"You admit there are two sides?"

"My grandfather and your father have impressed that on me pretty strongly."

"Isn't there any good in the other side? Do you mean to tell me that all the men in politics in this State are wrong except you and old General Waymouth?"

"No, but it's the way of doing things. I guess it's that."

She drew her horse to a stop. The country road was quiet. The hush of the starry August night was over all.

"Mr. Thornton," she said, looking him squarely in the eyes, "with all due respect to the mighty masculine, I believe you are in need of a few suggestions from a woman's standpoint. You haven't acquired the art of flattery. If so, you'd be gallant and say I have just as much acumen as you have honesty."

"I'll say it! It's so!" he protested.

"No, you're too late. I very unmodestly gave myself the compliment. Now I'm going to tell you where you are wrong in this whole matter, Mr. Thornton. You are reckoning without the human instruments that you must employ. I'll wait just a moment and let that remark sink into your mind. You are a bit slow about grasping the full purport of remarks, Mr. Harlan Thornton." There was a touch of her satiric humor in her tone. "Now, you don't fully understand, even yet. I think I'll have to illustrate. I've already told you that I've watched matters pretty closely at the capital. I like to see young men come here with ideals and succeed, but, alas, they do not."

"They let themselves be bought or bribed or bossed, probably," blurted Harlan.

"I'm not talking about that kind. They are too obvious and too common. I complimented my own self. Now you are insulting yourself by jumping at conclusions. You should have a better opinion of yourself, sir. I have. I do not believe you could be bought or bossed or even coaxed from what you considered your honest duty. You do not need to assure me. But you might be convinced, Mr. Thornton—convinced by good reasons—that it is not a young man's duty to ruin his own prospects and his own influence by undertaking something as impracticable as though he tried to be a meteor by holding a candle in his hand and jumping off a roof. I could praise his imagination, but not his judgment."

She waited a moment. She gazed at him with sudden sympathy.

"You are a straightforward young man, used to winning your way by direct means—axe to the tree, cant-dog to the rolling log, but that isn't the way in politics. I know this preachment from me sounds strange. It may offend you, but you mustn't allow yourself to be offended. You have simply quarrelled with the men who have tried to tell you—it's no use for your grandfather or my father to talk with you. Men do quarrel too easily. I am taking a woman's advantage of you, sir. I said I would illustrate. I will. One of the finest young men I ever knew came down to the legislature and started in to expose and hold up every appropriation measure that had the least appearance of being padded. Just straight-out and blunt honesty, you understand. A little affectation, too. A bit of self-advertising as well. But we all excuse a little self-consciousness in youth. Well, he simply became a red rag to the House. They sneered and hissed when he stood up. Just in blind rage they voted for every appropriation he opposed. He did much more harm than he did good. He didn't get his own appropriations for the district he represented. And it killed him in politics and in his law business. The happy people did not acclaim him as their faithful watchdog of the treasury. They merely pronounced him a bore with a swelled head. You see, I can talk political talk with all the phrases, Mr. Thornton."

"But he was right, wasn't he—fundamentally right?"

"He meant to be right—that's the term to use. But he forgot that he must use human instruments in order to accomplish anything. And he just failed miserably."

"What would you expect him to do—join in, and be just like the others? Where would any good come out of anything?"

"Now, you are insisting again that there is good only on one side of the question. That's bigotry. It's what I'm trying to warn you against. Some one has said that life is compromise. It's true of politics, if you're going to get the most out of it. I know what you are undertaking. General Waymouth hasn't left much to the imagination in his letter. And I've talked with others. And so I know how visionary you are."

"You've talked with Linton—that's the one you've talked with!" declared Harlan, indignantly. "And if he's told you what I have told him in confidence he's more of a sneak than I've already found him out to be."

"Mr. Linton did not consider that you were making any secret of your principles. And you'll excuse me, but I think his principles are exactly as good as yours. You are talking now like the ramrodders. Their first retort to any one who differs with them is to call names."

"But he deserted General Waymouth under fire. He promised, and went back on that promise."

"According to all political good sense and in any other times but these, when men seem to be running wild, General Waymouth was politically out of the game. It's all fine and grand in story-books, Mr. Thornton, for the hero to sacrifice everything for his ideals, but in these very practical days he's only classed as a fool and kicked to one side."

"You defend Linton, then? Is that the kind of a man you hold up as a success, Miss Presson?" His grudge showed in his tone.

"You will please understand, sir, that we are not discussing theories just now. This isn't a question of what the world ought to be. It's the plain fact about what a man must be if he's to get results. You and I both have heard your grandfather say many times that he'd like to play politics with angels—if only he could find the angels. It's hard to own up, when you're young, that human nature is just as it is. I understand how you feel. I know you feel it's a very strange thing for me to do—talk to you like this. But I want you to understand that my father has had nothing to do with it."

He turned to her accusingly.

"But I know perfectly well," he said, bitterly, "that it isn't any personal interest you take in me that makes you say it. You don't think enough of me for that." It was resentment so naively boyish that her astonishment checked her remonstrance. He rushed on. "You hold up Linton for me to follow. That's the kind of a man you admire. He's an orator, and he's smart, and he wins. I'm only an accident. You meant that when you said that General Waymouth won out only because matters were mixed up in politics. You don't care anything about me, personally. But you're talking to me because my grandfather asked you to. That's it." He guessed shrewdly.

That outburst betrayed him. This young man from the north country was very human after all, she decided.

"I have said before, this is a campaign of honesty. Your grandfather did ask me to talk to you. I didn't have the heart to refuse him, for I'm very fond of him."

It was an acknowledgment that stung his pride. But more than all, it stirred that vague rancor he had felt the first time he had seen Linton appropriate her.

He did not choose gallant words for reply.

"He has set you on me, has he, to pull me away from what I think is right? He wants me to be like the rest of 'em, eh? I can be an understudy for Herbert Linton and an errand boy for the State machine! I didn't think, Miss Presson, that you—"

"You'd better not go any further, Mr. Harlan Thornton. My affection for an old man who has set his heart on your success has brought me into this affair, and I assure you I don't enjoy the situation. You are not asked to betray any one, or desert any high moral pinnacle, or do anything else that the moralists say all these fine things about without knowing what they mean half the time. You are reminded of this: that there's only one General Waymouth. There's a sudden big call for him because factions have got into a row with each other. Folks will rally around him for a little while—it's a sort of revival sentiment. But you are not a General Waymouth. He'll be excused by sentiment, you'll simply be branded as one of the common run of ramrodders who try to achieve the impossible with human nature—a disturbing element in State politics—and your career will be spoiled. Now I've delivered my message, and done what I promised your grandfather I'd do."

She turned her horse, and started him back toward town.

There was silence between them for a time.

"So, if I weren't Thelismer Thornton's grandson you wouldn't take any interest in me at all?" he inquired, sourly.

"A very impudent and unnecessary question, Mr. Harlan Thornton. I'm afraid your grandfather is right—you have stayed in the woods too long."

Longer silence.

He was more humble when he spoke again. "I don't want you to think I'm what I may seem to be, Miss Presson. But what is there I can do in politics, just now, different from what I'm doing? I have taken my side with the General. I propose to stay there, of course. But I do not want to have people think I'm a fool. And I haven't heard much else from any one since I started out." There was wistfulness in his voice. He suddenly felt drawn to her. He craved her counsel. It was the mastery of the woman, more worldly-wise. He was bewildered and ashamed. The image of Clare Kavanagh was not dimmed in his soul. She had been with him daily in his thoughts. He knew that he felt affection for her. It was tenderness, desire to protect, the real impulse of the man toward his mate. But the feeling was all unexpressed and incoherent.

And yet Madeleine Presson, more than ever before, attracted him powerfully. She had the elements that he had never seen and experienced in womankind. Just at that moment she dominated, for his passion had betrayed him into a rather puerile outbreak.

Subtle analysis of the emotions was beyond him. He did not understand. His life had trained him along more primitive lines of selection. But he realized now that he was trying to probe something in his soul that defied his rather limited powers of judging. He had not given his heart unreservedly, he had not pledged himself. Clare Kavanagh had repented of a child's weakness and had run away from him, vaguely hinting that she would forget him. This masterful young woman, driving him back to town, her determined profile outlined against the gloom as he gazed shyly at her, did not appear to be interested in him, except as a rebel to authority and needing chastisement.

The child of the woods, as he thought of her, stirred all his tenderness, his sympathy, and the soft ties of long intimacy and understanding bound him.

But this girl, with beauty and brains, on his own level of independence of thought, stirred new desires and ambitions in him. She was helpmate and counsellor. He wondered if newer times and conditions did not demand stronger qualities than mere womanhood in the wife who was to accompany a man into the vicissitudes of public life. Not that he felt that he was more than an humble instrument of the real power. But he fell to considering the subject from the general viewpoint. His own experiences had awakened new ideas that he pondered, having a very provocative suggestion at his side.

Still more humbly he asked her: "If you have been thinking the matter over, Miss Presson, what advice do you give me?"

"I advise you to have a serious talk with your grandfather. He has had much experience. Use your own judgment, too, but be ready to hear the evidence. You have not shown that willingness, yet, so far as I can determine. I haven't any advice of my own to offer. I'll not presume. Only this: be as honest as you can, but don't be so impractically honest that you chop down all your bridges behind you and neglect to gather timber for the bridges ahead of you."

Even in the gloom she understood that he was puzzled.

"Really, you know, I haven't written any handbook on practical politics, Mr. Thornton," she said, her humor coming to the rescue. "I have talked to you as though I had. But I've only talked to you with a woman's intuition in such matters—and you remember, too, I've seen much of legislative life. You can be good in politics—but, oh, don't be impractical! I want you to succeed."

"You do?"

"I most certainly do." She said it heartily.

No other word passed between them until they arrived in front of the hotel.

He reached up, after he had alighted, and grasped her hand. She had impulsively put out her own to meet his.

"I'll try to be—" he began, and then hesitated. He had been pondering. But his thoughts were still so confused that he could not think of the word that expressed exactly what he desired to make himself.

"Be human," she said, smiling down on him. "You won't find yourself of much use in the world unless you cultivate the faculty of personal contact, and you musn't try to leap into politics in this State right from the pedestal of a demigod. You may be able to elevate yourself later, but just now, my dear young friend, you should be reasonable. That's a word that means much in handling men and affairs. Now I hope I've softened you so that you will listen to your good grandfather when he has advice for you."

She did not allow herself to be too serious. There was the delicious drawl in her tone that had attracted him at first.

He went to his room and sat down to digest that political philosophy. If some one beside Madeleine Presson had said it, it would have seemed to him like the voice of the temptress. But she had already won his confidence in her sincerity. He wished that he could feel that her interest in him had more of a personal quality than she had admitted. He did not like to remember that it was simply affection for his grandfather that prompted her. He did not understand very well what he was to do to obey her suggestions. He did not understand himself exactly at that moment. But along with his loyalty to General Waymouth a new desire sprang into life within him. He wanted to show Luke Presson's daughter that Harlan Thornton could play the game of practical politics as well as Herbert Linton, and in the end would be more deserving of her respect.



CHAPTER XXIII

A TRUCE

Gen. Varden Waymouth was elected Governor. In spite of the sullen torpor of his party managers and the snarls of the Reverend Prouty and his radical ilk, he surmounted by mere momentum of his party a certain bland and trustful and destructive indifference of the general public, and won at the polls. The narrow margin by which he won would have scared a really loyal and conscientious State Committee. But the before-and-after gloom of Chairman Presson and his intimates was not caused by any worriment over the size of the plurality. They were languid spectators. They felt like dispossessed tenants. They took little interest in the temple of the party faith.

"When they buried old Zenas Bellew up our way (Zenas weighed three hundred and fifty, and lived in a cottage about the size of a wood-box) the undertaker found he couldn't get the coffin into the house or get Zenas out—not through doors or windows. A half-witted fellow we call 'Simpson's Rooster' spoke up, and said they'd better bury the old man in the house and move the family out into the coffin." That was Thelismer Thornton's comment on the political situation in the Republican party on the morning after the election. The chairman heard it with the gloom of a mourner. He could see nothing bright in the jest or the prospects.

There was a frigid truce during the four months that elapsed between the election and the assembling of the legislature.

General Waymouth retired to the brick house in Burnside, and gave ear to those who promptly made his home the Mecca of the State. There were office-holders who wanted to hold to their jobs, office-seekers who suspected that there would be a break in the plans of party patronage; there were officious gentlemen suggesting new legislation for the next administration to consider; there were crafty gentlemen trying to discover what the administration would recommend. The day was full of cares, duties, annoyances, and the nagging pleadings of persistent petitioners.

Harlan Thornton, now representative-elect from the Fort Canibas district, became still more indispensable in General Waymouth's daily life. Duties at a desk had worn upon him. This everlasting mingling with men was more to his taste. He had natural adaptability. He was a good judge of human nature. He had serene good nature. Physique and manner made him master of many situations at the old brick house that otherwise would have sadly tried the General's strength and temper. Therefore, his chief placed greater dependence upon his lieutenant with every day that passed, solicited his opinions as his knowledge of men increased and his judgment became worth more, relied upon his instinctive estimates of character, and shifted many burdens to the broad shoulders that seemed so well fitted to carry them.

Harlan Thornton was slow to realize what a tremendous power, as chamberlain, he really exercised in the State.

He awoke to that fact more slowly than did the men who came to solicit. He did not try to use his power for his own ends. He promptly noted the deference that men paid him; as promptly he penetrated certain plans men made to corrupt him, if they could. These attempts were made slyly, and did not proceed very far. Something in his demeanor prevented the plotters from openly broaching their desires and their willingness to make their interests worth his while. They knew that one of the Thorntons could not be won by money, but they were rather surprised to find out that he could not be beguiled by other inducements. He was so big and manly, and he had rapidly become so self-poised, that they did not realize that in experience he was only a boy, with the ingenuous faith and simple aims and candor of boyhood. He perceived what he might win. But the pride of serving General Waymouth loyally was worth more to him than anything they could offer.

His duties took him often to the State capital. The chairman of the State Committee was coolly courteous, often gloomily deferential, sometimes frankly cordial—uneasily trying to find the proper level to stand on in his intercourse with one who was the grandson of Thelismer Thornton, and also the chosen confidant of the man who had wrested from him control of State affairs.

In the case of Madeleine Presson, there was none of this embarrassment. He saw her often. She met him half-way with a frank interest in his work and a sympathy which, in those days of truce, did not question his ideals.

He became a welcome intimate of the Presson household. When he was there the master himself put aside all the brusqueness he displayed in their down-town discourse on politics. The girl welcomed him. There were many hours when they were alone together, in the home or on long drives into the country. She did not refer to their talk on that evening when she read to him his lesson on practical politics. He avoided that subject. He did not want to risk any further disagreement between them on the matter of ideals—or, for that matter, on any other subject. Association with her had become too delightful to be put to the test of discussions of political methods. He was still drawing upon her fund of worldly wisdom. There was a little touch of the cynic in her. He became secretly ashamed of some of his ingenuous beliefs, after she had deftly shown him the other side of things. She did show him the other side, quite in a matter-of-fact way. It was not that she was trying to break down his faith. There was nothing sly nor crafty in her methods of improving his views. But by informing him, she made him wiser, and, at the same time, more distrustful of motives, more searching in his investigations of methods. He began to doubt some of his earlier ideas of what a public man should be. He felt that his views were broadening. That was a comfortable way of excusing certain surrenderings to her ideas.

The more he drew from her the more he was drawn to her.

It was not the love that comes with a rush of the emotions and sweeps a man away.

Through the intellect, through his hunger for information and wider views, she was making herself indispensable to his welfare and his ambitions.

And yet Madeleine Presson was not trying to make this young man of the north country fall in love with her. Her interest in him was first of all based upon his winning earnestness and the elements of success that she divined in him, were they properly cultivated. She had studied men at the capital from childhood. The development of men in public life and service had been the one theme that she had heard most discussed. Her impulse of assistance had been directed toward this grandson of Thelismer Thornton.

But as the days went by, and opportunity gave them their hours together, they were drawn more closely, each insisting in secret meditation that it was not love. He found himself gradually rebuilding his creed of living on the foundation she had laid in that first long talk of theirs. He had arrived at such a point of belief in her that he was glad that she had opened his eyes. He was finding men—meeting them by the hundred—even as she had pictured them to him: selfish, scheming, crafty, and not understanding in the least his occasional attempts to meet them on the upper level of perfect candor. For her part, she found more in this young man than she had expected to find.

Harlan considered Herbert Linton the single jarring note in this new symphony of mutual interests.

Linton came to the capital with more or less regularity, and called on the Pressons with fully as much appearance of being entirely at home as his newer rival. When they were together the girl treated both with impartial interest and attention. She listened to each in turn, and if they chose to sit and scowl at each other she did the talking for all three. Deftly she arranged that they should leave together, and they always promptly separated as soon as they reached the sidewalk, as though they were afraid to trust themselves in each other's company.

So the new year came in, and the hordes of lawmakers, lobbyists, lookers-on, and laymen descended on the State capital.

The first few days of a legislative session, though packed full of politics and business, rush, and routine, are festival days, after all. There are the old friends to greet and the new friends to meet. There are ten spectators to every legislator, and the spectators are on hand for a good time. Outside of the factional clinches of the House and Senate caucuses the early days have little serious business.

Presson's great hotel and the lesser lights of the capital's houses of entertainment were packed to their roofs. The State House on the hill sent sparkling radiance at night from all its hundreds of windows out across the snow which loaded the broad lawns. Senator Pownal, renominated in joint caucus, spoke to crowded floor and galleries on the second evening. Harlan Thornton, in his seat in the House, listened and wondered if that convention had not been a dream.

This later convocation seemed so entirely harmonious.

The Republicans ruled House and Senate by safe majorities. Presson, sauntering about hotel or State House lobby, seemed bland and contented again. The wounds in the party seemed to have been healed.

On inauguration day Governor Waymouth added to the general spirit of harmony.

He came unobtrusively to the State House from the modest mansion he had leased in the capital city for the legislative winter and took his oath of office before an admiring throng. He had made a confidant of no one regarding his inaugural speech. There were vague rumors that the Governor would follow his hand, as he had shown it in his letter of acceptance, and deliver an inaugural address which would blister the ears of the politically unregenerate.

In that ancient State House, its accommodations for spectators limited, there were no hard-and-fast rules regulating admission to the floor. Harlan Thornton had a chair placed in the aisle beside his seat, and entertained Madeleine Presson there. He had anticipated Linton, who came with a similar invitation. Harlan was still enough of a boy to feel delight in the discomfiture of his rival, and to be gratified by the open admiration his fellow-members showed for the girl at his side. He relished the sour looks which Linton sent in that direction.

Under cover of the general buzz and bustle that accompanied the convening of the joint session of House and Senate for the purpose of the inauguration the girl rallied him a bit.

"The beginning of the righteous reign seems to be sane and sweet, after all," she said. "Even my father is complacent and purring this morning. Which has he eaten, do you know—the raven of contention or the dove of peace?"

"I think every one understands that Governor Waymouth has straightened matters out for all of us," he replied.

"How? By simply talking about it? As one who should say, 'Let it be done,' and it was done, and just what was done nobody, nobody knew—but it was done—something was—and all the folks felt better and went on in the same old way! Is that it?"

He smiled at her while she teased him; the nature of the armistice that prevailed, according to outward appearances, was not understood by him. For several weeks his intimacy with General Waymouth had not been as close as at the first. Not that there was distrust or even coolness between them. The veteran still depended on the young man for the services a trusted lieutenant could render. His plans, however, his future programme of reorganization—if he had any definite plans—the General kept to himself. It was not mere reticence. But there was an atmosphere about the old statesman as though he had withdrawn himself to a higher altitude to think his thoughts and formulate his plans alone. If he had heard of the intimacy of Harlan Thornton with the family of Luke Presson he made no comment on that fact.

"Now what is he going to say in his address?" she asked. "Every one will know in a few moments. Tell me ahead—tell me the big utterance that will make the people sit up. I want to be ready to watch their faces!"

"Why, I haven't a single idea what he will say," he blurted.

"Oh, safe repository, I salute you!"

"But I haven't! The Governor hasn't opened his mouth to me!"

"Have a care! One very easily steps from polite diplomacy into very impolite falsehood. You must always be truthful with me, Harlan."

His eyes grew brighter and his tanned cheeks warm. It was the first time she had addressed him without hateful formality.

"I propose to tell you the truth, always," he assured her. "But I mean what I say—the Governor has kept his address to himself."

"I should resent that. It would have been a delicate compliment, and he owed that much to you. I'm afraid he has been a politician long enough to be like all the rest—to walk up to power on men as one uses a flight of stairs, and then to put the stairs behind his back; for one doesn't walk up-stairs backward."

He flushed more deeply.

"I'm not that kind of a fellow—jealous, or petty, or expecting a great deal for what little service I can render."

"Put a value on yourself, though," she advised him. "It really isn't human nature, you know, to pick up the things that are thrown away by the owners—to pick them up and keep them and value them, I mean. That applies to purses and all other possessions, including hearts and loyalty."

He started to say something to her—even though the throng pressed about them he would have said it; but the voice of the crier at the door announced what all were waiting for.

"His Excellency the Governor, the Honorable Council, and his Excellency the Governor-elect and party!"

They filed along in dignified procession down the centre aisle, the uniforms of the officers of the staff giving a touch of color and brightness to the formal frock-coats.

The Secretary of State announced the official figures of the vote electing Varden Waymouth as Governor, and after his sonorous final phrase, "God save the State of ———," Governor Waymouth repeated the oath of office administered by a gaunt, sallow lawyer who was the president of the Senate.

The clerk of the House set a reading-desk on the Speaker's table and arranged the Governor's manuscript. As the old man read he made a striking picture. He stood very erect. His snowy hair, the empty sleeve across his breast, the lines the years had etched on cheeks and brow gave those who looked on him a little thrill of sympathetic regret that one so old should be called from the repose of his later years to take up such public burdens as he had assumed. But his voice was resonant, his eye was clear. Nature seemed to have given him new strength to meet what he was now facing. And yet, thought some of those who listened, it might be that he did not propose to make a martyr of himself, after all. His address did not threaten or complain. The radicals who sat there with set teeth and bent brows, hoping to hear denunciation after their own heart, were disappointed. The politicians who had feared now took new grip on their hope—it probably was not to be as bad as they had anticipated.

Harlan Thornton listened to the calm, moderate statement of the State's general financial and political situation with growing sense of mingled disappointment and relief. His fighting spirit and his knowledge of conditions, as they had been revealed to him, made him hope that at last an honest man proposed to clean the temple—entering upon his task with bared arms and a clarion call. This mild old man, confining himself to the details of the State's progress and needs, was not exactly the leader he had expected him to be. And yet Harlan was relieved. He looked at the girl beside him, and that relief smoothed away his disappointment. As matters were shaping themselves he no longer anticipated that he would be driven into pitched battle, forced to fight intrenched enemies of reform—Luke Presson's face most conspicuous of all those behind the party wall of privilege. As he listened to the address he comforted himself with the thought that probably political disagreements loomed more blackly as a cloud on the horizon than their real consistency warranted. He was not in retreat—he would not admit that to himself as he listened. But he felt that compromise and a better understanding were in the air. There would be no more occasion for troubled arguments between himself and the girl at his side. He did not understand exactly in what way it would be done, but he felt that Governor Waymouth knew how to win his reforms without such party slaughter as the first engagements hinted at. He put himself into a very comfortable frame of mind, and the girl at his side, by her mere presence, added to his belief that this was a pretty good old world, after all.

He had lost some of his respect for "reform." It had been exemplified for him mostly by such men as Prouty and his intolerant kind—by Spinney and his dupes. He felt that he might call decency by some other name, and arrive at results by the calm and dignified course which Governor Waymouth now seemed to be pointing out. He suddenly felt a warm appreciation of the wisdom of Madeleine Presson as she had made that good sense known to him in their talks.

"For it is by my works, not my words, that I would be judged," concluded the Governor, solemnly, and bowed to the applause which greeted the end.

Neither Harlan Thornton nor any other listener in the great assembly hall took those words as signifying anything more than the usual pledge of faithful performance.

After the dissolving of the joint caucus he escorted Madeleine to the council-chamber, where the new Governor was holding his impromptu reception. There were no shadows on the faces which pressed closely around him. All the politicians of the State were there, eager to be the first to congratulate him. Their fears had been somewhat allayed. In political circles it was well understood that Waymouth stood for a clean-up. It had been hinted that his programme would be drastic. The members of the machine, more intimately in the secrets of the convention, had expected that the old Roman would sound the first blast of the charge in his inaugural address. His moderateness cheered them. Harlan found congratulation sweetening every comment.

The General received the young couple with marked graciousness.

"Governor Waymouth, you have convinced me to-day that you are the apostle of universal salvation for the wicked—in politics," said the girl. "I hope the doctrine will be accepted."

"In that belief you are safe companion for my first disciple," he returned, humoring her jest. The crowd carried them on.

"I believe that, too," Harlan murmured.

"Universal salvation according to the new political creed?"

"I'm not thinking about politics. I'm not thinking much about anything else just now except you. During the Governor's address it came over me suddenly what wise counsel you gave me. If I had you for an adviser all the rest of my life I could amount to more in the world than I ever can without you."

She glanced at him sharply.

"I mean that," he insisted. "Will you be my adviser for the rest of my life?"

It was crude, blunt, and sudden proposal. The throngs were eddying about them. They were jostled at the moment by the Toms, Dicks, and Harrys of the legislative concourse. Curious eyes surveyed them. Ears were near by.

"I can't help saying it here and now," he rushed on. "I—"

"My dear Harlan, you don't mean to say that you are proposing to me here in the face and eyes of this crowd?" She said it with sudden amazed mirth dancing in her eyes, but with a note of satire in her tone.

"I do mean it!" He cried it so loudly that men turned their heads to stare at this earnest young man who was protesting his faith to the handsome daughter of Luke Presson.

"Hush!" she cried, sharply, and then pulled him along. She spoke low. "I don't think you have enough humor in you to realize just what you have done, Harlan. I have found humor lacking in you. You have picked out the lobby of the State House, in the middle of the biggest crowd of all the year, as the 'love's bower' for an offer of marriage. You say you mean it as an offer of marriage. But what you really did was to ask me to attach myself to you as general adviser. You can hire a clairvoyant who will do that much for you, and I doubt if you would engage the clairvoyant as publicly as you have just tried to engage me."

"I understand just what a fool I made of myself," he muttered, huskily. "But I couldn't wait—and I mean it."

"No, you don't realize just how much of a fool you are where women are concerned," she returned, judicially. "A woman—a young woman—is generally interested in hearing first of all a little about love and devotion and loyalty, all unselfish and uncalculating. Now be patient! Listen to me! A woman can detect real love. And real love seeks its opportunity sweetly and shyly. It doesn't preface itself with remarks about a woman's brain and advisory ability. I believe it has a lot to say about eyes and hair and lips and such things. However, since you admire me in my capacity as adviser, I'll advise you to be sure that you love a woman before you propose to her, and then when you propose pick out some place that's suitable for convincing her that you do love her. I see mother yonder. Take me to her."

Turning away, flushed and angry, from her demure smile, he became bitterly conscious that even had they been alone, under most favorable circumstances, he would have lacked speech for real love-making. He felt that conviction inwardly. He wondered whether he had the capacity for loving as he had read of men loving. It made him a bit ashamed to think of himself as violently protesting, hungrily pleading. A moment before he had been angry because she doubted his love. He knew that he admired her, respected, desired her. Now he argued with himself, and convinced his soul that his emotions constituted love. And having convinced himself, he determined to seek further opportunity of convincing her. It was truly an academic way of settling matters so riotously impatient of calculation as affairs of the heart, and his determination would have appealed to Miss Presson's sense of the humorous more acutely still had he undertaken to explain his emotions of that moment.

Thelismer Thornton, strolling amiably through the lobby throng, came and put his hand on Harlan's shoulder.

"The best way to make good sugar is to simmer the sap slowly, my boy." Harlan glanced sharply at him, but the Duke was not discussing love. "Vard has got into the simmering stage at last. I reckoned he would. He's too good a politician to boil the kettle over as he started in doing. What's the matter with you? You look as though you'd been listening to a funeral oration instead of an address that has put the party back on Easy Street."

His grandson was careful not to explain the cause of his gloom. He was willing to let politics be answerable.

Chairman Presson, more cheerful than he had been for weeks, came and crowded between them in a cosey, confidential manner.

"Say, the old fellow is getting smoothed down," he chuckled. "That address was milk for babes. He's got good sense. The thin edge of that plurality made him think twice. I reckon he's going to play a safe game after this. I don't know what he wanted to throw such a scare into us early in the game for! But as we get old we get cranky, I suppose. I may be that way myself when I grow older."

"Vard preached the theory to us for all it was worth," commented the Duke, "but I reckon he's up against the practice end of the proposition now—and he was a politician before he was a preacher."

"Hope he'll stay a politician after this. He got onto my nerves. It wasn't necessary to be so almighty emphatic about things going wrong in this State."

"Old Pinkney up our way is always careful to keep an eye out for the drovers," said the Duke. "When he sees one coming he hustles out into the pasture and shifts the poker off'n the breachy critter onto the best one in the bunch. And that's the way he unloads the breachy one. Vard has been wearing the poker the last few weeks, but I don't believe he intends to hook down any fences."

In the eyes of the politicians, therefore, Governor Waymouth had become safe and sane. They construed his earlier declarations as the ambitions of an old man dreaming a dream of perfection. The legislature swung into the routine of its first weeks in the usual fashion. The business consisted of the presentation of bills, acts, and resolves. The daily sessions lasted barely half an hour. The committee hearings had not begun, and the legislators found time hanging heavy on their hands.

Harlan Thornton continued to be a frequent caller at the Presson home. But he did not seem to find an opportunity for a tete-a-tete with Madeleine. She did not show constraint in his presence. She did not avoid him. She treated him with the same frank familiarity. But he did not find himself alone with her. He did not try to force such a situation, in spite of the provocation she had given him once. He was not yet sure that he could command the words that real love might demand for expression. That was his vague excuse to his own heart for delaying—for his heart insisted that he did love her. He had to admit to himself that this was not the headlong passion the poets described, but he consoled himself with the reflection that he was not a poet. So he made the most of her cordial acceptance of him as he was, and felt sure that Herbert Linton had won no more from her.



CHAPTER XXIV

A GOVERNOR AND A MAID

The Honorable Arba Spinney was in the lobby as usual that winter. The Duke's sarcastic prediction was fulfilled. He appeared promptly at the session's opening, and was the most insistent and persistent member of the "Third House," as the paid legislative agents were called. Most of the men who wormed their way here and there operated craftily and tried to be diplomatic. Spinney strove by effrontery. As usual, he made the country members his especial prey. The story of his knavery at the State Convention had been smothered in the interests of the party. He reappeared among men with as much assurance as ever. He even approached Harlan Thornton to solicit his support of one bill. It was a measure to grant State subsidy, through exemption of taxation, to assist a railroad to extend its lines into the timber-land country.

Harlan checked him promptly. "I don't propose to discuss that question or any other with you, Mr. Spinney."

"If that road is built it will double the value of half your lands," insisted the lobbyist. "It's business for you and it's business for us, and there's no reason why you shouldn't talk business, is there?"

"It doesn't interest me, Mr. Spinney." He went on, hotly: "I know just as much about the matter as you do. It's an attempt to evade the State constitution, which forbids subsidizing railroads. Governor Waymouth has explained it to me. I don't propose to profit by any such methods. And I'll inform you, further, that it's just about the sort of a scheme I'd expect to find you working for. Do you understand me?"

"I know what you're referring to. But that matter is over with. I got the worst end of it. You helped to pass it to me. You can't afford to carry on any quarrel with me, Thornton. Holding grudges is bad business; so is making a fool of yourself by playing little tin saint in public matters."

"I hold no grudge against you. That would be getting down on your level. I'm simply disgusted with you as a man, Mr. Spinney. That's all. You know why. Now leave me alone."

But Spinney boldly intercepted him. Harlan had started to leave. The lobbyist realized what a powerful foe young Thornton could be to his project, and he was desperate.

"I've been up through your country, Mr. Thornton. I've been spending some time at Fort Canibas. I've been posting myself generally on railroad and other matters—other matters! I don't want to say too much, but I'd like to have you run over in your mind what those other matters might be. Now, you and I can't afford to be enemies. I got the tough end, and I'm willing to overlook and forget. You owe me a little something. I hope you're going to square it. Let me remind you that I'm a bad man with my tongue. I'm free to say it, I depend on my tongue for what I get out of life."

It occurred to Harlan that this brazen threat referred to the scandal of the Fort Canibas caucus.

"Bring them on," he sneered: "Ivus Niles and his buck sheep and Enoch Dudley and the rest of the petty rogues that you hired with your corporation money to defeat me."

"You're on the wrong trail," replied Spinney. "I can hit you harder than that, and in a tenderer spot."

He returned Harlan's amazed stare.

"I've been keeping my eyes open down here, Mr. Thornton, and I kept my ears open up in Fort Canibas." His face grew hard. "D—n you, I'll never forget what you did to me! I'm coming right out open with you. I'd like to do you in return. I can do it. But I'll give you a chance; it's for my interest to do so, providing you buy the let-off. If you don't stand by me in that tax rebate, I'll launch the story. What I lose in support I'll more than make up in seeing you squirm. I'm pretty frank, ain't I? Well, I play strong when I've got enough trumps under my thumb."

"Spinney, I've had enough of that kind of talk. What do you mean?"

"Don't you have the least idea?"

"Not the slightest."

"A good bluff! Well, I know about the girl up country! See? It's a bad story to be passed up to another girl. And I know how to get the details to my friend Presson's daughter in time to spoil your ambition in that quarter. Now, how about that?"

They were in one corner of the State-House lobby, and the presence of a hundred men about them probably saved Spinney from a beating there and then. Harlan quivered with rage. He did not grasp the full purport of Spinney's hints. He only understood that the man had grossly intruded on his private affairs. He could not speak. He dared not trust his voice.

"Now do you want to let it go further?" inquired the lobbyist. He felt that the proximity of others protected him.

"I'll meet you alone—I'll hunt you out, and I'll mash that face of yours into pulp!" choked the young man, and hurried away before he lost control of himself. The most he could make out of the episode was that Spinney was seeking cheap revenge by offering insult to his face under circumstances that prevented him from retaliating. He did not understand the reference to Clare Kavanagh. His friendship for the girl was no secret in the north country. That Spinney had made so much account of it by his insinuations was the astonishing feature, in Harlan's estimation.

Fortunately for his peace of mind at that moment, he was not allowed to dwell upon the matter. The Governor's messenger came seeking him. He followed the man into the presence of his Excellency.

Harlan had not recovered his self-possession, and the Governor surveyed him with some interest.

"Cares of State, young man?" he asked. "And the session still as calm as a millpond?"

"That cur of a Spinney has just insulted me—no politics, sir, but just plain, personal insult. Why, he went out of his way to do it!"

"You make much out of nothing if you allow that blatherskite to disturb you," said the Governor, with mild reproof. "Pay no attention to him. Now to my business with you! I'd like to have you dine with me this evening. I have some serious matters to talk over with you alone—and the executive chamber, here, is no place for a quiet talk."

Harlan hesitated a moment.

"Have you another engagement?"

"I was to dine with the Pressons."

"I am sorry to ask you to do it, my boy, but if it is merely a social engagement, will you not beg to be excused? I assure you that my business is such that it cannot well wait another twenty-four hours. I am ready to leave the State House now. We'll ride past the Presson door, and I'll wait while you present your regrets. Tell the fair Madeleine that duty calls." He smiled. "I hear interesting reports, young man. Again I say I'm sorry to keep you from your engagement, but Miss Presson has been near enough to politics to understand what a duty-call means. Come!"

The young man flushed. Reply failed him. He followed the Governor to his carriage. It was late afternoon, and the State House was emptying.

As Harlan ran up the steps of the Presson house, Spinney's ugly threat came to him. The man dealt in gossip. It was an incredible form of attack. It was slander of the innocent. He could not forewarn Madeleine Presson. That would be caddish.

But he felt a sudden panic. The impulse of admiration; covetous desire to win her away from Linton, a desire pricked by his increasing dislike of that young rival in love and politics; the charm she possessed for him who had met in her his first woman of intellect and culture—all drove him to her. The other love was a vague something that troubled him. Madeleine Presson was near and visible, and he did not dissect the emotion which prompted him to seek her.

She came down to the reception-room. He had sent up an urgent request.

"No," she said, with a smile, after she had listened, "I think I'll put your loyalty to the test! If I'm always to be the minority report in your estimation, Mr. Legislator, it's time now to find it out. You put Governor Waymouth and your politics first, do you?"

"But you haven't given me the right to put you first," he returned, boldly.

"Just how was I to go about giving you that right?" she inquired, with demure sarcasm. "Memorialize you, Mr. Representative, or throw it at you from the House gallery, concealed in a bouquet?"

In spite of the waiting Governor outside he started toward her, his arms outstretched, his heart rushing to his lips. Her taunt—it seemed like that—made him desperate.

"Madeleine, I tried to tell you—I know it seemed a strange place, but I couldn't wait—I want to tell you now—"

She eluded him, and stopped him with a word. He was not impetuous enough to persist.

"Oh, you master of the art of love-making!" she cried. Pique mingled with mirth in her tone. "First, you propose to me in the midst of the mob; then you propose to me, bursting in like a messenger-boy, and yonder the Governor of this State, with anxious head out of his carriage window, scowling because you don't come along! Admirable occasions for pledging passion and life-long devotion! Dear Harlan, your ingenuity must be puzzled by this time. I'll make a suggestion: fly over our house in a balloon and shout your declaration down the chimney. I'll sit in the fireplace from two to four, afternoons."

"I'll not be put off!" he cried.

"You shall be put out, and I'll do it!" Laughing, she took him by his arm and led him out into the hall. Protesting, he went. "I have some respect for the feelings of our Governor on a chilly afternoon, even if you haven't. You are excused from our little dinner. Go, now, Harlan. I'm serious."

"There's one thing you have given me," he said, red, half-angry, and thoroughly subdued, "and that's the promise that I may take you to the legislative ball. That's to-morrow night—and we'll see!" He bolted out upon the steps.

"Delightful!" she cried after him. "What an opportunity the stage of City Hall will afford for another!" She shut the door before he could reply.

The Governor rallied him a bit on his disturbed looks as they rode on, but Harlan was in no mood to relish jokes on that subject.

Governor Waymouth had no other guests at dinner. He did not broach his business until they were seated in the little parlor of the modest mansion. The room had been converted into a study.

"To date the session has hardly been what you hoped—perhaps that's too strong a word—what you expected it would be, has it?" inquired the Governor, his earnestness showing that he was ready to begin. He did not wait for a reply.

"Matters have run in the old rut. Every one seems to be satisfied, eh—even the radicals in the prohibition movement? Isn't that so? Their men have introduced some new legislation, adding on more penalties that no officer will ever enforce—but the mere legislation satisfies 'em. Everybody satisfied, apparently." The Governor uttered that last sentence in meditative manner. Then he straightened, and slapped his hand upon his chair-arm so suddenly that Harlan started. "But I am not satisfied!" he shouted. "I have let them run along. I have let them introduce their bills. I have waited for the lawmakers of this State and for the people to take some initiative. I gave them their call last fall in my letter. I hoped that some part of this State was awake. But those few who have shown some signs of civic interest have only pecked around the edges of reform. Nothing has been done, Harlan Thornton. Not one sweeping bill has been introduced. I have waited, hoping. I hoped the people would arise and help me with this burden. But I've waited in vain. There are only two more days in this session allowed for the introduction of new business.

"My boy, I talked first with you about my becoming Governor of this State. That's why I'm talking first with you about this matter. I shall call every man of this legislature to me and talk with him privately, and in that work I want your assistance. I want you to bring them to me. I called you here to-night because to-morrow night folly and fashion will rule all in this city, and I must be there with the rest. Let me tell you, my boy, that when the men of this legislature awake, after that night of frivolity, it will be to open their eyes on some serious business. Not one word about what I intend to do until then. The session has been a very sweet cake till now—let the ball sugar-coat it! There'll be bitter eating provided day after to-morrow!"

He waited a moment, recovering from sudden passion.

"Ah," he said, gentle once more, "that sounds like senile raving. Pardon me. But while I've waited for the politicians of this State to show some signs of decency, waiting in vain, I've been swallowing back a lot of bitterness. No more of it! To our business now. I want you to know what is coming. I depend on you, as I have depended before, to be my master of ceremonies—and rather grim ceremonies they will be. For I have prepared several bills. You will introduce the House measures. I can depend on Senator Borden, from my county, for what I choose to have originate in the Senate. They are bills that will put our party and this State to the test of honesty. It's strange, isn't it, that what sounds so innocent should be so bitter?"

He opened a drawer in his desk. He took out papers and spread them before him. He selected one.

"Abolishment of fees (a blow at every grafting officeholder); no more railroad passes for public officials; a bipartisan tax commission that shall haul the rich dodger out into the open—all these matters are covered here. But into your hands, young man, I put the one measure that is to be the most savage test of our honesty. I have put the most thought on it. Every lawyer in this State will try to find a flaw in it. But if I know anything about constitutional law it is framed to beat them all. I'll not bother to read it to you. Carry it away, and guard it and study it."

He held it up, waving it. His heart was plainly full. He talked as one addressing the careless multitude—and talking, at the same time, to himself.

"You may divine what it is. It handles the great topic in our State. The source of dishonor, corruption, perjury, and hypocrisy! The prohibitory law! Let me tell what it will do when it has been enacted into law. It will make the Governor of this State the grand high sheriff to enforce personally and actively this one law; it's in our constitution, and the State should enforce its own. He will have all the resources of the State treasury behind him. He shall have for the first time PROHIBITION. Prohibition enforced, prohibition as the statutes have ordered it, prohibition in actuality instead of its pretence. The pretence has satisfied the rumsellers who sold, the rum-drinkers who drank, and the radicals who have boasted of the law, for all have got out of it what results were desired: appetite was catered to, vanity was satisfied, and graft engendered for the benefit of the office-holding class.

"I'm not going to predict what I think will be the result of this enforcement—not now. What I propose to do as an honest man is to put the prohibitory profession of this State to the test. When this is law, Luke Presson cannot pose as an honest man and continue to sell liquor to all-comers, he cannot bribe sheriff and police; I'll send my own men to smash every bottle in his place, and I'll put him into just as dark a cell as any Cheap John who peddles poison from his boot-leg. The rich man must stand on the level of the poor man. It's the test of our State's honesty—that bill is—and it shall be called 'The Thornton Law.'"

He arose, and placed the document in Harlan's hand.

The young man received it rather gingerly. He held it with somewhat the appearance of one who has the custody of a loaded weapon. His face expressed consternation rather than appreciation.

"Study the measure. I think you'll find it interesting. Introduce it in the House day after to-morrow. Our gallant lawmakers will be sleepy after the ball. That will wake 'em up." The old man's nostrils dilated. He had the air of one who saw battle ahead and yearned for it.

"Move that it be referred to the Committee on Temperance," the Governor went on. "The fight will be on then and there, just as soon as they get their breath. They'll want to get it before a safer gang! Let 'em refer it to the Judiciary Committee if they've got the votes to do so. I'm not afraid they'll find any constitutional flaws. And that first vote will give me a line on the general situation. I'll find out just what men need to have the gospel put to 'em straight!"

"Governor," stammered the young man, still holding the document at arm's-length, "wouldn't it be—don't you think a—a—some representative who has had more experience than I should be the one to see this bill through?"

"I want that bill sponsored by a man that I can trust absolutely. I'm sure of you, Harlan! When once it is introduced I'll see that you have plenty of help before the committee and on the floor."

It had come like a thunderclap on a moonlit night. It was sudden tempest prefaced by the lull of perfect calm. It was the signal to combat sounded when peace seemed assured. The young man perceived now how much of his early zeal had deserted him. He shrank from the task the Governor had assigned to him. It was a blow that was aimed at the tenderest point of his own party; it was obliging the party, as the dominant power, to thrust upon the mass of the people the radical execution of a law which public opinion secretly opposed—that opinion even slyly welcoming the breach of it. And Governor Waymouth had emphasized what that new measure meant by citing the name of Luke Presson. It set the situation before Harlan in a flash. He was summoned to carry out his pledge of loyalty to Governor Waymouth by attacking the pet policy of nullification that kept his own party off the shoals to which extreme radicalism would surely drive it. The first man who would be hit—both as chairman of the party State Committee and in his personal interests—would be the man whose daughter he was seeking. Harlan wondered how that marriage proposal would sound, either on the heels or on the eve of the introduction of "the Thornton bill."

His uncertainty showed so plainly in his face that the Governor walked around his table and scrutinized him closely.

"My boy," he asked, "has the enemy captured you while you've been resting on your arms? Remember, there are slick and specious ways of making the wrong seem right in politics! I hope you haven't been tampered with!"

For a guilty moment Harlan remembered the admonitions of Madeleine Presson. He was promptly ashamed that they had come to his mind when the Governor spoke his fears.

"I'm going to tell you just why I'm a bit slow in this matter," he said, manfully. "It may seem a trivial reason to you, Governor Waymouth. I stopped to wonder how it would affect my friendship with the Presson family if I should introduce that bill."

"Oh, I see how the land lies! You can understand now how old I am—old and cold with all the romance burned out of me! I'd forgotten that there's anything except politics left in the world. So—" He paused, beaming kindly on the young man, and pursing his lips ready for the jocose supposition that Harlan foresaw and anticipated.

"No," he declared, flushing, "it isn't that way. It hasn't gone that far, Governor. I ask your pardon for mentioning my personal affairs, especially an affair of this sort. But I should be very sorry to break off my friendship with the Pressons."

The Governor went back to his chair, and sat down in it. He wrinkled his brows and took a long survey of his embarrassed caller.

"I'm afraid I spoke of the case of our mutual friend Presson in rather harsh terms. It would not work like that. Of course, he would bow to the inevitable if such a law were passed. But if it becomes a personal matter in any respect, Mr. Thornton, do you believe that any member of Presson's family would be offended if Presson were made to obey the law?"

"Well, if he persisted against the new law, it would be a pretty hard position for any fair person to defend," admitted the young man.

"I think we may depend on it that this young person, admittedly 'fair'—at my age I can be allowed to bestow that compliment—will respect your integrity. I do not command you to do the service—I cannot do that. But I shall be disappointed if you allow personal reasons to interfere with your public duties. I have depended on you to do it. I have only a few that I can trust."

At that instant, in the presence of this man who had sacrificed so much, Harlan felt that his own interests were too petty for consideration.

He put the document into his pocket.

"Forgive me for hesitating, Governor Waymouth. I'm afraid I'll never make a very good public servant. But I'll try to hold my eyes straight ahead after this."

"Keep the paper in your pocket. Think it all over. You're at the place every man reaches. What you want to do and what you ought to do split very sharply sometimes. I'll let you decide. I have no more to say."

Harlan walked back to the hotel, trying to adjust himself to this new phase of the question. Once more he had been called upon to lead the charge of the forlorn hope. He had not the same thrill of zealous loyalty as before. He was a little hurt because the Governor had made the affairs of his heart of so small importance. An old man's austerity could not understand, perhaps, but nevertheless Harlan felt that he was entitled to some consideration. He had not acquired an old man's calm poise—he was not entirely willing to put politics ahead of everything else, now that he found there were so many other things in life. Was it not true that the mass preferred to pay court to high ideals in the abstract, and bitterly resented any attempt by sincere individuals to enforce the actual? He understood rather vaguely that he would be applauded by the radicals—he had met their leaders and did not like them—he would get the applause the mob gives to "a well-meaning fellow," but more than all he would be sneered at behind his back as "a crank trying to reorganize human nature," and therefore to be shunned. He had been mingling intimately with the chief men of the State; he knew what kind of comment they had for others. Most of all, he knew that the mild applause of the mob would not be loud enough to drown out those familiar voices nearest him—he had heard those voices many times before: there was his grandfather, there was Luke Presson, there were the political associates with whom he had already begun to train on the basis of compromise.

There was Luke Presson's daughter!

He strode into the lobby of the hotel, his face gloomy and his thoughts dark. Linton stepped forward to meet him, hat and overcoat on. It was evident that he had been waiting. The sight of him did not improve Harlan's temper. From the first day of the session they had eyed each other malevolently. They had bristled at every possible point of contact. Linton's last exploit had been a speech favoring the railroad tax rebate, a speech in which he scored those who opposed it as enemies to the development of the State. The fervor of his eloquence had made even Harlan Thornton doubt, sourly, whether a constitution that was framed before the exigencies of progress were dreamed of should be too rigidly construed. That was still another point where he and his grandfather disagreed, and the cogent speech of Linton had been the cause of further dispute between them. The Duke was disgusted because his grandson could be so scrupulous that he could not be progressive. For Harlan the straight path of rectitude was fringed with signs set there by friends, every sign inscribed "Fool." From the first, Linton had seemed to aggravate his difficulties, politically and personally.

"Can you give me a few minutes of your time?" he asked, stiffly.

"If it's business, and important, yes," returned Harlan, scowling.

"I should not bother you with anything except business. And as this is of a private nature, I must ask you to invite me to your room."

Harlan led the way to the elevator.

Linton did not remove his overcoat when they were closeted together. He stood with hat in his hand.

"It may surprise you to learn that my business concerns Miss Presson and the legislative ball to-morrow evening," began Linton, but Harlan indignantly broke in.

"You can have no possible business with me, sir, in which Miss Presson's name may be mentioned. Don't you use her name—not in any way. Do you understand?"

"I understand this: I know what I'm talking about and exactly why I've come here, and you're going to listen. Miss Presson has accepted your escort to the ball to-morrow evening. Don't you know, Thornton, why you can't take Madeleine Presson into public, this whole State looking on? I hate to say any more than that. I don't think it's necessary for me to say any more than that!" His face was hard, his tone accusing.

"I tell you, you have no right to mention Miss Presson to me!" cried the other.

"I'm taking it on myself, and I'm giving you a chance by doing it," retorted Linton. "The story is bad enough now. But you'll be drummed out of this State if you insult an innocent girl in the way you plan to do."

In his indignation Thornton had been slow to grasp the fact that his rival was making hints that both affronted and threatened. His conscience accused him of nothing. He felt the crackle of paper in his breast-pocket. He promptly suspected that Linton had gleaned a hint of the proposed legislation which would involve Madeleine's father.

He tried to control his anger.

"Will you kindly explain to me by just what right you say this," he sneered—"except, possibly, that you're jealous because Miss Presson chose me as her escort."

"I have a right as a friend of her mother, if nothing else! I am keeping this thing as still as I can for your sake, for in this case protecting you means protecting her. I don't want to say any more! But sudden illness must prevent you from accompanying Miss Presson into public at that ball."

Harlan beat a palm upon his own breast.

"I've had enough of this, Linton. You tell me what you're driving at."

It was plain that Linton hated to be more explicit. This culprit did not seem to quail before vague accusation, as he had expected him to do. He was faced by a young man whose face was lighted by wrath, curiosity, and kindred emotions that were obviously not those of guilt.

"Let me say this in my own defence," pleaded Linton. "Spinney was going right to Mr. and Mrs. Presson with the story. I got it from him almost by accident. We were talking over our railroad bill this evening, and he mentioned your stand. Then he out with the story that he picked up when he was in Fort Canibas. I do not listen to gossip, Mr. Thornton, but it is plain that Spinney has facts. I have inquired in a prudent way of other men from your section. He has the story, but what they say confirms it."

Harlan listened, his blank amazement depriving him of speech.

"I've said enough now, haven't I?" asked Linton, significantly.

"No, by God, you haven't!" shouted the other, coming out of his lethargy of astonishment. The recollection of Spinney's sinister hints came to him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that a man who will fool and throw over a girl in a way that drives her away from home and friends is no fit escort—"

He got no further. He knew a thoroughly maddened and dangerous man when he saw one. He stepped back when Harlan dashed at him, and Thornton halted of his own accord. After a time he calmed himself enough to speak.

"I'll not begin with you, Linton. I'll begin with the man who started that damnable lie. Oh, that—that—!" He flailed his arms about his head, unable to express himself. "You've been lied to. You don't know any better than to say that. If you hadn't been jealous you'd never have brought the story to me. I'll make allowances," he raved on; "but the man who started that story will swallow it with teeth and blood mixed." He stamped about the room. It was so horrible that he could not grasp the enormity of the lie all at once.

Linton was impressed but not routed. He waited till Harlan was quieter.

"I hope you'll get it straightened out," he said, coldly. "But with a story like that extant, of course you'll see the wisdom of the course I've suggested. You cannot afford to drag Miss Presson's name into your affair."

"Into my affair! You dirty pup, do you dare to intimate—are you lunatic enough to take stock in any such story about me?"

The epithets sent the color into Linton's face. But he restrained himself.

"Your own grandfather had to take you in hand about the matter before you left Fort Canibas, Thornton. I heard him say that much myself. He gave no details. I don't care for any. I merely came to you to bring a hint as to what you ought to do. You don't seem to take the hint. If you haven't got manliness enough yourself to keep away from Miss Presson until this story—well, put it mildly, and say until this story is run down—then I propose to insist that you do so."

"Look here, Linton, I've usually got pretty good control of myself. I'm trying to hold myself in now—trying as hard as I can. What you have told me is a lie—a damnable lie. See? I say it calmly." He was quivering. "You don't know what you're talking about. I haven't the patience to explain to you. It's none of your business. You keep away from me. Now don't put any more strain on my self-control—in God's name, don't do it, Linton!"

"I am making no secret of my hopes in regard to Miss Presson," stated Linton, firmly. "I have been waiting until I could offer her what she has been accustomed to. You have the advantage of me in money, Thornton. But you're welcome to that! My hopes give me the right to guard her from scandal. I insist that you relieve her of your presence to-morrow evening!"

Harlan, shaken, gray with passion, his teeth set over his lower lip, rushed to the door and threw it open.

"D—n you, you get on the outside!" he panted. "I'm in the mood to kill you!"

Linton went. By his visit and his warning he had thrown a sop to his conscience. He had approached Harlan Thornton with something like desperation. Under his calmness he had long-hidden, consuming passion for Madeleine Presson—a love that had grown through the years, and now waited a fitting time of expression and the endorsement of assured position. If he had any doubts of the truth of the shameful story he had brought he concealed those doubts—he would not admit them to himself. He proposed to win the girl. He chose any weapons that would rout the interloper.

"I warn you that I shall protect her," he said, from the corridor.

"Take a warning from me, too: you get into my affairs, and you'll find hell fires cooler!"

"Your affairs do seem to have that flavor," declared Linton, walking away.

Thornton hurried to the headquarters that the corporations maintained in the hotel for Spinney. Spinney was not there. He ran back to his room and telephoned to the clerk of the hotel. He was informed that Mr. Spinney had gone away for a few days.

It was late, but he threw on his coat and hastened up street to the Presson home. The windows were dark. He did not have the assurance to arouse the family at that time of night.

By that time, walking in the crisp air of the winter night, he had soothed, somewhat, his fever of anger, sorrow, and shame.

Calmer, he had thoughts only for the bitter wrong that had been done Clare Kavanagh. Somehow it seemed that all were leagued against her—and him! Memory of her unselfishness, her simple faith in him, her abnegation, her true, little-woman trust in his career—it all rushed upon him. For a time he was almost ashamed to face what memory brought to him. Then manfully he set himself to read his heart—at least, he tried to. In the end, hidden in his room, he wept—honest tears of a strong man conscious that he was unable by his strength to hold disaster from an innocent. Even his attempt to find the rogue, Spinney, was futile. He wept, thinking of Clare Kavanagh—exiled from her home, bravely solving her problem of life alone. He went to sleep thinking of Clare Kavanagh.

It was fortunate for his self-respect that she filled his mind so completely at that moment. Otherwise the reflection that he had led himself by degrees to covet the brains and beauty of Madeleine Presson would have convinced him that in his relations with women he was either fool or knave.

Youth, untried in the ways of women and the wiles of loving and the everlasting problem of what the heart most truly desires, has wondered and wept the long ages through!



CHAPTER XXV

WOMEN, AND ONE WOMAN

The next day brought the reign of woman. That festal day in mid-session which preceded the legislative ball had been made woman's field-day by long custom. The politicians arranged the programme in order to bunch events: for the women demanded that they be heard each session on the suffrage question; and the women pleaded for one opportunity to show their best gowns in parade for fashion's sake. So the politicians made one bite at the cherry; "took a double dose and had it over with," as Thelismer Thornton ungraciously expressed it. Frivolity was combined with feminine fervor on the suffrage question. One element was invited to neutralize the other. The politicians could endure the combination better than they could face each faction separately. The advocates of suffrage made their plea while their sisters promenaded the State House corridors to the music of the band. The festival spirit dominated.

The members of the Judiciary Committee wore fresh waistcoats, pinks in their buttonholes, and a genial air—and had not the least idea of granting the suffragists anything except a benignant hearing. The report of "ought not to pass" was a foregone conclusion.

But there were potted palms in the lobbies, decorations in the rotunda, and masses of flowers in the House chamber which was given over to the hearing. And sweet music softened legislative asperities. The women asked, smiling. The men refused, smiling.

The federated women's clubs of the State had the suffrage matter in their keeping. The delegates were not hard-faced women clutching umbrellas. They were the strictly modern suffragists—radiant matrons, fresh-complexioned girls, women who led in culture and fashion in their respective communities.

At the previous session the Legislative Committee had asked that the delegation of women be restricted to the usual number of persons that appeared at legislative hearings. When a dozen came with their petitions and arguments the Committee blandly stated that there seemed to be no general demand in the State for woman's suffrage—witness the attendance of women interested!

This year the women proposed to disprove that assumption. Every woman's literary, social, art, and economic club in the State sent two delegates. The State was raked for women, even the schools were ransacked. At ten o'clock in the forenoon the State House was packed and women were still crowding in. The galleries, aisles, and standing-room of House and Senate were choked with silks, furs, and feathers which decorated the beauty and brains of the State.

The routine was hurried through. Callous man, gasping for breath, wanted to escape.

The few in the lobby who dared to smoke soon hid their cigars under their coat-tails and departed to the hotels. The cuspidors were hidden. Gay frocks swept cigar stubs out of sight.

When the members of the Judiciary Committee attempted to enter the House chamber to conduct the hearing on suffrage, it required full ten minutes of persuasive eloquence and courteous pushing on the part of the messengers to break the jam of women that filled the door and packed the lobby floor adjacent. The fair lobbyists did not want to give up even that vantage-point in order to admit the men who were to listen. And after the committee had managed to wriggle its way in single file to the platform they had not the heart to expel the women who were occupying their chairs. They gallantly stood in a row against the rear wall of the Speaker's alcove and listened to the petitioners—each woman allowed two minutes! Not one member of the legislature, outside the committee, heard. It would have been an ungallant man, indeed, who did not surrender his place in the chamber to a woman who had come to present her cause. So the women amiably listened to themselves, and the committee listened to them in all politeness, and both sides understood that it was only a genial social diversion out of which nothing would come. In that gathering a suffragette would have been squelched by her own sex.

Harlan Thornton came to the State House early.

Morning had brought him wiser counsel. He felt no impulse to rush to the Presson house. He wondered now what he would have said if he had gained access to Madeleine Presson the night before. The astounding insult by Herbert Linton troubled him less. It had been a jealous outburst—Linton's confession of his love for the girl had revealed his animus. Probably Linton regretted it—in Harlan's calmer mood he trusted that such was the case. Conscious of his innocence, it did not seem to Harlan that any man would dare to deal further in such outrageous slander after what had been said in their interview.

Harlan was one of the first to escape from the House through the press of women. There were too many of them. Officious gentlemen had begun to introduce him to wives and daughters and friends. He was not shy, but the presence of so many women—chattering, vivacious, exchanging repartee, challenging retort from him, was disquieting. He made his way to his committee-room. It was in a far corner of the building and was quiet. He had not been able to inspect the bill that Governor Waymouth had placed in his hands. He determined to put behind himself for a time the presence of women and the thoughts of women—even those thoughts which had so occupied him the night before.

There was no one in the committee-room. The State House holiday had attracted his associates. He examined the measure that he was expected to sponsor.

It provided for a commission of three men to be appointed by the Governor and to remain under his direct control—a bipartisan board. These men were to appoint special deputies to any number desired. To any county, city, or town these deputies were to be dispatched when it became apparent that police or sheriffs were lax or dishonest in enforcing the prohibitory law. No limits were placed on the number of these men empowered to kill saloons and put liquor-peddlers out of business. No special amount of money was to be asked of the legislature—the bill provided that the State treasury should stand behind the movement.

The young man was quick to understand the tremendous power granted to the Governor by that bill. Under it no party management, no group of politicians, could club or coax the liquor interests into line at the polls by manipulation of the traffic. No sheriff could enrich himself by selling privileges. No city could govern itself in that respect—declaring that public opinion favored the saloons and making local law superior to the constitutional law of the State. The bill provided that a judge must impose both fines and imprisonment when convictions were secured, and, therefore, no judge could carry on any longer a practical system of low license by imposing fines alone.

It was the principle of enforced prohibition put on trial.

In the past the Luke Pressons of the State had laughed at interference by a Governor. Local politics, easily handled, had controlled the actions of cities, and police had kept their hands off the traffic for years.

Authority in liquor matters had been vested in the county high sheriffs, and these men were controlled from State headquarters wholly in the interests of politics.

Harlan was sufficiently familiar with the old plan to know how this new system would upset the entire political machine of his State. That folio of document was a bombshell.

He was holding it outspread in his hands when the door opened so suddenly that it startled him. Thelismer Thornton came in, shaking his shoulders disgustedly.

"Feathers and cackle!" he muttered. "This State House turned into a poultry yard! And half of 'em braced back trying to crow! When a hen crows and a woman votes—well, it's all the same thing!"

He relighted the cigar that he had brought through the press hidden in his big palm. He eyed his grandson keenly and with some disfavor as he puffed the cigar alight.

"Look here, bub," he burst out, "there are enough women around here to-day to remind me that I want to have a word with you on the woman question. You intend to marry Madeleine Presson, don't you?"

"Intend to marry her!" blazed his grandson. "You talk as though it was the fashion to grab a girl and carry her off as they did in the Stone Age."

"You know what I mean very well, sir. I take it you are still decent, and if you're decent you'll marry the girl you've beaued around for six months—providing she'll have you. That was the style in my day—and decency doesn't change much—at least, it ought not to."

Had it been the day before, Harlan Thornton would have declared to his grandfather what his intentions were toward Madeleine Presson. The thoughts of the past night's vigil came upon him now—he hesitated. He was angry with himself—angry with this blunt and persistent old man. He did not know whether resentment held him back from acknowledging that he had been a suitor for the hand of Luke Presson's daughter or whether it was the strange, new feeling toward Clare Kavanagh since he had learned that her good name was in such piteous need of his protection and defence.

"Have you asked her to marry you?" demanded the Duke.

"Yes, I have—that is—" he paused. His air irritated still more the testy humor of the old man, plainly provoked by earlier matters.

"'That is'!" he sneered. "'I have.' 'Perhaps I have!' 'Maybe I have—let's see what my notes say!' What in the devil is the matter with the young men nowadays, anyway? Blood in your veins about as thick as Porty Reek molasses! You say you have asked her to marry you? Well, if you've asked her and mean it, have you got anything to do with that Kavanagh girl being around this State House to-day?"

Harlan sprang to his feet. He threw the document upon the table. His heart leaped within him. Even while his emotions bewildered him he found himself asking his conscience why he had not searched for her in spite of Dennis Kavanagh and her own plain desire to avoid him. The bare knowledge that she was near sent the blood into his face. Her coming to him seemed reproach for his acceptance of her flight.

"Do you mean that?"

"You are certainly giving me a fine imitation of a man who is surprised," stated his grandfather. "Maybe you are! I hope so. But she's here. She's with a bunch of girls from some school or other, paraded around by a hatchet-faced woman—another crowing hen that's trying to teach parliamentary law, I suppose. Harlan, I hope you've been square with me about that girl! Now, if you're honest, and don't know she's here, keep out of sight. I've given you the tip. She'll be speaking to you—and it will mix matters for you. She'd like nothing better than to do it!"

"I'm sick of that kind of talk from you," protested the grandson, angrily. "Can't you mention the name of that innocent girl without a slur or an insult? And there's no reason why I cannot meet Clare Kavanagh any time and at any place."

"Your political rule of out-and-open, as you've been tutored by Vard Waymouth, may work with men, but I'm telling you that it won't operate with girls," replied the Duke. "You may mean all right, but I'm suspicious of you. You sneaked back to Fort Canibas last summer to see her—now didn't you?"

"I saw her."

"You don't pay much attention to my wishes, do you, Harlan?"

"I claim the right, in a few matters, to be my own master."

"Even to making a devilish fool of yourself! You want Madeleine Presson. I can see that you want her. I've been watching. And I'm coming out now and say that I want you to have her. She's my idea of a wife. Now you needn't go to talking about that Kavanagh girl and friendship! There's no such thing as that kind of friendship."

Harlan had no time then to vent the anger that was seething in him. It seemed that every one who willed took the liberty to intrude upon the affairs which he tried to keep sacred. While that thought was uppermost in his troubled emotions, Linton, the other chief offender, came in, Presson with him.

The chairman began briskly. He was serious, but he spoke kindly.

"I don't usually interfere in these matters, but we'd better have this thing straightened out for the good of all of us. I'm glad you're here, Thelismer. I want you to stand by and listen. Here are two mighty good boys, these two—and now we'll leave out all political differences. We can afford to. We're all better friends than we were when the session opened." In spite of his absorption in his own affairs Harlan thought of the legislative morrow and its possibilities. "Now, this isn't politics! As I say, I don't usually meddle in my wife's or my daughter's—"

"Just one moment, Mr. Presson!" Harlan strode forward. "Has this lying scoundrel dared to bring his dirty scandal to you?"

He looked over the head of the chairman into the defiant face of his rival. The little man threw up his hands, standing between them.

"Hold on! Hold on! You haven't come to me in the usual way, but as near as I can find out both of you are after my daughter. I know of my own knowledge, Harlan, that you have been interested up-country. I simply want to have a general understanding. I brought Linton here with me. No use in running between! Let's have our say face to face."

Harlan controlled himself.

"I think I understand just what prompts you, Mr. Presson," he said. "I respect your motives. You've been imposed upon. But you're not to blame. I know what you're going to ask me. I'll save you the trouble. I admire your daughter greatly. I have intended to ask her hand in marriage." He was suddenly conscious that the determination to persist in that suit was not acute.

"That wasn't what I was going to ask you," said Presson with decision. "It's about the girl whom I saw—"

"The name of no other person belongs in this discussion," broke in Harlan, firmly. "I refuse to permit that name to be dragged in, for it's insult and scandal."

There was silence in the room. The chairman looked at Harlan, impressed by his demeanor. He knew the young man well enough to think twice before he persisted. Thelismer Thornton smoked hard, scowling. He was a little cautious about thrusting himself further into a matter that he knew would test the Thornton spirit in his grandson.

But Linton was determined to win his point. He thought he saw his opportunity. He hoped he could force a break between Presson and the other suitor.

"I'm interested in this matter as much as any one," he declared. "I have not told you the full story, Mr. Presson. But I'm here to see this matter straightened out for good and all, and unless you get an answer from this man, as a father ought to, I'll see that you have the facts to put you right."

"Linton, didn't I tell you last night that you were circulating a lie?" Harlan's face was gray.

"If it's a lie why are you afraid of telling Mr. Presson the whole truth and explaining the matter?" insisted Linton with a lawyer's pertinacity in extracting evidence. He realized that if young Thornton talked, even to admit the facts that information from the north country seemed to prove, a bit of impromptu cross-examination might yield results that would help the Linton cause.

"I refuse because every word that is said on the subject is a gross insult to an innocent girl," declared Harlan, passionately. "And I warn you that if you open your mouth again you'll get the only thing a man can give you and remain a man!"

"You'd better take the hint, Linton," advised the Duke. "I don't know exactly what you're driving at, but you're heading toward trouble. They don't do things up our way as they do in a city court-room."

Linton was angry, desperate, and he was as stalwart as the other. He was not inclined to let that opportunity pass.

Defiantly he plunged into the story that Spinney had reported. To his astonishment Harlan rushed for the door. He went out and slammed it behind him.

A project had come to him, prompted by his furious rage which mocked common-sense. A man more accustomed to the conventions would not have attempted it. But all his north-country passion rioted in him at that moment.

The night before he had wept because the peace and good name of Clare Kavanagh were threatened and he could only beat the ugly phantom of scandal helplessly.