The Ramrodders Part 45

Chairman Presson, more cheerful than he had been for weeks, came and crowded between them in a cosey, confidential manner.

"Say, the old fellow is getting smoothed down," he chuckled. "That address was milk for babes. He's got good sense. The thin edge of that plurality made him think twice. I reckon he's going to play a safe game after this. I don't know what he wanted to throw such a scare into us early in the game for! But as we get old we get cranky, I suppose. I may be that way myself when I grow older."

"Vard preached the theory to us for all it was worth," commented the Duke, "but I reckon he's up against the practice end of the proposition now--and he was a politician before he was a preacher."

"Hope he'll stay a politician after this. He got onto my nerves. It wasn't necessary to be so almighty emphatic about things going wrong in this State."

"Old Pinkney up our way is always careful to keep an eye out for the drovers," said the Duke. "When he sees one coming he hustles out into the pasture and shifts the poker off'n the breachy critter onto the best one in the bunch. And that's the way he unloads the breachy one. Vard has been wearing the poker the last few weeks, but I don't believe he intends to hook down any fences."

In the eyes of the politicians, therefore, Governor Waymouth had become safe and sane. They construed his earlier declarations as the ambitions of an old man dreaming a dream of perfection. The legislature swung into the routine of its first weeks in the usual fashion. The business consisted of the presentation of bills, acts, and resolves. The daily sessions lasted barely half an hour. The committee hearings had not begun, and the legislators found time hanging heavy on their hands.

Harlan Thornton continued to be a frequent caller at the Presson home.

But he did not seem to find an opportunity for a tete-a-tete with Madeleine. She did not show constraint in his presence. She did not avoid him. She treated him with the same frank familiarity. But he did not find himself alone with her. He did not try to force such a situation, in spite of the provocation she had given him once. He was not yet sure that he could command the words that real love might demand for expression. That was his vague excuse to his own heart for delaying--for his heart insisted that he did love her. He had to admit to himself that this was not the headlong pa.s.sion the poets described, but he consoled himself with the reflection that he was not a poet. So he made the most of her cordial acceptance of him as he was, and felt sure that Herbert Linton had won no more from her.

CHAPTER XXIV

A GOVERNOR AND A MAID

The Honorable Arba Spinney was in the lobby as usual that winter. The Duke's sarcastic prediction was fulfilled. He appeared promptly at the session's opening, and was the most insistent and persistent member of the "Third House," as the paid legislative agents were called. Most of the men who wormed their way here and there operated craftily and tried to be diplomatic. Spinney strove by effrontery. As usual, he made the country members his especial prey. The story of his knavery at the State Convention had been smothered in the interests of the party. He reappeared among men with as much a.s.surance as ever. He even approached Harlan Thornton to solicit his support of one bill. It was a measure to grant State subsidy, through exemption of taxation, to a.s.sist a railroad to extend its lines into the timber-land country.

Harlan checked him promptly. "I don't propose to discuss that question or any other with you, Mr. Spinney."

"If that road is built it will double the value of half your lands,"

insisted the lobbyist. "It's business for you and it's business for us, and there's no reason why you shouldn't talk business, is there?"

"It doesn't interest me, Mr. Spinney." He went on, hotly: "I know just as much about the matter as you do. It's an attempt to evade the State const.i.tution, which forbids subsidizing railroads. Governor Waymouth has explained it to me. I don't propose to profit by any such methods. And I'll inform you, further, that it's just about the sort of a scheme I'd expect to find you working for. Do you understand me?"

"I know what you're referring to. But that matter is over with. I got the worst end of it. You helped to pa.s.s it to me. You can't afford to carry on any quarrel with me, Thornton. Holding grudges is bad business; so is making a fool of yourself by playing little tin saint in public matters."

"I hold no grudge against you. That would be getting down on your level.

I'm simply disgusted with you as a man, Mr. Spinney. That's all. You know why. Now leave me alone."

But Spinney boldly intercepted him. Harlan had started to leave. The lobbyist realized what a powerful foe young Thornton could be to his project, and he was desperate.

"I've been up through your country, Mr. Thornton. I've been spending some time at Fort Canibas. I've been posting myself generally on railroad and other matters--_other_ matters! I don't want to say too much, but I'd like to have you run over in your mind what those other matters might be. Now, you and I can't afford to be enemies. I got the tough end, and I'm willing to overlook and forget. You owe me a little something. I hope you're going to square it. Let me remind you that I'm a bad man with my tongue. I'm free to say it, I depend on my tongue for what I get out of life."

It occurred to Harlan that this brazen threat referred to the scandal of the Fort Canibas caucus.

"Bring them on," he sneered: "Ivus Niles and his buck sheep and Enoch Dudley and the rest of the petty rogues that you hired with your corporation money to defeat me."

"You're on the wrong trail," replied Spinney. "I can hit you harder than that, and in a tenderer spot."

He returned Harlan's amazed stare.

"I've been keeping my eyes open down here, Mr. Thornton, and I kept my ears open up in Fort Canibas." His face grew hard. "D--n you, I'll never forget what you did to me! I'm coming right out open with you. I'd like to do you in return. I can do it. But I'll give you a chance; it's for my interest to do so, providing you buy the let-off. If you don't stand by me in that tax rebate, I'll launch the story. What I lose in support I'll more than make up in seeing you squirm. I'm pretty frank, ain't I?

Well, I play strong when I've got enough trumps under my thumb."

"Spinney, I've had enough of that kind of talk. What do you mean?"

"Don't you have the least idea?"

"Not the slightest."

"A good bluff! Well, I know about the girl up country! See? It's a bad story to be pa.s.sed up to another girl. And I know how to get the details to my friend Presson's daughter in time to spoil your ambition in that quarter. Now, how about that?"

They were in one corner of the State-House lobby, and the presence of a hundred men about them probably saved Spinney from a beating there and then. Harlan quivered with rage. He did not grasp the full purport of Spinney's hints. He only understood that the man had grossly intruded on his private affairs. He could not speak. He dared not trust his voice.

"Now do you want to let it go further?" inquired the lobbyist. He felt that the proximity of others protected him.

"I'll meet you alone--I'll hunt you out, and I'll mash that face of yours into pulp!" choked the young man, and hurried away before he lost control of himself. The most he could make out of the episode was that Spinney was seeking cheap revenge by offering insult to his face under circ.u.mstances that prevented him from retaliating. He did not understand the reference to Clare Kavanagh. His friendship for the girl was no secret in the north country. That Spinney had made so much account of it by his insinuations was the astonishing feature, in Harlan's estimation.

Fortunately for his peace of mind at that moment, he was not allowed to dwell upon the matter. The Governor's messenger came seeking him. He followed the man into the presence of his Excellency.

Harlan had not recovered his self-possession, and the Governor surveyed him with some interest.

"Cares of State, young man?" he asked. "And the session still as calm as a millpond?"

"That cur of a Spinney has just insulted me--no politics, sir, but just plain, personal insult. Why, he went out of his way to do it!"

"You make much out of nothing if you allow that blatherskite to disturb you," said the Governor, with mild reproof. "Pay no attention to him.

Now to my business with you! I'd like to have you dine with me this evening. I have some serious matters to talk over with you alone--and the executive chamber, here, is no place for a quiet talk."

Harlan hesitated a moment.

"Have you another engagement?"

"I was to dine with the Pressons."

"I am sorry to ask you to do it, my boy, but if it is merely a social engagement, will you not beg to be excused? I a.s.sure you that my business is such that it cannot well wait another twenty-four hours. I am ready to leave the State House now. We'll ride past the Presson door, and I'll wait while you present your regrets. Tell the fair Madeleine that duty calls." He smiled. "I hear interesting reports, young man. Again I say I'm sorry to keep you from your engagement, but Miss Presson has been near enough to politics to understand what a duty-call means. Come!"

The young man flushed. Reply failed him. He followed the Governor to his carriage. It was late afternoon, and the State House was emptying.

As Harlan ran up the steps of the Presson house, Spinney's ugly threat came to him. The man dealt in gossip. It was an incredible form of attack. It was slander of the innocent. He could not forewarn Madeleine Presson. That would be caddish.

But he felt a sudden panic. The impulse of admiration; covetous desire to win her away from Linton, a desire p.r.i.c.ked by his increasing dislike of that young rival in love and politics; the charm she possessed for him who had met in her his first woman of intellect and culture--all drove him to her. The other love was a vague something that troubled him. Madeleine Presson was near and visible, and he did not dissect the emotion which prompted him to seek her.

She came down to the reception-room. He had sent up an urgent request.

"No," she said, with a smile, after she had listened, "I think I'll put your loyalty to the test! If I'm always to be the minority report in your estimation, Mr. Legislator, it's time now to find it out. You put Governor Waymouth and your politics first, do you?"

"But you haven't given me the right to put you first," he returned, boldly.

"Just how was I to go about giving you that right?" she inquired, with demure sarcasm. "Memorialize you, Mr. Representative, or throw it at you from the House gallery, concealed in a bouquet?"