The Landloper Part 53

"That young lady, Mr. Mullaney, is engaged to me," stated Dodd, acridly.

"You'd better drop the topic."

But he did not display either the joy or the pride of the accepted suitor as he looked up at her.

"I'll simply say that you're a mighty lucky chap and I congratulate you," returned Mr. Mullaney, hiding his confusion by getting very busy with newspaper clippings and papers which he drew from his breast pocket.

The detective was wholly unconscious of the irony of that remark. But it brought a flush of shame to Dodd's cheek, for the sorrow and sting and ignominy of that part which he had played had not departed from his soul nor did even the fervor of his pa.s.sion for her help him forgive himself; he stared at her guiltily as the thief gloats over his loot and is conscious of his degradation without feeling sufficient contrition to give up the object he has stolen.

For he remembered with fresh and poignant recollection the circ.u.mstances under which that girl had given her promise to him so recently: she had stood over a mother who had abased herself before them, had cast herself down and had writhed and screamed and implored her to consent; and the mother was driven to do this by the lash of his threats. He had stood there and demanded, and the woman on the floor had confessed her frailty, owned to her misdeeds, acknowledged her debt, and had frantically begged her daughter to sacrifice herself.

The girl had given her "Yes," paying the debt with herself; but her eyes had been wide and dry and her face was white and set and she had looked past the man to whom she promised herself when she had murmured that promise.

Dodd swept cold sweat from his forehead as he remembered; he found almost the same expression now on her face as she gazed down on Walker Farr, who stared back at her anxiously, perceiving a grief that he could not understand.

In that vast a.s.semblage those three, thus wordlessly, no one marking them, fought a tragic battle of hopeless love with their eyes.

Detective Mullaney pored over his papers. "By gad," he mused, "I haven't kept my books all this time for nothing. I know my card. I've got him right--it's dead open and shut. But I swear he doesn't look the part he played, even if the description does fit him. Well, law is law! If I can't sell him to Symonds Dodd, I'll find out how much those will pay who do want him."

The routine of the great convention had been proceeding.

"And the gentleman from Danton, Mr. Gray, moves that we do now proceed with the nomination of a candidate for governor," intoned the chairman in sing-song tones.

XXVIII

THE MAN WHO WAS NOT AFRAID

One after the other, dignified and decorous, three men of the Big Machine, representing three of the large counties of the state, came upon the platform and put in nomination the name of Governor Harwood to succeed himself.

These speakers had been carefully selected. They were elderly gentlemen whose reputations, tones, and demeanor bespoke safe and sane conservatism. They took occasion to rebuke the new spirit of unrest in the old party, and their tremolo notes of protest were extremely effective. While these men talked, a listener was compelled to feel that rebellion against the established order of things could only be rank sedition; for many years have these arts of oratory been employed to appeal to the average man's party loyalty; voters have listened and have been ashamed to revolt--as a son dutifully bows his head under a father's reprimand and responds to a father's appeal--for, after all, in matters where appeal is made to loyalty the human emotions are not so very complex.

The elderly gentlemen put great stress on the fact that not in twenty years had a faithful governor been refused the honor of renomination for a second term. Would their convention deny that compliment to Governor Harwood? It was the same appeal that had been made for twoscore years in order to perpetuate the dynasty of gubernatorial figureheads who had obeyed the ring's orders.

Walker Farr heard _sotto voce_ murmurings of men in his vicinity. They were men who had joined the new revolt and had stood bravely enough for a change in county political managers. But these men revealed that they were timorous about altering long party custom. They said, one to another, that it would be going too far to refuse renomination to Governor Harwood. It might split their party so widely that the rival political party would be able to carry the state--and that would never do.

Farr was in no wise surprised to hear these murmurings.

He had sounded men before that convention as he had traveled about the state.

He had found them ready to begin house-cleaning in the smaller affairs of county management, and by a.s.sault on the little wheels of the gear of the machine which had so long ground political grist; but they were unwilling to temp fate by venturing on such a general overturn as putting up for governor a man who had not been selected and groomed for high office during the accustomed term of apprenticeship--legislature, senate, and council.

He realized how well the great ring had intrenched itself in absolute power by appealing to conservatism in matters of safe men for high office. Safe men meant those who protected the big interests and saw that no raids were made on capital--no matter how many abuses capital might be fostering.

Mumble and grumble all about him, and men's faces showing that they were agreeing with the tremolo appeals of the elderly orators!

Even the Honorable Archer Converse, his legal cautiousness governing his opinion, knowing the temper of conditions in his state, had emphatically discouraged Farr when the young man had timidly questioned him in regard to the advisability of securing a candidate for governor outside the ring's dynasty.

Mr. Converse's discouragement of such hopes would have been even more emphatic had he ever dreamed that this apostle whom he had sent out into the field was coddling the audacious hope that Mr. Converse himself by some miracle might be put into the governor's chair.

The orators proceeded, one after the other. They were applauded. They retired.

Walker Farr was oppressed by the lugubrious conviction that he was the only man in that great a.s.semblage who felt enough of the zealot's fire to be willing to put all his hopes to the test.

He looked at the faces on the platform. There sat Colonel Dodd, wearing his expression a.s.sumed for that day and date--smug political hypocrisy.

His henchmen winged out to right and left of him. They represented finance and respectability.

Sometimes political rebels will gallantly and audaciously venture when they rail behind the backs of their leaders; but when those leaders appear and fill the foreground with their personalities the rebels subside; they are impressed by the men whom they behold. They defer, even when they are stung by knowledge of their leaders' principles.

Colonel Dodd and those with him were the accredited leaders.

Delegates glared, but were cowed and silent.

Farr pondered. Perhaps the advice of Mr. Converse was best:

"Take what we can get in our first skirmish. Keep it for the nucleus of what we hope to get later. If we put all to the test in our first fight against forces that have been in power for all the years and lose, then the cause gets a setback which may discourage our men for ever."

And Mr. Converse, having so declared, had remained away from the convention that day, feeling that no more was to be gained.

"And I move you, Mr. Chairman," called a voice, "that the nominations for governor do now close."

This had been the custom in the past.

It was not in the minds of that convention that another candidate would be put forward. Governor Harwood was waiting in an anteroom, thumbing the leaves of his speech, and all the delegates knew it. All desired to expedite matters, nominate by acclamation, hear the inevitable speech, and go home.

"One moment before that motion is seconded!"

The voice was so loud, so clear, so dominant, so ringing, that the effect on the convention was as galvanically intense as if somebody had blown upon a bugle.

Walker Farr had risen to his feet.

Colonel Dodd set his curved palm at his mouth and from behind the chairman shot a few words at the presiding officer as one might shoot pellets from a bean-shooter. The chairman scowled impatiently at Farr, and a delegate among those who watched eagerly for signals from the throne rose half-way to his feet and bellowed, "Question!" The cry was taken up by other delegates, just as the unthinking mob follows a cheer-master.

Farr climbed upon a settee. He stood there, silent and waiting, and his expression, poise, and mien wrought for him more effectively than speech.

He towered over all the heads. He was markedly not one of those New-Englanders there a.s.sembled. His ma.s.s of dark-brown hair, his garb, the very set of his head on his shoulders, differed from the physical attributes of all others in the hall. And, as the delegates continued to shout for the question to be put, he turned slowly so that his expression of dignified and mild protest and appeal was visible to all.

And as he turned he gave the girl in the gallery a long look.

The chairman pounded with his gavel.

"I second the motion," called a delegate, taking advantage of the first moment of silence.

There was another roaring chorus of, "Question!"

But Walker Farr remained standing on the settee, waiting patiently. He showed no confusion. There was added dignity as well as appeal in his att.i.tude and expression.

"Before that vote is taken I want to say one word as a man to men,"