The doings of Edgar Braine, during the few weeks following his
negotiations with Waverley Cooke, were a riddle to those who knew of
them; but Thebes was so well used to his puzzling methods that the
little ripple of talk raised at this time did not swell into a wave of
chatter, as it might in another man's case.
In the first place, he borrowed a very considerable sum of money from
Hildreth, and insisted upon so arranging the terms of the loan, that he
could repay the money at any time after ninety days, but should be free
to retain it for a year upon renewals, if that suited him better.
Hildreth was willing enough to lend him the money, but he speculated a
little as to what Braine was going to do with so large a sum. He did not
find out.
Next, Braine jauntily upset all the plans for the marriage, which he and
Helen had so laboriously formed. It was on the evening of the special
charter election that he did this. Up to that day he had worked
ceaselessly at the task of persuading the people of Thebes that the best
thing they could do with their one valuable municipal possession was to
give it away to the Central Railroad Company. He had found time in the
interval, however, to see Helen almost every day. He had not contented
himself with supporting the measure in the _Enterprise_, but had
organized support for it in quarters where support was not to be
expected, and in quarters in which it was supposed that he of all men
had least influence. The machinery of his own political party was easy
to handle, but Braine boldly undertook to control that of the opposing
party as well.
A city clerk, to replace the one who had defaulted and run away, was to
be chosen by the City Council, in which Braine's own party was dominant.
Braine seized upon this circumstance as his lever. He boldly offered the
place to the leader of the opposite party in return for that party's
support of the levee transfer proposal, which, being in no respect a
political question, men of either party might advocate or oppose at
will. Having made the bargain he set to work to induce the aldermen of
his own party to carry it out. He reckoned upon their venality as a
stronger motive than their party zeal, and his reckoning was not amiss.
"Hildreth is to pay those rascals for voting the transfer, of course,"
he reasoned; "and they can't vote it unless this election is carried to
authorize it. Hildreth isn't fool enough to pay them till the thing is
done. Very well. There is a ring in the nose of every scamp of them."
And it was so. The aldermen were angrily reluctant to surrender a
political office, and the one with whom Braine negotiated at first
flatly refused. But Braine knew his ground.
"Very well," he said, "but reflect a little. This election is very
close. We need all the help we can get. Davidson has his men perfectly
in hand, and now that I've offered the thing to him he will vote them to
a man on the other side if this isn't carried out."
"Why in thunder did you make him such an offer, then? Nobody authorized
it."
"It is not worth while to discuss that. Call it impertinent
intermeddling on my part, if you choose, and ease your mind in that way.
But the offer has been made. If you ratify it, we shall carry the
charter election. If you refuse,--well, you know what the result is
likely to be as well as I do."
The alderman understood perfectly, and was not minded to take risks. The
bargain as to the city clerkship was carried out. This was one of many
ways in which Braine organized the victory he had set out to win, and
during those few short weeks, the people of Thebes discovered a new fact
about Edgar Braine; they learned that he had what they called "a genius
for politics."
When Edgar heard that said, he reflected: "Well, I seem to be developing
new qualities rapidly. What with a 'good head for business,' discovered
by that expert, Abner Hildreth, and a 'genius for politics,'
diagnosticated by those eminent specialists the aldermen of Thebes, I
ought to make my way, especially as I own a railroad charter and a ferry
franchise. Poor old Waverley Cooke! I hope he is breathing his native
air with a relish by this time. I shall be sorry when the payments to
him cease."
He sighed deeply. Was it over Waverley Cooke, or was he thinking of
another wreck?
As soon as the polls closed after an exciting contest--for the
opposition had been very determined--Edgar turned his back upon the
bustling crowds, and briskly walked away.
Helen met him at the door, though she had not expected him that evening.
Somehow she had acquired a habit of always discovering his approach and
meeting him in the vestibule, a convenient place for the exchange of
certain quasi masonic--but we must not intrude upon privacy with prying
eyes.
As she was not expecting him, she was not dressed to receive him, a
circumstance in which he rejoiced mightily, her careless costume seeming
in his eyes to set off her beauty ravishingly.
She wore a loose gown of a thin, limp goods, Pompeiian red in hue, with
flowing sleeves of white, equally limp, and a broad, starchless collar
of white to match the sleeves. The gown was belted in at the waist with
a rope girdle of dull, oxidized silver. The costume seemed to cling
lovingly to the lines of her superb length, and Braine was at the moment
certain that he should never permit her to wear any other. "Man-like,"
was her commentary, when he told her this a few weeks later.
"You are weary," she said, "and it is very warm. Loll here by the
windows. No, not in that chair, it is rickety, and you are so big and
strong I always expect weak things to break with you. My will did, you
know, when you made up your mind to marry me. No, no, you mustn't, now!
people are passing."
What this last injunction and remark had to do with the subject of
conversation, I cannot make out, but that is what Helen said, hurriedly,
as she drew back a little.
"Now you shall not talk to me," she said, as she sank in graceful folds
upon the floor, with an ease which made one doubt the existence of bones
in her tall person. "You are tired, and I'll do the talking. What shall
the subject be?"
"Tell me of yourself. What have you been doing and thinking?"
"Nibbling pickles, sewing, trying to read Browning because you told me
to, and carrying pins in my mouth."
"I thought you promised me not to put pins in your mouth. I gave you a
cushion, to bind the bargain."
"That's why I told you about it. You see I'm honest above all things. I
get busy and forget, but I'm really trying, Edgar."
"What have you been sewing on?"
"I must tell you. (I'm _too_ honest.) Clothes."
"What sort?"
"White. Linen and cotton."
"But what--"
"Hush! You're not to talk. Where did Browning get the story of Herve
Riel? Is it historical?"
"I can't tell you without talking."
"Oh, you can talk just a little, you know--enough to answer my
questions. But I don't care anything about Herve Riel. I asked because I
could not think of anything else at the moment. Tell me instead, where
our wedding cards should be made--Chicago or St. Louis?"
Taking that evening's _Enterprise_ from the table Edgar read aloud:
"There is no longer any occasion for citizens of Thebes to incur
the delays and uncertainties incident to having printing of any
kind done in Chicago or St. Louis. The job office of the _Daily
Enterprise_ is now perfectly equipped for all work of the kind,
from the plainest of posters to the daintiest of wedding
invitations."
"But I won't have printing done at that establishment, Mr. Braine."
"Why not, Miss Thayer?"
"I don't approve of its editor."
"What has the poor fellow done to incur your displeasure?"
"Many things. He persists in asking me about the clothes I am making; he
insists upon changing my pretty name, and he is too stingy of his time
to take me further than Chicago for a wedding trip when I am crazy to
be stunned and bewildered by the glories of New York."
"Helen dear," broke in Braine, with a sudden earnestness of protest in
his tone, "you know, do you not--"
"Certainly I know, and I perfectly approve that and everything else you
do, Ed. Forgive me. I was only teasing."
At this point there was a brief wait in the dialogue. Then Helen,
sitting down on the floor again, resumed in an earnest tone, with her
large eyes looking fixedly at her lover:
"You must never misunderstand me, Ed. You know I am devoted to your
interests only. I would not let you spend an hour that you cannot spare
from your work, in gratifying me. I was only jesting, dear. You
understand me, don't you?"
If the words did not make the matter entirely clear to Braine's
intelligence they were helped a good deal by the "eloquent language of
signs," and the whole matter was rapidly becoming perfectly lucid, when
a knock at the door startled the pair, and caused Helen to withdraw
suddenly to a particularly prim and painful Queen Elizabeth chair on the
other side of the room. By the time she was uncomfortably seated, the
knock was repeated, and it dawned upon her mind that some one should
open the door. She did this herself, as on the whole, best.
"It's Mikey, with a note for me," said Braine; "I told Mose Harbell to
send him."
Helen brought in the note, and Braine quietly opened and read it.
"Please tell Mikey to wait for an answer," he said. "May I have some
paper?"
Helen supplied him, and he wrote. When the messenger was gone, he turned
and said:
"Come here, Helen dear. Kneel down here by my chair. I want to talk to
you."
His manner was a trifle puzzling. It indicated a good deal of
earnestness and some concern to enforce whatever it was he meant to say;
but there was an inflection of exultation in his voice:
"I'm going to upset all our arrangements, Helen. You needn't have any
wedding cards printed at all."
"Oh Edgar!" she cried in distress. "What has happened? Are you ruined in
your business, dear? Tell me what it is?"
"No, I'm not ruined--not in my business at least," he added, with a
meaning to which Helen had no clew. "On the contrary, my prospects were
never so good before. But you don't need any wedding invitations, dear,
because we must be married to-night. We leave by the midnight train for
a wedding journey to New York."
"But, Edgar, how absurd!"
"Yes, I know it's absurd. Many things I do are so. But it must _be_, all
the same. I have just had the returns from this election. It has gone as
I wished, and that involves a good many things--among them an immediate
journey to New York, and perhaps a stay of several weeks there. I have
only been waiting till Mikey brought me certain news of the result
before telling you about this."
"You mean to tell me that you have sat there chatting with me all this
time, with that in your mind, and not telling me a word about it?"
"I couldn't, you know. You told me not to talk."
"You don't deserve that I should marry you at all."
"I know it. I've told you so all along. But the same thing is true of
every other man in the world, and so you will have to put up with it."
"But you're not serious about this, Edgar?"
"Perfectly."
"It's preposterous!"
"Of course it is, but I can't help it."
"It's out of the question."
"Of course it is. Things that are decided are no longer in the
question."
"But seriously, Edgar, I'm not ready. I can't be married so suddenly. I
haven't any _clothes_," with that tremendous emphasis on the word
clothes which the feminine mind instinctively places on the idea it
represents, where marriage is in question.
"Seriously, Helen, I know this is a great annoyance to you, and I deeply
regret annoying you with anything. But it is absolutely necessary for me
to go to New York at once, and to remain there for I don't know how
long. It means more to me than you can imagine. It means success and
power. Perhaps it may mean wealth, also. We were to have been married in
July. I may not be able to leave New York then without risk of loss and
ruin. So we must be married to-night, and you shall have your vision of
New York after all. It is now nine o'clock. I will be back here at
eleven, with a license and a clergyman. I have written to Mose Harbell
to send you a dozen newsboys for messengers. They'll be here soon. He
will send 'genial' ones, of course, and they will carry notes summoning
all your friends to the wedding. Lily Holliday will help you with the
notes. You might send for Daisy Berkeley too, or I'll call by there on
my way down town, and tell her you've a romantic secret to confide to
her. That will send her to you in five minutes. It would if it were
midnight and she in bed."
With that he hurried away, leaving Helen standing in the middle of the
floor in a dazed condition, till Daisy Berkeley, who lived but a little
distance away, came hurriedly in to ask: "What is it?" in many and
varied forms of words.
"I could not think of yielding to so preposterous a plan," said Helen,
after she had briefly explained the situation, "but what am I to do?
Edgar is gone, and I can't argue it with him. And the clergyman will be
here at eleven, and there come the newsboys now, and I haven't _a stitch
of clothes_! Oh, what shall I do?"
"Do?" cried Daisy. "Why carry the thing through, of course. It's the
most deliciously romantic thing I ever heard of in my life. Oh, how I do
envy you!"
"But what am I to do for clothes, Daisy? And besides, it's so
undignified!"
"_A fig for Dignity! Vive la Romance!_ I'll lend you all my clothes. I
always have lots of them, and mamma is sure to know where they are."
"Daisy Berkeley! You forget yourself. You are under five feet high, and
I am five feet eight inches."
"Well, never mind about clothes. You have plenty of them. It's all
nonsense, the way we women talk about nothing to wear. Somebody wrote a
book or something to prove it once. Who would spoil a delicious
romance--oh, it is so delicious--for nonsense like that! Why, it'll make
you the talk of the town."
"That's just it. I have no desire to be the talk of the town. But there
is no help for it now."
So the two, with Lily Holliday, summoned from next door, set to work
upon the notes, while the trunk packing was done by Helen's aunt, who
was weeping all the time, till Mary Malony, the maid, who was helping
her, exclaimed:
"Sure mum, it's not packin' a thrunk, but a dampenin' down of clothes ye
are, and they's no ironin' convayniences on the cars at all."