as I fancied. You’re just ordinary woman, after all.”
Eleanor blushed, and her eyes sank.
“I thought you were big enough to see _him_,” proceeded Sayler. “But
you saw only what you shallow women are able to see--the fit of his
clothes, the absence of a valet, the lessons in manners he has yet
to learn and will learn soon enough. You don’t want the man with the
career to make. You want the ready-made man. You want to have nothing
to do but shine by his light, be his trivial ornament and plaything.
Oh, you women!” He laughed with good-humored mockery. “What frauds you
are--and how little you count for.”
“I am engaged to him,” said Eleanor quietly--with a look that
ludicrously mingled pride and fear and apology.
Sayler shrugged his shoulders. “An impulse you’ve repented,” said he.
“I think I must have been crazy,” said she.
“I think _he_ must have been crazy,” retorted Sayler. “But he has come
to his senses. He’s here to release you.”
Eleanor’s eyes flashed.
“He was caught for the moment by your looks,” Sayler went on, with
quick raillery. “But he is too intelligent to be ruled by such an
impulse. Shallow men are, but not such men as George Helm. They assign
women their proper place in the life of a man with something to do in
the world and the ability to do it.” Sayler’s raillery veered to a
sarcasm none the less stinging for its cloak of politeness and good
humor. “_You_ sized _him_ up--and accepted him. As soon as _he_ sized
_you_ up--you under the glamor of that charming exterior of yours and
that very deceptive cleverness--as soon as he saw _you_, he wanted to
release you.”
The girl’s beautiful face, frankly expressing her emotions, gave
Sayler the pleasure of delighting in his skill as a player upon that
interesting instrument, human nature. A woman--especially a young
woman--brought up in the false education custom imposes upon our
comfortable classes, rarely has the intelligence clearly to distinguish
a formable man in his early formative period. Or, if her woman’s
instinct for the real thing in manhood does by chance lead her aright,
the courage to act is lacking. Eleanor had seen the man in George
Helm--a degree, a kind even, of manliness which she recognized as
unique. But she had acted upon, had yielded to only his peculiar, his
irresistible physical charm for her. Who, looking at his rough and
rugged exterior and hers so fine and delicate, would have suspected
the possibility of the existence of such a charm? She would not have
admitted to any one--least of all to herself--that the male exterior
that best pleased her was not the “polished gentleman,” the flower of
culture, but one exactly its opposite--primitive, rough of skin, direct
and crude of manner. If Helm had been brutal she would have loathed
him. But he was so gentle and tender--and what wonderful eyes, and what
a magic voice!
Sayler laughed to himself. Here again was an instance of a phenomenon
he amused himself by observing as he strolled through life. Time spent
by a man in primping to catch a woman, unless she had been thoroughly
vulgarized and snobified, was time wasted. He would better have spent
it on training his voice.
Said Eleanor: “Of course I’ll release him. I was going to write him
from home. Do you think I’d best see him? Won’t I spare him pain--” She
flushed, as Sayler began to smile--“I don’t mean that he especially
cares about me. Simply that he’ll be terribly embarrassed.”
“Oh, if you’re _afraid_,” said Sayler, “you can send down some excuse.”
“That would be cowardly,” said Eleanor promptly, “and insulting to him.”
“He’s in the little room off the billiard room,” said Sayler, departing.
Curiously enough, it was not Helm but Eleanor who was embarrassed when
they were face to face. Her lips were burning--the lips he had kissed
so tenderly yet so passionately. What a strong, simple _man_ of a man!
If she had given way to her impulse, she would have burst out crying
and flung herself into those long arms of his that had seemed to enfold
her against all the ills of life. She could not meet the gentle, sad
look those magnetic eyes of his bent upon her.
Said he:
“Miss Clearwater, I’ve come to do what I know you want me to do. I’ve
come to release you.”
“Thank you,” she said stammeringly, without looking up.
“I don’t know what possessed me. I took advantage of--of your kindness
and liking. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“I knew you didn’t mean what you said,” murmured she, meaning nothing
but simply trying to prevent a painful silence.
“You’re mistaken there, ma’am,” said he. “I spoke from my heart. I love
you very dearly. I don’t see how I’m going to get along without you.
There’s only one thing in the world that’d be harder.”
She was looking at him now--was looking at his rugged, kind face--the
face of a man born to suffer and born to bear without crying out. Such
a lonely man--one of those large, simple, lonely souls. Said she:
“I meant what I said too. Just as much as you did. But--I--I--didn’t
mean to hurt you.”
“You haven’t hurt me, Miss Clearwater,” protested he earnestly. “You’ve
done me only good--given me only happiness. I’ll always remember--last
night--and it’ll make me happy. I oughtn’t to have said what I did
about your letting me take advantage of your liking. It wasn’t the
truth, and I knew it. You are honest and good--and what you did was
from the heart.”
“As nothing I ever did before,” said she.
“But you know as well as I do, that the hardest thing of all would be
for us to be together. We ain’t in any way suitable to each other.
You’re too fine and delicate for me.”
“Please don’t say that sort of thing,” cried she. “It isn’t like
you--those snobbish ideas.”
A puzzled expression came into his face. Then he smiled slightly. “You
misunderstood,” said he. “I didn’t mean exactly that. I meant that you
hadn’t been brought up right--according to my notion. So--you’d be
miserable as my wife, and a burden on me. Anyhow, it always seemed to
me that I wasn’t made to be a married man. The ladies never seemed to
care much about me, and I guess that got me into the way of arranging
to get along without them.”
As he stood there, rugged and powerful, his sincere face made tragic
by the look of lonely melancholy that was habitual to it in repose, she
was so moved that she knew she ought not to trust herself to speak. But
she did--and her voice was shaking with sobs as she said:
“I know I’m not worthy of you. I’m so poor that I haven’t anything that
you need. I’m only fit for a very inferior sort of man. Oh, how vain
and silly I’ve been--to imagine I was worth a man’s while.”
“Now, I didn’t mean _that_--not at all,” cried he. “I don’t know how to
talk to women.”
“Indeed you don’t!” retorted she. “You don’t understand them, at all.”
“I see I’ve offended you, Miss Clearwater. I didn’t mean to.”
“_Don’t_ call me Miss Clearwater,” cried she desperately. He had
not moved, but she had--unconsciously--drawn much nearer to
him--almost within his reach. “And don’t--” with a hysterical little
laugh--“_don’t_ call me ma’am.”
He smiled with a kind of grim humor. “I don’t see that it matters what
I call you,” said he, “as long as I can’t call you mine.”
She trembled. “Oh, _won’t_ you understand?” cried she. And she looked
at him with eyes shining with passion.
He shook his head slowly. “Well--I must be going.” With a sudden change
to a look of terrific power. “If I stay here a minute longer, I’ll not
be able to keep my hands off you. I love you, Ellen--and it’s stronger
than I am.”
“Why should you go?” said she, boldly. Her glowing heart told her
it was no time for trifling, for maidenly pretense of coyness. That
sort of game was all very well, with men who understood it--and men
one didn’t especially care about. But this man didn’t understand
it--and he was tremendously worth-while. Plain speaking, or he would
be lost forever. She did not see how she was to marry him; but to lose
him--that would be frightful. “Why should you go?” she said boldly.
“Don’t you want me, George?”
He put his hands behind his back. He grew pale; his eyes seemed deeper
set than ever.
“No man ever made me feel, but you,” she went on. “I belong to you. If
you cast me off----”
He had her in his arms--not because of what she had said but because
he could withstand no longer. “I’ve gone crazy again,” he said, as he
kissed her--as she kissed him--“but you know as well as I do that we
can’t be anything to each other.”
“Don’t think of that,” pleaded she. “Let’s be happy while we can--and
let’s hope.”
“There’s nothing to hope for,” said he, drawing away from her. “I’m
ashamed of myself. I love you, but it isn’t the kind of love a man
gives a woman that he wants to live his life with.”
“Take me, George,” said she. “I’ll be what you want. You can teach me.
I’ll learn. Don’t shut affection and love out of your life. You can’t
be half the man without them that you’ll be with them. Oh, you don’t
understand women. You don’t know what women are for--what a woman is
for--what your woman is for in your life.”
The look of resolution had gone; the look of melancholy had come in its
place.
“I know we can’t marry right away,” she went on. “I’ve got a lot to do,
first. You are poor in one way, and I in another. We’ve got to wait and
work.” She looked up at him, smiling, pleading, her hand touching his
arm. “Don’t you think it’s worth doing, dear?”
He dropped to a chair. “I’ve fooled myself,” he said gloomily. “I
thought I was coming here to give you up. Instead, I came to get you.”
She laughed merrily, her delicate hand tingling as it touched his shock
of hair that grew in such disorderly fashion yet exactly suited the
superb contour of his head. Said she:
“Well, you’ve got what you came for.”
He smiled grimly. “How am I going to think straight and do what’s right
for both of us, with you touching me?”
“You don’t want me to touch you?”
With a strong sweeping gesture, he drew her against him, as she stood
beside him, he sitting.
“You know we might as well say we’re going to wait for each other,”
proceeded she. It is astonishing--and enlightening--how well women
argue when they wish to. “You know we’ll do it, anyhow. You won’t marry
any other woman?”
“There isn’t but one woman for me,” said he, with an accent that
thrilled her.
“Do you think _I_ could let any other man _touch_ me?” demanded she.
There was a delightfully ferocious jealousy in the sudden tightening of
the arm about her waist. He said:
“I guess we’re in for it, Ellen.”
Her arm went round his shoulders. Said she laughingly: “Women aren’t so
_very_ hard to understand--are they?”
He eyed her shrewdly. “Not when they’re willing to be understood....
You are _sure_ you want to wait?”
“I’m sure I’ve _got_ to,” replied she, simply.
He suddenly stood up, drawing away from her. She was in a tremor of
alarm--which was not decreased by his resolute expression, until he
said:
“I must get to work. I’ve got to hurry things. You understand, you’re
entirely free until I’m able to come for you?”
“If it helps you to think so,” she answered. “But--I’m not that kind of
girl, George.”
A look of tenderness flooded her and he said: “I didn’t mean that. Of
course you aren’t. You’re--mine.”
And she was crying with happiness.
* * * * *
Sayler understood as soon as he saw her face. And he felt that he had
won. George Helm, on his way to the triumphant class--was it not a
fundamental law of human nature that a human being could not be _in_
a class without becoming _of_ it, of its ideas, feelings, attitude
toward other classes? George Helm, marrying a girl of the triumphant
class. Could he, however tenacious, resist the influences, the subtle
influences, insistent, incessant, unconsciously exerted, unconsciously
yielded to--the influences of a loved wife of the triumphant class from
birth?
“He shall be the next governor of this state,” Sayler said to himself;
and a smile more amiably generous than his never glorified human visage.
Helm saw “Ellen” only three times in the remainder of that week, and
then for but a few minutes. He set to work with an energy that made
his previous toiling seem a species of languor. He decided that Ellen
had been right when she told him he did not appreciate the part of
woman in the life of man. And when the legislature adjourned he went
on a tour of the cities and towns and villages as a lecturer, and
built for himself that only solid fame--a personal fame which future
assaults from a subsidized hostile press could not destroy. The people
would have seen him, heard him, looked into his eyes, touched his hand.
Sayler, away from the scene, and kept informed of events by lieutenants
with lieutenant-brains, did not get the true meaning of Helm’s tour,
but assumed that making a living was his sole object. However, if
Sayler had known--had even been able to read Helm’s thoughts, he would
not have been disturbed. Circumstances of class-association had made
George Helm what he was; circumstances of class-association would
re-make him.
Nor was Hazelrigg moved to suspicion by the enthusiasm with which
the boom of Helm for governor was received, as soon as launched--nor
by Helm’s memorable campaign--nor by the overturn on election day
that swept Helm into office by a majority such as the Democrats had
never dreamed of. In Hazelrigg’s opinion it was all clever machine
manipulation by Sayler’s men of the Republican machine and by himself
and his lieutenants. Helm had shown himself sensible and manageable
in everything pertaining to the practical side of the campaign work;
Hazelrigg began to suspect there was a secret understanding between him
and Sayler. “That man Sayler,” said Hazelrigg to himself, with a grin,
“he’s a deep one. He’s the best in the country at the game.”
Helm was, of course, at home in Harrison for the election--was at Mrs.
Beaver’s boarding-house, in the attic room still, though he had nearly
thirty-five hundred dollars, the savings from the lecture tour. Mrs.
Beaver had tried to induce him to take the best room in the house, at
the attic price if that would be an inducement.
“No, thank you, ma’am,” said Helm. “I’m very comfortable. Why should I
move?”
Many people thought this sticking to his attic was shrewd politics.
It may be that a desire to show _his_ class that he was still with
them had something to do with his refusal to move. But the chief, the
deciding reason was the one he gave. He had lived in that little room
long. He had got used to it. He liked it, felt at home in it, would
have felt strange without it to come home to and live in. Helm was one
of those men--and Sayler, had he been entirely great, would have looked
into this before completing his estimate of his character--Helm was of
those men--and there are women of the same sort--who care nothing for
luxury, even for the comforts that soon seem necessary to people who
get the smallest chance to expand.
To him heat and cold were matters of indifference. He had ploughed
and mowed in the broiling sun; he had slept under thin covers, with
snow sifting through the roof, had brushed the snow off his skin when
he got ready to rise. He had eaten all kinds of difficult, not to
say impossible, fried food--and had not known what he was eating, or
cared. He was so profoundly inured to hardship that he was unaware of
it--and was unaware of comfort when he, by chance, got it. Hardened
against hardship; hardened also against comfort and luxury. That last
peculiarity was probably the most significant factor in his make-up.
Yet no one had noted it; he himself not only had not noted it but never
would. When one considers how powerful in effect upon human character
is love of the softer side of life, and desire for it and clinging to
it and respecting it and its possessors, one begins to comprehend how
far-reaching was the importance of George Helm’s unique hardiness.
Eleanor Clearwater was visiting in the hill top part of Harrison--was
visiting the Hollisters, where she could stop whenever she wished,
and as long as she wished, without any one’s thinking of the matter.
Helm--regarded with respect by the better class at Harrison, now that
he was so high in public life--had arranged to receive the returns
at Hollister’s. Bart Hollister, without a suspicion that Eleanor had
“managed” him, invited Helm--and was as astonished as pleased by his
prompt acceptance. So sweeping was the victory that his election was
conceded by the Republicans before he finished supper at Mrs. Beaver’s.
“A governor gets eight thousand a year, doesn’t he?” said Miss Shaler,
the sentimental, be-wigged old maid of the boarding-house circle.
“You’ll certainly pick on some nice girl and be getting married now,
Mr. Helm.”
“_Governor_ Helm,” corrected Mrs. Beaver, proudly.
“Yes, I’m sure there’ll soon be a Mrs. Governor Helm,” said Miss
Shaler, with the soft hysterical giggle with which she accompanied all
her frequent remarks on the one subject that interested her.
Helm surprised them all--threw them into a ferment of curiosity--by
saying with bold, emphatic, even noisy energy, unbelievable in so shy a
man:
“Yes, indeed, ma’am. She and I’ll be inaugurated together.”
He laughed with a gayety that seemed a little foolish in a grave
governor-elect. He gave them no chance to devise ways round the
inflexible rule against direct questions as to that one subject. He
rose and went forth to claim his bride.
V
SEEING HER FATHER
On the second floor of the Washington house of George Clearwater,
lumber king and United States Senator, there was a small room whose
windows commanded the entrance. They gave upon one of those useless
and never used balconies wherewith architects strive to conceal the
feebleness of their imagination and the poverty of their invention. Of
that particular balcony some facetious congressman said that Clearwater
might one day find it convenient--“when he needs a place to stand and
explain to the mob how he happens to be so rich.” The remark got round
to Clearwater, and he never looked at the little balcony without
recalling it. The multimillionaire, constantly enveloped by his crowd
of sycophants, soon tends to become paranoiac, soon fancies that
everybody is thinking about him all the time--about him and his money,
which are one and the same thing, for he feels that he is his money and
his money he. Also, as his dominant passion has always been wealth, he
assumes that it is the universal passion raging in all hearts as firmly
as in his; that therefore he must be the object of malignant envy; that
those myriad eyes ever fixed upon him are as covetous as his own. Thus
Clearwater took that facetious remark seriously--read the distorted
tales of the French revolution, discussed the ferocity and restlessness
of the masses quite as if he had never been a farm hand, one of those
same masses, and had never known the truth about them--their ass-like
patience, their worm-like meekness.
He was looking at this balcony and was thinking of the “menacing
popular unrest” when George Helm’s name was brought up to him. He was
still looking and thinking when Helm himself entered the small room. At
the sound of his step, Clearwater turned and greeted him with friendly
constraint. Helm looked wretched with embarrassment.
“Ah--Mr. Helm--pardon me, Governor Helm,” said Clearwater who had
long since effaced all traces of the farm hand and of the stages
intermediate to his arrival at the American business man’s heaven, the
plutocracy. “Much has happened since we met last winter.”
Much had indeed happened, but the only blessed thing of it Helm could
remember at the moment was the collar he had been beguiled into buying
that morning. It was too high for him, and it squeaked. Also, Helm
had on a new suit of clothes; he had bought it only a few days before.
He had not yet got used to it, but it looked as if he had slept in it.
That was the way clothes always acted with George--and being elected
governor had made no change. In answer to the senator’s amiable remark
he managed to utter--with a violent squeak and creak of the collar--a
timid “Yes.”
“It is no small honor to be the youngest governor in the United
States,” pursued Clearwater. “Won’t you sit down?”
George looked at him as if “sit down” were a new and puzzling idea
to him. Then he looked about at the furniture as if he had small and
wanting confidence in it. However, as Clearwater sat, he ventured a
nervous imitation and drew out his handkerchief.
A great misfortune--no, a fresh calamity. The handkerchief had been
bought with the collar. It did not squeak; worse, it rustled. The
collar creaked, the handkerchief rustled, the new suit caught him under
the arms.
Said Clearwater:
“My daughter--Eleanor--she has--has rather prepared me for your visit.”
George feebly echoed Clearwater’s amiable laugh.
“Senator Sayler, too--he has put in a good word for you. He is a great
friend of yours--a great and generous admirer. He predicts a future for
you--a dazzling future.”
Helm began to murmur a reply, but the catch in his coat seemed somehow
to have involved his vocal cords. He put the rustling handkerchief
away, but in his pocket it still rustled like a mouse in a waste-paper
basket. Helm’s murmurings died in a kind of stifled groan.
“I am an old-fashioned American,” continued Clearwater, passing
his hand over his short gray beard in a pompous gesture as if this
confession reflected the highest credit upon his courage and upon
America. “I believe in the love marriage. I am glad my daughter
has chosen--and has been chosen by--a man of the people, a rising,
ambitious man, with a career in the making.”
“Thank you, sir,” said George.
Clearwater extended a cigar, which George took--helped him light
it--lit one himself. “A very mild smoke,” he explained. “I have
Cisneros make it up for me in Havana from a specially selected leaf. If
you’d prefer something stronger?”
“No, thank you,” said George.
“Lord Cuffingham--the British ambassador--asked me to let him have a
box to send to the King. Personally I have no more respect for a king
than I have for a plain American citizen. But we were talking about
your wish to marry my daughter.”
“Yes, sir,” said George, a trifle less embarrassed, now that the cigar
relieved him of worry about his large, very brown and very powerful
hands.
“I shall confess to you, Governor, that if it had not been for the
generous words Senator Sayler spoke in your behalf I should have
hesitated about giving my consent.”
George forgot his collar, the handkerchief, the coat--all his
embarrassments.
“Your speeches in the legislature last winter--such report of them as
I got--and in your campaign--I must say in all candor, Governor, that
while I appreciate the necessity of pleasing the people, of soothing
them by seeming to agree with them--still I must say that you--in fact
at times you seemed to go even further than--than their demagogues,
in assaults upon property, and wealth and all that has built up the
country.”
Helm was leaning forward now, his elbows upon his knees, a fascinating
look in his rugged face, in the kind yet somehow inflexible, blue-gray
eyes.
“However,” continued Clearwater, “Sayler assures me that you are a
sound, safe man--that you have nothing of the demagogue in you--that
you stand for the fine old American principle of freedom, of the utmost
opportunity.”
“What do you mean by opportunity?” asked George.
Clearwater frowned slightly. “I mean--opportunity,” said he, in the
tone of one forbidding further questioning as impertinence.
George settled himself back in his chair with a long sigh. “I see that
Senator Sayler has been too kind about me,” said he. “He has given you
a false impression of me.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” said Clearwater curtly.
His look and his voice were a warning that Helm would better draw
back if he did not wish to provoke a wrath that had been not without
difficulty soothed by Sayler and Eleanor. Helm understood. His eyes had
never been kinder or gentler--or more direct--than as he replied:
“There can never be any political sympathy between you and me, Senator.
I have made my fight thus far along the lines I believe to be right. I
have not said more than I meant, but less.”