Senator Corson, at the head of the receiving-line, attended strictly to
the task in hand as an urbane and assiduous host.
Wonted by long political usage to estimate everything on the basis of
votes for and against, he was entirely convinced, by the face of the
returns that evening, that the reception he was tendering was a grand
success, unanimously indorsed; he would have been immensely surprised to
learn that under his roof there was a bitterly incensed, furiously
resentful minority that was voting "No!"
The "Yes!" was by the applausive, open, _viva voce_ vote of all those who
filed past him and shook his hand and thronged along toward the buffet
that was operated in _de luxe_ style by a metropolitan caterer's corps of
servants.
The Senator's mansion was spacious and luxuriously appointed, and the
millions from the products of his timber-land barony were lavishly behind
his hospitality. Consoled by the knowledge that Corson could well afford
the treat, his guests, after that well-understood quality in human nature,
relished the hospitality more keenly. At the buffet all the plates were
piled high. In the smoking-room men took handfuls of the Senator's cigars
from the boxes. And the pleasantry connected with Governor Lawrence
North's custom in campaigning was frequently heard. It was related of
North that he always thriftily passed his cigars by his own hand and
counseled the recipient: "Help yourself! Take all you want! Take two!"
The guests adopted the comfortable attitude that Corson had dropped down
home to Marion to pay a debt which he owed to his constituents, and they
all jumped in with alacrity to help him pay it.
While the orchestra played and the ware of the buffet clattered, the
joyous voices of the overwhelming majority gave Senator Corson to
understand that he was the idol of his people and the prop of the state.
The minority kept her mouth closed and her teeth were set hard.
The minority was racked by agony that extended from finger-tips to
shoulder.
The minority was distinctly groggy.
This minority was compassed in the person of a single young and handsome
matron who was Mrs. J. Warren Stanton in her home city Blue Book, and
Doris in the family register of Father Silas Daunt, and "Dorrie" in the
good graces of Brother Coventry Daunt.
In addition she was the close friend, the social mentor, the volunteer
chaperon for Lana Corson, whose mother had become voicelessly and meekly
the mistress of the Corson mausoleum, as she had been meekly and
unobtrusively the mistress of the Corson mansion.
Miss Lana had suddenly observed warning symptoms in the case of Mrs.
Stanton.
Mrs. Stanton, according to a solicitous friend's best judgment, was no
longer assisting in the receiving-line; Mrs. Stanton needed assistance!
Therefore, sooner than the social code might have permitted in an affair
of more rigorously formal character, Lana left the receiving job to her
father and the Governor and the aides, and rescued Mrs. Stanton and
accompanied the young matron to the sanctuary of a boudoir above-stairs.
Mrs. Stanton extended to the tender touch of her maid a wilted hand,
lifted by a stiffened arm, the raising of which pumped a groan from the
lady. The white glove which incased the hand and arm was smutched
liberally in telltale fashion.
"Pull it off, Hibbert! But careful! Don't pull off my fingers unless they
are very loose and beyond hope. But hurry! Let me know the worst as soon
as possible."
"I realize that the reception--" began Lana.
"Reception!" Mrs. Stanton snapped her head around to survey her youthful
hostess. The flame on the matron's cheeks matched the fire in her tones.
"Reception, say you? Lana Corson, don't you know the difference between a
reception and a political rally?"
"I'm sorry, Doris! But father simply must do this duty thing when the
legislature meets. The members expect it. It keeps up his fences, he says.
It's politics!"
"I'm glad my father is a banker instead of a United States Senator. If
this is what a Senator has to do when he comes back to his home, I think
he'd better stay in Washington and send down a carload of food and stick a
glove on the handle of the town pump and let his constituents operate
that! At any rate, the power wouldn't be wasted in a dry time!"
Lana surveyed her own hand. The glove was not immaculate any more, but it
covered a firm hand that was unweary. "Father has given me good advice.
It's to shake the hand of the other chap, not let yours be shaken."
"Those brutes gave me no chance!"
"I noticed that they were very enthusiastic, Doris. I'm afraid you're too
handsome!"
But that flattery did not placate Mrs. Stanton. "It's only a rout and a
rabble, Lana! The feminine element does not belong in it. My father dines
his gentlemen and accomplishes his objects. And I think you have become
one of these political hypocrites! You actually looked as if you were
enjoying that performance down-stairs."
"I was enjoying it, Doris! I was helping my father as best I could, and at
the same time I was meeting many of my old, true friends. I'm glad to be
home again." The girl was unaffectedly sincere in her statement.
The glove was off and Mrs. Stanton was surveying her hand, wriggling the
fingers tentatively.
"And they all seemed so glad to see me that I'm a bit penitent," Lana went
on. "I'm ashamed to own up to myself that I have allowed California and
Palm Beach to coax me away from Marion these last two winters. I ought to
have come down here with father. I'm not talking like a politician now,
Doris. Honestly, I'm stanch for old friends!"
"I trust you don't think I'm an ingrate in the case of my own old friends,
Lana!" Mrs. Stanton, unappeased, was willing to take issue right then with
anybody, on that topic. "But the main trouble with old friends is, they
take too many liberties. Your old friends certainly did take liberties
with my poor hand, and they took liberties with your own private business
in my hearing."
"How--in what way?"
"I overheard persons say distinctly, over and over again, that one feature
of this--no, I'll not muddle my own ideas of society functions by calling
it a reception--they declared that your father proposes to announce
to-night in his home town your engagement to Coventry."
The question that she did not put into words she put into the searching,
quizzical stare she gave Lana.
"Ah!" remarked Miss Corson, revealing nothing either by tone or
countenance.
"It looks to me as if you've been receiving other lessons from your
father, outside of the hand-shaking art. You are about as non-committal as
the best of our politicians, Lana dear!"
For reply the Senator's daughter smiled. The smile was so ingenuous that
it ought to have disarmed the young matron of her petulance.
But Mrs. Stanton went on with the sharp insistence of one who had
discovered an opportunity and proposed to make the most of it. "Seeing
that the matter has come up in this way--quite by chance--" Mrs. Stanton
did not even blink when she said it--"though I never would have presumed
to speak of it to you, Lana, without good and sufficient provocation--I
think that you and Coventry should have confided in me, first of all. Of
course, I know well enough how matters stand! I really believe I do! But I
think I'm entitled to know, officially, to put it that way, as much as
your highly esteemed old friends here in Marion know."
"Yes," agreed Miss Corson.
"But _first_, Lana dear! To know it first--as a sister should! I'm not
blaming you! I realize that you met some of those aforesaid old, true
friends while you were out around the city to-day. One does drop
confidences almost without realizing how far one goes, when old friends
are met. I'm sure such reports as I overheard couldn't be made up out of
whole cloth."
Mrs. Stanton's air and tone were certainly provoking, but Miss Corson's
composure was not ruffled. "Out of the knowledge that you profess in
regard to old friends, Doris, you must realize that they are energetic and
liberal guessers." She turned toward the door.
"Where are you going?"
"To my room for a fresh pair of gloves, dear."
"Do you mean to tell me that you're going back for another turn among
those jiu-jitsu experts?"
"We're to have dancing later."
"For myself, I'd as soon dance with performing bears. I must be excused.
I'll do anything in reason, but I have reached my limit!"
Lana walked back to her, both hands extended. "You have been a dear martyr
to the cause of politics. But now you are going to be the queen of our
little festival. Listen, Doris! All the political buzzing bees will be
thinning out, right soon. Those elderly gentlemen from the country who
shook hands with a good Grange grip--they'll be wanting to get plenty of
sleep so as to be wide awake to-morrow to hear the Governor's inaugural
address. The other vigorous gentlemen who are so deeply in politics will
be hurrying back to their hotels for their caucuses, or whatever it is
they have to attend to in times like these. And the younger folks, who
have no politics on their minds, will stay and enjoy themselves. There are
some really dear folks in Marion!"
"I thank you for the information," returned Mrs. Stanton, dryly. "It's
important if true. But there's other information that's more important in
my estimation just now and you don't allow me the opportunity to thank you
for it."
"I have been thinking, Doris! I really don't feel in the mood, when all
those friends are under my roof, to stand here and brand them as
prevaricators. Mayn't we let the matter stand till later?"
"Until after it has been officially announced?" queried Mrs. Stanton,
sarcastically.
"I'm afraid that father's lessons have trained me better in political
methods than I have realized," said Lana, meekly apologetic. "Because,
right now, I'm obliged to run the risk of offending you, Doris, by quoting
him and making his usual statement my rule of conduct."
"Well?"
"'Nothing can be officially declared until all the returns are in.'"
"What am I to understand from that?"
"It isn't so awfully clear, I know! But let's not talk any more about it."
Lana had dropped her friend's hands. She took them again in her grasp and
swung Mrs. Stanton's arms to and fro in girlish and frolicsome fashion.
"Now go ahead and be your own jolly Doris Stanton! You're going to meet
folks who'll understand you and appreciate all your wit. One especially
I'll name. I don't know why he's so late in coming, for he had a special
invitation from my own mouth. He's the mayor of Marion!"
"What?" demanded Mrs. Stanton, irefully, pulling away from the girl who
was trying to coax back good nature. "Picking out another politician for
my special consideration, after what I have been through?"
"Oh, he's not a politician, Doris dear! Father says he isn't one; he says
so himself and his party newspaper here in the city says regularly that he
isn't, in a complimentary way, and the opposition paper says so in a
sneering way--and I suppose that makes the thing unanimous. He is one of
my oldest friends; he was my hero when I was a little girl in school; he
is tall and big and handsome and--"
Mrs. Stanton narrowed her eyes.
She broke in impatiently on the panegyric. "I'm so thoroughly disgusted
with the ways of politics, Lana, that I draw the line at a speech of
nomination. You said you'd name him! Who is he?"
"Stewart Morrison."
"I thought so!" Mrs. Stanton's tone was vastly significant.
Lana flushed. The composure that she had been maintaining was losing its
serenity and her friend noted that fact and became more irritable.
"My dear Lana, I gathered so much enlightenment from the twittering of
those old friends of yours down-stairs that you'll not be obliged, I
think, to break your most excellent rule of reticence in order to humor my
impertinent curiosity in this instance!"
"Don't be sarcastic with me, Doris! I don't find it as funny as when
you're caustic with other folks."
"There does seem to be a prevailing lack of humor in the affairs of this
evening," acknowledged Mrs. Stanton. "We'll drop the subject, dear!"
"I don't like you to feel that I'm putting you to one side as my dearest
friend--not in anything."
"If you haven't felt like being candid with me in a matter where I'd
naturally be vitally interested, I can hardly expect you to pour out your
heart about a dead-and-gone love-affair with a rustic up in these parts. I
understood from the chatter of your old friends that it _is_ dead and
gone. I can congratulate you on that proof of your newer wisdom, Lana. It
shows that my counsels haven't been entirely wasted on you."
"It was dead and gone before you began to counsel me, Doris. It's not a
matter of withholding confidence from you. Why should I talk about such
things to anybody?"
"Oh, a discreet display of scalp-locks decorates a boudoir and interests
one's friends," vouchsafed the worldly matron.
"Such confidences are atrocious!" Miss Corson displayed spirit.
"Now both of us are getting peppery, dear Lana, and I always reserve that
privilege exclusively for myself in all my friendly relations. I have to
keep a sharp edge on my tongue because folks expect me to perform the
social taxidermy in my set, and it's only brutal and messy if done with a
dull tool. Run and get your gloves! But take your own time in returning to
me. There are still two of my fingers that need a further period of
convalescence."
Mrs. Stanton promptly neglected her duties as a finger nurse the moment
Miss Corson was out of the room. "Hibbert, ask one of the servants to find
my brother and tell him I want to see him here. He will undoubtedly be
located in some group where there is a rural gentleman displaying the
largest banner of beard. My brother has an insatiable mania for laying
bets with sporting young men that he can fondle any set of luxuriant
whiskers without giving the wearer cause for offense."
Coventry answered his sister's call with promptitude.
"I'll keep you only a moment from your whisker-parterres, Cov! When you go
back into that down-stairs garden please give some of those beards a good
hard yank for my sake."
But young Mr. Daunt was serious and rebuked her. "This isn't any lark
we're on up here, Dorrie! Dad needs to have everybody's good will and I'm
doing my little best on the side-lines for him. And he isn't tickled to
pieces by your quitting. It's a big project we're gunning through this
legislature!"
"It may be so! It probably is! But I'm not sacrificing four fingers, a
thumb, and a perfectly good arm for the cause and I'm not allowing public
affairs to take my mind wholly off private matters. So here's at it! Are
you and Lana formally engaged?"
"Well, I must say you're not abrupt or anything of the sort!"
"Certain semi-coaxing methods haven't seemed to succeed, and therefore I'm
shooting the well, as our oil friend Whitaker puts it!"
"Simply for the sake of keeping our affectionate brother-and-sister
relations on the safe and approved plane, I'll say it's none of your
blamed business," declared Coventry. "On the other hand, in a purely
tolerant and friendly way, I'll say that Lana and I are proceeding
agreeably, I think, and dad told me the other day that the Senator talked
as if the matrimonial bill might receive favorable consideration when duly
reported from committee--meaning Lana and myself and--"
"Gas!" broke in Mrs. Stanton. "I shot and I get only gas! I'm looking for
oil! Is there an actual and formal engagement, I ask?"
"Oh, say!" expostulated her brother, registering disgust. "The motion
pictures have spoiled that sort of thing. They have to propose bang
outright in the films because the fans can't be bothered by the nuances of
courtship. But for a chap to get down on his knees these days in real life
would make the girl laugh as loud as the fans would whoop if the hero in
reel life stood on his head and popped the question. Nothing of that kind
of formal stuff in my case, sis! Of course not!"
"There better be! You go ahead this very night and attend to it!"
"Where do you get your appointment as general manager of the matter,
Dorrie? You certainly don't get it from me!"
"Leaving it to be inferred--"
"I leave nothing to be inferred," declared her brother, righteously
indignant. "Dorrie, you absolutely must get off that habit of carving your
own kin in order to keep up the edge of your tongue. I wouldn't as much as
intimate it, by denying it, that you get your meddling commission from
Lana. If this is all you wanted to talk about, I'll have to be going. This
is my busy evening!"
"Just one moment! It's always the busiest man who has time to attend to
one thing more! I'm assuming that you love Lana."
"Conceded! You always did have a good eye in that line, Dorrie!"
"Then my advice, as an expert, ought to be respected. You go ahead and get
a promise from Lana Corson. Then you'll have somebody working for your
interests day and night."
"Who?"
"Her New England conscience!"
Young Mr. Daunt gave his sister a long, searching, and sophisticated
stare. "I think I have a little the advantage of you, Dorrie. I met to-day
this Mr. Stewart Morrison you're speaking of!"
"I haven't spoken of him! I haven't mentioned his name!"
"Oh, didn't you?" purred the brother. "Then I must have anticipated what
you were going to say, or else I read your mind for the name--and that
only shows that the Daunt family's members are thoroughly _en rapport_, to
use dad's favorite phrase when he's showing the strawberry mark on ideas
and making the other fellow adopt 'em as his own children. And I have
heard how Lana and Morrison have been twice engaged and twice estranged.
So, how about her New England conscience in the matter of a promise in
love?"
"As I understand it, the New England conscience grows up with the
possessor and comes of age and asserts itself. You can't expect an infant
or juvenile conscience to boss and control like a grown-up conscience.
Coventry, what kind of a man is Morrison?"
"A big, opinionated ramrod of a Scotchman who'd drive any girl to break
her engagement a dozen times if she had promised as often as that."
Mrs. Stanton relaxed in her chair and sighed with relief. "Oh, from what
she said about him--But no matter! I think you do know men very well, Cov!
I'll do no more worrying where he's concerned. Forgive me for advising you
so emphatically."
"He'd boss any girl into breaking her engagement," continued Coventry,
with conviction. "Any dreaming, wondering, restless girl, curious to find
out for herself and afraid of restraint."
"I know the type. Impossible as husbands," averred Mrs. Stanton, a caustic
and unwearying counselor of sex independence.
"But there are some girls who grow up into real women, though you probably
have hard work to believe that," said her brother, equally caustic in
stating his opinions, "and they are waiting for the right man to come
along and take sole possession of them, body and soul and affairs--when
they are women! Then it isn't bossing any more! It's love, glorified!
Letting 'em have their own way would seem like neglect and indifference,
and their hearts would be broken. They eat it up, sis, eat it up, that
kind of love!"
His sister leaped from her chair. "How anybody with an ounce of brains can
take stock in this caveman nonsense is more than I can understand!"
"It has nothing to do with brains, sis! It's in here!" He tapped his
finger on his breast. "It was put in when the first heart started
beating."
"But you listen to reason! No woman wants a--"
He put his hand up and broke in on her furious remonstrance. "If I listen
to reason, sis, you'll have me against the ropes in thirty seconds. I
admit that there's no reason why a woman should want it that way! Brains
can argue us right out of the notion. I won't argue. But I don't want you
to think I'm keeping anything away from you that a sister ought to know.
As my sister and as Lana's good friend, I'm sure you'll be glad to know
that I love her with all my heart and I hope I haven't misunderstood her
feelings in regard to me. I don't want to be too complacent, but I think
she's still girl enough to welcome my kind of love and to take me for what
I am."
He and his sister were thoroughly absorbed in their dialogue. Having
summed up the situation in his final declaration, he turned hastily to
leave the room and was assured, to his dismay, that Miss Corson had heard
the declaration; she was at the threshold, her lips apart; she was plainly
balancing a desire to flee against a more heroic determination to step in
and ignore the situation and the words which had accompanied it.
Young Mr. Daunt manfully did his best to get that situation out of the
chancery of embarrassing silence.
"Lana, the three of us are too good friends to allow this foozle to make
us feel altogether silly. Despite present appearances I don't go around
making speeches on a certain subject. Nor will I lay it all on Dorrie by
saying, 'The woman tempted me and I fell.'"
"Yes, we may as well be sensible," affirmed Mrs. Stanton. In spite of her
momentary embarrassment her countenance was displaying bland satisfaction.
This was an occasion to be grasped. "I'll say right out frankly that I
consider I'm one too many in this room just now!"
Lana retreated across the threshold. She was distinctly frightened.
Young Mr. Daunt laughed and his merriment helped to relieve the situation
still more. "Oh, I say, Lana! This isn't a trap set by the Daunts. You
come right in! I'm leaving!"
"I didn't mean to overhear," the girl faltered.
"You and I have nothing to apologize for--either of us! I take nothing
back, but this is no kind of a time to go forward. I'd be taking advantage
of your confusion."
"Well, of all the mincing minuets!" blurted the young matron. "One word
will settle it all. I tell you, I'm going!"
But Daunt rushed to the door, seized Lana's hands, and swung her into the
room. "This is a political night, and we'll go by the rules. The gentleman
has introduced the bill and on motion of the lady it has been tabled. But
it will be taken from the table on a due and proper date and assigned at
the head of the calendar. I think that's the way the Senator would state
it. It ought to be good procedure." He released her hands.
"And speaking of the calendar, Lana, may I have a peep at your
dance-list?"
She gave him the engraved card.
"All the waltzes for me, eh?" he queried, wistfully. "I note that you're
free."
"One, please, Coventry--for now! No, please select some of the new dances.
You know them all! Some of my Marion friends are old-fashioned and I must
humor them with the waltzes." Her hands were trembling. She laughed
nervously. "I feel free to task your good nature."
"Thank you," he returned, gratefully, accepting the implied compliment she
paid him. He dabbed on his initials here and there and hurried away.
Mrs. Stanton had plenty of impetuous zeal for all her quests, but she had
also abundance of worldly tact. "One does get so tremendously interested
in friends and family, Lana! Affection makes nuisances of us so often! But
no more about it! I feel quite happy now. I'm even so kindly disposed
toward politics that I'm ready to go down and dance for the cause,
whatever it is your father and mine are going after. These men in
politics--they always seem to me to be like small boys building card
houses. Piling up and puffing down! Putting in little tin men and pulling
out little tin men. And to judge by the everlasting faultfinding, nobody
is ever satisfied by what is accomplished."
Miss Corson plainly welcomed this consoling shift from an embarrassing
topic. And, in order to get as far from love as possible, she turned to
business. When she and her friend descended the broad stairway of the
mansion Lana was discoursing on the need of coaxing men of big commercial
affairs into politics. Her views were rather immature and her fervor was a
bit hysterical, but the subject was plainly more to her taste than that on
which Mrs. Stanton had been dwelling.
The crowd below them, as they stood for a moment on the landing, half-way
down the stairs, gave comforting evidence that it had thinned, according
to Lana's prophecy. The receiving-line was broken. Senator Corson was
sauntering here and there, saying a word to this one or that in more
intimate manner than his formal post in the line permitted. Governor
North, also released from conventional restrictions as a hand-shaker, was
on his rounds and wagged his coattails and barked and growled
emphatically.
The word "Law," oft repeated, fitted itself to his growls; when he barked
he ejaculated, "Election statutes!"
"It's a pity your state is wasting such excellent material on the mere job
of Governor, Lana. What a perfectly wonderful warden he would make for
your state prison," suggested Mrs. Stanton, sweetly. But she did not
provoke a reply from the girl and noted that Lana was frankly interested
in somebody else than the Governor. It was a new arrival; his busy
exchange of greetings revealed that fact.
"Ah! Your dilatory mayor of Marion!" said the matron, needing no
identification.
Nor did Stewart require any word to indicate the whereabouts of the
hostess of the Corson mansion. His eyes had been searching eagerly. As
soon as he saw Lana he broke away from the group of men who were engaging
him. The Governor accosted Morrison sharply, when the mayor hurried past
on the way to the stairway. But again, within a few hours, Stewart
slighted the chief executive of the state.
"I am late, I fear," he called to Lana, leaping up the stairs. "And after
my solemn promise to come early! But you excused me this morning when I
was obliged to attend to petty affairs. Same excuse this time! Do I
receive the same pardon?"
The girl displayed greater ease in his presence at this second meeting.
She received him placidly. There were no more of those disconcerting and
high-flown forensics in her greeting. There was the winning candor of old
friendship in her smile and he flushed boyishly in his frank delight. She
presented him to Mrs. Stanton and that lady's modish coolness did not
dampen his spirits, which had become plainly exuberant. In fact, he paid
very little attention to Mrs. Stanton.
"It has got to you, Lana--this coming home again, hasn't it?" he demanded,
with an unconventionality of tone and phraseology that caused the
metropolitan matron to express her startled emotions by a blink. "I knew
it would!"
"I am glad to be home, Stewart. But I have been tiring Mrs. Stanton by my
enthusiasm on that subject," was her suggestive move toward another topic.
"You're in time for the dancing. That's the important feature of the
evening."
"Certainly!" he agreed. "May I be pardoned, Mrs. Stanton, for consulting
my hostess's card first?"
He secured Lana's program without waiting for the matron's indifferent
permission.
"A waltz--two waltzes, anyway!" he declared. "They settle arrearages in
your accounts, Lana, for the two winters you have been away. And why not
another?" He was scribbling with the pencil. "It will settle the current
bill."
"It is a business age," murmured Mrs. Stanton, "and collections cannot be
looked after too sharply."
"Will you not permit me to go in debt to you, madam?" he asked. "I'll be
truly obligated if you'll allow me to put my name on your card."
"As a banker's daughter, I'll say that the references that have been
submitted by Miss Corson in regard to your standing are excellent," said
Mrs. Stanton, with a significance meant for Lana's confusion. But while
she was detaching the tassel from her girdle Governor North interrupted.
He was standing on the stairs, just below the little group.
"Excuse me for breaking in on the party, but I'm due at the State House.
I'll bother you only a second, Morrison. Then you won't have a thing to do
except be nice to the ladies."
"I know I'll be excused by them for a few moments, Governor." He started
to descend. His Excellency put up his hand.
"We can attend to it right here, Mister Mayor!"
"But I have a word or two--"
"That's all I have!" was the blunt retort. "And I'm in a hurry. Have you
got 'em smoothed down, according to our understanding?"
"I have, I think! But whether they'll stay smooth depends on you, Governor
North!"
"And I can be depended on! I told you so at the office." He turned away.
"I think I ought to have a few words with you in private, however,"
Morrison insisted. "That general understanding is all right. But I need to
know something specific."
The Governor was well down the stairs; he trudged energetically, his
coattails wagging in wide arcs. It was not premeditated insolence; it was
the usual manner of Lawrence North when he did not desire an interview
prolonged to an extent that might commit him. "I'll be at the State House
in case there's any need of my attention to something specific. I'll
attend to it over the telephone--over the telephone, understand!"
The diversion on the stairs had attracted a considerable audience and
produced a result that interfered further with Stewart's immediate social
plans.
Senator Corson came across the reception-hall, beckoning amiably, and the
three descended obediently.
"Stewart, before you get too deep into the festivities with the girls, I
want you to have a bit of a chat with Mr. Daunt. We arranged it, you
know."
"But Stewart isn't up here to attend to business, father," protested the
daughter, with a warmth that the subject of the controversy welcomed with
a smile of gratitude.
"There is an urgent reason why Mr. Daunt should have a few words with
Stewart to-night--before the legislature assembles." The Senator assumed
an air of mock autocratic dignity. "I command the obedience of my
daughter!" He saw the banker approaching. "I call on you, sir, to put down
rebellion in your own family! These daughters of ours propose to spirit
away this young gentleman."
"I'll keep you from the merrymaking only a few moments, Mayor Morrison,"
apologized Daunt. "But I feel that it is quite essential for us to get
together on that matter we mentioned in the forenoon. I'm sure that only a
few words will put us thoroughly _en rapport_."
Mrs. Stanton lifted her eyebrows. "That phrase means that father will do
the talking, Mister Mayor. I recommend that you go along with him. You
won't have to do a thing except listen. You can come later and dance with
us with all your energy unimpaired."
"Yes!" urged Lana. "The waltzes will be waiting!"
"Use my den, Daunt! If I can get away from my gang, here, I'll run in on
you," stated the Senator. He smacked his palm on Stewart's shoulder. "I
know you always put business ahead of pleasure, though it may be hard to
do it in this case, my boy! But after you and my friend Daunt get matters
all tied up snug you won't have a thing to do for the rest of the night
but enjoy yourself and be nice to the girls--not another thing, Stewart."