the last page of the despatch to a telegraph-boy the speech was nearly
over. He said emphatically that it was a success, that the audience was
brought thoroughly under the spell, but whether this spell would endure
after the candidate was gone he did not undertake to prophesy. The
coldest and most critical seeker after truth and nothing but the truth
could have found no fault with what he wrote.
He gave the last page of the despatch to the telegraph-boy, and entered
the secluded box that held Mrs. Grayson and Miss Morgan. Two elderly
Chicago men, who played at politics and who were warm enthusiasts for
Grayson, were there, and Harley was introduced to them. But he talked to
them only as long as politeness demanded, and then, with all sincerity,
he congratulated Mrs. Grayson on her husband's triumph.
"I never had a doubt of it," she replied, her voice tremulous, and
honestly forgetful in the glory of the moment of all the fears that had
been assailing her a few hours ago. "I knew what he could do."
Harley turned presently to Miss Morgan, and he spoke in the same vein to
her, but she asked, with some asperity, "Did you think he could fail?"
"Failure is possible, I suppose, in the case of anybody."
"But you do not know our Western spirit."
"I am learning."
Her gentleness was gone. She resented what she chose to consider an
attempt at patronage of the West, and Harley again was made the target
for the arrows of her sarcasm. Yet he did not resent it with his
original acerbity; custom was dulling the sharp edge of her weapons,
and, instead of wounding him, they rather provoked and drew him on. He
was able to reply lightly, to suggest vaguely the crudities of Idaho,
and to incite her to yet more strenuous battle for her beloved
mountains.
But both ceased to talk, because the candidate was approaching his
climax, and the grand swell of his speech had in it a musical quality
that did not detract from its power to carry conviction. Then he closed,
and the thunders of applause rose again and again. At last, after bowing
many times to the gratified audience, he came back to the box, and his
niece, her eyes shining with delight, sprang up, as if driven by an
impulse, and, throwing her arms about his neck, kissed him. The act was
seen by many, and it was applauded, but Harley did not like it; her
emotion seemed to him too youthful, to smack too little of restraint--in
short, to be too Western. Despite himself, he frowned, and when she
turned back towards the box she saw the frown still upon his face. There
was an instant fiery flash in her eye, and she drew herself up as if in
haughty defiance, but she said nothing then, nor did she speak later
when she left with the Graysons, merely giving him a cold good-night
bow.
Harley lingered a little with the other correspondents, and was among
the last to leave the building. He was thinking of the Idaho girl, but
he did not fail to notice what was going on, and he saw a group of
middle-aged or elderly men, the majority of them portly in figure and
autocratic in bearing, follow the trail of Jimmy Grayson. Although
familiar with the faces of only one or two in the group, he knew
instinctively who they were. It was a gathering of the great, moneyed
men of the party, eager to see the attitude of Grayson upon affairs that
concerned them intimately, and prompt to take action in accordance. They
were the guardians of "vested" interests, interests watched over as few
things in this world are, and they were resolved to see that they took
no harm. But the speech of the night had been general in its nature, a
preliminary as it were, and Harley judged that they would do nothing as
yet but skirmish upon the outskirts, keeping a wary eye for the main
battle when it should be joined.
"Did you notice them?" asked white-haired Tremaine in his ear.
"Oh yes," replied Harley, who knew at once what he meant; "I watched
them leave the hall."
"One gets to know them instinctively," said Tremaine. "I've seen them
like a herd of bull-dogs--if such animals travelled in herds--on the
heels of every presidential candidate for the last forty years, and that
covers ten campaigns. But I suppose they have as much right to look
after their interests as the farmer or mechanic has to look after his."
"Yet it is worth while to watch them," said Harley, and all in the group
concurred.
They were to leave in the afternoon for Milwaukee, which gave plenty of
time for rest, and Harley, who needed it, slept late. But when he rose
and dressed he went forth at once, after his habit, for the morning
papers, buying them all in order to weigh as well as he could the
Chicago opinion of Grayson. The first that he picked up was sensational
in character, and what he saw on the front page did not please him at
all. There was plenty of space devoted to Grayson, but almost as much
was given to an incident of the evening as to Grayson himself. There was
a huge picture of a beautiful young girl throwing her arms around Jimmy
Grayson's neck, and kissing him enthusiastically. The two occupied the
centre of the stage close to the footlights, and twenty thousand people
were frantically cheering the spectacle. By the side of this picture was
another, a perfectly correct portrait of Miss Morgan, evidently taken
from a photograph, and under it were the lines: "Jimmy Grayson's
Egeria--the Beautiful Young Girl Who Furnishes the Western Fire for His
Speeches."
And then in two columns of leaded type, under a pyramid of head-lines,
was told the story of Sylvia Morgan. Flushed with enthusiasm, the
account said, she had come from Idaho to help her uncle, the candidate.
Although only eighteen years of age--she was twenty-two--she had
displayed a most remarkable perception and grasp of politics and of
great issues. It was she, with her youthful zeal, who inspired Mr.
Grayson and his friends with courage for a conflict against odds. He
consulted her daily about his speeches; it was she who always put into
them some happy thought, some telling phrase that was sure to captivate
the people. In a pinch she could make a speech herself, and she would
probably be seen on the stump in the West. And she was as beautiful as
she was intellectual and eloquent; she would be the most picturesque
feature of this or any campaign ever waged in America. It continued in
this vein for two columns, employing all the latest devices of the
newest and yellowest journalism, of which the process is quite simple,
provided you have no conscience--that is, you take a grain of fact and
you build upon it a mountain of fancy, and the mountain will be shaped
according to the taste of the builder.
Harley would have laughed--these things always seemed to him childish or
flippant rather than wicked--if it had not been for the photograph. That
was too real; it was exactly like Sylvia Morgan, and it implied
connivance between the newspaper and some body else. In Idaho it might
have one look, but here in Chicago it would have another, and in New
York it would have still another and yet worse. She ought to see the
true aspect of these things. To Harley, reared with the old-fashioned
Southern ideals, from which he never departed, it was all inexpressibly
distasteful--he did not stop to ask himself why he should be more
concerned about the picture of Miss Morgan than those of many other
women whom he saw in the newspapers--and his feeling was not improved by
the entrance of Churchill and his sneering comment.
"A good picture of her," said Churchill. "These Western girls like such
things. Of course she sent it to the newspaper office."
"I do not know anything of the kind, nor do you, I think," replied
Harley, with asperity. "Nor am I aware that the West is any fonder than
the East of notoriety."
"Have it any way you wish," said Churchill, superciliously. "But I fail
to see why you should disturb yourself so much over the matter."
His tone was so annoying that Harley felt like striking him, but instead
ignored him, and Churchill strolled carelessly on, humming a tune, as he
had seen insolent people on the stage do in such moments.
Harley thrust the newspaper into his pocket, and went into one of the
ladies' parlors, where he saw Miss Morgan sitting by a window and
looking out at the hasty life of Chicago. She did not hear his approach
until he was very near, and then, starting at the sound of his
footsteps, she looked up, and her cheeks flushed.
"It should be a happy day for you," said Harley, "and I suppose that you
are enjoying the triumph."
"Why should I not?" she replied. "I have a share in it."
"So you have, and the press has recognized it."
"What do you mean?"
"I was just looking at a very good picture of you," said Harley, and he
spread the paper before her, hoping that she would express surprise and
distaste. But she showed neither.
"Oh, I've seen that already," she said, quite coolly. "Don't you think
it a good picture?"
"I have no fault to find with the likeness," replied Harley, with some
meaning in his tone.
"Then what fault have you to find?"
Harley was embarrassed, and hesitated, seeking for the right words--what
did it matter to him if she failed to show the reserve that he thought
part of a gentlewoman's nature.
"You infer more than I meant," he said, at last. "I merely felt surprise
that they should have obtained a photograph so quickly."
The slightly deepened flush in her cheeks remained and she surveyed him
with the same cool air of defiance.
"They would have had a picture, anyhow, something made up; was it not
better, then, to furnish them a real one than to have a burlesque
published?"
"It's hardly usual," said Harley, more embarrassed than ever. "But
really, Miss Morgan, I have no right to speak of it in any connection."
"No, but you were intending to do so. It was in your eye when I looked
up and saw you coming towards me."
Her voice had grown chilly, and her gaze was fixed on Harley. The
Western girl certainly had dignity and reserve when she wished them, but
he did not believe that she chose the right moments to display these
admirable qualities.
"I did not know that I had such a speaking countenance," said Harley.
"And even if so, you must not forget that you might read it wrong."
"I do not think so," she said, still chilly, and, glancing up at the
clock, she added: "It is almost twelve, and I promised Aunt Anna to be
with her a half-hour ago."
At the door she paused, turned back, and a flashing smile illuminated
her face for a moment.
"Oh, Mr. Harley," she said, "don't you wish some newspaper would print
your picture?"
Then she was gone, leaving him flushed and irritated. He was angry, both
at her and himself; at himself because he had expected to rebuke her, to
show her indirectly and in a delicate way where she was wrong, and he
had never even got as far as the attack. It was he who had been put upon
the defence, when he had not expected to be in such a state, and his
self-satisfaction suffered. But he told himself that she was a crude
Western girl, and that it was nothing to him if she forced herself into
the public gaze in a bold and theatrical manner.
A little later all left for Milwaukee, where Mr. Grayson was to make
another great speech in the evening, and Harley again refrained from
joining the group that soon gathered around Miss Morgan, and Mrs.
Grayson, also, who, being in a very happy mood, made a loan of her
presence as a chaperon, she said, although, being a young woman still,
it gave her pleasure to hear them speak of her husband's brilliant
triumph the night before, and to enjoy the atmosphere of success that
enveloped the car.
The run from Chicago to Milwaukee is short, but Harley, despite his
pique--he was young and naturally of a cheerful temperament--might have
joined them before their arrival if his attention had not been attracted
by another group, that body of portly, middle-aged men, heavy with
wealth and respectability, who had silently cast a dark shadow upon the
meeting at Chicago. They were men of power, men whose brief words went
far, and they held in their hands strings that controlled many and vast
interests when they pulled them, and their hands were always on the
strings. They were not like the great, voluble public; they worked, by
choice and by opportunity, in silence and the dark, and their kind has
existed in every rich country from Babylonia to the United States of
America. They were the great financial magnates of Jimmy Grayson's
party, and nothing that he might do could escape their notice and
consideration. It was more than likely that in the course of the
campaign he would feel a great power pressing upon him, and he would not
be able to say who propelled it.
Harley knew some of these men by name; one, the leader of the party, a
massive, red-faced man, was the Honorable Clinton Goodnight, a member of
the Lower House of Congress from New York, but primarily a manufacturer,
a man of many millions; and the younger and slenderer man, with the
delicately trimmed and pointed beard, was Henry Crayon, one of the
shrewdest bankers in Wall Street. These two, at least, he knew by face,
but no trained observer could doubt that the others were of the same
kind.
Although silent and as yet casting only a shadow, Harley felt that
sooner or later these men would cause trouble. He had an intuition that
the campaign before them was going to be the most famous in the Union,
dealing with mighty issues and infused with powerful personalities.
Great changes had occurred in the country in the last few years, its
centre of gravity was shifting, and the election in November would
decide many things. He felt as if all the forces were gathering for a
titanic conflict, and his heart thrilled with the omens and presages. It
was a pleasurable thrill, too, because he was going to be in the thick
of it, right beside the general of one of the great armies.
When they reached Milwaukee, Harley and all the correspondents went to
the same hotel with the Graysons, and they remarked jocularly to the
nominee that they would watch over him now night and day until the first
Tuesday in November, and he, being a man of tact and human sympathies,
without any affectations, was able to be a good fellow with them all,
merely a first among his equals.
There was a great crowd at the station, ready to welcome the candidate,
and the sound of shouting and joyous welcome arose; but Harley, anxious
to reach the hotel, slipped from the throng and sprang into a carriage,
one of a number evidently waiting for the Grayson party. It was a closed
vehicle, and he did not notice until he sat down that it was already
occupied, at least in part, by a lady. Then he sprang up, red-faced and
apologetic, but the lady laughed--a curious little laugh, ironic, but
not wholly unpleasant--and put out a detaining hand, detaining by way of
gesture, because she did not touch him.
"You are very much surprised to find me here, Mr. Harley," said Miss
Morgan. "You thought, of course, that I would be in the centre of that
crowd, receiving applause and shaking hands, just as if I were a
candidate, like my uncle James. You would not believe me if I told you
that I came here to escape it."
"Why shouldn't I believe it?"
"Because I am going to tell you that your displeasure over the picture
has made me feel so badly that I am resolved to do better, to be more
modest, more retiring."
"Miss Morgan, you do me wrong," said Harley, with reddening face. "I
have had no such thoughts."
"You fib in a good cause, but you cannot deceive me; I read your
thoughts, but I am very forgiving, and I am resolved that we shall have
a pleasant ride to the hotel together. Now, entertain me, tell me about
that war, of which you saw so much."
She was not in jest, and she compelled him to talk. It was far from the
station to the hotel, and she revealed a knowledge of the world's
affairs that Harley thought astonishing in one coming from the depths of
the Idaho mountains. She touched, too, upon the things that interested
him most, and drew him on until he was talking with a zest and interest
that permitted no self-consciousness. Resolved that he would not tell
what he had seen, and by nature reserved, he was, within five minutes,
under her deft questions, in the middle of a long narrative of events on
the other side of the world. He saw her listening, her eyes bright, her
lips slightly parted, and he knew that he held her attention. He was
aware, too, that he was flattered by the interest that he had been able
to create in the mind of this Idaho girl whose opinion he had been
holding so cheaply.
"I envy a man," she said, at last, sighing a little. "You can go where
you please and do what you please. Even our 'advanced women' have less
liberty than the man who is not advanced at all. And yet I do not want
to be a man. That, I suppose, is a paradox."
Harley was about to make a light reply, something in the tone of
perforced compliment, but a glimpse of her caused him to change his
mind. She seemed to have a touch of genuine sadness, and, instead, he
said nothing.
When the carriage reached the ladies' entrance of the hotel they were
still silent, and as Harley helped her from the carriage her manner was
unchanged. The little touch of sadness was yet there, and it appealed to
him. She surprised his look of sympathy, and the color in her cheeks
increased.
"I am tired," she said. "I just begin to realize how greatly so much
travelling and so many crowds weigh upon one."
Then, with the first smile of comradeship that she had given him, she
went into the hotel.
The Graysons, Miss Morgan, Harley, Hobart, and a few others formed a
family group again at the table, when they dined that evening, and all
the tensity and anxiety visible the day before was gone. Mr. Grayson's
success in Chicago had been too complete, too sweeping to leave doubt of
its continuance; he would be the hero and leader of his party, not a
weight upon it, and the question now was whether or not the party had
votes enough; hence there was a certain light and joyous air about them
which gave to their short stay in the dining-room a finer flavor than
any that a _chef_ could add.
Churchill, of the _Monitor_, was not one of this party. Churchill did
not confine his criticisms to his professional activities, but had a
disposition to carry them into private life, injecting roughness into
social intercourse, which ought to be smooth and easy. Therefore,
somewhat to his own surprise, which ought not to have been the case, he
had not become a member of this family group, and had much to say about
the "frivolous familiarity" of Jimmy Grayson and "his lack of dignity."
But on this evening Churchill had no desire to sit at table with the
Graysons, because he felt that something great was going to happen in
his life. For more than a day, now, he had been on the trail of a mighty
movement that he believed hidden from all save himself and those behind
this movement. He, too, had noticed the appearance at Chicago of the
heavy, rich, elderly men, and he had spoken to one or two of them with
all the respect and deference that their eminent position in the
financial world drew from every writer of the _Monitor_. And his
deference had been rewarded, because that afternoon he received a hint,
and it came from no less a personage than the Honorable Clinton
Goodnight himself, a hint that Churchill rightly thought was worth much
to him.
There was another large hotel in Milwaukee, and it was to this that the
financiers had gone, having ascertained first that Grayson would not be
there; nor did they intend to go to the speech that evening. They had
already, in the address at Chicago, weighed accurately the power of
Jimmy Grayson with his party, and with wary old eyes, long used to
watching the world and its people, they had seen that it would be great.
Hence he was a man to be handled with skill and care, to be led, not
knowing that he was led, by a bridle invisible to all save those who
held it--but they, the financiers, would know very well who held it.
It was these men to whom Churchill came, having slipped quietly away
from his associates, drawn by a hint that he might secure an interview
of great importance, two columns in length and exclusive. Churchill was
a true product of the _Monitor_, a worshipper of accomplished facts, a
supporter of every old convention, believing that anything new or in
rough attire was bad. Although he would have denied it if accused, he
nearly always confounded manners with morals, and to him the opinion of
Europe was final. Hence the _Monitor_ and Churchill were well suited to
each other. Moreover, Churchill enjoyed the society of the great--that
is, of those who seemed to him to be the great--and he had an admirable
flexibility of temperament; while easily able and willing to be very
nasty to those whom he thought of an inferior grade, he was equally able
and willing to be extremely deferential to those whose grade he
considered superior. He was also intolerant in opinion, thinking that
any one who differed from him on the subjects of the day was necessarily
a scoundrel, wherein he was again in perfect accord with the _Monitor_.
It was, therefore, with an acute delight, blossoming into exultation,
that Churchill slipped away from his associates and hastened towards the
hotel where the financial magnates were staying. These were really great
men, not the productions of a moment, thrown briefly into the
lime-light, but solid like the pyramids. Mr. Goodnight must be worth
forty millions, at the least, and he was a power in many circles.
Churchill thrilled with delight that such a being should hint to him to
come and be talked to, and he was more than ever conscious of his own
superiority to his professional associates.
Churchill was not awed by the hotel clerk, but haughtily asked that his
card be sent at once to Mr. Goodnight, and he concealed his pride when
the message came back that he be shown up as soon as possible. He
received it as the natural tribute to his importance, and he took his
time as he followed the guiding hall-boy. But at the door of Mr.
Goodnight his manner changed; it became deferential, as befitted modest
merit in the presence of true and recognized greatness.
Mr. Goodnight was hospitable; there was no false pride about him; he was
able in being great to be simple also, and Mr. Crayon and the others
present shared his attractive manner.
"Ah, Mr. Churchill," he said, as he shook hands heartily with the
correspondent, "it gives me pleasure, indeed, to welcome you here. We
noticed your bearing in Chicago, and we were impressed by it. We
therefore had an additional pleasure when we learned that you were the
correspondent of the _Monitor_, New York's ablest and most conservative
journal. The American press grows flippant and unreliable nowadays, Mr.
Churchill, but the waves of sensationalism wash in vain around the solid
base of the old _Monitor_. There she stands, as steady as ever, a
genuine light-house in the darkness."
Mr. Goodnight, being a member of Congress, was able to acquire and to
exhibit at convenient times a certain poetical fervor which impressed
several kinds of people. Now his associates rubbed their hands in
admiration, and Churchill flushed with pleasure. A compliment to the
_Monitor_ was also a compliment to him, for was he not the very spirit
and essence of the _Monitor_?
"Before we get to business," continued Mr. Goodnight, in the most
gratifyingly intimate manner, "suppose we have something just to wet our
throats and promote conversation. This town, I believe, is famous for
beer, but it is not impossible to get champagne here; in any event, we
shall try it."
He rang, the champagne was brought, opened, and drunk, and Churchill
glowed with his sense of importance. These were men of many millions,
twice his age, but he was now one with them. Certainly none of his
associates would have been invited by them to such a conference, and he
was able to appreciate the fact.