A Gentleman from Mississippi Part 14

"Now, if there's anything else you want him to have, I'll see that he gets it I'll try to get it for him"--he paused a minute, then added, with heartfelt meaning in his voice--"and for you, Miss Langdon."

Carolina played coquettishly with the secretary.

"For me, Mr. Haines?" she questioned, archly, with an effective glance into his eyes.

Bud's pulses began to throb violently--to leap.

"Yes," he exclaimed, unsteadily, "for you, and you know it. That's the inspiration now, my inspiration--the chance of winning your belief in me, of winning something more, the biggest thing I ever thought to win--because, Miss Langdon--Carolina--I love you." He bent over and seized the girl's hand. "Ever since the day I first saw you I--"

She shook her head indulgently and in a moment drew her hand from his.

"You mustn't be so serious, Mr. Haines. You don't understand Southern girls at all. We are not just like Northern girls. We are used to being made love to from the time we are knee-high. Sometimes, I fear, we flirt a little, but we don't mean any harm. All girls flirt--a little."

"But somebody wins even the Southern girls," declared Haines, eagerly.

The girl's face became serious, earnest, sincere.

"Yes, somebody does, always," she said. "And when a Southern girl is won she stays won, Mr. Haines."

"And I have a chance to win?" questioned the determined young Northerner.

Carolina smiled sweetly and expressively.

"Who knows? First make my father even a bigger success--that's first.

Oh, I wonder if you can realize what all this life means to me! If you can realize what those years of stagnating on the plantation meant to me! No man would have endured it!" she exclaimed bitterly. "I am more of a man than a woman in some ways; I'm ambitious. From the time I was a little girl I've wanted the world, power, fame, money. I want them still. I mean to get them somehow, anyhow. If I can't get them myself, some one must get them for me."

"And love?" suggested the man. "You are leaving love out. Suppose I get all these things for you?"

Bud's pounding heart almost stopped. He could scarcely gain his breath as he saw creep into Carolina's eyes what he believed to be the light of hope for him, the light even of a woman's promise.

"Who knows, Mr. Haines? There's no reward guaranteed. There may be others trying," she answered.

Haines laughed--the strong, hopeful, fighting laugh of the man who would combat the boss of the Senate on ground of the boss' own choosing.

"All right!" he cried. "If it's an open fight I'll enlist. I'll give them all a run. What are your orders?"

Carolina appeared indifferent.

"I don't know that I have any particular orders, sir knight, except to see that my father does all he can for the Altacoola naval base."

Haines paused, seized by a sudden tremor.

"The Altacoola naval base?" he stammered. "Well, all I can say is that the Senator will do what he thinks right. That might bring power and fame--a right decision in this case--but it can't bring money."

Carolina shrugged her shoulders.

"Money?" She laughed with affected carelessness. "Well, we'll have to let the money take care of itself for a time. But I do want him to vote for Altacoola, because I believe that will be the best for him.

You believe in Altacoola, don't you?"

Haines hesitated, then answered:

"Well, between the two sites merely as sites Altacoola seems to me rather better."

Miss Langdon held out her hand impulsively.

"Then it will be Altacoola!" she cried. "Thank you, Mr. Haines. We are partners, then, for Altacoola."

The young man grasped her hand earnestly.

"I'd like to be your partner for good, Carolina!" he cried.

They stood there close together, holding each other's hands, looking into each other's eyes, when the door opened and in came Charles Norton.

CHAPTER XIII

AN OLD-FASHIONED FATHER

Congressman Norton was startled at the sight of Carolina and Haines apparently so wrapped up in each other. Perhaps she was getting interested in the handsome, interfering secretary. That a woman sometimes breaks her promise to wed he well knew. Plainly Carolina was carrying things too far for a girl who was the promised wife of another.

Carolina and Haines showed surprise at Norton's entrance.

The Congressman advanced and spoke sneeringly, his demeanor marking him to be in a dangerous mood.

"Do I intrude?" he drawled, deliberately.

Carolina drew away her hands from Haines and faced the newcomer.

"Intrude!" she exclaimed, contemptuously, in a tone that Norton construed as in his favor and Haines in his own.

"Intrude!" Haines laughed, sarcastically, feeling that now he was leader in the race for love against this Mississippi representative, who was, he knew, a subservient tool and a taker of bribes. "You surely do intrude, Norton. Wouldn't any man who had interrupted a tete-a-tete another man was having with Miss Langdon be intruding?"

"I suppose I can't deny that," he replied.

The secretary smiled again.

"I'll match you to see who stays," he said.

But Norton's turn to defeat his rival had come. He held out a paper to Haines.

"Senator Langdon gave me this for you. I reckon I don't have to match."

The secretary opened the note to read:

"Where in thunder does that hydrate come from--South America or Russia? How much off on the tariff on the creature do we want?