It may have been surmised that our sterling young candidate for district
attorney had not yet become skilled in dalliance with the equivocal;
that he was no adept in ambiguity; that he would confront all issues
with a rugged valiance susceptible of no misconstruction; that, in
short, George Remington was no trimmer.
If he opposed an issue, one knew that he opposed it from the heart out.
He said so and he meant it. And, being opposed to the dreadful heresy
of equal suffrage, no reader of the Whitewater _Sentinel_ that morning
could say, as the shrewd so often say of our older statesmen, that
George was "side-stepping."
Not George's the mellow gift to say, in effect, that of course woman
should vote the instant she wishes to, though perhaps that day has not
yet come. Meantime the speaker boldly defies the world to show a man
holding woman in loftier regard than he does, or ready to accord her a
higher value in all true functions of the body politic. Equal suffrage,
thank God, is inevitable at some future time, but until that glorious
day when we can be assured that the sex has united in a demand for it,
it were perhaps as well not to cloud the issues of the campaign now
opening; though let it be understood, and he cannot put this too
plainly, that he reveres the memory of his gray-haired mother without
whose tender ministrations and wise guidance he could never have reached
the height from which he now speaks. And so let us pass on to the voting
on these canal bonds, the true inwardness of which, thanks to the
venal activities of a corrupt opposition, even an exclusively male
constituency has thus far failed to comprehend. And so forth.
Our hero, then, had yet to acquire this finesse. As we are now
privileged to observe him, he is as easy to understand as the
multiplication table, as little devious and, alas! as lacking in
suavity. Yet, let us be fair to George. Mere innocence of guile, of
verbal trickery, had not alone sufficed for his passionate bluntness in
the present crisis. At a later stage in his career as a husband he might
have been equally blunt; yet never again, perhaps, would he have been so
emotional in his opposition to woman polluting herself with the mire of
politics.
Be it recalled that but five weeks had elapsed since George had solemnly
promised to cherish and protect the fairest of the non-voting sex--at
least in his State--and he was still taking his mission seriously. As he
wrote the words that were now electrifying, in a manner of speaking,
the readers of the _Sentinel_, and of neighboring journals with enough
enterprise to secure them, he had beheld his own Genevieve, fine,
flawless, tenderly nourished flower that she was, being dragged from her
high place with the most distressing results.
He saw her rushed from the sacred shelter of her home and made to attend
primaries; he saw her compelled to strive tearfully with problems that
revolted all her finer instincts; he saw her insulted at polling booths;
saw her voting in company with persons of both sexes whom one could
never know.
He saw her tainted, bruised, beaten down in the struggle, losing little
by little all sense of the holy values of Wife, Mother, Home. As he
wrote he heard her weakening cries for help as she perished, and more
than once his left arm instinctively curved to shield her.
Was it not for his wife, then; nay, for wifehood itself, that he wrote?
And so, was it quite fair for unmarried Penfield Evans, burning at
his breakfast table a cynical cigarette over the printed philippic, to
murmur, "Gee! old George _has_ spilled the beans!"
Simple words enough and not devoid of friendly concern. But should he
not have divined that George had been appalled to his extremities of
speech by the horrendous vision of his fair young bride being hurled
into depths where she would be obliged, if not to have opinions of her
own, at least to vote with the rabble as he might decide they ought to
vote?
And should not other critics known to us have divined the racking
anguish under which George had labored? For one, should not Elizabeth
Sheridan, amateur spinster, have been all sympathy for one who was
palpably more an alarmed bridegroom than a mere candidate?
Should not her maiden heart have been touched by this plausible aspect
of George's dilemma, rather than her mere brain to have been steeled to
a humorous disparagement tinged with bitterness?
And yet, "What rot!" muttered Miss Sheridan,--"silly rot, bally rot,
tommy rot, and all the other kinds!"
Hereupon she creased a brow not meant for creases and defaced an
admirable nose with grievous wrinkles of disdain. "Sacred names of wife
and mother!" This seemed regrettably like swearing as she delivered
it, though she quoted verbatim. "Sacred names of petted imbeciles!" she
amended.
Then, with berserker fury, crumpling her _Sentinel_ into a ball, she
venomously hurled it to the depths of a waste basket and religiously
rubbed the feel of it from her fingers. As she had not even glanced at
the column headed "Births, Deaths, Marriages," it will be seen that her
agitation was real. And surely a more discerning sympathy might have
been looked for from the seasoned Martin Jaffry. A bachelor full of
years and therefore with illusions not only unimpaired but ripened, who
more quickly than he should have divined that his nephew for the moment
viewed all womankind as but one multiplied Genevieve, upon whom it would
be heinous to place the shackles of suffrage?
Perhaps Uncle Martin did divine this. Perhaps he was a mere trimmer,
a rank side-stepper, steeped in deceit and ever ready to mouth the
abominable phrase "political expediency." It were rash to affirm this,
for no analyst has ever fathomed the heart of a man who has come to his
late forties a bachelor by choice. One may but guess from the ensuing
meager data.
Uncle Martin at a certain corner of Maple Avenue that morning, fell
in with Penfield Evans, who, clad as the lilies of a florist's window,
strode buoyantly toward his office, the vision of his day's toil pinkly
suffused by an overlaying vision of a Betty or Sheridan character. Mr.
Evans bubbled his greeting. "Morning! Have you seen it? Oh, _say_, have
you seen it?"
The immediate manner of Uncle Martin not less than his subdued garb
of gray, his dark gloves and his somber stick, intimated that he saw
nothing to bubble about.
"He has burned his bridges behind him." The speaker looked as grim as
any bachelor-by-choice ever may.
"Regular little fire-bug," blithely responded Mr. Evans, moderating his
stride to that of the other.
"Can't understand it," resumed the gloomy uncle. "I sent him word in
time; sent it from your office by messenger. It was plain enough. I told
him no money of mine would go into his campaign if he made a fool of
himself--or words to that effect."
"Phew! Cast you off, did he? Just like that?"
"Just like that! Went out of his way to overdo it, too. Needn't have
come out half so strong. No chance now to backwater--not a chance
on earth to explain what he really did mean--and make it something
different." "Quixotic! That's how it reads to me."
Uncle Martin here became oracular, his somber stick gesturing to point
his words.
"Trouble with poor George, he's been silly enough to blurt out the
truth, what every man of us thinks in his heart--"
"Eh?" said Mr. Evans quickly, as one who has been jolted.
"No more sense than to come right out and say what every one of us
thinks in his secret heart about women. I think it and you think it--"
"Oh, well, if you put it _that_ way," admitted young Mr. Evans
gracefully. "But of course--"
"Certainly, of _course!_ We all think it--sacred names of home and
mother and all the rest of it; but a man running for office these days
is a chump to say so, isn't he? Of course he is! What chance does it
leave him? Answer me that."
"Darned little, if you ask me," said Mr. Evans judicially. "Poor old
George!"
"Talks as if he were going to be married tomorrow instead of its having
come off five weeks ago," pursued Uncle Martin bitterly. Plainly there
were depths of understanding in the man, trimmer though he might be.
Mr. Evans made no reply. Irrationally he was considering the terms "five
weeks" and "married" in relation to a spinster who would have professed
to be indignant had she known it.
"Got to pull the poor devil out," said Uncle Martin, when in silence
they had traversed fifty feet more of the shaded side of Maple Avenue.
"How?" demanded the again practical Mr. Evans.
"Make him take it back; make him recant; swing him over the last week
before election. Make him eat his words with every sign of exquisite
relish. Simple enough!"
"How?" persisted Mr. Evans.
"Wiles, tricks, subterfuges, chicanery--understand what I mean?"
"Sure! I understand what you mean as well as you do, but--come down to
brass tacks."
"That's an entirely different matter," conceded Uncle Martin gruffly.
"It may take thought."
"Oh, is that all? Very well then; we'll think. I, myself, will think.
First, I'll have a talk with the sodden amorist. I'll grill him. I'll
find the weak spot in his armor. There must be something we can put over
on him."
"By fair means or foul," insisted Uncle Martin as they paused at the
parting of their ways. "Low-down, underhanded work--do you get what I
mean?"
"I do, I do!" declared young Mr. Evans and broke once more into the
buoyant stride of an earlier moment. This buoyance was interrupted but
once, and briefly, ere he gained the haven of his office.
As he stepped quite too buoyantly into Fountain Square, he was all but
run down by the new six-cylinder roadster of Mrs. Harvey Herrington,
driven by the enthusiastic owner. He regained the curb in time, with a
ready and heartfelt utterance nicely befitting the emergency.
The president of the Whitewater Women's Club, the Municipal League and
the Suffrage Society, brought her toy to a stop fifteen feet beyond her
too agile quarry, with a fine disregard for brakes and tire surfaces.
She beckoned eagerly to him she might have slain. She was a large woman
with an air of graceful but resolute authority; a woman good to look
upon, attired with all deference to the modes of the moment, and
exhaling an agreeable sense of good-will to all.
"Be careful always to look before you start across and you'll never have
to say such things," was her greeting to Mr. Evans, as he halted beside
this minor juggernaut.
"Sorry you heard it," lied the young man readily.
"Such a flexible little car--picks up before one realizes," conceded
Whitewater's acknowledged social dictator. "But what I wanted to say is
this: that poor daft partner of yours has mortally offended every woman
in town except three, with that silly screed of his. I've seen nearly
all of them that count this morning, or they've called me by telephone.
Now, why couldn't he have had the advice of some good, capable woman
before committing himself so rabidly?"
"Who were the three?" queried Mr. Evans.
"Oh, poor Genevieve, of course; she goes without saying. And you'd guess
the other two if you knew them better--his cousin, Alys Brewster-Smith,
and poor Genevieve's Cousin Emelene. They both have his horrible
school-boy composition committed to memory, I do believe.
"Cousin Emelene recited most of it to me with tears in her weak eyes,
and Alys tells me his noble words have made the world seem like a
different place to her. She said she had been coming to believe that
chivalry of the old true brand was dying out, but that dear Cousin
George has renewed her faith in it.
"Think of poor Genevieve when they both fall on his neck. They're going
up for that particular purpose this afternoon. The only two in town,
mind you, except poor Genevieve. Oh, it's too awfully bad, because aside
from this medieval view of his, George was probably as acceptable for
this office as any man could be."
The lady burdened the word "man" with a tiny but distinguishable
emphasis. Mr. Evans chose to ignore this.
"George's friends are going to take him in hand," said he. "Of course
he was foolish to come out the way he has, even if he did say only what
every man believes in his secret heart."
The president of the Whitewater Woman's Club fixed him with a glittering
and suddenly hostile eye.
"What! you too?" she flung at him. He caught himself. He essayed
explanations, modifications, a better lighting of the thing. But at the
expiration of his first blundering sentence Mrs. Herrington, with
her flexible little car, was narrowly missing an aged and careless
pedestrian fifty yards down the street.
* * * * *
"George come in yet?"
For the second time Mr. Evans was demanding this of Miss Elizabeth
Sheridan who had also ignored his preliminary "Good morning!"
Now for a moment more she typed viciously. One would have said that the
thriving legal business of Remington and Evans required the very swift
completion of the document upon which she wrought. And one would have
been grossly deceived. The sheet had been drawn into the machine at the
moment Mr. Evans' buoyant step had been heard in the outer hall, and
upon it was merely written a dozen times the bald assertion, "Now is the
time for all good men to come to the aid of the party."
Actually it was but the mechanical explosion of the performer's mood,
rather than the wording of a sentiment now or at any happier time
entertained by her.
At last she paused; she sullenly permitted herself to be interrupted.
Her hands still hovered above the already well-punished keys of the
typewriter. She glanced over a shoulder at Mr. Evans and allowed him to
observe her annoyance at the interruption.
"George has not come in yet," she said coldly. "I don't think he will
ever come in again. I don't see how he can have the face to. I shouldn't
think he could ever show himself on the street again after that--that--"
The young woman's emotion overcame her at this point. Again her
relentless fingers stung the blameless mechanism--"to come to the aid of
the party. Now is the time for all good--" She here controlled herself
to further speech. "And _you!_ Of course you applaud him for it. Oh, I
knew you were all alike!"
"Now look here, Betty, this thing has gone far enough----"
"Far enough, indeed!"
"But you won't give me a chance!"
Mr. Evans here bent above his employee in a threatening manner.
"You don't even ask what I think about it. You say I'm guilty and ought
to be shot without a trial--not even waiting till sunrise. If you had
the least bit of fairness in your heart you'd have asked me what I
really thought about this outbreak of George's, and I'd have told you in
so many words that I think he's made all kinds of a fool of himself."
"No! Do you really, Pen?"
Miss Sheridan had swiftly become human. She allowed her eyes to meet
those of Mr. Evans' with an easy gladness but little known to him of
late. "Of course I do, Betty. The idea of a candidate for office in this
enlightened age breaking loose in that manner! It's suicide. He could be
arrested for the attempt in this State. Is that strong enough for you?
You surely know how I feel now, don't you? Come on, Betty dear! Let's
not spar in that foolish way any longer. Remember all I said yesterday.
It goes double today--really, I see things more clearly."
Plainly Miss Sheridan was disarmed.
"And I thought you'd approve every word of his silly tirade," she
murmured. Mr. Evans, still above her, was perilously shaken by the
softer note in her voice, but he controlled himself in time and sat
in one of the chairs reserved for waiting clients. It was near Miss
Sheridan, yet beyond reaching distance. He felt that he must be cool in
this moment of impending triumph.
"Wasn't it the awfullest rot?" demanded the spinster, pounding out a row
of periods for emphasis.
"And he's got to be made to eat his words," said Mr. Evans, wisely
taking the same by-path away from the one subject in all the world that
really mattered.
"Who could make him?"
"I could, if I tried." It came in quiet, masterful tones that almost
convinced the speaker himself.
"Oh, Pen, if you could! Wouldn't that be a victory, though? If you only
could----"
"Well, if I only could--and if I do?" His intention was too pointed to
be ignored.
"Oh, _that_!" He winced at the belittling "that." "Of course I couldn't
promise--anyway I don't believe you could ever do it, so what's the use
of being silly?"
"But you will--will you promise, if I _do_ convert George? Answer the
question, please!" Mr. Evans glared as only actual district attorneys
have the right to.
"Oh, what nonsense--but, well, I'll promise--I'll promise to promise to
think very seriously about it indeed, if you bring George around."
"Betty!" It was the voice of an able pleader and he half arose from his
chair, his arms eloquent of purpose. "'Now is the time for all good
men to come to the aid of the party. Now is the time for'--" wrote Miss
Sheridan with dazzling fingers, and the pleader resumed his seat.
"How will you bring him 'round," she then demanded.
"Wiles, tricks, stratagems," replied the rising young diplomat moodily,
smarting under the moment's defeat.
"Serve him right for pulling all that old-fashioned nonsense," said Miss
Sheridan, and accorded her employer a glance in which admiration for his
prowess was not half concealed.
"The words of a fool wise in his own folly," went on the encouraged Mr.
Evans, and then, alas! a victim to the slight oratorical thrill these
words brought him,--"honestly uttering what every last man believes
and feels about woman in his heart and yet what no sane man running for
office can say in public--here, what's the matter?"
The latter clause had been evoked by the sight of a blazing Miss
Sheridan, who now stood over him with fists tightly clenched. "Oh, oh,
oh!" This was low, tense, thrilling. It expressed horror. "So that's
what your convictions amount to! Then you do applaud him, every word
of him, and you were deceiving me. Every man in his own heart, indeed.
Thank heaven I found you out in time!"
It may be said that Mr. Evans now cowered in his chair. The term is not
too violent. He ventured to lift a hand in weak protest.
"No, no, Betty, you are being unjust to me again. I meant that that was
what Martin Jaffry told me this morning. It isn't what I believe at all.
I tell you my own deepest sentiments are exactly what yours are in this
great cause which--which--"
Painfully he became aware of his own futility. Miss Sheridan had ceased
to blaze. Seated again before the typewriter she grinned at him with
amused incredulity.
"You nearly had me going, Pen."
Mr. Evans summoned the deeper resources of his manhood and achieved an
easier manner. He brazenly returned her grin. "I'll have you going again
before I'm through--remember that."
"By wiles, tricks and stratagems, I suppose."
"The same. By those I shall make poor George recant, and by those,
assuming you to be a woman with a fine sense of honor who will hold a
promise sacred, I shall have you going. And, mark my words, you'll be
going good, too!"
"Silly!"
She drew from the waste basket the maltreated _Sentinel_, unfurled it to
expose the offending matter, and smote the column with the backs of four
accusing fingers.
"There, my dear, is your answer. Now run along like a good boy."
"Silly!" said Mr. Evans, striving for a masterly finish to the unequal
combat. He arose, dissembling cheerful confidence, straightened the
frame of a steel-engraved Daniel Webster on the wall, and thrice paced
the length of the room, falsely appearing to be engaged in deep thought.
Miss Sheridan, apparently for mere exclamatory purposes, now reread the
fulmination of the absent partner. She scoffed, she sneered, flouted,
derided, and one understood that she was including both members of the
firm. Then her listener became aware that she had achieved coherence.
"Indeed, yes! Do you know what ought to happen to him? Every unprotected
female in this county ought to pack her trunk and trudge right up to
the Remington place and say, 'Here we are, noble man! We have read your
burning words in which you offer to protect us. Save us from the vote!
Let your home be our sanctuary. That's what you mean if you meant
anything but tommy-rot. Here and now we throw ourselves upon your
boasted chivalry. Where are our rooms, and what time is luncheon
served.'"
"Here! Just say that again," called Mr. Evans from across the room. Miss
Sheridan obliged. She elaborated her theme. George should be taken at
his word by every weak flower of womanhood. If women were nothing
but ministering angels, it was "up to" George to give 'em a chance to
minister.
So went Miss Sheridan's improvisation and Mr. Evans, suffering the
throes of a mighty inspiration, suddenly found it sweetest music.
When Miss Sheridan subsided, Mr. Evans appeared to have forgotten the
cause of their late encounter. Whistling cheerily he bustled into his
own office, mumbling of matters that had to be "gotten off." For some
moments he busied himself at his desk, then emerged to dictate three
business letters to his late antagonist.
He dictated in a formal and distant manner, pausing in the midst of the
last letter to spell out the word "analysis," which he must have known
would enrage her further. Then, quite casually, he wished to be told
if she might know the local habitat of Mrs. Alys Brewster-Smith and a
certain Cousin Emelene. His manner was arid.
Miss Sheridan chanced to know that the ladies were sheltered in the
exclusive boarding-house of one Mrs. Gallup, out on Erie Street, and
informed him to this effect in the fewest possible words. Mr. Evans
whistled absently a moment, then formally announced that he should be
absent from the office for perhaps an hour. Hat, gloves and stick in
hand, he was about to nod punctiliously to the back of Miss Sheridan's
head when the door opened to admit none other than our hero, George
Remington. George wore the look of one who is uplifted and who yet has
found occasion to be thoughtful about it. Penfield Evans grasped his
hand and shook it warmly.
"Fine, George, old boy--simply corking! Honestly, I didn't believe you
had it in you. You covered the ground and you did it in a big way. It
took nerve, all right! Of course you probably know that every woman in
town is speaking of your young wife as 'poor Genevieve,' but you've had
the courage of your convictions. It's great!"
"Thanks, old man! I've spoken for the right as I saw it, let come what
may. By the way, has Uncle Martin been in this morning, or telephoned,
or sent any word?"
Miss Sheridan coldly signified that none of these things had occurred,
whereupon George sighed in an interesting manner and entered his own
room.
Mr. Evans had uttered his congratulations in clear, ringing tones and
Miss Sheridan, even as she wrote, contrived with her trained shoulders
to exhibit to his lingering eye an overwhelming contempt for his
opinions and his double-dealing.
In spite of which he went out whistling, and dosed the door in a defiant
manner.