Kitabı oku: «Her Infinite Variety», sayfa 4

“I have always felt it, vaguely,” Vernon went on, his voice dropping to a low tone, “and this morning it was suddenly revealed to me—”

Miss Greene raised her hand as if to draw it across her brow; her veil stopped her.

“Let’s not talk about that now,” she pleaded. “Let’s enjoy the air and the country. I don’t have them often.” Her hand fell to her lap. The color had gone out of her cheeks. And Vernon suddenly felt that the summer had gone out of the air; a cold wind was blowing as over soiled patches of snow left in shaded depressions of the fields; the earth was brown and bare; the birds were silent. He jerked the horse smartly, and it gave an angry toss of its head, as it broke into its tentative trot.

“I do wish you could know the women I know,” said Vernon, obviously breaking a silence. He spoke in an entirely different voice. “I meant to put it the other way. I meant that I wish they could know you, and I mean that they shall. You would be a revelation to them.”

Miss Greene smiled, though her face was now careworn, almost old.

“Right along the line of our constitutional amendment, now,” he said, with a briskness, “do you think the women will become interested?”

“The women of your acquaintance, or of mine?” asked Miss Greene.

“You’re guying,” said Vernon, and when Miss Greene seriously protested, Vernon said he meant all the women, as politicians pretend to mean all the people, when they mean only the party.

“I’m afraid not,” she said. “They could have the ballot to-morrow if they’d only ask for it. The trouble is they don’t want it.”

“Well, we must educate them,” said Vernon. “I have great hopes that the women whom I know will be aroused by what we are doing.”

“I have no doubt they will,” said Miss Greene. There was something enigmatical in her words, and Vernon glanced uneasily at her again.

“How do you mean?” he asked.

“You’ll learn when you see the newspapers to-morrow,” said Miss Greene.

“Do you think they’ll have it in full?” asked Vernon. He was all alert, and his eyes sparkled in a new interest.

“On the first page,” she replied, with conviction. “Have they your picture?”

“I don’t know,” Vernon replied. “They can get it, though,” he added, thoughtfully.

“They keep the portraits of all distinguished public men on hand,” Miss Greene said, with a certain reassurance in her tone.

“Oh, well, I hope they’ll not print it,” said Vernon, as if just then recalling what was expected of a distinguished public man under such circumstances.

“That’s one of the penalties of being in public life,” she answered with a curious smile.

“A penalty the ladies will be glad to pay when our reform is accomplished; isn’t that so?” said Vernon, seeking relief in a light bantering tone.

“I thought we were not going to talk politics,” she said, turning and looking at him. She adjusted her hat and held herself resolutely erect.

The sun was going down behind the prairies, the afternoon was almost gone; as they watched the sunset, Miss Greene broke the silence.

“It’s a familiar sight,” she said, and Vernon thought that he had a clue at last. She must know the prairies.

“It is just like a sunset at sea,” she added.

When they had driven back to the town and Vernon had left her at the hotel, he turned to drive to the livery stable.

“By George!” he said, suddenly, speaking to himself. “I haven’t read Amelia’s letter!”

He fumbled in his coat pocket.

VIII

MISS GREENE’S predictions were all realized in the sensation Vernon’s speech created. The newspapers gave whole columns to it and illustrated their accounts with portraits of Vernon and of Maria Greene. Vernon thought of the pleasure Amelia must find in his new fame, and when he wrote to her he referred briefly but with the proper modesty to his remarkable personal triumph, and then waited for her congratulations.

The legislative session was drawing to a close; the customary Friday adjournment was not taken, but sessions were held that day and on Saturday, for the work was piling up, the procrastinating legislators having left it all for the last minute.

The week following would see House and Senate sweltering in shirt sleeves and night sessions, and now, if a bill were to become law it was necessary that its sponsor stay, as it were, close beside it, lest in the mighty rush of the last few days it be lost.

Vernon, by virtue of his speech, had assumed the championship of the woman-suffrage resolution, and he felt it necessary to forego his customary visit to Chicago that week and remain over Sunday in Springfield. He devoted the day to composing a long letter to Miss Greene, in which he described the situation in detail, and suggested that it would be well for her, if possible, to come down to Springfield on Monday and stay until the resolution had been adopted. He gave her, in closing, such pledges of his devotion to the cause of womankind that she could hardly resist any appeal he might make for her presence and assistance.

On Monday he wired, urging the necessity of her presence. Tuesday morning brought him a reply, thanking him, in behalf of women, for his disinterested devotion to their cause, assuring him of her own appreciation of his services, and saying that she would reach Springfield—Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile he had had no letter from Amelia, and he began to wonder at her silence. He was not only disappointed, but piqued. He felt that his achievement deserved the promptest recognition from her, but he found a consolation, that grew in spite of him, in the thought that Maria Greene would soon be in Springfield, and to his heart he permitted Amelia’s silence to justify him in a freer indulgence of attention to this fascinating woman lawyer.

Tuesday evening the crowd, that grows larger as the session nears its close, filled the lobby of the Leland. The night was warm, and to the heat of politics was suddenly added the heat of summer. Doors and windows were flung wide to the night, and the tall Egyptians, used as they were to the sultry atmospheres of southern Illinois, strode lazily about under their wide slouch hats with waistcoats open and cravats loosened, delighting in a new cause for chaffing the Chicago men, who had resumed their customary complaints of the Springfield weather.

The smoke of cigars hung in the air. The sound of many voices, the ring of heavy laughter, the shuffle of feet over the tiles, the clang of the clerk’s gong, the incessant chitter of a telegraph instrument that sped news to Chicago over the Courier’s private wire, all these influences surcharged the heavy air with a nervous excitement that made men speak quickly and their eyes glitter under the brilliant lights of countless electric bulbs. There was in that atmosphere the play of myriad hopes and ambitions, political, social, financial. Special delegations of eminent lawyers, leading citizens and prominent capitalists were down from Chicago to look after certain measures of importance. Newspaper correspondents hurried from group to group, gathering bits of information to be woven into their night’s despatches.

Late in the evening the governor came over from the mansion, and his coming stirred the throng with a new sensation. His secretary was by his side, and they mingled a while with the boys, as the governor called them, after the politician’s manner. Half a dozen congressmen were there, thinking always of renomination. Over in one corner sat a United States senator, his high hat tilted back on his perspiring brow. A group of men had drawn their chairs about him; they laughed at his stories.

One was aware that the speaker’s apartments upstairs were crowded. One could easily imagine it; the door of his inner room, as men came and went, opening now and then, and giving a glimpse of the speaker himself, tired and worn under the strain that would tell so sorely on him before another week could bring his labors and his powers and his glories to an end. Through all that hotel that night, in lobby and in bar-room, on the stairs, in the side halls and up and down in the elevators, throbbed the fascination of politics, which men play not so much for its ends as for its means.

Vernon was of this crowd, moving from one group to another, smoking, laughing, talking. His heart may have been a little sore at the thought of Amelia’s strange neglect of him, but the soreness had subsided until now it was but a slight numbness which he could forget at times, and when he did think of it, it but gave him resolution to play the game more fiercely.

He knew that it was incumbent on him to make sure of the adoption of the resolution on the morrow. He had already spoken to the lieutenant-governor and had promise of recognition. But he realized that it would be wise to make a little canvass, though he had no doubt that all was well, and that by the next night he could mingle with this crowd serene and happy in the thought that his work was done; perhaps he might even spend the evening in the company of Maria Greene. His heart gave a little leap at this new and happy thought, and if the remembrance of Amelia came back just at that instant, its obtrusion only made his eyes burn the brighter.

He found it pleasant as he threaded his way through the crowd to halt senators as he met them and say:

“Well, the woman-suffrage resolution comes up to-morrow. You’ll be for it, of course?”

It gave him such a legislative and statesmanlike importance to do this. As he was going leisurely about this quest, testing some of the sensations of a parliamentary leader, Cowley, the correspondent of the Courier, accosted him, and, showing his teeth in that odd smile of his, asked if he cared to say anything about the resolution.

“Only that it comes up as a special order in the morning, and that I have no doubt whatever of its adoption by the Senate.”

“Have you assurances from—”

“From everybody, and every assurance,” said Vernon. “They’re all for it. Come and have a cigar.”

They went over to the cigar stand, and when they had lighted their cigars Cowley said:

“Let’s go out for a little walk; I may be able to tell you something that will interest you.”

IX

VERNON was glad enough of a breath of the evening air, and they went down the steps to the sidewalk. Along the curbstone many men had placed chairs and in these cool and quiet eddies of the brawling stream of politics they joked and laughed peacefully. Sixth Street stretched away dark and inviting. Vernon and Cowley turned southward and strolled along companionably. The air was delicious after the blaze of the hotel; the black shade of a moonless night was restful; their cigars were fragrant.

“I’ve just got hold of a story,” began Cowley, after they had enjoyed the night for a moment in silence. “I’ve just got hold of a story—” he spoke, of course, as always, from the detached standpoint of a newspaper man, “which you ought to know.”

“What is it?” asked Vernon.

“Porter and Braidwood are against your resolution.” Cowley spoke these names in a tone that told how futile any opposition would be. “And Wright and his fellows are against it, too,” he added.

“Nonsense,” said Vernon.

“Well, you’ll see,” replied Cowley.

“But they told me—”

“Oh, well, that’s all right. They’ve changed in the last day or two.”

“Why?”

“Well, they say it’s risky from a party standpoint. They think they already have all the load they want to carry in the fall campaign. Besides, they—”

“What?”

“They say there’s no demand for such a radical step, and so see no reason for taking it.”

“No demand for it?”

“No, on the contrary,” Cowley halted an instant and in his palm sheltered a lighted match for his extinguished cigar. “On the contrary, there’s a lot of people against it.”

“Since when?”

“They’ve been getting letters in the last few days—they’ve just been pouring in on ’em—and they’re from women, too.”

“From women!”

“Yes, from women; the first ladies in the land.” Cowley spoke with a sneer.

Vernon laughed.

“All right,” said Cowley in the careless tone of one who has discharged a duty. “Wait till you see Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop land in here to-morrow.”

“Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop!” Vernon stopped still in the middle of the sidewalk and turned in surprise and fear to Cowley. Cowley enjoyed the little sensation he had produced.

“Yes, she’s coming down on the Alton to-night. And she’s bringing some of her crowd with her. The women’s clubs are all stirred up about the matter.”

Vernon was silent for a moment, then he wheeled suddenly, and said: “Well, I’m much obliged to you, Cowley, but I’d better be getting back to the hotel.”

“It may not be serious after all,” Cowley said with tardy reassurance, “but there’s danger, and I thought I’d let you know. I’m sending a pretty good story in to-night about it; they’ll cover the Chicago end from the office.”

“But they were all for it,” Vernon muttered.

“Oh, well, you know they never took the thing very seriously. Of course they passed it in the House just to line up old man Ames for the apportionment bill. They didn’t think it would amount to anything.”

“Yes, I know—but Maria Burley Greene—”

“Well, she’s a pretty woman; that’s all.”

“You bet she is,” said Vernon, “and she’ll be down here again to-morrow, too.”

“Will she?” said Cowley eagerly, with his strange smile.

“Yes—but, look here, Charlie!” Vernon exclaimed, “don’t you go mixing me up with her, now, understand?”

“Oh, I understand,” said Cowley, and he laughed significantly.

When Vernon reached the hotel he set to work in earnest. He tramped about half the night, until he had seen every senator who could be found. He noted a change in them; if he did not find them hostile he found many of them shy and reluctant. But when he went to his room he had enough promises to allay his fears and to restore, in a measure, his confidence, and he fell asleep thinking of Maria Greene, happy in the thought that she would be there with her charms to offset the social influence of Mrs. Overman Hodge-Lathrop.