of hope. Everything ministered to his profound content--the great +leader's parting assurances, the flattering reception at headquarters +which followed, the leap from need to affluence. It was another +atmosphere, another sun, another city. + +The afternoon gayety of the streets was wholly to his mood. One need +not be an atom here. To concede a little, to dare a little--that was +the Open Sesame. He held his head sturdily erect. He looked the +impudent city in the face, its equal. With the sense of equality +budded a tolerant liking, a Go-to-Old-Ant-Hill frame of mind, with +admixture of charity. He must study the Ant Hill, find out its +interests and its needs, since from the chrysalis of the country +legislator was shortly to evolve the statesman whose constituency was +the state. The thought was broadening--surely he had grown!--and +fertile of large sweeping views of things and men. Why be petty? A +human signboard advertising Bernard Graves's volume for ninety-eight +cents, with the privilege of return, evoked no unkind thought against +his rival; and from this loftier plane he could see even the morning's +rencounter with the reporters in an indulgent light. He bought later +editions of the afternoon papers that he might rehearse the episode +from his new point of view, and was disappointed to find that where +some fresh sensation had not crowded him from print altogether, he was +dismissed to out-of-the way corners which nobody read. Yet this, too, +he met with a statesman's broad philosophy. + +"Lady in hansom wants to speak with you, sir." + +Shelby had drifted into the shopping district with some vague notion of +visiting a wax-works museum, dear to the rural heart, and was loitering +among the novelty fakirs who lined the crowded thoroughfare. He turned +to confront the liveried carriage attendant of one of the great +department stores, who, indicating a cab at the curb, repeated his +message. With the hansom's doors thrown wide to display her gown, sat +Mrs. Hilliard, smiling. + +The man strode to her side and caught her outstretched hand. + +"Cora," he exclaimed, in undertone, "you're the handsomest woman on the +street!" + +If there had been anything more remote from his purpose than this +meeting, it was this speech. He knew of her presence in the city, he +knew her address; but from prudential motives he did not precisely +formulate he had determined not to go to her. + +"Get in," she murmured, her pleasing color heightening. "We mustn't +block the way." + +Such superior tact in the face of urban conditions impressed him,--he +would have stood gossiping, as in New Babylon's sluggish streets,--and +almost without volition he obeyed. + +"The Avenue," directed Mrs. Hilliard. + +"Which?" asked cabby, his florid face filling the trap. + +"Fifth, of course," said the lady, with annoyance. + +It has been remarked that Mrs. Hilliard aimed to be cosmopolitan, and +it is pertinent to add that one of the chiefest delights of this, her +annual pilgrimage, was to ride the livelong day in hansom cabs. People +in the sort of fiction she was fondest of "called a hansom" at least +once a chapter. + +"You never came to see me," she accused, as they drove on. + +"You can't know how busy I've been." This was well within the truth, as +was his further statement that he knew no good could come of calling at +the Waldorf at this hour. "You have proved that I should have missed +you." + +"But your card wouldn't. It would have had its silent message. Do you +realize that we haven't met since--" + +"We've met now," he interposed hastily; "and I'm another man." + +"Don't tell me the old one's wholly gone." + +"Never fear. I forget nothing. I appreciate what you wanted to do for +me--what you have done; but the necessity is past, thank God! The load +is lifted--there's money to burn--I'm free, free!" + +"Dear friend," said Mrs. Hilliard. "You make me so happy." + +"And I've been honored," he exulted. "I lunched to-day with our great +leader--and, Cora, whatever they say against him, he is indeed +great--and he was more than kind." It was near his lips to hint of the +rosy future, but he spoke instead of a lesser, though nearer prize, +which the day had assured. "He believes in me, and he has asked me to +return home by the governor's own special train!" + +"I knew it, I knew it. I was sure that they would appreciate you at +the last. I've seen the papers, too, and I'm so proud. I want the +people at home to know that the big outside world is awake to your +importance. Even New York journalism pays its tribute." + +"Did you--er--read all the papers? One has to be Jekyll or Hyde, you +know," he added, appropriating the Boss's illustration without +compunction. "Some of them were--facetious." + +"Indeed I did not. I only skimmed the horrid ones; but the others I +read through and through, and sent them home. I threw the spiteful +ones away. They were jealous of your success." + +He smiled a little at this. + +"Not rabidly jealous, I guess." + +"The governor's train!" She made him as elaborate an obeisance as the +hansom's contracted limits would permit. "And yet you condescend to +take the air with humble me." + +He laughed joyously. + +"I feel like a boy with a holiday," he confessed. "I'm free--free!" +He kindled at her suggestion that they make it a holiday in truth, and +repeating, "I'm free," gave himself to the spectacle of the street. + +Mrs. Hilliard suddenly remembered to be cosmopolitan, and bringing her +lorgnon into action, returned stare for stare as their driver threaded +his dexterous way through the clattering, glittering maze of four +o'clock Fifth Avenue. + +With bewildering facility, she named the owners of the great +houses--usually striking amiss, though Shelby could not know--and from +some little experience with New York horse shows, could recognize an +occasional carriage occupant. Her adaptability abashed him, setting +her mysteriously apart from the woman whose past had been so intimately +linked with his, and not until they tacked across the plaza into the +wooded entrance of the park, which somehow suggested Tuscarora, did he +pluck up the old sense of comradeship. There were still glittering +equipages in plenty, and at every turn benches black with sightseers, +for the day was a bit of summer gone astray; but this and that +bright-liveried copse or shining pond or meadow cropped by sheep evoked +the familiar setting of their other rides without effacing the city +towering beyond. + +"I guess you were born for this kind of thing, Cora," he broke the +silence. + +The woman gave a flattered little laugh which tapered to a sigh. + +"You, too, were meant for something wider than Tuscarora," she +returned; "and you will get it,--get it here, perhaps. The great New +Yorkers are usually country-born, you know. You'll find your niche--no +small one; find it and fill it; while I--? Ah, well; this isn't the +talk for your holiday." + +He brushed her sleeve with a light pressure. + +"Make it your holiday, too. Let yourself go." + +"Our holiday, then," she assented; "no past, no future, just here and +now." + +Copying nature's lead, the character of the park changed by and by; the +way rose from a sun-shot ravine and wound a wooded hill full of forest +scents and subdued surf-like echoings of the city's roar. Strange rock +upheavals with writhing strata flanked the by-paths, a mystery and an +invitation, and the man and woman left their hansom to shuffle, a pair +of children, in the fallen leaves. A squirrel, tame to familiarity, +pushed his nut-begging little nose fairly into their fingers. + +"How perfectly Edenic," murmured Mrs. Hilliard. "I feel as if there +wasn't another human being besides you on earth." + +Paradise before the Fall had its dinner problem to discuss, as witness +the apple affair, and so presently had Shelby and Mrs. Hilliard. But +it was the man, not Eve, who put the idea forward as the fitting climax +of a memorable day, as perhaps did Father Adam, though she it was who +ran the garden's resources through, and decided which to choose. The +talk had ranged from Sherry's and Delmonico's to Chinatown and the +Ghetto, when Mrs. Hilliard recollected a place ideally suited to the +occasion. + +"It's on Riverside Drive, and overlooks the Hudson," she explained. +"I've heard Ruth Temple speak of it, though I can't remember the name. +The driver will know; it's historic." + +The driver did know, and whipped them smartly out of a park exit where +the heights fell abruptly away and the elevated railroad far overhead +twisted a wriggling S into Harlem's sixth story. Then the land again +rose sheer on gray curtains of masonry, splashed red with October ivy, +lifting city on city. A cathedral's beginnings, looking a ruin, now +cut sharply against the sky, neighboring a hospital with the facade of +a chateau. Then they skirted a pink and gray university grouped about +a dome, and a great man's tomb which might have been a Titan's +pepper-box, flourishing presently between files of waiting hansoms and +automobiles to their destination. + +The restaurant was crowded, but they luckily succeeded to a just +vacated table by a northern window which swept the valley. A sunset of +myriad tints and opalescent fires made molten copper of the river and a +carnival float of every craft. + +"We have it clear to-night," said their waiter, as if the establishment +somehow deserved the credit. "You'd not think that big cliff to the +left was opposite Yonkers. That's Fort Washington nearer on the right. +A fight came off there up on the heights, you know. Washington had to +look on from the Palisades and see the Hessians bayonet his troops. +They say he wept." + +Mrs. Hilliard considered him through her lorgnon, but the man was busy +with the napery and escaped punishment. + +"The house is pretty famous, too," he went on. "Joseph Bonaparte lived +here for a while, you know, and when Fulton tried his steamboat--" + +"Yes," interrupted Mrs. Hilliard, icily, "we know." + +"Beg pardon," returned the servant, taking the order slip. "Out of +town people generally like to be told." + +"It's no use, Cora," rallied Shelby, at the first opportunity. "You're +handicapped. You'll never pass for a native while I'm along." He +divined that she was vexed, and shifted instantly. "Thank you for +bringing me here. After this day of ours we couldn't have picked a +finer sundown." + +"Sundown--and the end." + +Shelby threw her a glance, and beckoning the waiter, added champagne to +his order. + +"We'll not let the celebration peter out in the dumps," he declared. + +She demurred faintly. She was unused to wine with her meals, she said; +Joe had old-fashioned ideas about women and wine, and so on; but in the +end they shared the bottle equally, and the holiday took a new lease of +life. Night set in before they finished. The river went black and +mysterious, the shipping lights winked forth like glow-worms, and the +illuminated walking beam of a ferry-boat minced a fantastic progress +from shore to shore. The sometime home of the ex-King of Spain +flowered within and without with electricity, and life simplified +itself to cakes and ale. + +From the steps they watched their hansom detach itself from the long +line of yellow-eyed monsters waiting in the outer gloom. + +"It must end now," sighed Mrs. Hilliard. "There's the theatre,--why +not? New York is so big." + +"I must not." + +"Nothing heavy. Say burlesque or vaudeville?" + +"If I dared--" + +Shelby put her in the hansom and gave the driver the name of a music +hall. The lights of the theatrical district charmed the last prudent +doubt away. + +There was a moment's embarrassment at the ticket-office. The little +theatre they had chosen enjoyed a considerable vogue, and the man at +the window could offer nothing less than a box. Shelby was staggered, +but recalling his affluence, flirted a bill through the opening and +neglected to count his change. Not until the usher had brought them to +their box did Mrs. Hilliard comprehend the situation. She whispered, +"Oh, Ross!" hesitated an instant, then entering, laid aside her wraps +under the opera glass inquisition invited by her blond hair. + +"How could you?" she murmured, as the house darkened. + +"I wouldn't back down before that ticket-seller with you there behind +looking so handsome and swell." + +"We should never have come." + +Shelby caught her fingers in a reassuring squeeze. + +"Don't you worry," he enjoined. "This isn't the Grand Opera House of +New Babylon." + +Perceiving that other men smoked, Shelby lit a cigar, and as the +plotless play began to unfold its tuneful fooling Mrs. Hilliard forgot +to be apprehensive. She observed in the audience another woman with +blond hair sipping something from a glass, and wondered if she were +missing an opportunity to be cosmopolitan. If so, she deemed it the +part of wisdom to remain provincial, for it had not escaped her notice +that since dinner her mental processes had undergone some subtle +change. For one thing, her sense of humor had quickened. Joe had +often maintained she had none. If Joe could see her now! No; that was +not her meaning precisely; but at any rate, it had quickened. How +every antic of the comedians appealed to her! The excessively tall and +the excessively short Germans who talked into one another's teeth; the +young person who sang coon songs in a fashion not negro, but all her +own; the giant with a boutonniere which a midget mounted a step-ladder +to spray; the famous plump beauty whom Shelby whispered she +resembled--all the merry-andrew company won her laughter and applause. + +Once Shelby laid a restraining hand upon her arm, but she laughed the +more. When the curtain fell on the first act and the lights went up, +she was laughing still. She wondered why New Yorkers stared so. +Perhaps they, like Shelby, who had oddly shrunk into the shadows of the +box, thought she resembled the plump beauty for whom cigars were named. +She stared back at them collectively, for somehow they seemed to wear +one face. It was a thin, clean-shaven face, with keen eyes behind +glittering glasses; a familiar face--the face of the editor of the +_Tuscarora County Whig_. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +"You had better walk to the hotel," Shelby suggested. With the darkening +of the theatre for the second act he had piloted his companion to the +street. "It's but a little way." + +It proved a great way as he contrived it. Striking across town to one of +the quieter avenues they paced block after block in the teeth of a wind +which smacked of salt. At length Shelby brought their steps to a right +about and headed for their destination, just short of which his charge +abruptly halted with an hysterical in-take of breath. + +"Not yet," she protested. "I can't go in yet. I must think it out here +with you. I daren't alone. I'm afraid of something--of myself--I don't +know what--" + +The man bent a critical glance upon her. + +"No; I guess you're not quite fit," he decided. "On we go." + +"It's awful! He, of all people!" + +"Bad mess." + +"He could ruin me." + +Shelby readily pictured a few ruins of his own, but chivalrously +refrained from their presentment. His predicament occurred to her, +however. + +"And he could defeat you--" + +"Never mind me." + +"I can't stop minding; it's too late. I've minded so long--too long and +too much. I've put you before Joe--before Milicent even. I've--" + +"Don't say anything you'll be sorry for," he interposed, turning into a +side street. "You're on your nerves--flat on your nerves." + +She promptly proved his assertion by slipping without warning from his +side. They had chanced abreast of a rambling little church tucked with +its trees and shrubbery and greensward amidst buildings which dwarfed its +tower to a pretty toy. Some droll giant might have plucked it out of +Trollope and set it here to throw off its atmosphere like a fragrance +from rectory to chantry. Its lich-gate held an image before which Mrs. +Hilliard melted in a welter of devotion. + +"Tommyrot," fumed her guide, nonplussed at this new vagary. + +Ignored, Shelby braced himself patiently against a pillar in the dusky +recess while the penitent knelt and pattered in deeps of contrition which +the ministrations of her low-church rector in New Babylon had never +plumbed. But patience vanished at the sound of footsteps up the street. + +"Quit it, that's a good girl," he begged, reconnoitring. + +Despite the lively devil's deputy at elbow the appeal wavered on. + +"It's a policeman coming. He'll think--" Shelby broke off his +conjecture to utter some banality about the moon, to drown her +invocation. Wayside prayers were no more a novelty than wayside curses +in this region, and the officer rolled indifferently by. "Now go back to +your hotel, and get to bed," pleaded the man, gasping like a criminal +with a reprieve. "Things will look brighter in the morning. I'll be in +to see you before my train leaves." + +Her devotions at an end, she issued docilely to the pavement, saying, +"You can't know the comfort." + +"It's a pity it isn't contagious," commented Shelby, grimly; but before +they quitted the shadows for the lights of Fifth Avenue he added gently +that he begrudged her nothing. + +Directly he saw the elevator whisk her to her room, the man posted back +to the music hall in search of Volney Sprague. What he should say to him +was not clear, but see him he must. Out of the jumble of his thoughts +that idea beset him like an obsession. The audience had begun to trickle +into Broadway, and as the stream broadened to fill the doorway he was +hard put to it to scan every face, but he persisted till the last +loiterer had left. Then an attendant told him that the place had yet +another exit upon another street, which, beyond all doubt, the editor had +used. + +Baffled, but not without resource, he turned again to the newspapers and +rummaged the lists of hotel arrivals for Sprague's unnoteworthy name. +Naturally too obscure for mention! Yet in the same breath it started out +at him from miscellaneous political gossip as one of the day's callers at +the headquarters of a local revolt against the machine. Shelby construed +the visit as a still hunt for funds, and, in the light of his own +financial rebound, meant to have his chuckle from it, should he ever +unhorse the worry by which he was hag-rid. Consulting a city directory, +he set forth on a fagging tramp from hotel to hotel--a quest barren of +result for the excellent reason that Sprague, according to his custom, +had registered at the Reform Club. + +Late to bed, and after persistent sheep-counting, much later to sleep, +Shelby woke with the morning far advanced and the hour of his departure +near. It was necessary to eke out his wardrobe with a purchase or two +against the journey with the governor, and between his shopping and his +breakfast, the deliberate talk he had meant to have with Mrs. Hilliard +bade fair to dwindle to a handshake. As the morning brought no grounds +for optimism, he was not altogether sorry that the interview must be +short; indeed, by daylight his own necessity seemed the more pressing; +but he faced his obligations, and prepared himself for the role of Sturdy +Oak to Mrs. Hilliard's Clinging Vine. His astonishment, therefore, was +doubly great when he learned that the Vine had developed a backbone of +its own, and left the hotel, bag and baggage, upward of an hour ago. + +Being a practical man, Shelby promptly made friends with the baggage +agent, who recalled that the "blond lady's" belongings had been forwarded +to the Grand Central Station,--Shelby's own destination,--whose +waiting-hall the perplexed candidate was shortly scouring in pursuit. +The sequel was unexpected. He did not find Mrs. Hilliard, but he did +stumble fairly into the arms of Volney Sprague. + +Startled, but outwardly self-assured, he half offered his hand. + +The editor gave him a perfunctory good morning, but his own right hand +made no movement to free itself from the magazine whose leaves he had +been turning at the news-stand. + +Shelby slid his extended fingers forward haphazard to a learned +periodical, which fell open to a discussion of cuneiform inscriptions. + +"Are you bound for Tuscarora, too?" he inquired. + +"I'm going home." + +"Which train?" + +Sprague named his train after a leisured moment's study of an +illustration. + +"That's my own--or will be, rather, till Albany, where our car gets its +own engine. I'm in for a day or two's campaigning with his Excellency; +rear end speeches, and that sort of thing, you know." + +The editor was unimpressed. + +"If you care to drop in, I'll introduce you to the governor." + +"Thanks, no. We've met." + +Shelby's color mounted under repeated rebuff, and his self-respect was +nil; but a sincere desire to shield the woman whose folly he had abetted, +rose beside the spectre of defeat to drive him on. + +"See here, Sprague," he said abruptly; "that was an awkward thing last +night--" + +"To see me?" + +"The general look of it," came laboriously. "You understand I--she--" + +"Excuse _me_," put in the editor, dropping his magazine and backing off. + +Shelby anchored him by a lapel. + +"We've got to have this out. I want you to understand that she was +unwell--despondent--malaria, you know--and resorted to--" + +"Laughing gas is your plausible defence." + +Shelby went brick-red. + +"Be a gentleman," he said. + +"Gad!" Sprague quenched a wry smile. "And from you! What are you +after?" + +"Are you going to use this?" + +Volney Sprague started, glared, and fell to violent polishing of his +eye-glasses. + +"After all," Shelby blundered on, "she has been your friend--entertained +you--the club and all that--and you couldn't--" + +"Did she send you to me?" broke in Sprague, fiercely. + +"She? No. I'm responsible. I thought perhaps you--it's been a bitter +political fight--you might be tempted--I admit it is a temptation--to +make capital--" + +"Gad!" The editor spat out his favorite ejaculation as if it were a toad. + +"We ought to spare her--to spare a woman." + +"Don't, don't, don't," protested Sprague. "Can't you see--can't you see +that no decent man--no; you couldn't see that. Use a thing of this sort? +Faugh!" He swung on his heel and plunged through a nearby doorway to the +open air. + +The result was tangible, but he had paid for it with the most abasing +quarter-hour of his life, and Shelby, too, craved another atmosphere. +And he obtained it. The governor, his private secretary, one or two +members of his staff, a state senator popularly known as "Handsome" +Ludlow, and the newspaper correspondents who were to accompany the party, +were clustered sociably in the observation compartment of the private +car, and on Shelby's entrance every man jack of them got upon his legs to +welcome him, as if the Boss had twitched them by unseen strings. His +Excellency clapped him graciously on the shoulder, the staff officials +and the secretary reflected and passed on the gubernatorial warmth, the +senator pressed cigars, and the newspaper people, whose habit was to lump +all personages as frail humanity, went through their introductions like +the good fellows that they were. It was unlooked for, delightful, +insidiously flattering--a plain intimation that he had become a star of +greater magnitude. + +"We're due to pull out in three minutes," the governor told him. "I was +really worried about you." + +In their several echoes the secretary and staff conveyed that they too +had known alarm. + +"Fact is, we bank on you to mesmerize the rural vote," put in Handsome +Ludlow, jocosely. "You'll work your passage all right, all right." + +The jest carried a covert truth. They did count on Shelby, and Shelby +did work his passage in sober earnest. The governor who sought +reelection was a mediocrity of means--a barrel, as the phrase goes--whose +function in campaigning was to draw checks, shed radiance on cheering +crowds, and make way for speakers who had something to utter besides hems +and haws. No one could be less fitted for the five-minute give-and-take +talks from the rear platform than this amiable figurehead, and no one of +his company was so much at home in it as Shelby, on whom the brunt +swiftly fell. The senator, the staff officials, and even the poor +governor were passable in the deliberate evening meetings for which they +were billed in this town and that--though here, too, Shelby frequently +snatched the honors; but the heady victory over the chaffing, brawling, +even missile-throwing packs surging round the car wheels and up the +steps, was always his and his alone. Suggested to fill an unexpected +vacancy, he was quick to appreciate that chance, and the Boss had given +him the opportunity of his life; and with an eye on another campaign two +years hence, and with the heartening thought that by now the State +Committee's dollars were implanting convictions throughout the Demijohn +District's fertile soil, he put forth the impetuous best that was in him. + +Nor was Shelby's best contemptible. The charge up the canal counties had +not measured half its course before the increasing crowds, the space +given his doings by the correspondents whose good graces he seduously +[Transcriber's note: sedulously?] cultivated, the deference of his +Excellency and his chameleon staff, all told him that the glory of what +the party organs courteously styled the "governor's brilliant dash" was +his and not the governor's. + +"What we didn't count on," observed Handsome Ludlow, with a touch of +envy, "was campaigning with a whirlwind." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +So Shelby came in triumph to his own people, the governor at his +chariot wheel, and fought the last stubborn week of his campaign. His +mail was now burdened with invitations to speak, but he made few +speeches. + +"The voter a speech will influence has made up his mind," he said to +Bowers. "The heart-to-heart talk is the trump card of the eleventh +hour." + +To play this card required a prodigious amount of travelling about the +district; and between these activities and the speaking engagements he +was in promise bound to fulfil, Shelby saw little or nothing of New +Babylon till midnight of Saturday, which was the virtual end of the +canvass. Seen again, as he viewed it now, the town would look raw and +provincial despite patriotic throes of self-deception. On moonlit +nights the New Babylon Electric Light and Power Company hoarded its +energies, and an inky pall accordingly lay over the muddy streets which +the pale melon rind in the clouded zenith did nothing to dissipate. +The contrast between this niggardliness and the midnight brilliance of +up-town Broadway was inevitable, and the jolting Tuscarora House free +'bus came readily into unflattering comparison with a certain +rubber-tired hansom cab. Naturally midnight, a jaded body, and the +Tuscarora House free 'bus might well jaundice any scene; but the +returning native recognized these as accidents merely in the phenomenon +of his changed vision. + +The hotel bar-room was boisterous with the usual Saturday night +gathering of the set which in its innocence supposed itself fast, and +the maturer poker crowd, Shelby's own cronies, was in protracted +session elsewhere in the building; but he managed to evade them all and +lock himself in his ugly room. For some sophisticated weeks he had +suspected the household gods here assembled to have feet of clay. Now +he knew it; but with the feeling that the place was a temporary husk at +best, he avoided a too particular inventory of the pseudo-marble clock, +the vases of pampas grass, the album, and the garish pictures against +their background of pink roses blushing in a terra-cotta field, and ran +drowsily over the little pile of accumulated mail. + +With one exception he found a politician's budget, and the exception +brushed its fellows imperiously aside. It was a tinted intriguing +thing, faintly odorous of patchouli; its contents without date, +superscription, or signature, though for the reader the scent was Mrs. +Hilliard writ large; a single straggling line of characterless script. + +"Why," it inquired, "have you forsaken me?" + +The man yawned. + +He awoke refreshed and lay in snug indolence listening to the rival +sextons pealing first bell for Sunday service. Whatever their +doctrinal disputes, the churches of New Babylon made a shift for +concord when it came to bell-ringing, whose stately performance was +regarded by no less a theological expert than the Widow Weatherwax as +"spiritoolly edifyin' and condoocive to grace." Drifting between +cat-naps Shelby usually found it a fillip to the fancy. He would +detect infant damnation and argument for sprinkling in the deep boom of +the Presbyterian bell, and instant dissent in the querulous note of the +Baptist, whose echo droned "i-m-m-e-r-s-i-o-n" to infinity. This was +the cue for a jaunty flaunting of apostolic succession on the part of +the Episcopalian sexton, only to be himself reminded by the First +Methodist that there were bishops and bishops. So on, assertion, +rejoinder, surrejoinder, and rebuttal, till the dispassionate +philosopher in the pillows wearied of his conceit and directed his +thoughts toward breakfast. + +From breakfast Shelby ordinarily turned to the sporting columns of the +Sunday papers, but today he found his thoughts reverting to +church-going as a not unpleasant sedative after the storm and stress of +his campaign. Reasons multiplied: it would be a sop to the prejudices +of no small body of the voting population; an act of tolerance worthy +of a mind open to broad horizons; a lightning-rod for supernatural +approval of his cause; and a simple means of falling in with Ruth +Temple, since by a happy coincidence Ruth Temple and a large block of +the church-going vote worshipped under the same spire. Some little +time later, therefore, Shelby was ushered to a prominent seat in the +midst of a decorous flurry of excitement which stirred the Presbyterian +congregation from choir-loft to rearmost pew. Unknown to the visitor, +the Rev. Mr. Hewett was scheduled to preach on the ethical issues +involved in the present election. + +The minister entered the pulpit almost immediately and laid eyes upon +Shelby as he announced the opening hymn, coloring at the discovery. +His voice wavered perceptibly in the earlier parts of the service as +the absorbed congregation noted; but by sermon time he had conquered +his nervousness, and with set jaw thundered out his text from Jeremiah: +"Why trimmest thou thy way?" With this entering wedge the parson clove +into an analysis of practical politics which did not stick at +instancing corruption near at hand, and whose climax was a bitter +denunciation of ignoble leadership and the doubly ignoble laxity of the +indifferent led. It was as pointed an attack on local conditions as he +could frame without complications with his deacons, who were +politically of divers minds, and the fusion managers might have used +its final exhortation to "vote your conscience" as their own +ammunition, without altering a word. + +Shelby sat under it all like a graven image, careless of the raking +fire of eyes from every point, sang "America" with unction at the +close, and advancing with the benediction to the pulpit stair, +congratulated the bewildered clergyman on his "effort," and before he +could conceive, much less deliver, a coherent reply, slipped down a +side aisle and greeted Ruth. + +"Vigorous, but intemperate," said he, "and typically ministerial. The +right road and the wrong road in politics don't abound in sign-posts, +and pretty frequently both carry grist to the same mill." + +The riddle of his character piqued Ruth at that moment as it never had, +and before they separated he obtained permission to call upon her after +tea--a privilege which he interpreted as license to present himself +betimes and stay to an unconscionable hour. Yet he talked fluently and +well, and went out at length into the night tingling with the +consciousness of having touched fingers with the higher life of his +cherished aspirations. By the token of Ruth's interest, moreover, he +took hope that he had not been found wanting where he was most +ambitious to excel. It was a thing to lay to heart, an epochal page in +his history which sleep alone could fitly round. Nevertheless, a +disturbing impression of something essential left undone haunted the +borderland of dreams to remain formless till morning, when his pocket +handkerchief jerked a note odorous of patchouli to his bedroom floor. + +It was annoying. Of course Mrs. Hilliard had a certain claim, and had +he been less occupied on his return from stumping the state with the +governor he would have gone to her. By rights he should have made the +effort to see her after receiving this message--yesterday, in fact; +yesterday the golden. He would have gone, too, if--frankly, if the +stature of the man he had become had less exacting ideals of womanly +perfection. To the grown man of broadened horizon Mrs. Hilliard had +come indubitably to seem a bore. Still, she had her claim. + +"I'll drop in after election," he decided, and laid his hand to the +day's work. + +It proved a long, hard pull, made up of details petty enough in +themselves, but considerable in their relation to the whole scheme of +his defence. However, he reached its end cheery in the belief that the +sun of Tuesday would light no Waterloo. + +"I'll win," he said to Bowers. "By no walkover, I admit; but I'll win." + +"M-yes; I guess, but by the narrowest margin the Demijohn ever gave. +The slightest flurry might snow us under." + +"I'd stake my head on it." + +"Some who have betted less than that have hedged." + +"Who?" exclaimed the candidate, quickly. + +"Tuscarora House sports--I won't mention names--but poker friends of +yours." + +"Sandy lot, they are," broke out Shelby, contemptuously. "I hope you +counteracted the effect." + +"I instructed some of our people to cover everything they would put +up," Bowers answered dryly. "You know I don't bet myself." + +Shelby guffawed and clapped him on the shoulder. + +"Same way you don't stoop to buy the purchasable? Lord! If the +Tuscarora floaters only knew their Santa Claus!" + +But Bowers merely coughed. + +Tickled with his joke at the expense of his associate whose handling of +the State Committee's saving aid had been masterly, Shelby went to his +evening meal in a humor which even a second note from Mrs. Hilliard +could not damp. In scent, brevity, and chirography it was the +counterpart of the first, telling him that the nameless writer was +wretched, and begging him to come to her. The appeal found him in a +softened mood. Viewed at the close of an irksome day, Mrs. Hilliard's +society had attractions which his hypercritical mind of the morning +hours slighted; and while her message in itself left his withers +unwrung, he concluded that it was perhaps as well to break gently with +"poor Cora" now, as later, when possibly greater growth and broader +horizons might create barriers yet more awkward. Under a show of +letter-writing, accordingly, he lingered in the hotel office till he +was certain that Joe Hilliard had joined his boon companions of the +billiard room, when he let himself quietly out of doors and made his +way to the quarry owner's home. + +"I was afraid you might come, and then that you mightn't," the woman +whispered, in the obscurity of the hall. "Joe had a headache, and said +at first that he wouldn't go out to-night; but he went." + +"Yes; I know. Servants out?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"And Milicent?" he pursued, scorning hypocrisy. + +"I let her go away for the night. The poor child needed a change." + +As they left the hall he discovered that she was in evening dress--the +black gown glittering with jet beads and bugles which she had +introduced at the first autumn meeting of the Culture Club. He held +her hand high, and turned her slowly round after the manner of the +dance. + +"Did you do that for me?" he asked, his face lighting. + +She nodded. + +"I wore it the night of your nomination, and I put it on to-night to +bring you luck at the polls. Was it silly of me?" + +"Not if somebody else doesn't see." + +"Joe'll not see. I shall have gone to my room before he comes. I'll +not keep you long. It's enough that you've proved you cared to come. +It's a crumb of comfort in my wretchedness." + +"You know I've been on the jump," he returned, adding dryly, "You don't +look as wretched as your note led me to expect." + +"You can't know." + +"Not till I'm told." + +"The scene there's been, I mean." + +"Scene? What scene?" + +"With Joe--about you--New York--everything." + +"There wasn't need for a word. Nobody's blabbed. I saw to that. I +went to Sprague in New York." + +"I told Joe," she confessed. "You didn't come that morning--and I was +frightened. I thought if stories were to get to him, I'd best be the +one to tell them. So I left at once." + +"If you had only waited." + +"If you had only got word to me." + +They fell into explanation of their several movements, from which +Shelby, white-faced, suddenly cut loose, saying:-- + +"What does he know? For God's sake, what does he know? What did you +tell?" + +"Oh, that I met you, had dinner, went to the theatre--" + +"Then why--" + +"I'm coming to that. While we were away somebody--Mrs. Weatherwax, I +suppose--filled Joe full of malicious town gossip about our--our +friendship--and he was terrible. Oh, you can't know, you can't know!" + +"But me--me!" cried Shelby, clutching her by the arms. "What about me? +Is he down on me? His votes,--his two hundred votes, you know,--they +could defeat me--ruin me! Tell me--tell me--" + +"No, no; it's not you he blames; not you, Ross. It's I. He thinks I'm +a fool--the brute! He calls me a fool!" + +"Thank God! Thank God!" ejaculated the man, laughing wildly in his +revulsion of relief. + +"But I--I am miserable," sobbed the woman, and clung to him when he +would have released her. "You will go to your triumph and your +future,--what have I left now?" + +Shelby swayed unsteadily with his burden, his eyes on the perfect +shoulders whose curves played and quivered with the labored breath. He +recalled a fragment of poetry--something about "morbid . . . faultless +shoulder-blades," which he had overheard Bernard Graves quote to Volney +Sprague as Mrs. Hilliard passed at the club. Morbid had seemed an +inept word then, but he began to spy out a certain fitness. The house +was too still by far--dangerously still; the stillness of espionage. +With a flash of intuition he lifted his eyes, and in the doorway met +Joe Hilliard. Almost at the same instant the woman in her trumpery saw +him too. + +"Joe!" she called, in an incredulous, husky whisper. "Joe!" + +He loomed there in the dusk like a rock, and with a frightened whimper +she tottered and clung to him as she had clung to Shelby. + +"I'm not a bad woman, Joe," she babbled. "I'm not a bad woman." + +"No one has accused you," replied her husband, putting her gently away. + +"Nor am I what you doubtless think," stammered Shelby. "It's all a +mistake, Joe; a big mistake. It can be explained--it can be +explained--" + +Hilliard doubled and relaxed a mighty fist. + +"No; not under this roof," he said quietly. "Go!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +The scandal derived its impetus from the vulgar circumstance that the +Hilliard washing went to line on Tuesday (Monday having dawned lowering +and ended stormy), thereby exposing more family linen than could +possibly have been foreseen, since the day laundress and Mrs. +Hilliard's housemaid were bound in friendship by a common appetite for +gossip and for tea. Monday's unfinished labors despatched, these +familiars laid their heads together over a pannikin of their favorite +brew, and the laundress, poising her saucer with the elegance which was +the envy of her circle, ventured the opinion that the housemaid was +holding in reserve a palate-tickling morsel concerning the missus; +whereupon the housemaid cloaked herself afresh with mystery and +"suspicioned" that she could tell things if she were one of those +odious persons who carried tales, which of course she was not. + +Blowing and sipping with the calm which is the handmaiden of true +elegance, the laundress conceded both propositions, and edged forward +the suggestion that tale-bearing and confidence between intimates were +horses of dissimilar color. This was readily admitted by the housemaid +with its corollary that anything intrusted in confidence to the bosom +of the laundress was as good as locked in the mute confines of the +tomb. With these time-honored preliminaries the crisis above stairs as +seen from below stairs was promptly bared to the scalpel. + +"Whin he come home lasht night He was here," the housemaid imparted in +a whisper. + +The laundress hurdled the ambiguous pronouns like a thoroughbred. + +"Is it th' trut' ye're tellin' me?" she demanded, forgetting her +graces, and grounding her saucer with a clatter. + +"Cross me hear-rt," said the housemaid, enjoying her sensation. + +"Ye'll excuse me intherruptin'--" + +"Ye're no intherruptin'. 'Tis th' ind iv th' shtory." + +"But phat did th' good ma-an say?" + +As the faithful soul did not know, she remarked that there were some +things which a lady in her delicate position could not confide even to +a bosom friend. She hinted, however, that in the light of what she had +told the laundress a week ago of the family jar occasioned by Her +meeting Him in New York, the present state of things was easy to +conjecture. + +But the laundress thirsted for details. + +"Was his dayparture suddin like?" she asked. + +Feeling that the force of her narrative might suffer from the admission +that she had only entered the house by a side door after she had met +Him walking rapidly away from the front, the housemaid answered merely +by moving sighs. The laundress reasoned from past experience that the +font had gone dry, and suddenly remembered that she was promised to +help with the Bowers's heavy ironing. This was at a quarter before +nine o'clock. + +At ten minutes past nine o'clock the laundress remarked across the +ironing-board to Mrs. Bowers that if she were one of those odious +persons who carried tales, which of course she was not, she could +expose the carryings-on of somebody living not a hundred miles away to +a tune which would bring the blush to New Babylon's outraged cheek. +Mrs. Bowers made haste to answer that she was of principle firmly +opposed to gossip; but as an intelligent woman, she recognized that +certain things require ventilation for the good of the community, and +was accustomed in such emergencies to send personal reluctance to the +rear. The tale of how He coming unexpectedly home found Him with Her +was then put through its paces with such skilful jockeying that not one +in ten would know it for the same dobbin so lately brought limping to +the light. + +As now set forth, He had fathomed Her and Him with more shrewdness than +the world had given him credit for possessing--poor man!--and had been +hoodwinked by their transparent devices for meeting at the golf links +and on lonely country roads no more than had Mrs. Bowers or any other +person of equal virtue and capacity. He had seen, and he had warned. +Then, stolen sweets becoming perilous near home, the culprits had taken +their several ways to New York,--most fit choice for such a pilgrimage! +This too was fathomed and forgiven. O unwise clemency! O base +requital! Violence upon discovery? No doubt. Loaded pistol +constantly in the house since the last burglar scare. At this Mrs. +Bowers recollected shots in the night; Seneca had said "Campaign +fireworks"; but she knew better; shots, of course. Dreadful thing to +happen at one's very door. An immediate separation naturally. By all +the laws of righteousness she should not be given the custody of the +child. + +In affairs requiring ventilation for the common good Mrs. Bowers could +conceive of no instrument so sure as the Widow Weatherwax, who +providentially dropped in to borrow flour at the precise moment Mrs. +Bowers had decided that if she ever meant to run over and copy the +widow's unequalled recipe for floating island, this was the time to do +it. Quite in the same breath with her greetings, therefore, Mrs. +Bowers intimated that were she one of those odious persons who carried +tales, which of course she was not, she could astonish the widow with a +chronicle of happenings not remote in time or scene. But when told, +the widow was not astonished. + +"I've knowed she wuz a Scarlet Woman since the last night ov the +camp-meetin' at Eden Centre," she explained. "It come to me when I see +her a-standin' outside the circle, and it was borne in on me to testify +b'fore the brethren." + +In this, its third edition, the tale gained picturesqueness and +circumstantial weight. To the New York episode the widow contributed +the imaginative touch of a baffled detective, while Mrs. Bowers's shots +in the stilly night passed into the province of undisputed fact. The +circumstance that the widow had only that morning seen the destroyer of +homes walking abroad unmaimed, was but touching evidence that the +husband had been too grief-crazed to send a bullet to the mark. The +widow almost remembered that the destroyer had limped; therefore the +injured man must have resorted to natural weapons. Doubtless the +beginning of proceedings for an absolute divorce hung fire only because +this was a legal holiday. + +As the clock in the town hall struck ten the good women parted company, +and the now able-bodied scandal careered bravely into the world. +Tinctured by personal equation, the respective variants of Mrs. Bowers +and Mrs. Weatherwax had minor differences in the dramatic grouping of +detail, but they were variants, nevertheless, and adhered in all +essentials to the notable fabric these ladies had joined forces to +erect. + +Early in the morning the Hon. Seneca Bowers returned to his home for a +warmer overcoat, and met the petrifying version of his wife. His first +thought was of its bearing on the election. + +"True or untrue, Eliza," he declared, energetically, "this servant's +chatter must go no farther." + +"But if he's a bad man--" began Mrs. Bowers, uneasily. + +"I'm not concerned with his morals; it's the party I'm thinking of. +Not one soul must you tell--understand that clearly--not one soul." + +"I--I did tell one--just one." + +"In God's name, who?" cried her husband. + +"Don't swear, Seneca. And you a church member." + +"Who? Who?" + +"Mrs. W--W--" It was impossible to articulate that tongue-worrying +name with her lord glaring at her so dreadfully. + +The man blenched. + +"Not old Weatherwax!" + +"Y-yes." + +Bowers's jaw hung flaccid. This phenomenon continuing, Mrs. Bowers +took alarm. + +"You've not gone and had a stroke, have you?" she wavered timidly, +feeling for his pulse. + +Bowers revived with a grunt, and bolted for the door. His buggy wheel +protested stridently as he cramped the vehicle at the horse-block, +reassuring Mrs. Bowers that his natural force was not abated; and his +flight down town affronted the ordinance against reckless driving which +he himself had framed. + +Shelby, unnaturally pale, but composed, was issuing from his office +staircase, and joined him directly at the curb. + +"Jump in," said Bowers, making room. + +"No time now." + +"But this is important--critical, in fact." Observing no sign of +compliance. Bowers lowered head and voice, murmuring, "You know I'm no +hand at carrying tales, Ross, but--" + +"You won't have to," cut in Shelby. "I know." + +"You know?" + +"Baffled sleuth--discovery by husband--shots--kicked down +steps--divorce case summons in the morning--you see the whole roorback +has come my way." + +"Roorback!" Bowers caught at the straw. "We can make a sweeping +denial, then?" + +"Whole hog or none." He smiled sarcastically into the face which had +so suddenly gone bright. "The truth has been so far outstripped that +you can't see it with a telescope. Get handbills printed denying the +story, denounce it as a partisan trick, and sign the statement yourself +as chairman of the County Committee. Have them distributed all over +town, and station men--men, mind you, not boys--with a supply just +outside electioneering limits at each polling place. If the yarn +spreads elsewhere in the district, wire our people to take similar +measures." + +"Ross!" Bowers called him back. "I don't need to tell you how glad I +am. I never believed it of you." + +"Thanks for the vote of confidence," laughed Shelby; "but I'd rather +you'd hurry the handbills." + +He had a more urgent reason yet, for wishing Bowers to take himself +off. A block or two up the street, where the trees began to interlace +their denuded branches and the court-house common sparkled with frosty +rime, he had seen the Widow Weatherwax accost Ruth Temple. The girl +had stopped when addressed, but almost immediately walked on, as if to +escape the little busybody who, nothing daunted, trotted at elbow for a +rod or more. Then Ruth came down the slope alone, and was intercepted +by Shelby at her gate. + +"I must speak with you," he said abruptly. "My good name is being +dragged in the dirt, and I must assure you--" + +"No, no," Ruth interposed. + +"I tell you I must. You have heard this calumny. I saw her stop +you--the woman who is peddling it from door to door. I must +speak--it's no time for mincing words--speak to you personally--Bowers +will answer to my constituency--speak to you personally, I say, appeal +to you to believe in me. You don't know what your belief in me has +been--my inspiration, my safeguard. Don't take it away--it's vital; +don't deprive me of all this on hearsay. Say you'll not. Give me a +sign--" + +"Go win in spite of it." In a single wave of generous impulse she had +spoken, put out her hand, and slipped past him, flushing, through the +gate. + +"I can't fail now," he exulted, detaining her an instant. "And victory +means so much. It means--listen: I'll tell you a thing I've breathed +to no one else; success to-day means the governorship two years hence! +It's been fairly promised me--the governorship! That's the great +stake--part of it, rather; you're the rest; you who believe in me and +bid me win. I've not changed my mind since the day we rode together. +I told you to think over what I said, and I've given you time. I meant +then to come to you on the night of my election--a victor--and so I +shall. I couldn't know that I should have the executive mansion to +offer you, but it's none too good. I'll come! I'll come!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +There was more solid ground than mere confidence in his destiny behind +Shelby's bold front. The earliest mail delivery had shed a glimmer of +hope in the shape of a midnight note from Mrs. Hilliard. He did not +require her reminder that the voting strength of Little Poland was no +longer to be counted in his column--he had thought and fought that out in +the small hours; but he did need and pounced upon the statement that +Little Poland's master would be out of town the greater part of election +day. The scrawl ended with an appointment for a clandestine meeting at +eleven o'clock, toward which he now bent his steps on leaving Ruth. + +Mrs. Hilliard had named a cemetery on the immediate outskirts as the +rendezvous--a choice on whose evil omen Shelby wasted no thought. In the +heyday of their flirtation he and Mrs. Hilliard had made frequent use of +it as a Platonic trysting-place, and he climbed the silent paths toward +the summit of the mount, as it was styled in that level land, with no +sentiment save approval of her wisdom in seizing upon the one spot in all +New Babylon whose privacy was certain. + +Mrs. Hilliard, shivering in the lee of a pretentious granite shaft which +bore her family name, was more susceptible. + +"Bleak--desolate," she chattered. "What an end for our Fools' Paradise. +But where else could we escape their prying eyes?" + +"You've heard what they're saying?" + +She nodded listlessly. + +"Who has not heard?" As they huddled in the shelter of the monument she +brooded over the plain below wherein the canal, livid, yet unfrozen +still, half girdled the town in a serpentine fold. Each chimney curled a +light spiral into the nipping air. "Under every one a wagging tongue," +she said. "It's known to every soul except one." + +"You mean he's still in the dark?" + +"He can't know yet. He took an early train to Centreport. It's some +quarry business that could not wait. I remembered it last +night--after--after you had gone; so I wrote. It was past two o'clock +before I dared steal out to post the letter." + +Shelby shrugged into the collar of his ulster. + +"I don't deserve all this," he muttered. + +"Don't say that. You've done things, too. You've stood for--things; +something to pin faith to. You are--" + +"I'm your good friend--remember that." + +"Friend!" + +He drew her farther into shelter, and tucked her furs about her throat. + +"Now concentrate your mind," he enjoined, "and tell me exactly the lay of +the land. Did he communicate with the foreman at the quarry before he +left?" + +"Yes. I overheard him telephone Kiska before breakfast. He said he'd +return at half-past three. There's no train to-day from Centreport till +then." + +"And there is no other till the polls close. He said nothing, then, +about voting the hands before afternoon?" + +"They're at work this morning." + +"On election day! You're sure?" + +"They're working half a day on full day's pay. Joe's hurrying some +contract through. I don't understand it very well, but the stone has to +be shipped before the canal freezes on account of--something--freight +rates--" + +"Never mind that. What did he say to Kiska about voting--that the men +should be ready at such and such a time?" + +"No, no; I know about that. Before anything happened it was arranged +that the men should vote about four o'clock. He merely told Kiska he'd +return at three-thirty." + +"Good, good!" exclaimed Shelby, making ready for action. "Every +naturalized mother's son in Little Poland shall vote for me before the +train can even whistle. Now, you go home, Cora," he charged, "and drink +something hot against this graveyard chill. Keep a stiff upper +lip--that's my creed. Everything blows over in time. The scandal is so +tall that it will topple of itself. Nobody will believe it after +election." + +"But Joe? Think of him when he learns what they're saying, and that +you've outwitted him." + +Shelby grinned. + +"That's the situation's one humorous phase," said he. "The two things +will neutralize one another's effect,--like Kilkenny cats, you know. +He'll not dare raise a row about the votes for fear of lending color to +the scandal." + +But Mrs. Hilliard, whose sense of humor was sluggish this morning, +rejoined bitterly;-- + +"The row will fall to me." + +"He needn't know your part in this--the matter of the votes; and as for +the other thing--well, after all, he is your husband, hard and fast, and +you'd best try and patch things up." + +She straightened, flashing him a stony look, and he braced himself for a +hurricane; but to his equal discomfiture she went down beside the shaft +in a passionate fit of weeping. + +"I should be under here," she sobbed; "I should be under here." + +Shelby, tingling to be gone, shifted from foot to foot, and offered some +blundering solace which she put away. + +"You've ceased to care," she accused. + +He protested, adding indiscreetly that she had done too much for him for +that. + +"You've filled the place he should have filled!" + +Shelby was silent, goaded to torture by the lapse of precious minutes. + +"There's only blackness ahead!" + +"Don't take the dark view," entreated Shelby, groping desperately for a +bright one. "The man can't live always--so much older than you--and +then--your life's your own--" + +The bowed figure shuddered. + +"It's a dreadful thing to do--but I've thought that, too. I can't help +it. You--you are the real one--the real one--" She waited. + +"Yes." It was screwed from him. + +"The real one--and if--I know I don't need your promise--but if--" + +"Yes, yes; of course if--" + +Neither of them would name the contingency. Shelby contrived a +leave-taking, and bounded down the terraced slopes. It was quite noon +when he reached the Tuscarora House, but without a thought of food, he +got his horse and buggy from the livery, speeding the harnessing with his +own hands, and whipped away for Little Poland. + +On reaching the Hilliard quarries he confronted unexpected obstacles. +The men had quitted work and scattered to their homes, and Kiska was to +be discovered neither in nor around the little office. However, the +Polish lad in temporary charge, Kiska's own son, was not slow to +recognize the original of the campaign lithograph which in his home +enjoyed honors second only to a highly-colored Madonna, and went flying +in search of his father. Shelby took instant advantage of his absence to +telephone Bowers, whom he luckily located at his midday meal. He learned +that the handbills had been sown broadcast with encouraging effect, and +that the general opinion of the voting public leaned toward unbelief. +Shelby told his whereabouts, and requested the prompt services of Jasper +Hinchey and three or four kindred spirits, ringing off after certain +mysterious, though concise, directions regarding a concert hall in the +Flats, which he meant shortly to utilize. + +He had barely hung up the receiver when a telegraph messenger from town +brought a despatch for Kiska. Shelby's breath shortened at sight of the +yellow envelope, but he mustered a specious unconcern, telling the boy +that the foreman's return, though certain, was not within immediate +prospect, and volunteered to receipt for the message himself--an offer +readily embraced by the lad, who, without a glance, pocketed the book in +which Shelby scrawled Kiska's own name, and fared away with a head aflame +from the bonfires of the coming night. + +The envelope was loosely gummed, and gave under gentle persuasion. +Shelby threw a glance from either window of the narrow room, and drew the +paper from its cover. It was from Hilliard at Centreport, and announced +that he had missed his train. The reader's delight was qualified by the +succeeding statement that he should come by the canal, and that the men +were to be in readiness. + +"He's hired a launch or tug," commented Shelby. "Horses aren't to be had +to-day for rubies or fine gold." + +He replaced the message, sealed the envelope, and flung it on the table, +catching sight of Kiska, as he did so, striding along the canal bank +toward the office. The big Pole burst into the room a moment later, his +simple face aglow at the meeting, and sputtered broken excuses for +keeping his preserver waiting. Shelby shook both his grimy hands, and +smilingly supposed that Kiska had made up his mind how he should vote. +Kiska's English was uncertain, but there was no misreading his +gesticulation. + +"And Little Poland?" insinuated the candidate, blandly. + +"Leetle Poland ees ein beeg vote," Kiska eagerly assured him; "joost ein +beeg vote for Meester Shelby. Whan you save me, Meester Heelyard he say +eef anybody no want to vote for you, he can joost valk aus de qvarry." + +"Very kind of him," said Shelby. "Now, since you all know your own +minds, I'd take it as a favor if you would get to the polls at the +earliest possible moment. The voting promises to be heavy toward the +close, and I don't care to have my friends inconvenienced. By the way, +Kiska," he broke off carelessly "there's a telegram for you over there. +It came not ten minutes ago." + +By dint of facial contortion Kiska puzzled out the meaning, and handed +the message to Shelby, who gave it grave perusal. + +"Ah," said he. "You see he's anxious about it, too. If there was any +way of reaching him by wire, we could relieve his mind; as there is not, +the wise course is to go ahead. His coming by boat is uncertain. It +will be a nice little surprise for him to find that you've got the votes +all in." + +So it seemed to Kiska, and the business of rallying Little Poland to its +civic duties was instantly got under way. Here, too, were obstacles. +Having been told to present themselves at a later hour, the villagers +were in all states of unreadiness; but by impressing this helper and +that, doing the work of three men himself, and with the reenforcement of +Jap Hinchey and his co-workers, whom Bowers hurried to the scene in a +hired carriage whose bravery of varnish made mock of their rags, Kiska at +last collected his compatriots. The rented vehicle was urged back at a +gallop to Bowers and continued public usefulness, and the whole body of +enfranchised Poles, under the escort of Kiska, Jap Hinchey, and his +fellows, trudged off in groups of five and ten to New Babylon. + +Little Poland lay within the same voting precinct as the Flats, and when +Shelby had assured himself that the straggling column was finally in +motion, he rode on in advance toward this quarter and the concert hall to +which he had made mysterious reference in his telephoned directions to +the Hon. Seneca Bowers. From the elevation of a canal bridge he searched +the waterway for a sign of Hilliard's coming, pondering anxiously whether +a pillar of smoke at the horizon's rim were his herald; but a glance at +his watch reassured. The train which Hilliard had missed was barely due, +and to cover the distance by boat meant an additional hour at least. +Employing a street urchin to lead his horse to its stable, he struck out +on foot for the Flats. + +At the tawdry concert hall everything was as it should be, and in the +brief interval before the arrival of the Poles he received inspiriting +news from one of his workers. Money was flowing, buckets of it, but +beyond doubt they held the longer purse. Their policy of offering high +prices to the floaters at the outset had drained the disciples of the +late Chuck O'Rourke before twelve o'clock, and patriots were now to be +had at bargain rates. Some few conscientious souls who could not see +their way to a Shelby vote had been induced to stay away from the polls +altogether; and at least a dozen irreconcilables had been laid by the +heels with bad whiskey before they had done protesting that not all the +powers of darkness could deter them from casting an unsullied ballot +under the emblem of the Square. + +The Poles came hulking in, Shelby himself keeping tally at the door, and +when Kiska had urged the last loiterer over the threshold, the key was +turned. Drinks were sparingly circulated, and Kiska harangued the crowd +briefly in Polish, hammering in Shelby's instructions for their conduct +in the voting booths, and impressing them with the fact that good cheer +in plenty would await them here on their return. Under the efficient +supervision of Jasper Hinchey and his lieutenants they were now guided to +the polling-place in squads of three or four, returning presently to +unlimited refreshment and a surreptitious two-dollar bill--shining +examples and incentives to such as had not yet voted to speed their going. + +Yet with all their willingness, the affair consumed time, and twice +Shelby went into the dusty wings of the stage to a window overlooking the +canal, and strained to detect the panting of a laboring launch or tug. +But the last quarryman voted, the polls closed, darkness fell, and Joe +Hilliard was not yet come. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A pleasant local custom fell this night into abeyance. Years out of +mind the adherents of the leading political parties had mingled +sociably before a non-partisan bulletin board in the courthouse, much +as hostile camps fraternize in the truce forerunning peace. But the +old, simpler order of things had suffered more wrenches than one in +this acrid congressional campaign, and the warring factions could unite +only on the hibernian proposition that union was impossible. One +party, therefore, made ready to gather in the accustomed place, the +other in the Grand Opera House, while seceding remnants from both +swelled the crowd in the street before the office of the _Whig_, which, +with unlooked-for enterprise, had prepared to announce the returns by +stereopticon. + +At six o'clock Shelby broke his fast with a ravenous meal at the hotel, +which Bowers shared, and three-quarters of an hour later the two men +shouldered through the boisterous mob in the streets to Shelby's law +office, where arrangements had been perfected to receive the returns by +messenger and private wire. The _Whig_ bulletin over the way had +already massed a constituency extending to the Temple lawn, which, in +default of definite news, it was edifying with views of foreign travel +and cartoons bearing on the larger issues of the election. Within +doors the telegraph operator was already installed at the ancient table +which had graced the grand-paternal distillery, and William Irons was +making good the tedium of a dreary day in the deserted office by +goggling from the ticking instrument to a consignment of iced champagne +just arrived from the Tuscarora House. + +Shelby was in rare fettle. + +"William, thou abstemious youth," he addressed the clerk, "I am tempted +to empty one of these cold bottles down your scandalized neck and pack +you off with another for the Widow Weatherwax!" + +He had the youth carry the wine to the rear room and set out glasses +against the coming of his friends, drinking a bumper meanwhile to +William's good health and the sentiment Confusion to Fusion. Never a +solitary winebibber, and William remaining recalcitrant, he returned to +the outer office and demanded "no heeltaps" of the operator and Bowers. +This accomplished to his taste, he crammed a greenback into the dazed +clerk's fingers and dismissed him for the night with the injunction to +buy and blow the biggest tin horn in New Babylon. + +His intimates now began to drift in, and the toast of Confusion to +Fusion enjoyed a wide popularity, the telegraph operator and the county +chairman being the only ones permitted to flag in the exacting +ceremonies which the occasion required. + +"I'll do my hurrahing when the returns are in," said Bowers, and +stripping to his shirt sleeves he took his station under a drop-light +and made ready to figure the local result. + +But the local returns were tardy. It developed early that throughout +the Demijohn split tickets had prevailed to an unprecedented extent. +Heretofore reliable localities ran after strange socialistic and +prohibition gods, to avoid voting for either of the leading candidates; +while Graves and Shelby both gained support in quarters where it would +have been sheer fatuity to hope. The hurrying news from the country at +large shamed the dribble at the threshold. Texas and Vermont, those +stock commonplaces of election night humor, went Democratic and +Republican by the usual majorities, and all signs pointed to a sweeping +victory for Shelby's party in state and Union. And still Tuscarora and +the Demijohn aped the Sphinx. + +Men elsewhere became curious. Bowers received and passed silently to +Shelby demands for a forecast from other county chairmen in the +district; from leaders prominent in the state; from great metropolitan +newspapers which were tabulating the congressional elections of the +nation and studying the complexion of the future House. + +"Claim the district, of course," directed Shelby. "Say we're +deliberate, but true blue." + +The drumming humble-bee [Transcriber's note: bumble-bee?] voice of the +crowd below the windows watching Volney Sprague's bulletin suddenly +lifted in a lion roar. Elation in that quarter was ominous, and Shelby +drew a curtain. It appeared that a minor revolt against the Boss in +New York City, with which the Tuscarora independents had felt +themselves peculiarly in sympathy, had made good its claim for +recognition. Shelby turned from the window with a laugh. + +"Merely a little extra diplomacy for Old Silky," he said. "Within a +twelvemonth each reformer will have a foreign mission." + +A tactless friend embraced the occasion to wonder where the Boss would +banish Bernard Graves should he chance to win; but even idle +speculation on such a possibility was so distasteful to the company +that the blunderer only retrieved his mistake by toasting Confusion to +Fusion anew. + +The returns from the laggard Demijohn presently thickened, and Shelby +left his seat to pace the floor, while Bowers, with an unlighted cigar +between his teeth, and looking very like Grant indeed, figured, +discarded, and figured again as successive reports modified his +calculations. + +"Never saw its equal--never!" he grunted. "Here's our own town hanging +fire till almost the last like some jay village in the Adirondacks. +We've always prided ourselves on being prompt." He caught a flying +sheet from the operator and groaned: "We _are_ the last! By the Great +Horn Spoon!" For Shelby's ear alone he muttered: "The last, Ross; New +Babylon's the last, and the die by which you lose or win. Figure it +yourself." + +Shelby ran through his senior's calculations and nodded without speech. +No one spoke now. Not a wine-glass tinkled. The room sensed a crisis. +By telephone, special messenger, and the instrument at the table the +belated story of New Babylon's vote pieced itself together under +Bowers's pencil. The candidate hovered above him, intent on every +stroke. + +"Good God!" he whispered suddenly; "it hangs on the Flats!" + +"Yes; it's the last precinct. They sent word that the thick-skulled +Poles and the rest had made an awful mess of the ballots. Tom"--to one +of the onlookers--"'phone the Flats again." + +But on the instant the Flats embodied itself in the doorway in the +person of a breathless messenger. Bowers's trembling fingers fumbled +the paper and cast it fluttering toward the floor, but Shelby fastened +on it in mid-air, read it, crumpled it, mechanically made it smooth +again, and laid it gently on his desk. There came a second roar from +the street, a medley of cheers, groans, hisses, and the blare of horns. +Shelby again drew a curtain. On the _Whig's_ screen was displayed a +huge rooster with the legend: IT'S GRAVES! + +Shelby caught a murmuring from the group behind him: vapid expressions +of regret, scorching condolence, pitying oaths; then the voice of a +newcomer, a newspaper correspondent, asking Bowers if they conceded +their defeat. + +He spun about, crying,-- + +"We concede nothing." + +The reporter said that the returns as received indicated a slight +majority for the fusion candidate. + +"We dispute the returns." + +"But, Ross,--" Bowers put in. + +"We dispute the returns. Should the official count be adverse, we +shall dispute that. In view of the methods employed by the allies of +the independents, it becomes nothing less than a public duty to carry +the contest to the floor of the House of Representatives." + +"It will be a House of your political friends," remarked the +correspondent, impersonally. "Shall I then quote you as claiming your +election?" + +"Most emphatically, yes. Quote me as confident of a verdict approving +my public course and rebuking the slanderous attack on my private +character." + +"What's the use?" protested Bowers, as the reporter hurried off in +quest of Bernard Graves. "It's too late to bluff." + +"Use," echoed Shelby. "I tell you, man, there's a blunder in the +returns. Look, man, look!" snatching up the report from the Flats. +"Isn't that arrant nonsense on the face of it? The Flats, mind you; +our own little pocket borough of the Flats! Don't talk to me about the +Poles muddling things; those inspectors of election can give them cards +for stupidity and take every trick. Let me 'phone the Flats." + +And he was right. The inspectors of the belated precinct, conscious of +unwonted delay, nervous from long weighing of defective ballots, +harassed by incessant demands for their report, had capped the climax +of their offending by announcing the result as favorable to Graves. +The mistake was discovered and rectified within fifteen minutes of its +commission. Shelby had carried the precinct, and with it the election +by something less than two hundred votes. + +Giddy with the reaction, the Hon. Seneca Bowers gulped glass after +glass of champagne, toasting Confusion to Fusion like the veriest +roisterer. + +"And we abused the Poles," he said in self-reproach. "Ross, it was the +Poles who saved the day." + +Shelby was the one self-contained being in the room. + +"Yes," he answered soberly, "it was the Poles." + +With stern straightforwardness the _Whig_ bulletin over the way had +promptly set forth the corrected result, and the crowd, now swollen by +more deserters from the tame gatherings in the little theatre and the +court-house, was clamoring for a sight of the victor whom everybody +knew was within hearing. Shelby's jubilant companions were puzzled at +his reluctance to comply with the popular demand. He declined to show +himself, however, till the arrival of a serenading brass band compelled +an acknowledgment, when he stepped from a window to a little balcony +and spoke a few grave words: he had never doubted their support, they +had repaid his trust, he was grateful; as he had championed their +lesser interests in the smaller field, so should he strive to further +their greater concerns in the national lists to which he was to pass +their chosen knight. + +Within the law office preparations were rife for adjourning to the +Tuscarora House as a less restricted arena for the celebration which +the fitness of things demanded. Shelby begged them to go before him, +promising to follow. + +"I need a few minutes to myself, boys," he said. "It's been a strain, +you know." + +They caroused away. Bowers the most jocund bacchanal of all; the +operator boxed over his instrument against harm and slipped out; and +Shelby was left solitary with the litter and the lees. One by one he +extinguished the lights, and in darkness, at length, halted at the +window from which he had so often marked the goings and comings of Ruth +Temple. The old house was brilliantly alight in its lower rooms; lit, +he dared hope, in honor of his triumph and his anticipated return. He +turned and left his office with elastic step. + +Fumbling with the lock in the dim light of the hall, he was spied from +below by a newsboy who came bounding up the stairs. + +"Extry! Extry 'dition of th' _Whig_, Mr. Shelby," he called. "Read +all about yer 'lection an' th' drowndin' accident!" + +"Drowning accident!" Shelby started and seized a paper. "Who is +drowned?" + +The lad did not know. He had not read beyond the headline which seemed +to promise salability. But in the obscurity of the landing Shelby came +upon the particulars swiftly enough. Skimming the brief despatch, here +a sentence, there a sentence seared itself into his memory. + + +"Missed his train at Centreport--conscientious citizen, valuing his +vote--hired a naphtha launch--collision--hampered by clothing--leaves a +sorrowing widow--" + + +"Th' extry 'dition is two cents," reminded the urchin. + + + + +BOOK III + + + +CHAPTER I + +The executive mansion was strewn with the wreckage of the inaugural +reception. A musky odor blent of plant life and massed humanity hung +thickly throughout the spacious rooms and corridors; the bower of palms +and flowery brightness at the foot of the great staircase, which had +fended the orchestra, and incidentally barred an intrusive if sovereign +people from the private apartments, was jostled and awry, its blossoms +half despoiled; here lay a trampled glove, there a shining shred of +braid, beyond an embarrassed cigar stump--dumb emblems of social +Albany, gold-laced officialdom, and the unaristocratic unofficial ruck, +whose mingled tide had beat upon the new governor's threshold in the +late hours of the afternoon. A clock somewhere about the scene of +devastation chimed midnight, and a man with attractive black eyes, who +had been monopolizing his hostess upward of two hours, outstaying all +other guests save one, now took his belated leave. + +"Yes; I prophesy a brilliant season, Mrs. Shelby," he said. "With a +woman of your talents in this house, Albany must at last awake." + +Cora Shelby returned to one of the smaller reception rooms, where an +open fire wrought changing shadows in the face of the Hon. Seneca +Bowers. + +"I think ex-Senator Ludlow is perfectly fascinating," she exclaimed. +"Have you known him long?" + +"All of ten years," returned Bowers, with a little tightening of the +lips. "Most everybody in politics knows Handsome Ludlow." + +"Ah, he is handsome. And so polished, too." + +Bowers found the topic difficult, and changed it. + +"What's your opinion of Ross's inauguration?" he asked. "I call it an +A-1 success." + +"It would have been a success," discriminated Cora, "a pronounced +success, if Ross had approached it with a tithe of the spirit I urged. +But no; simplicity, simplicity! You would have thought the affair a +transfer of Methodist parsons. No military escort to the capitol, no +decorations in the Assembly Chamber to speak of, no music, no anything +that the occasion demanded." + +"Fuss and feathers never did appeal to Ross," said the guest. +"Besides, I guess he thought the last administration had splurged +enough for two." + +"Their fine plumage covered as slovenly housekeeping as I ever saw," +interjected Mrs. Shelby, momentarily diverted from her husband's +shortcomings. "I wish you might have seen what I have seen in +out-of-the-way corners of this establishment. What the servants did +for their wages I can't conceive. But, after all, those people had the +right idea of upholding the dignity of the position. The ex-governor +didn't decline an escort to the capitol when he took office. That puts +me out of patience with Ross every time I think of it. Then, to cap +the climax, he didn't even take a carriage; he walked!" + +"Walked down with me," Bowers chuckled. + +"And, by Jove, nobody knew him. One of the orderlies wanted to keep +him out of the executive chamber." + +Cora shuddered, and the old man bestirred his wits to soothe her +outraged sensibilities. + +"You must remember that he made his run on an economy platform," he +reminded. "He believed it, too, every word. After all, you can't say +that you've not had things your own way here at the mansion." + +"It's a mercy I did. He would have had the house reception and the +staff dinner equally prim if I hadn't put my foot down. I said no; be +as puritanic as you please at the capitol, but the executive mansion +concerns me; I'm governor here." + +"Tolerably big commonwealth, too," commented Bowers, dryly. "Somehow +it puts me in mind of what I thought palaces were like when I was a +boy." + +"Oh, yes; it's well enough, though the decorations aren't to my taste; +but the location is very unfashionable--orphan asylums, hovels, +saloons, and all that under one's very nose." + +"I hadn't noticed the saloons." + +"Well, there's a saloon at any rate. I saw it to-day from one of the +south windows. The state was stupidly short-sighted to buy a house in +this quarter. The executive mansion ought to stand in Quality Row." + +"What's that?" asked Bowers. + +"Not much to look at--just a block or two of houses near the capitol, +not one of which could have cost more than my own place in New Babylon, +for all that famous people have lived in them; but it's the cream of +Albany." + +"Everything else is skim milk, I suppose?" + +Mrs. Shelby eluded the classification. + +"Nearly all that's socially significant is grouped thereabouts," she +pursued; "the cathedral, the Beverwyck Club, Canon North, and Mrs. +Teunis Van Dam. The canon and Mrs. Van Dam are the keys to the social +citadel, I assure you. Probably you noticed them on the platform at +the Inauguration. Then, she helped me receive this afternoon, thanks +to a bit of diplomacy." + +Bowers absorbed these esoteric deliverances in meekness. + +"It takes a woman to bottom such things," he said admiringly. "I guess +you'll pass." + +Cora herself harbored no doubts, but she disclaimed a single-handed +victory. + +"I shouldn't know all these things yet if it were not for the +governor's military secretary, Colonel Schuyler Smith. Do you know +him?" + +"I'm not sure that I can place the colonel," ruminated Bowers. "Is he +that blond young dandy whose sword got tangled in his legs?" + +"Yes, poor dear! He's not used to wearing it yet. But he's a +treasure. He's Mrs. Teunis Van Dam's grandson, you know, and like her +is descended from all those delightful old Dutchmen who make such +enviable ancestors, and have stained glass windows in the cathedral. +He knows who is who, I assure you. Ex-Senator Ludlow does too, for +that matter; though he doesn't care for Mrs. Van Dam's circle. He +thinks it too stately and old regime. He goes with the younger +set--Mrs. Tommy Kidder's--and he says Mrs. Tommy is quite my own style." + +The governor entered the room in the midst of these matters and +listened soberly. Shelby had taken on more years than his +congressional service spanned. His dark hair had grayed at the +temples; his old puffiness of jowl and dewlap had vanished; and the +strong bone framework of his head showed for what it truly was. +Tuscarora ancients, who remembered the pioneer, said that Shelby +favored his grandfather. + +Bowers turned to him with a laugh. + +"It's a mighty good thing you've got a skilled pilot in these waters," +he said. + +"Yes, Cora knows her way around," returned her husband. "I dare say +the world's a brighter place for this varnish, though I've noticed that +when you scrape through it people average much alike. It's meant more +to me to-day to have you here, old friend, than the notables. You gave +me my start." He hesitated, glanced at his wife, and added: "But they +were all welcome. Cora has come into her kingdom, and I wouldn't abate +a single courtier." + +"I've waited for my kingdom," she declared; "waited for it in sackcloth +and ashes. You can't call Washington anything else for a congressman's +wife. Her husband may get glory; she gets snubs. Now my turn has +come, and I've plans galore. Milicent's debut is one of them. I'll +bring her out with a ball when she has had enough of her finishing +school. Ex-Senator Ludlow thinks it an inspiration." + +The men exchanged a look. + +"Handsome Ludlow isn't an ideal adviser for young girls," dropped +Shelby, quietly. + +"He's a victim of gossip; he told me so. You and I know too well what +that means to countenance it. Besides, you're going to appoint him +commissioner of something or other--I read it in yesterday's papers; +but that's politics, I suppose." + +Shelby gloomed in his corner, but made no answer. + +Bowers essayed a diversion. + +"I saw Bernard Graves's wife in the assembly chamber this morning," he +remarked. "Seems to me she's looking rather peaked since her marriage." + +"Ruth Graves here!" exclaimed Cora. + +"I saw her too," said Shelby. "She congratulated me later in the +executive chamber. She has been living in New York this winter. +Graves is still lecturing around the country, telling how he wrote his +poem and what it's all about." + +"I presume she couldn't resist coming up to see how we would behave," +Cora reflected, aloud. + +"She is visiting Mrs. Van Dam," added the governor. + +"Of all people!" Mrs. Shelby's wonder was unrestrained. "I do +remember, though," she continued presently, "that she made friends here +when she was in Vassar College. It's plain enough why Mrs. Van Dam has +taken her up again. She wants to know all about us." + +It was an easy step now to the conclusion that perhaps such an old +friend really merited an invitation to the executive mansion. + +The governor brushed his forehead with a weary gesture, drew a chair to +Bowers's side, and unfolded a bundle of manuscript. + +"I know it's late," he said apologetically, "but there's a bit of my +message I'd like to read to you. There'll be no time in the morning if +you're still bent on taking the early train to Tuscarora. I'd like +your opinion whether it's what the plain people want." + +Mrs. Shelby found the reading unspeakably juiceless and went yawning to +bed. Nor did the governor detain Bowers long. A servant entering +presently discovered Shelby before the grate alone. + +"Don't wait up for me," he directed kindly. "I'll see to this fire, +and remember not to blow out the gas." + +The relic of the old regime restrained his surprise at these democratic +doings, smiled decorously, and withdrew. Jocosity slipped out at his +dignified heels. The man before the fire drank deep in self-communion, +and his face was grave. For the first time that crowded day he could +look his future in the face. Yet, evoked by a woman's handclasp in the +long line which had filed by him as he stood in the executive chamber +surrounded by his glittering staff, it was the past which most absorbed +him. It struck him as a wanton caprice of fate that they should have +been flung together that day. Ruth, whom he had promised a share in +these honors; Ruth, whom he had boasted that he would return and claim; +Ruth, whom he had put away because he must, because of a loftier +standard which--grimmest irony of all!--she herself had unwittingly set +up. He wondered--as he had wondered often in the years which had +witnessed her marriage, his own, and his rise to power--whether she +_had_ waited that night; whether she _had_ cared as he, apart from the +red passion of the struggle, could perceive that he had cared. + +A vagrant memory of the morning's inauguration intruded. The moment of +his oath had been a time of solemn consecration for him, a laying on of +hands unseen; the shades of his greatest predecessors stood round +about; the genius of the state was in presence. Then came Cora and +kissed him. Emotional souls in the gallery applauded the act, but the +husband divined its prompting egoism and was cold. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Neither the public nor the honorable body to which it was directly +addressed took the new governor's message stressing general +retrenchment and the pruning of useless offices seriously. Nothing in +the recent course of the party wooed faith in its promises to purge and +live cleanly, and the accident of a huge majority in the late +elections, owing to national issues, had set not a few mouths watering +for fruits of victory which had lately dangled out of reach. The +machine was perfected to its utmost, and the young year was held to +signalize the full flowering of the Boss's topping supremacy. The +great man was now master of the county committees of the metropolis and +the greater cities; of the State Committee; of the Legislature, of the +lieutenant-governor, and apparently of Shelby. The cartoons depicted +the chief executive as a craven monarch yielding his sceptre to the +leering power behind the throne; as a marionette twitched by obvious +wires; as a muzzled dog, ticketed with the Boss's name. + +Whereupon Shelby, in a quiet way, did an audacious thing. By an odd +chance the first enactment of the Legislature which reached his desk +affected Tuscarora County. It was a general measure concerning marsh +lands, philanthropically worded and fathered by an assemblyman from an +eastern county; but its special purpose, as Shelby fathomed, was to +give certain Tuscarora people a selfish advantage in a locality as +familiar to him as his hand. The Swamp, as Tuscarora called it, +embodied his boyhood notion of primeval nature, the one spot untamed +amidst tilled and retilled commonplaceness, the last fastness and +abiding-place of the unknown. Rude corduroy roads threaded the +wilderness in parts, and from this Red-Sea sort of passage the lad had +peered and questioned in delicious fear. Even now the man had but to +shut his eyes to recall it with the senses of the boy. Cowslip, wood +violet, and Jack-in-the-pulpit bloomed again, the scent of mint was in +his nostrils, fairy lakes lured amidst the ferns, and the way wound +through lofty halls whose wonderful pillars set foot in emerald pools +and sprang in vaulting hung high with wild grape. Once in those tender +years he had skirted the spot by night when owls hooted, unnatural +frogs boomed, will-o'-the-wisp stalked abroad, and Old Mystery held +carnival; that breathless experience almost outdid the delights by day. +All this issued from the phraseology of a bill--this, and something +more. He held the measure a day or two and invited its sponsors, +ostensible and real, to a conference. They were trained legislators, +with whom he had served and fraternized, and in this matter furthered +the interests of men in his native county who had backed him from the +beginning of his career. + +"Gentlemen," he said, regarding them quizzically, "this bill reminds me +of a Tuscarora story." They laughed at the familiar beginning, and the +governor laughed with them. "It's about a man who ran a grist-mill on +a creek fed by a certain swamp, which I guess you know about. He was +easy-going, the water was often too low for grinding, and the little +mill had business for six, since there wasn't a rival within thirty +miles. The pioneers came prepared to camp when they brought grist, and +I suppose loafed around pitching quoits and cursing the mill trust by +whatever name they called a monopoly then. One day along came a cute +boy astride a mule with two bags of grain. He sized up the crowd ahead +of him as he carried in his grist, and decided that if he waited his +turn the country would grow up without him. The miller happened to be +tinkering his water-wheel, so the boy got his bags into a dark corner +unobserved, and with a handful of mill dust gave his work the finishing +touch of ripe old age. I dare say you think he took the man in, but he +didn't. 'Bub,' said the miller, 'I used to do that trick myself.'" + +Shelby's old associates in log-rolling took the unmasking +good-naturedly, but declined the amendment he suggested. He dismissed +them with charming civility, jotted a laconic memorandum that the bill +meditated a raid on public property for private gain, and with the calm +of a gardener lopping a weed, withheld his signature. + +It were hard to say whose smart was shrewder, the spoilsmen's who +mourned the backsliding of a pal, or the professional reformers' who +chewed the galling fact that not one of the elect, but a practical +politician, had done this creditable thing. Both joined forces to +fling clods. In the greater world, however, Shelby's simple act won +swift approval. In the cartoonists' fancy the wires of the puppet-show +had gone awry, the dog bit the heel at which it slunk, the usurper's +knuckles were rapped by the sceptre he would have seized. The press +teemed with anecdotes and personal gossip of the governor. Everything +he did or said became of interest: his dress, his habits of work, his +Tuscarora stories, his domestic life. An admirer on Long Island who +bred bulldogs sent him a white pup trained to answer to the name of +"Veto." Triplets in the valley of the Susquehanna were christened +"Calvin," "Ross," and "Shelby," respectively. + +During this time no word passed between Shelby and the Boss. The +leader had not witnessed the inaugural ceremonies. Indeed, he had not +attended the inauguration of a governor since his party regained +control of the state. He and the governor-elect had lunched together +frequently, however, and in concord discussed the forthcoming message +and the party policy of the incoming Legislature. With two years of +common work and intimacy behind them, they felt slight need of +explanations. The machine as it stood was of their joint perfecting. +Accordingly, the Boss viewed the cartoons with his habitual serenity, +noted that a fund of good will was accruing to the party through the +personal popularity of the new executive, and smilingly assured the +reporters, who scented a quarrel, that Shelby was the right man in the +right place. He found no thorn in a special message reminding the +fortnight-old Legislature that, with the chief financial measures yet +untouched, the bills already introduced called for the outlay of +millions; nor did the speedy pruning of several sinecures, one of which +was held by that tried veteran, Jacob Krantz, dash his cheery +confidence. Krantz and the ousted were quietly found corporate +business openings of glittering promise, and the campaign slogans were +proved no mere catch-vote generalities. + +Meanwhile the ancient city of Albany privily assorted its impressions +of Shelby's wife, and awaited the dictum of Mrs. Teunis Van Dam. +Although it was by deeds, rather than speech, that she made her +judgments public, Mrs. Van Dam among her intimates did not deny herself +the luxury of a stout opinion vigorously expressed. + +"Mrs. Shelby's a fool," asserted the old lady in her positive way to +Canon North, "but, after all, one of our own church people and the +governor's wife." + +"Either claim is weighty," smiled North; "tenderness for the family +skeleton, respect for the state. United they're irresistible." For a +social autocrat the canon took his position simply. Indeed he would +have been rather astonished to learn that he was anything of the kind. +"But the governor--he's genuine," he continued musingly; "I'm drawn to +the man. He seems to me a power to be reckoned with--presidential +timber, perhaps. Of course all our governors are heirs apparent by +virtue of their office; but unlike so many of them, he isn't of a +stature to be dwarfed by the suggestion. I think him rather +Lincolnesque in a way, though I don't press the comparison. Perhaps +it's merely his smile--have you noticed it?--the 'sad and melancholy +smile on the lips of great men' that Amiel tells us is the badge of the +misunderstood." + +"Pshaw!" returned Mrs. Van Dam. "I've known two or three great men who +wore sad smiles. When a disordered liver wasn't at the bottom of it +'twas the wife." + +North gave over the argument. + +"Nobody would impeach Shelby's liver," he laughed. "He's as robust as +a patent medicine witness after taking." + +"Oh, I don't accuse Mrs. Shelby," rejoined Mrs. Van Dam, quickly. "The +governor's smile isn't the issue. One and one don't make one in the +state of matrimony any more than elsewhere on the globe, and whether he +and his wife agree or disagree doesn't interest me in the slightest. +What does concern me is the important fact that the mistress of the +executive mansion of the great state of New York appears not to know +certain things she ought, chief among them the true character of +ex-Senator Ludlow." + +"I'm afraid it's true," owned the canon. + +"Before Ruth Graves left I suggested that she intercede. She has tact, +knows the Shelbys well, and had received an invitation to visit them. +But she declined visit, intercession, and all. I'm sorry. Somebody +must speak to Mrs. Shelby, and an old acquaintance could carry off such +a mission with better grace." + +"Why didn't Graves come on with his wife?" inquired the canon, +irrelevantly. + +"Don't mention the simpleton! I've no patience with him--or with Ruth +for marrying him. We never can see the reason for other people's +marriages, but that one above all others was incomprehensible. If ever +a woman needed to marry a dynamo to bring out her best it was Ruth +Temple. And she married Bernard Graves--a man who has degenerated into +a _poseur_ before women's clubs. Marriages made in heaven indeed! +Give me Darwin and natural selection." + +"You really have something of the kind," laughed North. "She was a +free agent, his plumage evidently attracted in the old, old way, and so +she made her choice." + +"Fiddlesticks! Don't tell me that she made a fool of herself of her +own free will. That man isn't capable of stirring the emotions of a +poster girl with orange skin and purple hair, let alone a flesh and +blood woman. Something outside herself--don't laugh; I'm a woman and I +know--somebody, not Graves himself, bred that folly. If she were +another sort of nature, I'd say she married for spite; but she--" + +"For respite, perhaps--respite from herself. I've known cases. But +we're far afield from the Shelbys. Shall I approach the governor?" + +"No," said Mrs. Van Dam, with decision. "The wife is the one to see, +if I know anything of women, and this is a woman's task; I, clearly, am +the instrument, and shall not shirk." + +"You would have made an eminent surgeon," remarked North, with his slow +smile. + +The unflinching Good Samaritan selected an hour two days later when the +governor's wife was likely to be alone, and sent up her card. Not a +few women had sighed for a sight of Mrs. Teunis Van Dam's calling card, +and sighed in vain; but Cora Shelby, who had heard of these yearnings, +thanked her God that she was not as other women are, and glanced at the +pasteboard with indifference. + +"Yes; I suppose I'm at home," she said languidly, posturing for the +maid, and for a full half-hour left the august visitor waiting below +stairs while she turned the pages of a novel. + +The influence of Mrs. Tommy Kidder had determined this petty course. +This sprightly young person, being herself a real social force, shared +little of the awe in which Mrs. Teunis Van Dam was held by most of her +townsfolk and by all newcomers, and Cora, with her own ideas of the +part which she, as the governor's wife, should play, had taken Mrs. +Tommy's frothy nonsense at rather more than its surface value. She was +more than ever alive to Mrs. Van Dam's importance--her grandson, the +military secretary, was an ever present reminder; but she cherished a +quickened sense of her own importance, too, and was vigilantly alert to +withstand any sign or symptom of what Mrs. Tommy called "Knickerbocker +domination." + +Her first shaft, however, fell wide of the mark. Mrs. Van Dam serenely +assumed that her tardy hostess meant to pay her the compliment of a +more elaborate toilet, and employed the interval in an interested +survey of the changes wrought in the reception room's arrangement by +its new mistress. So absorbing did she find this occupation, that she +utterly missed the glacial temperature of Cora's greeting. + +"I must congratulate you on resurrecting that bit of mahogany," +declared the old lady, indicating a table. "I've missed that piece for +three administrations. Wherever did you find it?" + +"Really, I can't remember," fibbed Cora, resolving straightway to +banish it. + +The military secretary had suggested its restoration, and she jumped to +the conclusion that he had been inspired by his grandmother. + +"It's a real link with the past," added Mrs. Van Dam, with a far-away +look in her eyes. "I can recall it as long ago as Governor Tilden's +time." + +The great Mrs. Van Dam's cordiality thawed Cora in spite of herself, +and she was well in the way of unconditional surrender to her charm +when the caller cut straight into the pith of her errand. + +"Without beating about the bush, my dear," she began, "I'm here on a +meddlesome business which you mustn't take amiss. As an old woman who +has seen something of the world in general, and much of this queer +little Albany corner of it in particular, you must permit me to tell +you that you have been too generously lenient with a person who has +forfeited the right to darken decent people's doors. I mean ex-Senator +Ludlow; and I presume I needn't specify his misdeeds." + +"No. You need not," rejoined Cora, stiffening. "I'm not interested in +scandal." + +Mrs. Teunis Van Dam straightened rigidly in her chair. + +"I fear that, after all, I must particularize," she replied. +"Obviously you can't know the truth of things." + +"I know that his wife divorced him, and I have heard a dozen or more +malicious tales about his present life. I doubt if you can add to the +collection." + +"You put me in a false position." + +"And you reflect on mine in assuming to dictate whom I shall receive. +This house belongs to the state. Every citizen is welcome." + +Mrs. Van Dam had gathered her furs and risen, but at this she paused. + +"There," she exclaimed, with a little laugh, "what women we are! I've +been talking of one thing, you of another. You have the right view of +your official obligations precisely. Of course the man is free to come +to your public receptions. The state can't establish a moral +quarantine, more's the pity." + +"Ex-Senator Ludlow is free to come to my house at all times," cut in +Cora, with a brilliant crimson dot in either cheek. "I do not sit in +pharisaical judgment on the unfortunate. I've had his story as well as +that of you who are against him. I believe him a misjudged man who +deserves a courageous friend." + +"Oh, if it is a question of friendship--" and Mrs. Van Dam terminated +sentence and interview with a shrug. + +Yet Cora had not seen the last of her visitor's stately back before she +repented her open championship of Handsome Ludlow. Knickerbocker +domination, not conviction, had forced her hand. Since she had hung +her banner on the walls, however, she resolved to stand fast, and the +following Sunday morning issued an unmistakable declaration of war. On +her way to service she saw Ludlow crossing the park before the capitol, +and stopped her carriage. + +"'Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remember'd,'" quoted the man, +his handsome, impudent eyes on hers. + +"I propose that you'll do that for yourself," Cora retorted archly. +"Get in." + +She had intended going to the cathedral, but withal sudden resolve she +ordered the carriage driven to an older church just at hand, which time +out of mind had made special provision for the head of the state, down +whose central aisle she marshalled Ludlow, and installed him in the +governor's pew. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Had the protest against Knickerbocker arrogance languished at this +pass, history would be the poorer, but Cora Shelby found it impossible +to stop with this show of independence. Her ambition was whetted for +an exercise of actual power, and the outcome was the famous battle of +Beverwyck, whose story still lacks its balladist. + +Early in her survey of Albany society, Cora had met with the Beverwyck +Club. + +"It is the local academy of immortals," instructed the military +secretary. "Its judgments may not be infallible, but they're beyond +appeal. It is the pink of exclusiveness; it worships etiquette above +all other gods; and its receptions to incoming governors demand the +reddest lettering in the calendar." + +When Shelby's turn for this signal honor drew near, and the military +secretary, to whom Fortune, not content with sending him into the world +a grandson of Mrs. Teunis Van Dam, had added membership in the +Beverwyck Club, approached him to discuss preliminaries, the governor +cheerfully referred him to his wife in whose social knowingness he +placed an abounding trust. Of Albany other than as a legislative +workshop he knew next to nothing. His social progress in the salad +days of his first term in the Assembly had begun in a saloon behind the +capitol much frequented by departmental clerks, whence through hotel +corridor intercourse he evolved by his second session to a grillroom, +patronized by public servants of higher cast who gave stag dinners and +occasional theatre parties, which called for evening dress. Up to this +period Shelby had never found evening clothes essential to his +happiness. His little sectarian college had rather frowned on such +garments, and he, too, for a time had vaguely considered them +un-American. Yet, taught by the grillroom, he assumed this livery, +wore off its shyness, and grew to like it for the best it signified. +Here evolution paused. Mrs. Teunis Van Dam, Canon North, and the +Beverwyck Club, so far as they stood for anything, peopled a frigid +zone of inconsequence which he had no wish to penetrate. Washington, +influence in his party, and intimacy with its leaders sophisticated him +before his return; behind every mask he now discerned a human being; +and no social ordeal terrified. Nevertheless, something of his +old-time diffidence toward the unknown country beyond the grillroom +lingered, and it made for peace that his wife seemed so competent to +guide. + +On the score of her competency, Cora entertained no misgivings, and the +day following Handsome Ludlow's public elevation to sanctity she met +the club's representatives, the military secretary, and an august judge +of the Court of Appeals, with a self-possession she felt would grace +the daughter of a belted earl. The judge, after some ponderous +compliments, told her that the committee in charge, having assured +itself through the secretary that the governor and herself had no +conflicting engagement, had agreed upon a near date for the reception, +which he named. Cora promptly decided that in not consulting her the +military secretary had been wanting in respect, and to punish him +invented a previous engagement out of hand. Withered by his senior's +Jove-like frown, the young man apologized in hot-skinned contrition for +his ignorance of the unknowable. + +"It's barely possible I didn't mention it," dropped Cora, scrupulously +fair. + +This gracious intercession for the culprit had no weight with the +judge, who continued to regard the secretary with severity, and left +him wholly out of the discussion of a date which should meet her +wishes. This matter settled without further affront to her dignity, +the judge expanded under her flattering attention, and gossiped of the +reception itself. + +"Between ourselves," he confessed, "the invitation list is bothering us +unconscionably. You see, it has expanded beyond our space. At the +last governor's reception the club-house was invaded by a mob--a mob, +madame,--there is no other expression,---which I need not add is out of +keeping with our traditions. But how draw the line without offence?" + +With the dregs of her wrath against Mrs. Van Dam stirred afresh by the +disciplining of the grandson, Cora perceived and seized the opportunity +for a swingeing blow. + +"There's an absurdly simple remedy," she returned thoughtfully; "but of +course it would hardly become me to offer suggestions." + +"My dear madame," the judge protested, "it would be an act of charity." + +After a politic interval of coaxing, Cora explained:-- + +"The reception is meant to be official in spirit, isn't it? Then why +not make it so in fact? Limit your invitations to the official circle. +If all the townspeople unconnected with the government are excluded, no +one need take offence." + +A few days afterward the invitations went forth, restricted according +to Cora's plan, and the heart-burnings which were kindled scorched the +club's self-esteem like nothing in its staid career. But while others +merely bewailed the amazing fact of their exclusion, Mrs. Teunis Van +Dam, with characteristic energy, determined to probe the indignity to +its author, and summoned her grandson to an absorbing interview. + +"Schuyler Livingston Smith," she inquired, "what is Mrs. Tommy Kidder's +relation to public affairs that she should receive an invitation to the +Beverwyck Club?" + +The secretary named an insignificant board of which Mr. Kidder was a +member. His grandmother rapidly instanced a dozen other names, and +repeated her question. In most cases the young man had to confess his +ignorance of their claims. + +"So," she commented in the end; "so. And I, whose people have helped +govern this community since there was a colony to govern, am beyond the +pale! But who was Peter Stuyvesant beside Mrs. Tommy Kidder's husband? +Nobody. Who was Abraham de Peyster? who was Gerardus Beekman? who was +Rip Van Dam? And the Schuylers, Livingstons, and Van Rensselaers? All +nobodies. My dear child, what lunatic in the Beverwyck Club suggested +this official classification, which even the Archangel Michael could +not carry out?" + +Her grandson, with no friendly recollections, named the judge. + +"The silly old man!" exclaimed Mrs. Van Dam. "And who inspired him?" + +He cheerfully told her, with the added detail that Mrs. Shelby and the +judge had subsequently gone over the invitation list together. She was +silent for a time, and then dismissed him. Alone with her thoughts, +she elaborated a countermine, whose energy was specially directed +against the Beverwyck Club, though she had no objection to hoisting the +governor's wife in the explosion, albeit she refused to consider her +the real antagonist. The true offender was the exclusive organization +which had prostituted itself to such ignoble influence. + +Within an hour of her grandson's departure Mrs. Teunis Van Dam +despatched an invitation of her own. The Beverwyck Club reception was +scheduled to run its formal course from nine to eleven o'clock; Mrs. +Van Dam asked the governor and his lady to dine with her on the same +evening at the hour of eight. + +All hinged now on the personal equation of Cora Shelby, whose vagaries +the old lady owned herself quite unable to forecast. Nor in this +respect was Cora herself a much wiser prophet. Her first instinct, +mixed with wonder, was to decline, and she held to this opinion the +better part of an hour. Yet before the impulse could stiffen into +resolution, it met the neutralizing influence of the old town, which, +partly through the military secretary, partly through the scoffing +Ludlow, she had unwittingly assimilated. By these teachings she had +learned the flattering, almost royal, significance of Mrs. Teunis Van +Dam's dinner invitations. She was seized afresh by a curiosity to +observe how they did things in Quality Row, and became of two minds +forthwith. Appointed for the same evening as the club reception, the +dinner had, moreover, the look of a peace overture, a concession to her +power, even an admission of defeat, which was soothing. She could +hardly present the matter to Shelby in this light, as she had withheld +all mention of the Ludlow business from his ear; but with a generosity +which astonished herself, she dwelt on Mrs. Teunis Van Dam's undoubted +prestige, and ended by advising acceptance. + +Shelby, preoccupied with an appeal for the pardon of a consumptive +forger, mechanically agreed. + +"Sooner or later we'd have had to endure both functions," he said. "It +is time saved to pack them into one evening." + +Cora bridled. It was a prodigious affair for her that he took so +indifferently. + +"Time, time," she reprimanded; "the state doesn't expect its governor +to grub like a clerk." + +Shelby promised to mend his ways; but the dinner and reception occupied +his thoughts so little that he worked beyond his usual hour at the +capitol on the afternoon of the appointed day, and, coming tardy home, +was late in dressing and late in setting forth. Cora was indignant to +the boiling-point. She meant to be behind-hand at the reception, as a +display of what she deemed good form; but a dinner was a dinner, as her +husband, in the privacy of the carriage, was taught past all +forgetting. Yet his fault lost its gravity before Mrs. Van Dam's +welcome. + +"If you're really late, I'm delighted," she returned to Cora's +embarrassed excuses; "for you see, I've just found that I must +apologize for a delay myself. What a boon servants run by clockwork +would be! But it won't be very long." + +It was long, though neither of the guests suspected it. Shelby was +diverted by Mrs. Van Dam's unimagined vivacity; while his wife had no +immediate room for any impression save satisfaction that this autocrat, +who held that punctuality should be the politeness of democracy no less +than princes, had been caught napping. It was clear that she meant to +bury the hatchet, and Cora, with her own point carried, saw no reason +why she should not add a shovelful of symbolic earth herself. Thus, +beginning with a trickle, the flow of her good humor presently +broadened to the width of the sluice-gate, as she entered upon an +absorbing scrutiny of the quaint old house which by tradition had +served one of the earlier governors. It was a rambling structure of +unexpected turns and endless alcoves stored with curios, art treasures, +and trophies of travel. + +Perceiving their interest in their surroundings, Mrs. Van Dam gladly +played the cicerone. + +"That chair and desk came from the Senate Chamber of the old State +House," she said, following Shelby's eyes. "They were used by my +grandfather, and I luckily got them at the demolition. His wooden +inkstand and pounce-box are there too. That Stuart over the +mantelpiece is his portrait." + +"I've heard of him," answered Shelby, warmly. "He upheld De Witt +Clinton's hands in the fight for the canal." + +She left him momentarily to give Cora the history of a faded Flemish +tapestry that lay in a cabinet, and then included them both in the +romantic tale of a Murillo, unearthed in a Mexican pawnshop, which she +assumed would interest so steadfast a champion of art as the governor +had shown himself in his congressional career. Cora basked in the +exquisite flattery of being treated as a person of greater cultivation +than she was, and strained on tiptoe to merit her reputation. Had her +mind been free to register its ordinary impressions, two things might +have struck her as singular; the absence of other guests, and, stranger +still, in a temple of punctuality, the lack of clocks. + +The same happy atmosphere enveloped the dinner itself, whose perfection +of service and cookery betrayed no hint of delay. Mrs. Shelby found +her views of life and the sphere of woman sought for and appreciated, +and the governor was enticed into political by-paths illustrated by +Tuscarora stories told in his happiest vein. He was frankly charmed. +Many women had attracted him in many ways, ranging from the earthy +fascination of the sometime Mrs. Hilliard to that commingling of +girlish impulse, mature good sense, and an indefinite something else in +Ruth which swayed him still; but none of them had met him on quite the +serene plane of this delightful old woman of the world. By her +birthright she seemed to bridge the present and the past, and under her +spell the quaint-gabled Albany of another century rose again. Once +more Arcadian youth picnicked in the "bush" and coasted down Pinkster +Hill past the squat Dutch church; the Tontine Coffee House sprang from +dust, and through its doors walked Hamilton and Burr, Jerome Bonaparte, +and a comic-pathetic _emigre_ marquis, who in poverty awaited the +greater Bonaparte's downfall, cherishing his order of Saint Louis and +powdering his poll with Indian meal; the Livingstons and Clintons +divided the land between them; Van Buren and the Regency came to power. + +There was more of this when the dinner had ended, and they lingered in +the library over their coffee and Mrs. Van Dam's priceless collection +of relics of the time of the royal province and the yet earlier New +Netherland. + +"A plague on the reception!" exclaimed the governor in the carriage, +when the good nights had finally been said. "I could have talked with +her till morning." + +There was a lively stir and bustle about the entrance of the Beverwyck +Club as they approached, which Cora took to be that of late-comers like +themselves. She would have preferred that she be conspicuously the +last,--the climax. Seen nearer, the flurry was peculiar. If the idea +were not preposterous, she could believe that people were actually +leaving the club--leaving before they met the governor in whose honor +they assembled--leaving before _she_ came! + +"Your watch, Ross, your watch," she exclaimed suddenly. + +"I did not wear it." + +She bethought her of a recently acquired carriage clock whose face the +lights of a passing trolley made plain. She looked, gasped, and looked +again in horrid fascination. The punctilious Beverwyck Club had +decreed that its reception should end at eleven, and the decrees of the +Beverwyck Club were rigidly enforced. The carriage clock pointed its +inexorable hands to a quarter past. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Thenceforth Cora Shelby's respect for the fearless strategist in +Quality Row verged upon awe. If Mrs. Teunis Van Dam now deigned to +assist at one of the weekly house-openings, the occasion savored of an +aroma which the united patronage of Mrs. Tommy Kidder and the ladies of +the lieutenant-governor, the secretary of state, the controller, the +treasurer, and the entire bench of the Court of Appeals could not +exhale. Cora made sure of her good offices for the legislative +reception weeks in advance, and in all matters, save only Handsome +Ludlow, deferred anxiously to the great exemplar's code. + +No one who thought twice about Mrs. Van Dam escaped the reflection that +she was a descendant, and Cora with her mind running continually on +this shoot of a peculiarly sightly family tree, was as fired by this +truism of natural law as if it had lain all the centuries awaiting her +discovery. Those delightful magicians of figures, who as easy as +asking prove William the Conqueror the mathematical begetter of us all, +had hitherto contented her; but such sweets cloyed before Mrs. Van +Dam's august line of Dutch and English forebears, who had considerately +made history and bequeathed portraits and plate. But the path of +Japhet in search of a father was primrose beside the American's in +search of an ancestor, and Cora's researches were long barren of +result. The labyrinth of Brown, her maiden name, she speedily forsook, +though at the outset it seemed to run promisingly to knighthood, +literature, and art; Huggins, her mother's name, was impossible, and +Hilliard, more sounding, clearly out of the question; while the +Shelbys, to whom she turned in last resort, seemed hopelessly +commonplace. Ross's father, to her own knowledge, had done little but +drink; and the grandfather, though of sterner stuff, as became a +pioneer, was handicapped by his unlucky distillery. The governor's own +notions about his family were the vaguest. Like many Americans, he had +the impression that its beginnings traced to two brothers who +immigrated to this country prior to the Revolution in which they served. + +"The Revolution seems to be the Norman Conquest of American genealogy," +he remarked in the course of his wife's cross-examination. + +"But don't you know their names, or what they did in the war?" she +queried anxiously. + +Shelby shook his head. + +"Perhaps they were teamsters," he laughed. + +Cora was too pained to jest. Mrs. Van Dam was a "daughter" of this and +that society by virtue of descent from generals. + +For a time the chase now circled teasingly round a southern branch +whose achievements were notable, but the unconcern of the distiller +with regard to vital statistics balked a happy union of North and +South, and goaded Cora to that last desperate ditch of the +ancestor-hunter--a blind leap over seas. In the fortunate isles where +choice forefathers flourish thick as buttercups, Cora made her foray +with hunger's lawless haste, enlisted the aid of an indigent person +skilled in blazonry, and in good season brought her spoils to the +governor. + +"I've had bother enough getting this," she said, exhibiting a coat of +arms; "but I must say it's far prettier than the one we saw in Mrs. Van +Dam's library." + +"Runs mainly to red, doesn't it?" Shelby ventured, gravely considering +the work. + +"That's gules," explained Cora, learnedly; "the color of the field. +Books of heraldry describe the arms as: 'Gules, two boars' heads +displayed in chief and a mullet in base, sable; crest, a dexter arm, +embowed, grasping a cimeter--'" + +"I took that for a crumb-scraper," put in the governor, jocularly. + +"The motto," went on Cora, soberly, "is, 'I achieve.' I think the +purple of the mantling highly effective--purpure, that's called--which, +taken with the red and black, would give a most romantic light to our +hall in New Babylon if we put a window at the turn of the stair. +Tomorrow morning I shall order a die made for my stationery." + +"So this is ours," said Shelby. "Did the original owner acquire it in +the Holy Wars, or was he a rich brewer who endowed a hospital?" + +Cora reddened. + +"He was Owen Shelby, a Welsh soldier of the Commonwealth." + +"A near relation of mine?" + +"You are undoubtedly his descendant. Of course I can't supply every +trifling link--your people were so careless of their records; but there +is no question in my mind that you are entitled to his arms, and you +ought to be grateful to me for my pains." + +"I am, I am," protested Shelby, with a chuckle. "But before the +engraver begins work on the crumb-scraper and the prize pigs let me +suggest that you add a detail which has been overlooked. I mean a bar +sinister." + +"Ross!" + +He slipped his arm round her waist with a laugh. + +"One of the state library people said that you were trailing the +foreign Shelbys, and I glanced at your references. The fact I remember +best is that Owen Shelby, late of Cromwell's Ironsides, died a +bachelor." + +She flung from him in stormy anger. + +"I've twice been fool enough," she flashed, "to marry a man unable to +appreciate me." + +He winced. The reproach, more wanton than any she had ever framed, +lashed him on the raw. The manner of his succession to Joe Hilliard's +shoes had fostered an almost morbid solicitude for her well being which +had not seldom over-topped his better judgment. If he had failed of +his duty, it was not for lack of striving. + +"I've tried, Cora," he answered bitterly. + +Neither broached a formal reconciliation--such crude devices fell into +disuse early in their marriage; but the man gave her social hours he +could ill afford in the press of the closing session, and presently a +tremendous event from the outside patched, if it could not heal, the +breach. This was nothing less than the launching of Shelby's +presidential boom. + +Three factors contributed to this movement: the return of prosperity, +the governor's personality, and the Boss. Shelby won his election in a +midnight of universal hard times; his inauguration saw the dawn; the +legislative session closed amidst a sunrise of splendid promise. By +the deathless fallacy which credits or blames the ruling powers for +everything, natural or supernatural, Shelby's party reaped abundantly +where it had sown with niggard hand. The governor's personal deserts +were more solid, the public recognizing his retarding ratchet as the +cause of the machine's continence and the lowered tax-rate. Apparently +the Legislature bore him no ill will for his curbing hand. A quiet +word had issued from the Boss that the governor's vetoes must stand, +and Shelby's one pet measure, the appointment of a commission to deal +with the improvement of the canals, had passed both Houses by a vote +which was almost non-partisan. A spontaneous demand seemed to well +from the people that this faithful steward be sent higher. + +But Shelby knew something of the rearing of that tenderest of plants in +the political garden--the spontaneous demand. In the voice of the +people he had so often read the will of the Boss. The inspired +laudations of country editors, the resulting echoes in the city press, +the interviews with the knowing ones who withheld their names, the +genuine momentum lent by the easily impressed--all the covert workings +of spontaneity were known to him from the days of apprenticeship at the +Boss's feet. The method was transparent, the motive only was hazy; yet +he divined the motive itself with sufficient accuracy. The Boss +thought he knew too much. It is well to make your own governor, but to +make him too well is ill. It was this one's drawback that he had +passed the No Admittance sign of the workshop and got the trade secrets +of the boss business at his finger ends. The pupil smiled sometimes +when he recalled the first great rencounter with the master. The birch +and frown no longer terrified. Evidently the Boss knew this, and +failing the birch, dangled a prize. + +What Shelby did not divine was the incentive force of pique. While the +leader gave his smiling interviews to the reporters on the subject of +the governor's vetoes, he had too often had to dissemble that his +earliest information came from them. He did not resent the vetoes, if +they made party capital; nor did he resent Shelby's popularity, for he +liked him. The bitterness of the cup was that the ingrate took no +pains to inquire whether he cared or not. It is true that in large +questions Shelby had uniformly sought his counsel, and the session had +been fairly prolific in legislation redounding to the party credit; but +the governor's independence in the lesser matters attainted his +loyalty. What the one man considered upholding the dignity of his +office, the other interpreted as leze-majesty. + +Shelby's attitude toward the presidential chit-chat was frankly human. +Too modest to measure himself beside the greater successors of +Washington, he yet knew himself to be as well equipped as many who had +held the office; and, without troubling his sleep, determined that +should the boss-made boom attain genuine popularity, it might drift +where it would without hindrance from him. Precisely this occurred. +The governor's practicality smoothed the way to his indorsement by men +whose foremost interest was business rather than politics, and a +banquet given him late in April by a great commercial organization of +New York, which approved his policy of letting the city mind its own +affairs, set him definitely in the race. + +Throned in a gallery above the diners; courted by heroines of by-gone +horse shows, the hem of whose garments she had never dreamed to touch; +with the White House looming mistily through the sheen of silver and +crystal and napery under tinted lights, Cora viewed the taking +spectacle as a personal apotheosis. A silly periodical for "ladies" +had recently printed an article about her which ascribed Shelby's +making to herself, and she, in this rosy hour believing, looked upon +her handiwork, and saw that it was tolerably good. Statesmen, +diplomats, captains of industry, the smiling Boss--a very parliament of +brains--did the governor honor, and the most famous after-dinner +speaker in the land proclaimed him New York's favorite son. + +To most of his listeners Shelby's reply seemed admirable. A morning +paper called it "a little classic of straightforwardness"; but his +king-maker aloft thought his bearing too simple by far. If he listened +to her, he would tip his presidential lightning-rod more showily. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Summer leaped a hotbed growth from spring, and Cora Shelby, tiring of +golf, the country club, and Albany's now mild pastimes, took herself +off for a round of fashionable resorts with Mrs. Tommy Kidder. The +governor had other occupations. So far as a man could do such a thing, +he put his presidential chances out of mind and bent his energies upon +a study of the canal problem, whose solving he was ambitious to make +the monument of his administration. As a legislator he had been +recognized as an authority upon this his hobby; but the knowledge of +the assemblyman was shallow beside that of the governor, who asked no +fairer laurel than to link his name with the regenerated Erie Canal as +the second Clinton had associated his name with its beginnings. + +Throughout the languid heated term whose official calm only the +occasional request of a fellow governor for requisition papers +disturbed, Shelby plodded over the bewildered mass of estimates, maps, +and mazy statistics which his special committee was accumulating. A +more brilliant man doubtless would have left much of this arid drudgery +to subordinates, contenting himself with the sum of things, without a +close scrutiny of detail; but this was never Shelby's way. When he +mastered a subject it was his blood and bones, and his passion for the +Ditch transmuted its story, howsoever told, into stuff that splendid +dreams are made on and modern empires built. + +Those arduous months were the happiest he had known. He toiled +mightily, but he wrought at a labor of love, while his leisure hours +fostered friendships as novel as they were attractive. Cora Shelby's +campaign of the watering-places had not embraced Milicent, and the girl +returned from school in June to find her mother already gone. She +dutifully made known her arrival in Albany, and in time deciphered from +a patchouli-scented scrawl postmarked "Bar Harbor" that Albany was an +excellent spot for her to remain. + +"She says that summer hotels are no places for young girls," Milicent +told her stepfather. "Why then does mamma care about them?" + +The governor was nonplussed: but he quietly set himself to make Albany +tolerable for this astonishing young person, yet scant of seventeen, +who had suddenly flowered into the outward semblance of a woman. He +devised excursions on the river and pilgrimages to historic spots about +the city and the countryside, acquiring strange antiquarian lore of the +Schuyler house, the Van Rensselaer mansion, and the Vanderheyden +Palace, and, more curious still, a perception of his deep capacity for +affection. This child of the Hilliards' better selves, with her +father's frankness, her mother's earlier beauty, and with a winsomeness +all her own, awoke his slumbering instinct of fatherhood. + +The wholesome new relation quickened his insight amazingly. He divined +that however much the girl might care for these wayside rambles with +him, her youth must still crave youth, and in this strait he turned to +Mrs. Van Dam, who forthwith became Milicent's captive, too, and a fairy +godmother into the bargain. So Shelby came much to frequent a +vine-screened upper veranda off Mrs. Van Dam's library, where she was +fond of serving coffee after dinner, and one could dip down over the +red roofs and tree-tops to the stripling Hudson changing its coat of +many colors in the sunset. As this corner was a haunt of Canon +North's, also, it fell out that a friendship sprang up between the men +which strengthened into intimacy. Shelby had never dreamed of making +friends with a clergyman. The sectarian college had put him out of +joint with priestery. But North was in a class by himself. He had no +sacerdotal air or jargon--that negative virtue was his earliest +passport; and he was from crown to sole a robust manly man. The +governor took to dropping into the canon's book-lined study near the +cathedral after office hours, and North would come to the executive +mansion and smoke half the night away; for the canon was a judge of +tobacco no less than men. Not once in their intercourse did he mention +church-going or creeds; he did not "talk religion." Yet, whatever the +canon's religion was, Shelby was aware that he lived it. The air was +full of little stories of his helpfulness of the sort people told of a +man North once alluded to as "Saint" Phillips Brooks. + +Milicent went to the Catskills late in August as the guest of a school +friend, and after a day or two of novel loneliness, the governor +decided to carry out a recently formed plan for supplementing the work +of his committee with a personal inspection of a part of the canal +system. As it seemed to him that he could get at the best results by +quiet means, his journey was presented to the press in the light of a +business trip to his old home. For forty-eight hours his leisurely +progress with his private secretary escaped remark. Then the +newspapers upset his apple-cart. Shelby had become too interesting a +figure for the role of Haroun-al-Raschid, and the paragraphers rang +astonishing changes on his adventures at the few points where he had +succeeded in making observations unrecognized. What he saw thereafter +was accompanied by the click of cameras and the fatuity of local +bigwigs brimming with eagerness to tie their fortunes to the car of the +coming man. + +At New Babylon, where he became the guest of the Hon. Seneca Bowers, +the minute espionage upon his doings ceased, and Shelby felt less a +personage than at any time since his inauguration. The town was proud +of him, but too faithful to its ancestral reserve to tell him so. +People who had called him "Ross" all his days addressed him in this +fashion still; and the Widow Weatherwax calmly imposed an audience in +the matter of her last will and testament, which the new-fledged +lawyer, William Irons, had bungled, and spiced the renewal of their +relations with her old-time candor and a full chronicle of the past, +present, and probable scandal of the county. In little ways, however, +the governor perceived what close-mouthed Tuscarora really felt. They +had hung a crayon portrait of him in the court-house, and the Pioneer +Association, which was about to hold its annual picnic beside Ontario, +asked him to deliver the address. + +Shelby accepted the invitation, and, saturated as he was with the +homespun history of his county, excelled himself. But he did something +more than retell a familiar tale. A product of this life, he +nevertheless saw it from the outside and in its wide relations, and the +canal-begotten civilization, which was his immediate theme, led +irresistibly to the vast economic problem that lay near his heart, and +to a suddenly formulated plan for its solution. By one of those +inspirations of the moment which public speakers know, yet dare not +count upon, the vexing details of his summer's drudgery shifted and +rearranged themselves into a coherent pattern and policy whose +fulfilment should place the historic waterway, not merely abreast of +the age, but bulwarked for the future. It was a significant utterance +which carried far. Shelby could give no copies of his speech to the +press, since the speech had largely shaped itself in the making; but +the correspondents who covered what had promised to be a purely bucolic +assignment, were not slow in seeing their error and retrieving it. +What the Tuscarora pioneers and their descendants heard, the whole +state read; and the discerning perceived that, wherever the party, the +party machine, or the party boss might stand, the governor had scaled +the high plateau of statesmanship, where public opinion is less catered +to than led. + +Late in the afternoon Shelby shook the last brown hand in the +serpentine line of country people which coiled in and out the stuffy +parlor of the Lakeview Inn, and cutting loose from the reception +committee under cover of a headache, slipped away into the trees. The +fringe of the wood was defaced with the litter of picnickers, and smelt +of lunch; the din of the agents for new-fangled reapers and ploughs, +whose gaudy paint was doubly garish against the sober background, had +routed the squirrels and birds; but the remoter paths held only silent +lovers, and the camp-ground, where the Widow Weatherwax had mouthed and +played the prophet, stripped of its tents, its zealots, its wavering +torchlights, was full of wholesome sunlight and forest peace. + +The spot stirred ghosts, and the governor turned to the murmuring shore +with its gentle mimicry of ocean. Half sheltered by a clump of sumach +sat a woman upon a bit of driftwood and flung pebbles in the lake. He +stared, and then went slowly down to her. + +"Ruth," he said, "you here!" + +"Your Excellency startled me." + +Her banter puzzled him, but the handclasp was warm. + +"Forget my office," he petitioned. + +"After your tremendous speech to-day? You were his Excellency the +governor of New York with that, and I was properly impressed. It +struck me that you would make a benevolent czar." + +"Are you mocking me?" + +"God forbid, your Excellency!" + +"I'd rather be plain Shelby," he said, studying her profile. "I'm glad +you heard me--glad that you liked it. It was sincere, and you value +sincerity. But I had no notion that you were listening. I supposed +you somewhere with the fashionables." + +"I reached home yesterday, and came at once to my lake cottage. I +heard that you were to speak, and braved the picnic to hear you. I +trust you appreciate the sacrifice." + +"And--your husband? Is he here too?" + +Ruth flung a pebble. + +"I believe he's addressing a woman suffrage convention in Chicago +to-day." She gave him a lazy glance. "And Mrs. Shelby--is she here?" + +"She's in Saratoga, I believe." + +"Belief again? We really ought to read the papers." + +He tried to search her face, but the pebble-throwing prevented. The +Widow Weatherwax had expatiated on the topic of Mrs. Bernard Graves's +unhappiness, with tedious variations on the saw about marrying in haste +to repent at leisure. He wondered--he scarce knew what. She drew him +with all the old attraction, but an elusive something had vanished. He +guessed that it was the essence of youth, though the form lingered. + +"Are you happy, Ruth?" he asked abruptly. + +She looked him in the eyes, and laughed. + +"That reminds me of your unofficial self," she said. "You never could +invent small talk for the feminine mind." + +"You were never the kind of woman who wanted it." + +"I better appreciate its uses nowadays. It conceals either the absence +or presence of thought. Bless me! there's an epigram. But I'm afraid +it's merely an echo of Voltaire." + +He was not listening. A midsummer madness rioted in his brain. + +"But are you happy?" + +"Small talk, small talk," she insisted. "See how that yacht's sails +take the sun. Isn't the water a splendid sapphire? Do you like to +fish? Do you prefer Tennyson or Browning? Meredith or Hardy? Isn't +it warm? Isn't it cool?" + +"But are you?" + +She rose and faced him with strange eyes. + +"What do you want?" + +"Want," he repeated mechanically, rising too. + +"Why have you come here in your pomp of governorship and promise of +greater things to harass me?" + +"Harass you, Ruth! If you knew--" + +"Know? I know too much. I'm unlearning things now. That's the key to +happiness--forgetting. And here come you, as you used to come, an +untamed, masterful force--that's what you are, a force!--and instead of +forgetting you ask me to remember. What is it you're really seeking in +this probing of my happiness? What must you be told?" + +"Nothing." With the revelation of the flaw in her armor he conquered +self. "I know--God help me!--I know." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +The Boss questioned the wisdom of the Tuscarora speech, and the fall +widened the unacknowledged breach between him and the governor. The +September primaries had assured the leader a firmer control of the +state convention than he had ever exercised, and it was well understood +to be his, and his alone, made to his order, and the docile register of +his will. That this victory clinched his ownership of the delegation +to the national convention of next year was self-evident; and that a +presidential candidate with New York's backing would attract allies +from several eastern and at least two southern boss-ruled states, was +well warranted by the tale of the great politician's excursions into +national affairs in the recent past. By implication of the April +banquet the leader's personal choice, Shelby, had therefore no trivial +chance of capturing the nomination; and in the Boss's opinion the +favored pawn owed a decent deference to the master chess-player. So +Shelby thought, too; but they split over definition of terms in the +same old way. + +"You juggled millions like a Napoleon of Finance," complained the Boss +at a breakfast for two shortly after the state convention. "Is that +the kind of talk for people just recovering from hard times?" + +His tone chafed the governor. + +"It's the kind of talk for a proper handling of the canal problem," he +retorted crisply. "The canal has been the prey of peanut politics too +long." + +"The speech was ill-advised--ill-advised," persisted the Boss, +irritably. "You should have consulted somebody." + +Shelby provoked him with a smile. + +"That was my idea, precisely," he returned. "I thought I'd consult the +people." + +A difference springing from the November elections strained their +relations farther, and goaded Shelby's patience to its utmost reach. +Although they favored the organization as a whole, the elections +wrought certain damaging changes in detail, one of which involved the +fortunes of Handsome Ludlow. Early in his term the governor had +appointed the man to a temporary commission, at the urgent plea of the +Boss, who painted the ex-senator in the light of a faithful soldier +haply fallen outside the breastworks by reason of the ingratitude of a +fickle city constituency. Ludlow had regularly drawn a salary, which +his subordinates earned, and divided his abundant leisure between the +diversions peculiar to Mrs. Tommy Kidder's coterie and schemes for the +recovery of his senatorial seat. In the latter business he met with a +defeat more telling than he had yet experienced. But Ludlow was an +office-seeker of resource. Through a channel which he did not +disclose, he got wind of a judgeship whose forthcoming vacancy was +known to the governor and those in his confidence, and promptly +undertook a still-hunt for the place. Presently his name came to +Shelby with the strong recommendation of the Boss. + +The governor was angry to the core. As a lawyer alone he recoiled from +raising even temporarily to the bench a man whose activities had been +notoriously political, and his law practice innocent of a single case +in a court of record; as a husband whose ears tingled with gossip of +this same Ludlow's summer attentions to his wife, which the Boss, whom +nothing escaped, must have heard too, his hurt was shrewder. His +refusal was curt. + +The Boss met the governor's move with silence, but under his own roof +Shelby had crossed a politician less self-contained. Ludlow owed his +fore-knowledge of the judicial vacancy to Cora, who flew in high +dudgeon to her husband to demand why he had refused this favor to her +valued friend. + +Shelby was dumfounded. + +"These affairs don't concern you," he said, after a moment's +incredulous scrutiny of her face. + +"Why did you refuse to make him a judge?" she repeated hotly. + +"Ludlow is a discredited political hack. I had no alternative." + +"It's jealousy." + +Shelby whitened. + +"If you mean to press the thing into that region," he answered sternly, +"I'll own that there is an element of jealousy. I've had to open my +eyes lately to many things which concern you and Ludlow. Bar Harbor +stories, Saratoga stories, Albany stories, too, of things you've kept +from me--God knows what hasn't filtered my way. I am jealous--jealous +for your good name, and mine, and Milicent's." + +She wept at that, saying that he misconstrued her warm sympathy with +the unfortunate; and he, proof against anything but the feminine +tear-gland, as she knew, protested his faith. It was near his lips at +this moment to beg her to treat Ludlow henceforth with mere civility, +but he refrained. When he broached it afterward her pliant mood had +vanished. + +"You would have Albany saying that you believe its tittle-tattle," she +argued; and he deferred for the hundredth time to her superior +perception of the mental processes of the social world. + +Till the Legislature met in January, the governor was absorbed in the +writing of his annual message, whose recommendations he proposed to +devote almost exclusively to the canals. His committee had completed +its work, and his great plan was muscular and vertebrate in all its +structure, for he contemplated a far-reaching system of legislation +rather than a simple makeshift appropriation of the out-worn type; and +the ultimate goal of it all was to lift the politics-ridden waterway +out of politics altogether. Before he gave his final revision to the +printers, he submitted a proof to the Boss, who returned it with the +comment that his intellect was of an order quite too everyday to +criticise a project obviously framed for the millennium. From the man +reputed to own the Legislature, whose committees, certainly, were cut +and dried in his office weeks before it met, this sarcasm was gloomily +prophetic; but since his Tuscarora speech, Shelby had personally +sounded many senators, assemblymen, and representatives of the several +canal interests, and he was not dismayed. + +The reception given by the newspapers to what they styled "The +Governor's Splendid Dream" heartened Shelby, though he deprecated its +form. He insisted that the scheme was no more his than the +committee's, whose elaborate report he submitted with his message, and +that it was no dream at all, but the businesslike remedy for an +admitted ill. As in De Witt Clinton's case, however, the public +brushed aside the idle question of genesis, and honored the untiring +advocate. + +There were plenty who agreed with the governor. Famous economic +experts and civil service reformers wrote their approval, great +financiers wired congratulations, and the public hearings on the bills +embodying his ideas, which friendly legislators shortly introduced, +were attended by representatives from the exchanges, boards of trade, +merchants' associations, and chambers of commerce of every city +directly concerned. + +A reporter remarked upon this striking showing to the Boss. + +"Yes," said the great man, "the governor seems to have the unanimous +support of the college professors and the New Yorkers who claim +residence in Newport, Rhode Island; but I wonder what the taxpayer +thinks." + +This figurative taxpayer personified for him the rural vote whose +strength was his strength, and whose thought he made his own. He was +hearkening to the murmur of the counties which the canal did not touch, +but whose memory of its flagrant abuses was long, and the conclusion +that he reached the country newspapers of his system began speedily to +express. One editor bewailed the "Hundred-Million-Dollar-Millstone" +which the governor proposed to hang about the people's neck; another +attacked the consistency of the man who would to-day scatter like a +prodigal what he had scrimped yesterday to save; while a third +pertinently inquired whether such a spendthrift were fit timber to put +in Washington as a check upon the waxing extravagance of Congress? By +dint of repetition these things attained wide currency. + +Shelby was untroubled. + +"Millions, to be sure," he replied to a query of his wife's. "The +commercial supremacy of a state is perforce a question of millions." + +"But they're saying you risk your presidential chances," she lamented. +"Do take every care to strengthen yourself. It's the fondest dream of +my life to see you President. You must let nothing stand between you +and the nomination." + +"Thank heaven I'm not stung that badly!" the governor ejaculated. + +"But for my sake! If I should ask you--beg you on my knees?" + +"I'd say you should be in better business." + +He answered her lightly, and playfully pinched her ear, but she saw +that no word of hers could sway his purpose, and hated him. For the +hour, however, even this teasing vision of herself as first lady of the +land paled before the very present topic of Milicent's debut. Despite +Shelby's advice and her own pleadings, the girl had not been allowed to +return to her school in the autumn; for when they met at the summer's +end, the revelation of her daughter's good looks and unconscious +girlish charm, by her mother called manner, revived a shadowy project +of Cora's for an elaborate coming-out ball which had enticed her in the +early days of life in Albany. Neither Milicent's reluctance nor her +stepfather's protest against the launching of so young a girl availed. + +"Only last week I saw her playing with a doll," said Shelby, routed at +every turn. + +"What an argument! I played with dolls after I was married to Joe. If +you postponed a woman's debut till she tired of dolls, you would +conflict with her funeral." + +This sally displayed such unexpected humor that Shelby laughed, and his +wife seized the favoring moment to end discussion. + +"It's my duty to my child," she declared; "and of that, a mother is the +best judge." + +Although the event was to be deferred till late February, as the +crowning glory of the season which Lent would close, Cora's plans were +on foot by Thanksgiving Day. Among her earliest preliminaries was the +enlisting of Mrs. Van Dam, whose friendship for Milicent she had +determined to exploit as soon as she learned of its existence. This +was not difficult. Of the wisdom of the thing Mrs. Van Dam said +nothing,--she had had her fill of advising Mrs. Shelby,--but her +sympathy for Milicent was keen, and it drew her into a rather +distasteful share in Cora's programme, in the hope of lessening the +girl's ordeal. Where Mrs. Teunis Van Dam led, Albany naturally +followed; and with Albany subdued, Cora directed her conquering march +toward other worlds. In the year of her publicity she had, through +Mrs. Tommy Kidder and other agencies, brushed here and there at the rim +of the magic inner circle of metropolitan society, for every inch of +which she now encroached an ell. Shelby gained his first knowledge of +the astonishing extent of his wife's acquaintance when he scanned the +invitation list of a thousand names, and was told by the military +secretary that New York's quota was coming by special train. + +About five o'clock on the evening of the ball, the governor came home +fagged and depressed. Aside from canal reform, still drifting through +seas of talk, the legislative session presented several insistent +public questions which seemed to have imposed their cumulative worry on +his morning hours; later had come an acrimonious hearing over the +removal of an incompetent district attorney; then a quarter-hour's +fencing with the press correspondents, who wanted to know things which +it was inexpedient to tell; and, finally, a rasping conference with the +Boss, who, using the ball as a cover for one of his rare pilgrimages to +Albany, had, throughout the day, held levee in his hotel parlors with +such vogue that at moments both Senate and Assembly all but lacked a +quorum. + +Mrs. Tommy Kidder's brougham blocked the porte-cochere as Shelby +mounted the steps of the executive mansion, and at the door he met the +volatile lady herself. + +"I've been watching the workmen give the finishing touch, governor," +she gushed. "You are about to set foot in fairyland." + +Shelby put her in her carriage, and entered the house. It did not seem +fairylike. Only a dim light shone here and there through the dusk, and +the floors were not yet clear of the rubbish of the decorators. From +one of the smaller rooms came the sound of Handsome Ludlow's voice. He +too, apparently, had been watching the finishing touch. The governor +passed on to his own apartments in quest of peace. It was a vain +search. His quarters had been invaded and curtailed for the event, and +the corner left him was confused and forlorn. He lit a cigar, smoked a +brief moment, heard a feminine cough on the farther side of a door +leading to one of the rooms from which some guest had dispossessed him, +and desisted. + +He went downstairs presently, and left the house for the conservatory, +a favorite haunt of his, usually troubled by no one else save Milicent. +He scarcely knew one flower from another, but he delighted to potter +about, smelling here and there, and the Scotch gardener idolized him as +heartily as he detested the wife, who cared nothing for these treasures +in themselves, and openly avowed that she preferred the odor of +patchouli. + +The greenhouses proved rather forlorn too, denuded as they were of so +many potted things for the glory of the mansion; but their quiet +obscurity ministered to Shelby's jaded mood. Then he perceived that he +was not alone. Low voices drifted from another aisle--Ludlow's and +Cora's--doubtless still absorbed in the finishing touch. After an +instant's hesitation the governor moved toward them, till a vivid +little picture framed by the fronds of a drooping fern brought him to a +standstill. He beheld a deliberate kiss. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +The scene so nearly paralleled that crucial moment in his own life, +under Joe Hilliard's roof, that the quarry owner seemed fairly to +twitch his sleeve. Then, as the dead man had done before him, Shelby +stayed his hand. Hilliard had respected his hearthstone because it +held the ashes of a burned-out love; the governor respected his office. +Unseen by the rapt pair, he left the conservatory, and regained his +disordered room. + +How should he act? There was scant opportunity for reflection. The +dinner hour was presently upon him, with a chattering tableful of +Cora's friends who were staying in the house. Shelby seldom shone in +these mixed companies, and to-night he seemed to himself to stand off +in wondering detachment, while somebody clothed in his likeness said +and did many things. He made clear a bit of political slang for the +woman in yellow on his right; he smiled appreciation of the quip of a +young thing in pink three places distant down the left; he explained to +a foreign gentleman, whose English was irreparably broken, that Albany +was not the capital of the United States; and all this time he watched +his vivacious wife at the table's end, and marvelled at her hypocrisy. +So Joe Hilliard had probably wondered. Hilliard was very real to him. +He seemed to have incased himself in Hilliard's personality. A little +later, when Milicent, all exhilaration now that the bursting of the +cocoon was instant, came in her bravery for his approval, he kissed her +like one who knows no care, and extravagantly admired the roses he +forgot that he had sent. The same mechanical self stood beside his +wife and stepdaughter at the coming of the guests, spoke its automatic +greetings, and extended its automatic hand. + +For one brief instant the opiate lifted. The endless smirking +procession had cast Ludlow to the front. The man was lingering with +easy assurance between mother and daughter. + +"Which is the debutante?" he asked. + +Shelby could have felled him for taking the girl's hand--Cora's +mattered nothing. But what of his own hand? Milicent's fan suddenly +escaped its fastening, and as suddenly he caught at the pretext for +which he groped. Again in his place, Ludlow had drifted by with no +word spoken between them. He sighed with relief, and in the same +breath cursed himself and the conventions which compelled such cunning. +In a rational world he could have knocked him down. + +Once again that evening they came face to face. It was late--past one +o'clock--and the governor issuing from the smoking-room met Ludlow at +the threshold. No one was within earshot; fate itself seemed to have +ordered the meeting, and till that moment Shelby had desired to +confront Ludlow with a fierce desire. Yet they passed with a nod. +Long uncertain before many offering courses, Shelby on the instant made +his choice. + +The orchestra hushed, the last good night spoken, Milicent gone to her +dreams, the house half in darkness, he intercepted Cora in the corridor +leading to her apartments. + +"Ten minutes of your time," he requested. + +She stared, yawned, and stared again. + +"At this hour?" + +"Now." + +She led the way into her dressing-room and sent away her maid. Shelby +waited silently by the open grate till they should be alone. + +"You're rather pale," observed his wife, languidly, in passing to a +chair; and with finger tip lightly brushed his cheek. + +He shrank involuntarily. + +"Pale and nervous," she added, "and a fit subject for bed. Was Old +Silky disagreeable to-day? I thought him as sweet as peaches tonight. +Did you notice Mrs. Van Dam's famous diamonds? It's not often she +wears them all. Milicent got her to do it." + +"I was in the greenhouse before dinner, Cora," said Shelby, speaking +with slow emphasis. "I saw you and Ludlow." + +"Oh, yes," returned the woman, glibly, "we were wondering whether the +large drawing-room needed a few more palms." + +"I saw you and Ludlow in one another's arms," pursued her husband in +the same hard staccato. "I saw him kiss you." + +She half rose, eying him fearfully; then, reassured by what she saw, +sank back in her seat, fingering the long glove she had partly drawn +from one white arm. As on that other night, her faultless shoulders +rose from a black setting of laces and shining jet, and, manlike, +Shelby took the garment for the same which had helped to warp the +fabric of his life from its design. The remembrance maddened him. + +"Speak, you devil," he charged. + +"I love him," she returned defiantly. "I love him." + +"And my wife!" + +"I was Joe's wife--before." + +"You've the right to say it," he owned. + +"Well, then, meet me halfway. Since you know the truth, what do you +advise me to do?" + +"Advise you?" he echoed. + +"Precisely. Put yourself in my place. Suppose that you were in love +with somebody." + +He started. + +"I--" + +"So hard, is it? Suppose it, anyhow. Suppose yourself a human being +instead of--well, say a personified canal; a human being married to +another human being--the wrong one--with your love for the right one +growing stronger every day. What would you do?" + +"Master my passion. Preserve my self-respect." + +She laughed at the trumpet note of his answer. + +"You've the cocksure remedy of one who has never tried." + +He strangled a retort. + +"Try to comprehend my feelings," she pursued. "If you were in love +with me, I shouldn't ask it. But you're not in love with me. Frankly +now, are you?" + +"I am your husband." + +"And I'm your wife. Does that prove a love affair? No, no. The naked +fact is that neither cares, and because of that I ask you plainly how +we can best arrange the matter." + +"This is nonsense." + +"It isn't. It's common sense. A New York woman I know--I met her at +Narragansett--was in the same position. Her husband was broad-minded, +and they settled everything without an unkind word. She lived +somewhere in the Dakotas for a few months, married again as soon as the +judge signed the decree, and made a roundabout journey home her wedding +trip." + +"And you would imitate this programme?" + +"In some respects--yes. I've not thought it out in detail. Your +practical mind ought to shed abundant light. If you weren't my +husband, I'd retain you as my lawyer." + +"By Heaven, I've stood enough of this!" flashed Shelby. "Are you +destitute of even the moral rags and tatters a Hottentot may boast? +You ask my advice. Have it you shall, and follow it you must. I have +forfeited the right to reproach you as man to wife--granted that I +never had it; as a man I waive my personal affront. But as the +governor of this state to the mistress of this, the state's house, I +warn you that this brazen mockery of decency must end. When I am +governor no longer you may go your way in such fashion as you will. +Till then you must take no step which shall discredit my office or the +position to which my office raises you. You will tell Ludlow this, and +when you have told him, you will hold no private speech with him until +my successor takes his oath. Promise." + +His volcanic outburst cowed her flippancy. + +"I promise," she said. + +Before the week elapsed the newspapers announced that Ludlow had +decided to resume the practice of law in New York. Cora made no +comment; but Shelby read into the retreat her purpose to keep their +sorry truce inviolate, and strove to shut his mind to every thought +alien to his work. + +The public business was absorbing enough in truth. His great canal +project, which during a month of hearings, conferences, committee +enmeshments, and the like, had hung in jeopardy, was wrecked beyond +repair. Nor was this the worst. The governor's forcing of the issue +had convinced the Boss that a popular demand for canal legislation of +some sort really existed, and he prepared to respond with a measure +after his own heart. A vicious substitute, which it was given out that +the organization fully indorsed, glided facilely to its final reading +after the manner of bills bearing the mystic sign manual of the Boss. +Foreseeing disaster, Shelby sought at least to rescue the wise +provision of his plan which looked to the administration of the canals +along business lines, and to this end used his personal influence with +various members of the Legislature. Achieving little here, he even +appealed to the leader himself. + +The Boss wrote him in his ironic mood. + +"Naturally I cannot forecast the action of the Legislature," he said, +following his modest custom of disclaiming foreknowledge of the events +he shaped; "but in my opinion any measure which ignores the legitimate +expectation of patronage on the part of the party in power is too +idyllic for this workday world." + +Shelby was at no loss to give this dictum its true interpretation. His +own scheme had secured the party's legitimate rights sufficiently--he +was too clear-sighted to overlook that. It was the party's illicit +greed for spoils which he had failed to satisfy--the greed which the +Boss had framed his makeshift to meet. The opportunity for jobbery was +left as wide as before, perhaps wider; for while under color of economy +the appropriation cut the reasonable sum Shelby had suggested as a +beginning, it was a vast amount still. So conceived, and at the +eleventh hour saddled with an amendment directing the building of a +costly feeder which the engineers had declared needless, the travesty +of all the governor's good intentions passed both Houses by a narrow +vote, and reached Shelby himself. + +Jacob Krantz, whose interest in this particular bit of legislation was +keen, in his own vernacular hit off the situation. + +"It's time for a show-down," said this observer of things as they are. +"The Boss has put it up to the Champion of Canals to make good his +bluff." + +Shelby realized this truth clearly enough in the ten days given him by +the constitution for his decision; but he took no one into his +confidence, and fought his dreary battle alone. It was a hard choice +that destiny had offered him in the end--total shipwreck of his brave +dreamings, or a salvage of what perhaps might better sink. Had his +duty by the people been absolutely plain, he would have acted +instantly, for he had striven to be the people's governor; but in the +ten days of his ordeal the people seemed to speak with a hundred +differing tongues, whose single coherent message proclaimed what he +already knew--that for him there could be no middle way. The bill was +in the form of a concurrent resolution to submit the appropriation to +popular vote; but Shelby had no mind to dodge his responsibility. With +his record, with his conception of his trust, he must confront the +issue squarely--sign or reject. + +One of the most clamorous of the newspapers favoring the bill phrased +his choice yet more narrowly, quoting copiously from his speeches and +bidding him "sign or stultify." But appeals to his consistency found +him deaf. The man who never changed his mind and the man who never +changed his coat were to him equally ridiculous; time had its sport +with each of them. Another attack, made when he had held the bill for +upward of a week and a rumor of a veto was rife, drew blood. Volney +Sprague's _Whig_ which, without ever thinking good of Shelby, had long +since returned to the party fold, embraced the occasion to revive the +old scandals linking Shelby's name to unsavory canal contracts, with +the insinuation that the governor's real quarrel with the bill which +had passed lay in the fact that it exposed too few millions to +thievery. The erratic editor's virtual allegiance to the Boss whom he +once had flayed, might have caused Shelby a smile, had he not been +saddened by the thought that any human being could misunderstand him so +completely. To him it was a transparent truth that because he had +known the canal's abuses as a politician, so surely must he wish to end +them as governor of the state. + +The veto rumor, which Shelby neither fathered nor encouraged, +precipitated two things: the Boss sent word through his nephew, a not +infrequent messenger, that the party's interests plainly required that +the party's governor waive his personal disappointment and sign the +bill at once; while Cora, for some days past of a repentent mind, +requested the same small favor as a reward of virtue. + +"Show in this way that you forgive my folly," she cajoled. "You'll +never be President without the Boss's aid--everybody says so. Do as he +wishes and as I wish too." + +"And give you a chance to intrigue with the Handsome Ludlows of +Washington?" + +By and by, as he sat writing in his study, he would have unsaid the +taunt, and resolved that he would talk rationally with her of his +dilemma and of the course he was prepared to take; but no opportunity +befell that evening, and on the morrow, the last day left him but one, +he breakfasted alone. Partly with the intention of speaking to her, +partly for freedom from the button-holing of the grillroom where he +usually lunched, he left the executive chamber shortly before one +o'clock and set out on foot for his home. + +As he turned from the capitol park into his own street, Mrs. Van Dam's +carriage halted abruptly at the curb, and the old lady beckoned him. + +"I'll not ask you to get in," she said, "for I'm sure you need the +walk, but I've news to tell you of a friend of ours. Ruth Graves's +husband died in Los Angeles yesterday after an operation for +appendicitis." + +Time had softened the rougher memories of his brief rivalry with the +dead man, and the circumstance that each had in some degree given +distinction to their common birthplace threw Bernard Graves into a +light which made his early taking off mildly pathetic, but in this +moment Shelby's mind could compass only the one great fact--Ruth was +free! + +Canal, governorship, presidency forgotten, he stared into the muddy +street as the carriage whipped away, till a knot of school children +gathered at his heels with round eyes centred on the cobbles which +apparently engrossed him. Shelby recalled himself, and hurried on to +his own door. + +"I shall lunch at home to-day," he said to a servant in the hall. +"Please tell my wife." + +The man handed him a sealed note explaining:-- + +"Mrs. Shelby went out about an hour ago. She asked me to give you +this." + +Shelby carried the note to his room before he opened it. + +"I can't keep my promise," it ran. "I saw him to-day. He wants me. +Good-by." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +He, no less than Ruth, was free! There was no dissociating the two +facts. They shouted their message together. He was rid of his +incubus--why mince the word now!--rid of her gadfly vulgarity, her +shallow emotions, her pinch-beck ideals, her hideous selfishness. By +her own rash act she had freed him to marry the woman he loved with all +his rugged strength--the woman who that memorable September day had +proved loved him. What was the transient chatter of the world beside +this verity! What might he not achieve in the new life! What station +could he not now find confidence to fill! + +A knock distracted, without wholly rousing him. Milicent entered. + +"I hear you're to lunch at home, father," she said. "The gong has +sounded twice." + +He stared vacantly into her young eyes; her very existence had been +blotted from his recollection. + +"Aren't you well?" She came to him. "I shall be glad when the +Legislature stops worrying you and goes home." + +He crushed his wife's note into a pocket. + +"Yes; I'm well," he answered slowly. "Just worried--as you say. +That's all. I thought an hour at home would help--home quiet, you +know--home--" + +There was a frightened widening of her gray eyes, and Shelby pulled +himself together. + +"But I can't lunch with you after all, little girl," he told her +hurriedly. "I find I must go back. It seems your mother is--is out. +Perhaps you know--" + +He stopped. What did she know? + +"I'm just in from a turn about Washington Park," explained the girl. +"The maple buds are all bursting. And you should see the crocuses." + +"Your mother has been called out of town. She will be gone all night, +probably--perhaps longer. You had best ask some friends in to stay +with you. It will cheer us up. Now go down to your luncheon. You +mustn't let me spoil it for you." + +"But you're _not_ well," she insisted. + +"I am--I am indeed." Out of a window he caught sight of his wife's +coupe. "I'll take that down town," he said. + +They descended together. In the hall he warned again, "Don't let your +luncheon spoil." + +His foot on the carriage step, he questioned the coachman:-- + +"Did Mrs. Shelby catch her train?" + +"Yes, sir," the man replied cheerfully. "I saw to that. A close +shave, though. I heard it pull out as we drove away." + +"That was at what time?" + +"One twenty-five, sir." + +"No baggage?" + +"Just hand satchels," put in the footman. "Mrs. Shelby said her trunks +weren't ready." + +"Drive to Canon North's," directed the governor, jumping in. "He's +near the cathedral, you know." + +The carriage jolted from cobbles to asphalt, rounded the looming +capitol with its chateau-like red roofs cut sharply against the pure +spring sky, grated the stones again, and halted at the canon's door. +The governor had the carriage door open before the footman could leap +down, and told the man that he would make his own inquiries. + +The maid said that he had missed the clergyman by five minutes. +Possibly he could be found at the cathedral; perhaps at the Beverwyck +Club. + +Shelby bade the coupe follow, and hurried on foot to the church, which +lifted its temporary wooden roof above the clustering episcopal +buildings near at hand. Two or three cabs waited at the curb, from one +of which fluttered a facetious knot of white ribbon tied to an +axletree. A smell of stale incense pervaded the vestibule. The +murmured words of a liturgy drifted down the long nave as he passed +within. North was reading the marriage service. Shelby bided +restively in the shadow of a column till the ceremony should end. + +It was a small wedding party, merely a handful of onlookers, chiefly +teary women, grouped around the courageous pair, whose stanch "I will" +woke derisive echoes aloft. + +"For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health +. . . till death do us part." + +The youngsters pattered the awful words so glibly! Then North's prayer +went forth over their kneeling figures, they rose, took his hand an +instant, and turned to face an applauding world. The watcher pitied +them with a great pity. + +Shelby followed North from chancel to vestry. The priest had laid +aside stole and surplice, and stood meditatively in his cassock as the +caller entered. Some men the cassock effeminates; not so North, whose +virile shape it emphasized, modelling his muscles like an antique +drapery. He seemed to radiate strength. + +The canon remarked his friend's strained face, greeted him as if +governors made a practice of popping into his vestry unannounced, and +bade a negro, who was folding vestments, to finish his task later. + +"What has happened to you?" he asked, directly they were alone. + +"My wife has eloped." + +North started at the bald announcement, but asked quietly:-- + +"Did she leave by the one twenty-five train?" + +"You saw her?" + +"I saw him." Ludlow needed no naming. "I came in from the west at +that time for this wedding." + +Shelby jerked out his watch. + +"That train is an accommodation, making nearly all stops. They were +probably too excited to consider the fact, or care. Any one taking the +Southwestern Limited twenty minutes from now would make New York half +an hour before them--provided they're bound for New York. Of course, +there's the chance that they will change at some point to the express, +which left a quarter of an hour ago. Somebody must intercept them." + +"And it's your present misfortune to be governor of New York," added +the canon, ripping at the buttons of his cassock. "Permit me to fill +your place." + +"It's a hateful thing to ask of you. I could ask it of no other man." + +North nodded, and caught up his hat and coat. + +"You did right to come to me, my friend." + +"Say to her"--they passed again into the silent nave on the way to the +carriage--"say that one of the best little girls who ever lived is +waiting for her mother to return from--from shopping, what you please. +Say that I--" He broke off, and fronted North in the stillness. "By +God! no," he burst out suddenly. "No message from me yet. I can't do +it yet--" + +The governor went back to the executive chamber, and heard, one by one, +the stories of the callers who had massed the antechamber during his +prolonged absence. From all sections, of all degrees, of all political +types, their importunities were variants of a single theme--the thing +he could give. Him they gave nothing, not even encouragement. Five +o'clock came at last, and he left the plain little work-cell behind the +sumptuous panelling of the executive chamber for a ten-minute bout with +the press correspondents. Was it true that he had decided to sign the +canal bill? Was a veto imminent? Did he propose to let it become a +law without his signature? Had he and the great leader severed their +relations? Was a breach in the party machine a possibility? What was +his position with regard to the presidential nomination? Did he +approve of an out-and-out indorsement of the gold standard? + +He was through with them finally, and the office-seeking, news-hungry +world, supposing him gone to his home, left him alone in his cell to +complete his interrupted work. Half-past five o'clock! His thoughts +strayed to follow the course of two trains. By now the fugitives were +below the Highlands; North must already be entering the city. Fort +George and the bridges of the Harlem were above his head, the long, +straight streets reeled away like the spokes of a giant wheel. +Presently he would pace the platform at Forty-second Street. In an +hour they would meet. + +Shelby forced his mind back to his desk. The closely written sheets of +manuscript which had filled his evening yesterday lay before him. He +called his private secretary from the adjoining room. + +"Have the stenographers all gone?" + +"All but one, governor," said the secretary. "He is working past hours +on a personal matter for me." + +"Let me borrow him." + +For an hour the governor slowly dictated from his sheets. + +"You will miss your regular dinner over this," he said to the man, at +the end, and pressed a bank-note upon him. "We'll need several copies, +of course." + +The stenographer went to his typewriter, and Shelby walked out to his +secretary's desk. + +"He's working on this," he explained, showing him a page of the +manuscript. "I suppose he doesn't leak news?" + +The secretary flushed a little over the hasty reading. + +"He is wholly trustworthy," he replied. + +"There is nothing of the Star Chamber order about the matter, but I +always prefer to be the source of information. I should have put this +through to-day if a personal affair hadn't prevented. Have the +formalities in readiness for the morning. Good night." + +He again consulted his watch. They had met! Without seeing him he +walked past an orderly with a telegram. The man overtook him at the +elevator. + +"So soon?" said the governor, absently. + +The orderly exchanged glances with the elevator boy. + +Shelby tore open North's message. It said "Come," and named a +Forty-second Street hotel. One of the fastest trains in the world was +due in less than a half-hour. In fifteen minutes he gained the +station. With the time which remained he wired North of his coming, +and telephoned Milicent a cheery message that he should not return till +late. She told him that she had her friends with her, and he even +caught a gay little echo of their chatter. + +It occurred to him that he had eaten nothing since morning, and as the +train cleared the river and raced southward on its long flight, he +ordered food. But he scarcely tasted it. No food could appease the +hunger of his mind, the starvation of a lifetime, which the canon's +message prefigured. His ugly thoughts kept pace with the roaring +monster which bore him; but, unlike the monster, he made no real +progress; spun vainly, rather, like a top. After all, what was he, +what was human striving everywhere, but a vainly spinning top. He +dozed over his drear philosophy, and from dozing slept. + +He woke as the train swung at Spuyten Duyvil from the valley of the +Hudson to the valley of the Harlem, freshened his face with cold water, +and stepped from the car at his journey's end clear-eyed and alert. +Beyond the iron barrier of the train shed stood North. + +Shelby caught his hand. + +"Well?" + +"It is well." + +"Where is she?" + +"Waiting at the hotel--waiting for the word you could not send." + +They made an intensely quiet islet amidst the buffeting human tide. +The governor's face was drawn, and in the electric glare looked pasty +white. + +"That is why you sent for me?" he asked. + +"That is why. Believe me, it was necessary." + +"I believe you," Shelby answered slowly. "Tell me what you have done." + +"It's a short story. About five o'clock I passed them. Their train +was at a standstill, mine was running slowly because of a washout. I +saw your wife at a window. Then we made an unexpected stop near a +station, and I left my train for theirs." + +"Then?" + +"That's all. I think neither was sorry to see me. I came at the +reaction--the psychological moment." + +Shelby thought North wished to spare him the recital, which was true in +a measure. Yet the canon's reticence had its taproot in the natural +man who perforce did his strong deeds simply. + +"Good night," he added cheerily, putting out his hand. "I find that I +can get a train back soon." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A few minutes before eleven o'clock Shelby and his wife got out of a +carriage at a west-side ferry. With North's assurance that her husband +was surely coming, Cora's thoughts turned to the conventions which in the +morning she had blithely whistled down the wind. It happened that a +friend in the Jersey suburbs had within the week suggested that they +visit Lakewood together, and the invitation no sooner recurred to her +than she sent a message saying that she had found it possible immediately +to join her at her home. Shelby had assented to this plan, and directly +set about escorting her to her destination. No dread of Ludlow prompted +this vigilance. He discerned that that glamour had forever waned. The +woman's jerking nerves made him fear a collapse. Stripped of shams for +once, she had his pity. + +As he paid the cabman at the ferry-house entrance an incoming boat +discharged its passengers, who from habit scurried forth as if it were +morning, and the day's work lay all before. Two men issued with the +foremost, one of whom spied Shelby as he followed his wife through the +dingy swinging doors. + +"Great guns!" he said; "the governor!" + +The Boss wheeled. + +"What's that, Krantz?" he demanded sharply. + +Without replying Jacob Krantz darted into the ferry-house, slipped into +the waiting line before the ticket-office, and watched Shelby make his +purchase. The governor left the window without noticing him, and joining +his wife at the wicket passed on to the boat. + +Krantz shot out of doors with his heavy lids propped wide. + +"He bought tickets for Orange, and there's no return train before +daylight--I heard him inquire. Do you see what he has done for us? He's +out of the state--_out of the state_! See? The lieutenant-governor can +sign the bill!" + +The Boss drew him quietly aside. + +"No, no," he returned. "This is New York--not Montana." + +Staring out at the clamoring cabbies, the leader reflected. If this +secretive governor intended either to veto or to sign the canal bill, he +would scarcely leave Albany the evening before the last day given him to +act. Did his absence not argue that he meant to let the measure become a +law without his signature? Despite his representations to Shelby, this +was the course the Boss actually expected the governor to take. It was +the course which he, given the man's difficulties, would himself follow +were he in Shelby's place. But he had found it unsafe to forecast this +man's actions by his own, and by temperament he counted nothing certain +till he knew it as a fact accomplished. The governor would undoubtedly +return to Albany sometime to-morrow; it therefore behooved him to delay +that return until the time for hostile action should expire. Searching +out a telegraph office, he ascertained the point at which a message would +intercept the train, and wired Shelby a peremptory request for a meeting +in New York on the morrow at ten o'clock. + +"I'm making a morning appointment with the governor," he told Krantz. + +The satellite slanted his head knowingly. Past midnight the answer +reached the club where the Boss made his bachelor home. If Shelby was +amazed at Old Silky's intimate knowledge of his movements, his message +did not betray it. Nor did the Boss betray his own amazement at his too +apt pupil's prompt evasion of a snare. What he read was this:-- + +"The governor's office hours are nine to five." + +Krantz in his eagerness would have laid profane hands on the missive, but +the Boss permitted him neither to touch nor see. + +"It seems that he intends returning to Albany to-night," he said calmly. +"It occurs to me, after all, that he can reach New York by trolley. +Probably he'll take the paper train which leaves about three. Energetic +man--very." + +"Then you'll see him to-night?" + +"No; not to-night," rejoined the Boss, dryly. "I'm going to bed." + +Krantz watched the reverend figure out of the smoking-room with his +narrow eyes, and for a time sat as motionless as a dozing crocodile. +Finally he roused and lounged toward the door, where he received a +revelation. Bag in hand, the Boss, whom he imaged above stairs between +sheets, was unostentatiously letting himself out into the night. + +Shelby went directly to his berth on reaching the station, and while the +car remained in the train shed, slept. The departure wakened him, and +after useless striving he resigned himself to his insomnia, raised his +window curtain, and lay watching the staid procession of Dutch-named +towns picketting the river banks. A mimic tempest fretted the Tappan +Sea, whose bravado dwindled to mere guerilla marauding in the Highlands, +and vanished altogether where the Storm King held the pass and heralded +the dawn. Presently the purple Catskills marched and countermarched into +line with cloud banners streaming rose-red in the sunrise. Yesterday was +blotted in to-day. The watcher also put yesterday away, dressed, and +left his train all in a tranquillity which even the knowledge that a +stateroom door neighboring his berth had just emitted the Boss could not +have ruffled. + +At his accustomed hour the governor entered the executive chamber. Like +the steaming earth and the park elms without in their tender green, this +stately room seemed swept by the breath of spring. The warm tones of the +hangings, the Spanish leather, the lavish mahogany, glowed responsive to +the fingering sunlight, and the painted simulacra of his predecessors +looked down almost benignantly from their gilded frames. The little cell +behind the wainscoting, into which the increasing complexity of affairs +had forced the recent executives, claimed him during most of his working +hours; but it was as rightful tenant of this vast chamber that he felt +most the governor of New York. It epitomized for him not merely the +commonwealth of the present, huge as it was, but the whole historic past +since the September day when Hendrik Hudson's _Half Moon_ dropped anchor +down yonder in the stream. He felt himself no more the successor of +these frock-coated moderns whose oil presentments covered panelling and +frieze than of the periwigs who ruled before them. He was the heir of +Stuyvesant, Dongan, and Lord Lovelace no less than of Cleveland, Van +Buren, and John Jay. There had been sturdy souls among that company; men +who had hoped mightily, striven mightily, sometimes achieved mightily. +Some few had attained the presidency of the United States; some barely +missed the prize; some pursued it to their bitter graves. Where would he +rank? According to a newspaper he carried in his hand, it lay with him +this day to determine. Yet for one so omniscient, the editor was chary +of counsel. + +Shelby went on to his little inner room and took up the day's routine +with his secretary, who casually dropped the news that the Boss had that +morning arrived in Albany and begun to receive the faithful at an early +hour. Whether owing to this cause or not, Shelby's own quota of +legislative callers was small. At ten o'clock he met briefly the +delegates of a labor organization, who in an embarrassed fashion had much +to say of plutocrats and trusts; and with their departure came a +fluttering invasion from a young ladies' boarding-school, headed by a +chaperone laboriously intent on improving the girlish mind. All +requested autographs, which were readily supplied from the stock in hand, +and a round half-dozen asked the private secretary in strictest +confidence if the governor were a married man. + +He had but just returned to his desk when an orderly handed him the card +of the Boss. + +"You'll see him here?" asked the man. + +"No. In the executive chamber," answered Shelby. + +The Boss stood beside the massive fireplace, gazing pensively up at a +portrait of Washington. + +"Ah, good morning, governor," he called, turning slowly. "I trust I'm +well within the official hours." + +"Quite." + +"Mahomet is somewhat stricken in years, and night travel impairs his +digestion, but if need be, he can come to the mountain still." + +"It was the governor of the state your message offended," said Shelby, +quietly. "Personally I'm not thin-skinned, as you know." + +"Yet, in my poor way--" the Boss included the chamber in a comprehensive +gesture. + +"Yes; in last analysis you put me here. I don't forget that." + +The leader shrugged. + +"You were always so devilishly direct, Ross," he let fall good-humoredly. +"It's your besetting sin, and spoiled the making of a clever politician. +You lack the diplomatic instinct." + +Shelby proved him in the right immediately. + +"You've come about the canal bill," he said. "Sit down." + +"Yes; the canal bill--and other matters." + +He laid his hat and stick upon a desk, and drawing a chair beside +Shelby's near a window embrasure, leaned to him, chin in hand, as in the +days of their hand-in-glove intimacy. "Between us two plain speech after +all is best," he went on. "You've no mistaken notions about me. You +recognize the newspaper bogy which goes by my name as a caricature. You +know that I am as proud of this state in my way as you are in your way. +You know also the manner and method of my ascendency in state affairs, +and by the same insight you know its scope." + +"Yes. I know its scope." + +"So far as knowledge of method goes, you are as capable of party +leadership as I. Indeed, if that were all, you might set up a rival +shop, as some of the editors kindly suggest, and attempt to put me out of +business. Naturally you don't share that delusion." + +"No." + +"No; you're too sane. My tenure doesn't rest on mere control of the +purse-strings. My great asset is forty years' dealing with all sorts and +conditions of men. Nobody else has quite my equipment." + +"Why tell me what I know? All talk of my setting up a machine of my own +is idle. I am aware of the extent of your influence. You have tacitly +offered me the state delegation to the national convention in June, and +it is within your power to deliver it--probably to name the candidate. +Have you come to withdraw the offer?" + +The Boss straightened. + +"I have come in a spirit of compromise," he returned. "We've differed +widely on this question of a greater canal. You have evolved a plan best +suited to Utopia; my own is aimed to meet the human nature I know +best--the human nature De Witt Clinton, in whose steps you evidently +aspire to tread, comprehended and took into the reckoning. Be practical +as he was practical--as you were in the early days of our acquaintance. +I no longer ask you to sign the bill; I respect your punctilio. I only +beg that you will permit this measure which your party has espoused to +become a law without your signature. Everybody will understand your +position. You will occupy an honorable middle ground." + +"For me there is no honorable middle ground. It lies with me to approve +or reject." + +The Boss got upon his feet. + +"I dislike coercion," he said. + +The governor rose. + +"You need use none. No amount of it could hypnotize me into seeing a bad +bill as a good bill." + +"Do you count the presidency so lightly?" + +"No American can count it lightly." + +"You face political suicide. Do you fancy your renomination for this +office possible?" + +"No. I have weighed that, too." + +"And your virtue is unshaken?" + +The governor smiled at the sneer. + +"Oh, I'm past all that," he said. "I took the precaution to veto the +bill before you came to tempt." + +With uncertain step the old leader turned and made his way to the door, +where he paused to vent his bewildered, yet sincere judgment. + +"I've never met anybody quite like you in politics, Shelby," he owned, +almost kindly. "You are a paradox--a sort of admirable fool." + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Henchman, by Mark Lee Luther + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HENCHMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 19148.txt or 19148.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/1/4/19148/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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