The Mayor of Warwick Part 3

Distracted by the furtive contemplation of such minutiae, he gradually became aware of the fact that the talk between Cardington and the bishop had lost the tone of suavity that characterized its beginning.

"No other engagement shall interfere with my voting on that day," the bishop declared, with grim emphasis. "We must dispose of this fellow's pretensions once for all. It is preposterous that a professional baseball player and street-car conductor should aspire to become mayor of Warwick. An orator? Nonsense! Just a paltry gift of the gab.

Balaam's is n't the only a.s.s whose mouth the Lord in his inscrutable wisdom has seen fit to open."

Leigh suddenly awoke to the fact that a situation had developed during his absorption, and that both men were looking at Miss Wycliffe, the bishop defiantly, Cardington with an odd expression of concern. That she was affected by her father's announcement and manner was evidenced in the gleam of cold resentment with which she met his look, but in a moment the light was gone, leaving her eyes as mysterious as a deep pool in the woods at twilight.

"Now, bishop," Cardington protested, "I was merely trying to express the fact that there is a certain facility in this young Emmet's utterances which belongs to his nation. Perhaps we ought to appreciate our opportunity to watch here in Warwick the development of a second Edmund Burke."

It was Miss Wycliffe herself who gave Leigh the clue, and so apparently spontaneous was her amus.e.m.e.nt as she turned to him that he began to doubt his first impression of a far different emotion.

"This house is divided against itself," she explained, "into two political camps. I must try to convert you to my Democratic point of view, for just at present I am outnumbered two to one."

"Not two to one," Cardington objected. "Say rather that the forces are drawn up in the proportion of one and a half to one and a half. I stand in the ambiguous position of the peacemaker, inclining now this way, now that, and receiving in turn the whacks of each contestant. I have been compelled to accept on faith the reward that Scripture promises to such as myself, for it has not yet materialized to any appreciable extent."

"There 's more truth than poetry in that," she answered, laughing.

"Poor Mr. Cardington's olive branch has proved a boomerang to himself, I fear."

It pleased the bishop to be blandly diverted by these sallies, though it was evident that his mind had set so strongly in one direction as to require an effort on his part to turn it aside. However, he was not one to exhibit a family difference before a stranger, when once recalled to his senses, and the topic that had elicited these few scintillations of feeling was dropped by common consent.

Presently Miss Wycliffe drew Leigh on to talk of astronomy, of the Lick Observatory, of California, its climate, its products, and its people, subjects upon which he alone of the company possessed knowledge at first hand. He was impressed by his auditors' ignorance of all that country which lies west of the Mississippi, and a realisation of the bishop's sceptical att.i.tude aroused him to partisan enthusiasm. Their conception of the West was as inadequate as the average Englishman's conception of America. Some few people they had known who had gone out to California for their health, and in a general way they appreciated the fact that the fruits and flowers of the coast were of peculiar size and beauty; but, after all, the place seemed to them more a colony of the United States than an integral part of the country, a place of such decidedly inferior interest to Europe that any time in the dim future would do for its inspection.

"Miss Wycliffe," he ended, "your interest has betrayed me into making a bore of myself."

"On the contrary," she returned, "I shall take the very first opportunity of going out to California. I shall be ashamed to go to Switzerland again without the Sierras as a background of comparison.

And in the mean time I intend to begin the study of astronomy. I thought it would be jolly to bring up a party some evening to look through the telescope."

"By all means!" he cried.

"I have yet to see the day," said Cardington, "when Miss Felicity will do me the honour of begging the loan of a Latin grammar."

"I call that ungrateful," she returned. "Did n't I tramp all over the Roman Forum with you one boiling afternoon, while you explained that we had n't strayed into a stone quarry, as I had supposed?"

"So you did," he admitted. "That was a pleasant little archaeological _giro_, and you showed yourself upon that occasion to be an audience of great endurance."

This was only one indication Leigh had received of mutual experiences and interests between the two, yet, bewitched though he was, the discovery aroused no uneasiness within him. It was not only that he mentally exaggerated his colleague's age. His source of comfort was deeper, and lay in Miss Wycliffe's att.i.tude of comradeship toward her old friend. It seemed that such an att.i.tude must preclude romance, at least on her part. No man situated as he was could have avoided the speculation that now absorbed him in regard to the possible rivalry of another. In the end he decided that Cardington's gaze, when it lingered upon his hostess, betrayed reminiscence rather than hope.

It chanced that the dinner was followed by a wedding, one of those forlorn ceremonies sometimes performed in the houses of the clergy between those who seem to have no kin or friends or home of their own.

The bishop summoned his guests as witnesses, and as Leigh took the seat which Miss Wycliffe made for him beside her, he was struck by the impression which this not unusual incident appeared to make upon her mind. She sat with her chin resting upon the palm of her hand, in absorbed, almost pained, contemplation, as if the actual scene were merely the starting-point of a long journey of the imagination.

In fact, there was nothing intrinsically interesting in the couple before them. They possessed not even the picturesqueness of speech and costume which belongs to the plebeian orders of older civilizations.

These were the people that seemed to justify Schopenhauer's cynical contention concerning the economy of Nature, who invests youth with just enough transient beauty to ensure the perpetuation of the race, making men and women serve her purpose under the delusion that they are free agents and ministers to their own pleasure. Here were no pomp and circ.u.mstance to interpose their false colours before the sordid vista of the future. It lay glaringly before the imagination of the onlookers; and to avoid depths of spiritual depression, they had need to remind themselves of the happy blindness of those that moved their pity.

Leigh might perhaps have indulged in far other thoughts had the wedding been of a different character, or had he perceived any suggestion of a romantic mood in the woman at his side. Quick to feel an atmosphere, he found that he had caught from her a sombre view. How deeply she thought or felt he could only guess, but hers was a personality that suggested depth, and the far sadness of her gaze shut the door between them which he had supposed about to open wider. The bishop turned unexpectedly.

"The groom has forgotten the ring," he said to his daughter. "Will you lend him yours?"

She glanced quickly at her hands, and a delicate colour crept into her face.

"I must have left it in my room," she answered. She made no motion to go for it, and, turning from her with a hint of impatience, he drew his seal ring from his finger.

The incident, slight as it was, a.s.sumed unusual significance in the minds of the spectators, and gave the ceremony a tone akin to comedy.

Perhaps they enjoyed the bishop's impatience, the sight of the episcopal ring upon the girl's finger; or it may be that these things reminded them of the portentous solemnity into which they had sunk.

Miss Wycliffe especially seemed to welcome the diversion, and showed an ebullient vivacity when she offered her congratulations, which Leigh had not previously observed in her.

It was the bishop, however, and not his daughter, who saved the situation for the embarra.s.sed couple he had just made man and wife. It was he who ordered wine and cake, and drank their happiness with a genuine humanity that took no reckoning of cla.s.s in life's common experiences. This was the quality that had won him love when, as a clergyman, the homelier duties of his profession had claimed more of his time. Even those not of his own communion often came to him for such services as the present, with a feeling that he gave dignity and reality to the ceremony. Observing the luminous kindliness of his smile, one might well infer that he was reminded of the marriage at Cana of Galileo, and that he desired to make this incident as bright a spot as possible in two lives which would doubtless know more of burden-bearing than of joy. Nor was he content with this attention alone. Chancing to remember the carnations that had stood on the table at dinner, he brought them with his own hands, wiping the long stems with his handkerchief before presenting them to the bride.

When they were gone, his glance fell upon an envelope which the groom had left unnoticed on the piano.

"Look at this," he said, drawing forth a two-dollar bill. "Why didn't I see him do that in time? At least, I am grateful that he did n't attempt to pay me at parting, while in the act of shaking hands." His eyes twinkled deeply. "You have no idea what a shock it is to feel a crisp bill crinkling in your palm at such a moment. But come, gentlemen. Our post-prandial smoke has been too long postponed."

"Why not leave Mr. Leigh to smoke his cigarette with me?" Miss Wycliffe suggested. "We have n't yet had a chance to become acquainted."

This proposition, which filled the young man with surprise and exhilaration, seemed nothing unusual to the other two, and they went off without remark, perhaps not unwilling to have an opportunity to chat alone.

Miss Wycliffe took the chair in which Leigh had seen her at his entering. She held no fancy work in her hands, but toyed gracefully with the ivory cimeter which had separated the leaves of her novel. He was reminded of the episode of the ring by observing that she wore no jewelry except the string of gold beads, and wondered whether she had a philosophical contempt for such adornment. If it were a matter of taste, as indeed it must be, her instinct, he felt, was singularly correct, for such advent.i.tious aids could add nothing to her beauty.

They were rather the final dependence of wrinkled dowagers. As he watched her through the smoke of his cigarette, chatting still of the wedding, he was aware that she appeared conscious of the voices whose intonations rose and fell beyond the study door. Presently the sound was varied by a hearty laugh.

"I 've no doubt they have gone back to politics," she remarked. Her words recalled the conversation at the table, which he had by this time forgotten.

"This is a good opportunity to carry out your promise to convert me to your point of view," he answered, "and I am quite prepared to be converted. Being a Mugwump, the mere name of a party holds no superst.i.tious sway over my imagination. Still, my support, like your own, must be purely sentimental, for I have no vote in Warwick. I have heard just enough to arouse my curiosity and interest. Who is this Mr.

Burke?"

"Emmet," she corrected. "Mr. Cardington would have his jest in comparing him with Burke. You noticed, perhaps, that they were more or less baiting me?"

"I suspected something like it."

"Mr. Emmet is a _protege_ of mine," she explained frankly, "who is trying to break the power of the Republican ring that has ruled Warwick since the war.

"I see," he nodded. "One of those struggles against munic.i.p.al corruption that are such a hopeful sign of the times. It seems strange that in the management of our cities alone our form of government has been a failure. But we have lighted upon a hobby of mine, and I must n't begin to ride it."

"Then you will be interested in the situation," she returned.

It was presently evident that her own interest was not that of a student of the science of government, though he was impressed by her knowledge of local political conditions. The situation was indeed typical: entrenched power on the one hand, and on the other a desire to "turn the rascals out." The singularity lay in the fact that Miss Wycliffe, in spite of the prejudice and influence of her father, was siding against her own cla.s.s. Leigh listened with growing interest and wonder to her charges of sn.o.bbishness and corruption against the Republican clique.

"You certainly love fair play," he remarked admiringly. "Such an impersonal att.i.tude is wont to be claimed by men as their own peculiar possession."

Her smile disclaimed exceptional credit.

"I 'm not a bit impersonal, I a.s.sure you. I can't abide Judge Swigart, or his political lieutenant, Anthony Cobbens, a turkey gobbler and a wretched little weasel, even though we are the best of friends."

"I see," he said, greatly diverted by her admission. Her eyes fell beneath his too discriminating gaze, but she raised them again with the impersonal calmness of an experienced woman.

"Besides, as I said before, Mr. Emmet is a _protege_ of mine. I have even loaned him books, and am quite bent upon seeing his education result in making him mayor."

"Good work!" he cried. "I should like to lend a hand myself."

"Why don't you?" she asked.