[Illustration: 9078]
LOCAL institution in which “the gang” was more or less interested was
known as the “Darley Club.” It occupied the entire upper floor of
a considerable building on the main street, and had been organized,
primarily, by the older married men of the town to give the young men of
the best families a better meeting-place than the bar-rooms and offices
of the hotels. At first the older men looked in occasionally to see that
the rather rigid rules of the institution were being kept. But men of
middle-age and past, who have comfortable firesides, are not fond of
the noisy gatherings of their original prototypes, and the Club was
soon left to the management of the permanent president, Mr. Wade Tingle,
editor of the _Headlight_.
Wade endeavored, to the best of his genial nature, to enforce all rules,
collect all dues, and impose all fines, but he wasn't really the man for
the place. He accepted what cash was handed to him, trying to remember
the names of the payers and amounts as he wrote his editorials,
political notes, and social gossip, ending up at the end of each month
with no money at all to pay the rent or the wages of the negro factotum.
However, there was always an outlet from this embarrassment, for
Wade had only to draw a long face as he met some of the well-to-do
stay-at-homes and say that “club expenses were somehow running short,”
and without question the shortage was made up. Wade had tried to be
officially stern, too, on occasion. Once when Keith Gordon had violated
what Wade termed club discipline, not to say club etiquette, Wade
threatened to be severe. But it happened to be a point upon which there
was a division of opinion, and Keith also belonged to “the gang.” It had
happened this way: Keith had a certain corner in the Club reading-room
where he was wont to write his letters of an evening, and coming down
after supper one night he discovered that the attendant had locked the
door and gone off to supper. Keith was justly angry. He stood at the
door for a few minutes, and then, being something of an athlete, he
stepped back, made a run the width of the sidewalk, and broke the lock,
left the door hanging on a single hinge, and went up and calmly wrote
his letters. As has been intimated, Wade took a serious view of this
violation of club dignity, his main contention being that Keith ought
to have the lock repaired and the hinge replaced. However, Keith just
as firmly stood on his rights, his contention being that a member of the
Club in good standing could not be withheld from his rights by the mere
carelessness of a negro or a twenty-five cent cast-iron lock. So it was
that, in commemoration of the incident, the door remained without the
lock and hinge for many a day.
It was in this building that the grand ball in honor of Helen Warren's
home-coming was to be given. During the entire preceding day Bob Smith
and Keith Gordon worked like happy slaves. The floor had been roughened
by roller-skating, and a carpenter with plane and sand-paper was
smoothing it, Bob giving it its finishing touch by whittling sperm
candles over it and rubbing in the shavings with the soles of his shoes
as he pirouetted about, his right arm curved around an imaginary waist.
The billiard-tables were pushed back against the wall, the ladies'
dressing-rooms thoroughly scoured and put in order, and the lamps
cleaned and trimmed. Keith had brought down from his home some
fine oil-paintings, and these were hung appropriately. But Keith's
_chef-d'ouvre_ of arrangement and decoration was a happy inspiration,
and he was enjoining it on the initiated ones to keep it as a surprise
for Helen. He had once heard her say that her favorite flower was the
wild daisy, and as they were now in bloom, and grew in profusion in the
fields around the town, Keith had ordered several wagon-loads of them
gathered, and now the walls of the ballroom were fairly covered with
them. Graceful festoons of the flowers hung from the ceiling, draped
the doorways, and rose in beautiful mounds on the white-clothed
refreshment-tables.
As a special favor he admitted Carson Dwight in at the carefully guarded
door at dusk on the evening of the ball, first drawing down the blinds
and lighting the candles and lamps that his chum might have the full
benefit of the scene as it would strike Helen on her arrival.
“Isn't that simply superb?” he asked. “Do you reckon they gave her
anything prettier while she was down there? I don't believe it, Carson.
I think this is the dandiest room a girl ever tripped a toe in.”
“Yes, it's all right,” Dwight said, admiringly. “It is really great, and
she will appreciate it keenly. She is that way.”
“I think so myself,” said Keith. “I've been nervous all day, though, old
man. I've been watching every train.”
“Afraid the band wouldn't come?” asked Dwight.
“No, those coons can be depended on; they will be down in full force
with the best figure-caller in the South. No, I was afraid, though, that
Helen might have written to that Augusta chump, and that he would come
up. That certainly would give the thing cold feet.”
“Ah!” Carson exclaimed; “I see.”
“The dear girl wouldn't rub it in on us to that extent, old man,” Keith
said. “I know it now. She really may be engaged to him, and she may not,
but she knows how we feel, and it's bully of her not to invite him. It
would really have been a wet blanket to the whole business. We'd have
to treat him decently, as a visitor, you know, but I'd rather have taken
castor-oil for my part of it. All the gang except you were over to see
her Sunday afternoon; why didn't you go?”
“Oh, you know I live only next door, with an open gate between, and
I thought I'd better give my place to you fellows who don't have my
opportunity. I've already seen her. In fact, she ran over to see my
mother yesterday.”
The ball was in full swing when Carson arrived that night. The street in
front of the club was crowded with carriages, buggies, and livery-stable
“hacks.” The introductory grand march was in progress, and when Carson
went to the improvised dressing-room in charge of Skelt to check his
hat he found Garner standing before a mirror tugging at the lapels of an
evening coat and trying to adjust a necktie which kept climbing higher
than it should. Darley was just at the point in its post-bellum struggle
where evening dress for men was a thing more of the luxurious past than
the stern present, and Dwight readily saw that his partner had persuaded
himself for once to don borrowed plumage.
“What's the matter?” Carson asked, as he thrust his hat-check into the
pocket of his immaculate white waistcoat.
“Oh, the damn thing don't fit!” said Garner, in high disgust. “I know
now that my father has a hump, or did have when he ordered this suit for
his wedding-trip. The tailor who designed this _costeem de swaray_ tried
to help him out, but he has transferred the hump to me by other means
than heredity. Look how the back of it sticks out from my neck!”
“That's because you twist your body to see it in the glass,” said
Carson, consolingly. “It's not so bad when you stand straight.”
“It's a case of not seeing others as they see you, eh?” Garner said,
better satisfied. “I haven't taken a chew of tobacco to-night. I
wouldn't splotch this shirt for the world. I couldn't spit farther than
an inch with this collar on, anyway. She's holding the reel for me. I
can't dance anything else, but I can go through that pretty well if I
get at the end and watch the others. You'd better hurry up and see
her card. There is a swell gang coming on the ten-o'clock train from
Atlanta, and they all know her.”
It was during the interval following the third number on the programme
that Carson met Helen promenading with Keith and offered her his arm.
“Oh, isn't it simply superb?” she said, when Keith had bowed
himself away and they had joined the other strollers round the big,
flower-perfumed room. “Carson, really I actually cried for joy just now
in the dressing-room. I declare I never want to go away from home again.
I'll never have such devoted friends as these.”
“It is nice of you to look at it that way, Helen,” he said, “after the
gay time you have had in Augusta and other cities.”
“At least it is honest and sincere here at home,” she answered,
“while down there it is--well, full of strife, social competition, and
jealousies. I really; got homesick and simply had to come back.”
“We are simply delighted to have you again,” he said, almost fearing to
look upon her, for in her exquisite evening gown and the proud poise of
her head she seemed more beautiful and imperious, and farther removed
from his hopes than he had thought her even in the darkest hours of her
first refusal to condone his fatal offence.
She was looking straight into his eyes with a thoughtful, questioning
stare, when she said: “They all seem the same, Carson, except you. Bob
Smith, Keith, and even Mr. Garner are just like I left them, but somehow
you are altered. You look so much older, so much more serious. Is it
politics that is weighing you down--making you worry?”
“Well,” he laughed, evasively, “politics is not exactly the easiest game
in the world, and the bare fear that I may not succeed, after all, is
enough to make a fellow of my temperament worry. It seems to be my last
throw of the dice, Helen. My father will lose all faith in me if this
does not go through.”
“Yes, I know it is serious,” the girl said. “Keith and Mr. Garner
have talked to me about it. They say they have never seen you so much
absorbed in anything before. You really must win, Carson--you simply
must!”
“But this is no time to talk over sordid politics,” he said, with a
smile. “This is your party and it must be made delightful.”
“Oh, I have my worries, too,” she said, gravely. “I felt a queer twinge
of conscience to-night when all the servants came to see me before I
left home. They were all so happy except Mam' Linda. She tried to act
like the rest, but, Carson, her trouble about that worthless boy is
actually killing the dear old woman. She has her pride, too, and it
has been wounded to the quick. She was always proud of the fact that my
father never had whipped one of his slaves. I've heard her boast of it a
hundred times; and now that she no longer belongs to us in reality, and
her only child was beaten so cruelly, she simply can't get over it.”
“I knew she felt that way,” Dwight said, sympathetically.
Helen's hand tightened unconsciously on his arm as they were passing
by the corner containing the orchestra. “Do you know,” she said, “Mam'
Linda told me that of all the people who had been to see her since
then that you had been the kindest, most thoughtful, the most helpful?
Carson, that was very, very sweet of you.”
“I was only electioneering,” he said, with a flush. “I was after Uncle
Lewis's vote and Mam' Linda's influence.”
“No, you were not,” Helen declared. “It was pure, unadulterated
unselfishness on your part. You were sorry for her and for Uncle Lewis
and even Pete, who certainly needed punishment of some sort for the way
he's been conducting himself. Yes, it was only your good heart. I know
that, for several persons have told me you have even gone so far as to
let the affair hamper you in your political career. Oh, I know all about
what your opponent is saying, and I know mountain people well enough to
know you have given him a powerful weapon. They are terribly wrought
up over the race troubles, and it would be easy enough for them to
misunderstand your exact feeling. Oh, Carson, you must not let even Mam'
Linda's trouble stand between you and your high aim. Taking up her cause
will perhaps not do a bit of good, for no one person can solve so vital
a problem as that is, and your agitation of it may wreck your last
hope.”
“I've promised to keep my mouth shut, if Dan Willis and men of his
sort will not stay right at my heels with their threats. My campaign
managers--the gang, who hold a daily caucus at the den and lay down
my rules of conduct--have exacted that much from me on the penalty of
letting me go by the board if I disobey.”
“The dear boys!” Helen exclaimed. “I like every one of them, they are so
loyal to you. The close friendship of you all for one another is simply
beautiful.”
“Coming back to the inevitable Pete,” Dwight remarked, a few minutes
later. “I've been watching him since he was whipped, and I know he is in
great danger of getting even more deeply into trouble. He has a stupidly
resentful disposition, as many of his race have, and he is going around
making surly threats about Johnson, Wiggin, and others. If he keeps that
up and they get hold of it he will certainly get into serious trouble.”
“My father was speaking of that to-night,” Helen said. “And he was
thinking if there were any way of getting the boy away from his idle
town associates that it might prevent trouble and ease Mam' Linda's
mind.”
“I was thinking of that the other day when I saw Uncle Lewis searching
for him among the idle negroes,” said Carson; “and I have an idea.”
“Oh, you have? What is it?” Helen asked, eagerly.
“Why, Pete always has seemed to like me and take my advice, and as there
is, plenty of work on my farm for such a hand as he is I could give him
a good place and wages over there where he'd be practically removed from
his present associates.”
“Splendid, splendid!” Helen cried; “and will you do it?”
“Why, certainly, and right away,” Carson answered. “If you will have
Mam' Linda send him down to me in the morning I'll give him some
instructions and a good sharp talk, and I'll make my overseer at the
farm put him to work.”
“Oh, it is splendid!” Helen declared. “It will be such good news for
Mam' Linda. She'd rather have him work for you than any one in the
world.”
“There comes Wade to claim his dance,” Dwight said, suddenly; “and I
must be off.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, almost regretfully.
“To the office to work on political business--dozens and dozens of
letters to answer. Then I'm coming back for my waltz with you. I
sha'n't fail.” And as he put on his hat and threaded his way through the
whirling mass of dancers down to the street, he recalled with something
of a shock that not once in their talk had he even _thought_ of his
rival. He slowed up in the darkness and leaned against a wall. There
was a strange sinking of his heart as he faced the grim reality that
stretched out drearily before him. She was, no doubt, to be the wife of
another man. He had lost her. She was not for him, though there in
the glare of the ballroom, amid the sensuous strains of music, in the
perfume of the flowers dying in her service, she had seemed as close to
him in heart, soul, and sympathy as the night he and she--
He had reached his office, a little one-story brick building in the row
of lawyers' offices on the side street leading from the post-office to
the courthouse, and he unlocked the door and went in and lighted the
little murky lamp on his desk and pulled down a package of unanswered
letters.
Yes, he must work--work with that awful pain in his breast, the dry,
tightening sensation in his throat, the maddening vision of her dazzling
beauty and grace and sweetness before him. He dipped his pen, drew the
paper towards him, and began to write: “My dear Sir,--In receiving the
cordial assurances of your support in the campaign before me, I desire
to thank you most heartily and to--”
He laid the pen down and leaned back. “I can't do it, at least not
to-night,” he said. “Not while she is there looking like that and with
my waltz to come, and yet it must be done. I've lost her, and I am only
making it harder to bear. Yes, I must work--work!”
The pen went into the ink again. On the still night air came the strains
of music, the mellow, sing-song voice of the figure-caller in the
“square” dance, the whir and patter of many feet.