The Ramrodders Part 36

The clergyman, following his line of duty, was not in a mood to accept delicate hints regarding social engagements. He stood his ground.

"Our business will occupy but a short time, and I suggest that it will be for your personal interest to listen now, sir."

It was an unfortunate bit of obstinacy.

"I regulate my own hours for engagements, Mr. Prouty. You have come on your own business, and it must await my convenience."

"It's _your_ business I come on, General Waymouth, and I advise you to listen! And I will add that it will not help you with the temperance people of this State if they are told that within two hours after your nomination you are consorting with the arch-enemy of temperance reform in our midst!"

With two strides the General was back at his door. He opened it.

"Be so kind as to leave the room, gentlemen," he invited, icily. "I'll not detain you even to have you apologize for your intrusion on my privacy or ask pardon of a guest whom you've insulted!"

They obeyed him, sullenly. Even their effrontery could not withstand that dignity. But they muttered among themselves, and one man called back over his shoulder: "It isn't the first time, General, that a man brave enough to lead battle charges hasn't shown that he's got the spirit to declare for the right against the wrong, when politics stands by with open ears!"

"There go some of the reformers you were asking your grandfather about a few weeks ago, Harlan," sneered the indignant chairman. "Those are the men who are holding themselves up as examples for all the rest of men to follow. Every one else is a rummy and a h.e.l.lion, according to their ranking."

"As bad an element as the rumsellers themselves," declared the General--"men of that type! I'm speaking now of the interests of true reform--reform that gets to the individual and is something else than this everlasting wrangle and racket between factions. I like fighting, but I like to have a natural fighter admit he's in it just for the sake of fighting--not claim it's all for morality's sake!"

"Then what are you?" blurted Presson, but checked himself in evident confusion.

"Eh?" inquired General Waymouth, mildly.

"I--I don't know what it was I had in my mind--guess I was thinking about something else."

But the General smiled as though he understood. Then he went into the inner room, explaining that he wished to make himself presentable to the ladies.

The chairman took a crafty survey of Harlan.

"Between you and me, my boy," he said, getting back upon his old-time footing with Thornton's grandson, "the General has got both of my eyes put out, so far's his politics go. Did you hear him just rip into those ramrodders? And yet he's been stiffer and straighter than the worst of 'em since he struck this city. I'd like to know who in thunder he _is_ playing with, anyway! What does he say to you, on the side?"

"You'd better get General Waymouth's plans from himself, Mr. Presson."

"I'm not asking you to betray anything. But he's got a policy, of course. I only want to know it, so that I can grab in with him. But I can't figure anything, so far."

"I thought he made himself pretty plain last night."

"He made himself plain, I'll admit that. Plain that he's against everything that the party management stands for. But now he turns around and kicks out the other crowd! He's got to pick his gait and take a position somewhere!"

"That's something I know nothing about, sir."

The chairman grew testy. He felt that he was being played with.

"Seeing that you're in close to the Amalgamated Order of Angels, you'd better drop him a hint that running a political campaign isn't like stampeding a convention. The State Committee stands ready to help, and before he gets much further along he'll find he needs the help. You'd better make that plain to him."

His guest of honor reappeared then, and the chairman led the way. Harlan had been included in his invitation, and attended his chief.

With old-fashioned gallantry, General Waymouth made his compliments to the ladies whom Mrs. Presson had a.s.sembled to grace the occasion. Her little crust of social earth had been tossed alarmingly by the political earthquake, but she felt that now she was finding safe footing once more.

Thelismer Thornton was there, so were Senator Pownal and the secretary of the State Committee, and a few other favored ones whom the hostess had sought as being close to the new order of things. She led forward Linton.

"And now, General, we're all wondering just how nice a compliment you'll pay to the orator whose eloquence makes you the next Governor of our State," chattered the good lady, poorly informed as to real conditions, but anxious to force a situation for her favorite. "Herbert has been so modest about it! We've been telling him just how grand we thought it was."

"I thank you, Linton, for what you said." The General took the young man's hand. "You have wonderful gifts of eloquence."

But there did not seem to be the enthusiasm which the importunate Mrs.

Presson desired.

"With all due respect to your greatness, General, isn't it true that he turned the convention--has made you Governor?" she insisted, half in jest to cover her earnestness.

"If it comes about that I'm the next Governor of this State," he returned, gently, "it will be due entirely to this young man." He patted Harlan's shoulder affectionately. "Just how he has accomplished it is a very deep political secret between us two. I present my grand vizier, ladies and gentlemen!" They understood that seriousness lay behind his whimsical manner of speech.

Two very round eyes testified to Mrs. Presson's amazement. But once more she found her social feet after this echo of the main quake. She took Harlan's hand, and placed it on the chair next to that of her daughter.

"You'll sit here, if you please, Mr. Thornton," she said, urbanely.

For a little while a trifle of embarra.s.sment shaded the few words the young couple addressed to each other, under cover of the general conversation about the board. Then Harlan, glancing down the table, saw Linton staring gloomily in his direction. And at that look his spirits leaped like a steed under the spur. What he had not dared, considering himself on his own merits, he ventured now. If vague, hidden sentiment, as he had thought of Clare Kavanagh, had restrained him in the past, it no longer restrained him now.

The excitement of the day had given him a queer exaltation. He had been one of the chiefs in the arena where all the great State looked on at the combatants. The overlord had just given him soul-stirring proof of his affection, half in jest as Harlan realized, remembering the occasion for it, but it was none the less gratifying. Madeleine Presson had looked at him with strange, new interest in her gaze when the General spoke out. It had occurred to Harlan that it was not the same good-humored tolerance which she had so frequently shown in her past relations with the bashful woodsman. His unquiet grudge against Linton spiced the whole.

He turned to the girl.

She seemed altogether desirable. Something in her eyes responded to his own feelings. And after that he seemed to be listening to himself talking--and wondered at the new man he had become.

When it was over, and the ladies rose from the table to follow Mrs.

Presson, he tried, feeling guilty for a moment, to remember the look that Linton had given him and to excuse himself as one who had simply shown the proper spirit of revenge. But when he took her hand he said: "My grandfather carried me away from you and your mother in very ungallant fashion yesterday. And he tried to put ungallant words into my mouth. I trust you'll allow me to disprove them. I'd like the privilege of being your obedient squire on the trip home."

"So now that you've become a very big man you've decided that grandfathers shall no longer be indulged in tyranny?" she asked, with a dash of malicious fun.

"I view matters in a new light," he replied.

"And there's a wonderful psychology in light, so they who have studied the matter tell us," she said, mischief in her eyes. "But we'll not go so deeply into the matter. Let it be a light that will guide your footsteps to our rooms at train-time. You will find us awaiting our squire!"

General Waymouth excused himself as soon as the ladies had retired. The little group of men had promptly begun to canva.s.s the outlook and plans, but he demurred politely when they desired to drag him into the discussion.

"Not yet, gentlemen! We have had enough of talk in the last few hours.

Let me escape to the old brick house up in Burnside for a while. My train goes shortly. Will you accompany me, Harlan?" It was the first time he had used the young man's christian-name Harlan flushed with pleasure. "I will see that you get back here in good season to bring that guiding light," he murmured, to the other's confusion.

"I do not like to seem too exacting--too persistent in requiring your attendance," protested the General, as they returned along the corridor.

The great hotel was nigh deserted. The delegates had hurried away on the convention specials. "But you have protected me from a great many annoyances, to put the situation mildly. I am calling you away now to make a very special request of you. We will speak of it on the way to the station."

Ranged in front of the door of his suite was the delegation from the temperance societies, patiently waiting, more saturnine than before.

The Reverend Mr. Prouty intercepted them with determination.

"I do not like to seem too persistent in this matter, but we feel that we have a right to a few moments of your time, sir. You are accepting public office, and--"

"I do not care to have any lessons in politics read to me, Mr. Prouty.

State your business."