IT was the custodian of his own hidden treasure who at this moment
broke in upon his musings. Mrs. Mornway, fresh from her afternoon walk,
entered the room with that air of ease and lightness which seemed to
diffuse a social warmth about her; fine, slender, pliant, so polished
and modeled by an intelligent experience of life that youth seemed
clumsy in her presence. She looked down at her husband and shook her
head.
"You promised to keep the afternoon to yourself, and I hear Grace has
been here."
"Poor Grace--she didn't stay long, and I should have been a brute not
to see her."
He leaned back, filling his gaze to the brim with her charming image,
which obliterated at a stroke the fretful ghost of Mrs. Nimick.
"She came to congratulate you, I suppose?"
"Yes, and to ask me to do something for Ashford."
"Ah--on account of Jack. What does she want for him?"
The Governor laughed. "She said you were in her confidence--that you
were backing her up. She seemed to think your support would ensure her
success."
Mrs. Mornway smiled; her smile, always full of delicate implications,
seemed to caress her husband while it gently mocked his sister.
"Poor Grace! I suppose you undeceived her."
"As to your influence? I told her it was paramount where it ought to
be."
"And where is that?"
"In the choice of carpets and curtains. It seems ours are almost too
good."
"Thanks for the compliment! Too good for what?"
"Our station in life, I suppose. At least they seemed to bother Grace."
"Poor Grace! I've always bothered her." She paused, removing her gloves
reflectively and laying her long fine hands on his shoulders as she
stood behind him. "Then you don't believe in Ashford?" Feeling his
slight start, she drew away her hands and raised them to detach her
veil.
"What makes you think I don't believe in Ashford?" he asked.
"I asked out of curiosity. I wondered whether you had decided anything."
"No, and I don't mean to for a week. I'm dead beat, and I want to bring
a fresh mind to the question. There is hardly one appointment I'm sure
of except, of course, Fleetwood's."
She turned away from him, smoothing her hair in the mirror above the
mantelpiece. "You're sure of that?" she asked after a moment.
"Of George Fleetwood? And poor Grace thinks you are deep in my
counsels! I am as sure of re-appointing Fleetwood as I am that I have
just been re-elected myself. I've never made any secret of the fact
that if they wanted me back they must have him, too."
"You are tremendously generous!" she murmured.
"Generous? What a strange word to use! Fleetwood is my trump card--the
one man I can count on to carry out my ideas through thick and thin."
She mused on this, smiling a little. "That's why I call you
generous--when I remember how you disliked him two years ago!"
"What of that? I was prejudiced against him, I own; or rather, I had a
just distrust of a man with such a past. But how splendidly he's wiped
it out! What a record he has written on the new leaf he promised to
turn over if I gave him the chance! Do you know," the Governor
interrupted himself with a pleasantly reminiscent laugh, "I was rather
annoyed with Grace when she hinted that you had promised to back up
Ashford--I told her you didn't aspire to distribute patronage. But she
might have reminded me--if she'd known--that it _was_ you who persuaded
me to give Fleetwood that chance."
Mrs. Mornway turned with a slight heightening of color. "Grace--how
could she possibly have known?"
"She couldn't, of course, unless she'd read my weakness in my face. But
why do you look so startled at my little joke?"
"It's only that I so dislike Grace's ineradicable idea that I am a
wire-puller. Why should she imagine I would help her about Ashford?"
"Oh, Grace has always been a mild and ineffectual conspirator, and she
thinks every other woman is built on the same plan. But you _did_ get
Fleetwood's job for him, you know," he repeated with laughing
insistence.
"I had more faith than you in human nature, that's all." She paused a
moment, and then added: "Personally, you know, I have always rather
disliked him."
"Oh, I never doubted your disinterestedness. But you are not going to
turn against your candidate, are you?"
She hesitated. "I am not sure; circumstances alter cases. When you made
Fleetwood Attorney-General two years ago he was the inevitable man for
the place."
"Well--is there a better one now?"
"I don't say there is--it's not my business to look for him, at any
rate. What I mean is that at that time Fleetwood was worth risking
anything for--now I don't know that he is."
"But, even if he were not, what do I risk for him now? I don't see your
point. Since he didn't cost me my re-election, what can he possibly
cost me now I'm in?"
"He's immensely unpopular. He will cost you a great deal of popularity,
and you have never pretended to despise that."
"No, nor ever sacrificed anything essential to it. Are you really
asking me to offer up Fleetwood to it now?"
"I don't ask you to do anything--except to consider if he _is_
essential. You said you were over-tired and wanted to bring a fresh
mind to bear on the other appointments. Why not delay this one too?"
Mornway turned in his chair and looked at her searchingly. "This means
something, Ella. What have you heard?"
"Just what you have, probably, but with more attentive ears. The very
record you are so proud of has made George Fleetwood innumerable
enemies in the last two years. The Lead Trust people are determined to
ruin him, and if his reappointment is attacked you will not be spared."
"Attacked? In the papers, you mean?"
She paused. "You know the 'Spy' has always threatened a campaign. And
he has a past, as you say."
"Which was public property long before I first appointed him. Nothing
could be gained by raking up his old political history. Everybody knows
he didn't come to me with clean hands, but to hurt him now the 'Spy'
would have to fasten a new scandal on him, and that would not be easy."
"It would be easy to invent one!"
"Unproved accusations don't count much against a man of such proved
capacity. The best answer is his record of the last two years. That is
what the public looks at."
"The public looks wherever the press points. And besides, you have your
own future to consider. It would be a pity to sacrifice such a career
as yours for the sake of backing up even as useful a man as George
Fleetwood." She paused, as if checked by his gathering frown, but went
on with fresh decision: "Oh, I'm not speaking of personal ambition; I'm
thinking of the good you can do. Will Fleetwood's reappointment secure
the greatest good of the greatest number, if his unpopularity reacts on
you to the extent of hindering your career?"
The Governor's brow cleared and he rose with a smile. "My dear, your
reasoning is admirable, but we must leave my career to take care of
itself. Whatever I may be to-morrow, I am Governor of Midsylvania
to-day, and my business as Governor is to appoint as Attorney-General
the best man I can find for the place--and that man is George
Fleetwood, unless you have a better one to propose." She met this with
perfect good-humor. "No, I have told you already that that is not my
business. But I _have_ a candidate of my own for another office, so
Grace was not quite wrong, after all."
"Well, who is your candidate, and for what office? I only hope you
don't want to change cooks!"
"Oh, I do that without your authority, and you never even know it has
been done." She hesitated, and then said with a bright directness: "I
want you to do something for poor Gregg."
"Gregg? Rufus Gregg?" He stared. "What an extraordinary request! What
can I do for a man I've had to kick out for dishonesty?"
"Not much, perhaps; I know it's difficult. But, after all, it was your
kicking him out that ruined him."
"It was his dishonesty that ruined him. He was getting a good salary as
my stenographer, and if he hadn't sold those letters to the 'Spy' he
would have been getting it still."