The Daughter of a Republican Part 11

"You have all the sweet ways of your mother, child," said the old man; "and in you I know the traits and intellect that I had hoped to nurture in the boy. For years you have been my comrade--my best loved daughter.

I am growing old, now, quite old, and you must leave me."

As he spoke he ran his fingers through his hair, as if in its thinness and fading color he could discern advancing years.

Jean caught the hand that hung over the arm of the chair between her two and pressed it to her cheek.

"You make me happy, father!" she whispered. "Do you remember long ago I told you that you would some day be glad I was your boy? And so you are.

Perhaps it is because I am so like you--I only wish I knew I was--or perhaps I have always loved you best, and yet I have not loved you enough, father."

"Yes, child. Yes, enough to drive away a grief and make me happy."

"Then, remember, father; remember always and forever, that I do not love you any less. If I have come to love another more, I tell you truly, I cannot help it. It has come to me--just come and--come and come; and I have fought it every step of the way. A few times I have pictured to myself such a man as I might some time call my husband. He has been learned and clean and upright, with an irrepressible spirit of patriotism, hindered by no party ties that bind to money instead of moral questions; daunted by no fear, and bound by no memory of a past; and the man has come, and he is--a gentlemanly liquor dealer. But I will not leave you, father. I have no thought other than to stay here."

This information did not seem to impress the judge.

"You say so, Jean. You mean so; but you will be married, and a wife's duties come before a daughter's."

Jean laughed again.

"You look almost as disconsolate as Mr. Allison did the last time I saw him. Cheer up! I am not going to be married that I know of."

"No?"

"No, father."

"Why, Jean?"

"I see you know that Mr. Allison is a liquor dealer no longer, or you would hardly ask."

"I know. And I know that he sacrifices something in getting out of it at this time. He is a clean man, and though his name has been connected with the interest, that has been all. One could hardly imagine him standing behind a bar."

"He said something like that in his own defense. Let me see--he said the national politics was the great mother of all lesser political plays, and that at such elections he had cast his vote just as you and your preacher have always done. Therefore, as you were temperance men, so he was a temperance man. How was that for argument?"

Judge Thorn laughed.

"Well, I should not wonder if he were as much of a temperance man as some other folks, after all."

"The more shame for the 'other folks,'" said Jean, a touch of sternness in her voice.

"Have it that way if you wish, but to the original question. I am in no hurry for you to marry, but I suppose you will some time, and Allison is a square man. What he has done in this business move he has done not because he has changed his views on some matters, but all for the love of a woman, and that means much, my girl, these days of fortune hunters and deceivers."

"All for the love of a woman," Jean repeated softly to herself. "That is what he said."

They were both silent a few seconds.

"You have not answered my question, Jean."

"Ah! I forgot, father. You asked me why I could not promise to be the wife of Mr. Allison. I will tell you, as I told him, and I think you will understand as he did.

"If I ever have a husband, he must do right from an honest conviction of right, and because humanity and justice and G.o.d demand the right, and never for the 'love of a woman,' although that is a beautiful temptation."

Judge Thorn looked inquiringly at his daughter, and she continued:

"He was not prepared for this, I think, but he understood what I meant, and said that I asked of him the impossible; that it was impossible for him to see the liquor traffic in the light that I do.

"But I am sure, father, that the underlying principle of my idea is right, and G.o.d makes it possible for all men to see the right, if they seek to."

Jean had risen and stood before her father, her face aglow and her eyes shining.

This mood pa.s.sed shortly, and she returned to her chair. She clasped her hands behind her head and began again softly, as if speaking to herself:

"And then--then he sat down in a chair by the window, with his face turned away. It was very still in the room.

"I went and stood close by his side, but I hardly dared to speak, it all seemed so strange somehow. I wanted--Oh, you do not know how I longed to throw myself into his arms, just to try to wake him; but you know 'propriety'.

"After a time--perhaps an hour, perhaps a minute--he suddenly rose and kissed me on the forehead.

"'Goodby, dear,' he said, 'I think I had better not come any more,' and he left the room without another word.

"After the door had closed behind him and I heard him stepping down the walk, I put both my hands over my heart, just so, and held it tight, for it seemed that it would bound out and go with him."

They sat in silence a little while after Jean ceased speaking, and then she stepped behind her father's chair and dropped her arms around his neck.

"No, father, you shall never be left alone as long as this big world holds Jean. Lonesomeness is so big and dreary!"

She pressed her lips to his forehead and turned away.

Had such a favor been meted out to the disconsolate Mr. Allison, he would no doubt have been immediately transported to a state of unalloyed happiness. Not so with the judge. The very act, the very words, told him that the woman's affections had been divided, and the streak of selfishness that runs through all humanity had not been overlooked in his make-up.

"Are you not really ashamed of me, father? Just think of it! Me, Jean Thorn, of sound mind and adult years, falling in love with a liquor dealer! It is too strange to believe, and yet I believe the situation would be perfectly delightful if--if--well, if I were not 'my father's boy.' But I will survive, let it be hoped, and if this maddening, sickening, altogether unmanageable love one reads of had rushed upon me like a whirlwind, it would be the same. The man I marry must not be a 'man atom of the great iniquity,' not even to the extent of his vote."

And lest she should mar the impression she hoped to leave upon her father, Jean hurried from the room, waving her hand to him as she pa.s.sed through the door.

In her own room she sat down to think. Mechanically she unbound the coils of red-brown hair that crowned her head, and holding the quaintly carved silver pins which seemed a part of her ident.i.ty in her hand, she began a march to and fro across the room. There was no smile on her face, rather a pained, unnatural look that her dearest friend would not have recognized. Presently she stopped.

Raising her hands, the shining hair rippling over her shoulders like a garment, she lifted her face heavenward.

"My Father!" she whispered, brokenly, "he is asleep. Touch his eyes with kindly fingers that the scales may drop away. Put the hollow of thy hand around his heart and kindle there the love that means the brotherhood of man, for I love him--I love him!"

Even as she stood, with her face upturned from the wealth of flowing hair, the man of her prayer was in the toils of fate, seeing a "face"

and hearing a voice that touched his ear and clung to his heart, "like the wail of a lost soul."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"G.o.d," she cried, "Look at my hands!"_]