Part 5

"You'd better go into the other room again, dear," he said.

But Mollie June's eyes were bright and her colour high and her white shoulders very straight.

"No!" she said.

"You really will oblige us greatly, Mrs. Norman," said the Mayor, "if you will withdraw for a moment longer."

"No!" said Mollie June. "This is my room. I have a right to be here. And I don't like scuffling."

She cast a disdainful glance at their crumpled shirts and dusty trousers. And, womanlike, she sought a diversion.

"What a mess you are in!" she cried. "Mr.--George,--get the whisk broom from the bedroom there!"

It was an almost haughty command. And Merriam rejoiced to obey this new mistress of the situation. He darted into the bedroom.

The two older men looked at each other. Rockwell was content: time was passing. When the Mayor started to speak he forestalled him.

"She's really right," he said. "You can't leave like this. And some one might come in."

Merriam was back with the whisk broom.

"Come under the light," ordered Mollie June, addressing the Mayor.

That dignitary reluctantly advanced.

"Turn around. Now, George, brush him."

Merriam sought diligently to remove the ashes from the Mayor's garments. It required vigorous work, for the dust was rubbed deeply into the cloth. Mollie June superintended closely. The Mayor had to turn about several times and raise an arm and then the other arm. He could not make much progress in the regaining of his dignity; and he, no less than Rockwell, was conscious of the fleeing moments. But, glancing again and again at Mollie June, girlishly imperious and intent, he could not as yet muster his brutality for what he saw the next move in his game must be. Rockwell waited serenely in the background, the Ordinance in his hand.

At last the Mayor's broadcloth was fairly presentable. Nothing could be done, of course, with his shirt front.

"Now, George," said Mollie June, "it's your turn. Give me the broom."

"No, no!"

"_Give me the broom!_" She took it from his hand. "Turn around!"

And with her own hands and in the manner of wifely solicitude she began to dust his collar and lapels.

This was not unpleasant for Merriam, but it prompted the Mayor to take his cue. As he watched his eyes hardened, and in a moment he said:

"You take good care of your _husband_, don't you, Mrs. Norman?"

"I try to," said Mollie June rather pertly, dusting away. Evidently she had not heard enough to know that Merriam had been found out.

"It must be pleasant," said the Mayor, "to have such a nice _young_ husband."

Mollie June stopped her work and looked at him in sudden alarm.

"What do you mean?" she said.

Rockwell stepped forward and caught her arm:

"Let me lead you into the next room, Mrs. Norman. You must let us talk with the Mayor."

"No!" she cried, snatching her arm away, and turning eyes of angry innocence on Mayor Black, "What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said, with smiling suavity--he was not to be daunted now, and, short of violence there was no way of stopping him,--"that you are a young woman. This gentleman--whose name I do not have the honour of knowing--is also young, and rather handsome. The Senator, of course, is getting old. I find you two alone in your husband's rooms, your husband having been tricked away. You can hardly expect me to believe that you mistook him for your husband. You display no dislike for his person. I draw my own conclusions. Every one in Chicago will draw the same conclusions if this interesting situation, quite worthy of Boccaccio, should become known. That's why I think"--he turned suddenly to Rockwell--"that you'd better give me the Ordinance after all."

Mollie June's cheeks were blazing. Merriam's also; he could not look at her. But Rockwell pulled his watch from his pocket.

"It is now two minutes past nine," he said. "The Ordinance has become law. You can have it now, Mr. Mayor." He held out the document.

The Mayor snatched it.

"It's not legal!" he cried. "And it won't stand. I can prove that I was prevented by foul means--by foul means," he repeated, "from exercising my charter right of veto. I'll take out an injunction, and I'll fight it to the Supreme Court. And in the process all Chicago--the whole United States--shall be entertained with the piquant story of these young people"--he waved a hand towards Merriam and Mollie June,--"aided and abetted by Mr. Reformer Rockwell. I'll ruin them, and you and your League, whatever else comes of it. Oh, you're a clever lot, you--you reformers!"

He paused out of breath. Then, dramatically, for he was always self-conscious and inclined to pose:

"Madame and gentlemen!"--but the effectiveness of his bow was somewhat marred by the sorry state of his shirt front--"I wish you a very good evening!"

But Rockwell was before him with his back to the hall door.

"You've forgotten your hat, Mayor," he said.

(In fact, his tall hat still stood on the writing table where he had set it down before he spread out the Ordinance there to write his veto.)

"Damn my hat! Let me go!"

"Presently, presently. I still think you'd better sign the Ordinance."

"Do you mean to knock me down again?"

"I'd like nothing better, you--cad!" cried Merriam, who had stood bursting with outrage a minute longer than he could endure.

The Mayor almost jumped at the savage sincerity of this threat in his rear. Rockwell smiled at the startled look on his face, but he spoke quietly:

"No violence. I hope to convince you that it would be to your best interests to sign it. Since it has become a law anyway."

"Never!" cried the Mayor. "Do you think I would be a traitor to--to--my party? And I mean to get even with this gang, whatever else I do!"

But the next instant he jumped indeed. A new voice spoke--a woman's.

"Mayor Black," it said, "you're a fool!"

*CHAPTER IX*

*AUNT MARY*

All four of the actors in the little scene turned, and Mollie June uttered an exclamation:

"Aunt Mary!"

In the doorway from which Rockwell had emerged a few minutes earlier stood the thin, pale, elderly woman whom Merriam had seen with Mollie June in the Peacock Cabaret. She wore a black evening gown, rather too heavily overlaid with jet, was tall and very erect, and had streaked gray hair, a Roman nose, and a firm mouth. The effect as she stood there, framed in the door, was decidedly striking--sibylline.

Mollie June ran to her.

"Oh, Aunt Mary!" she cried.

Merriam was afraid that Mollie June would burst into tears. Very possibly she would have liked to do so, but Aunt Mary gave her no opportunity.

"Lock the door, Mr. Rockwell," she said, putting an arm about Mollie June's waist. Her tone and manner were vigorous and dominant.

"Good evening, Mr. Black," she continued, while Rockwell hastened to obey her. And to Merriam: "Good evening, Mr.--Wilson. Now I think we had better all sit down and talk it over."

"I can't," said the Mayor. "I'm late for the Council meeting already. I've been shamefully tricked, Miss Norman."

"I think you have," returned Aunt Mary, releasing Mollie June and advancing a step or two into the room. "But that's the very reason why you need to consider your position at once. You're in a mess. So are we. Perhaps we can help each other out. The Council can wait. 'Phone them that you've been detained. They can go ahead, I suppose. Really, Mr. Black, I see a point or two in this business that I think will interest you."

Mayor Black met Mary Norman's direct, purposeful gaze. He was impressed by her air of command and intelligence. He recalled gossip to the effect that it was really she who ran George Norman's campaigns, that she even wrote some of his speeches.

"Very well," he said, "I'll stay ten minutes. Never mind 'phoning."

"Good," said Aunt Mary. "There are seats for all of us, I believe. Take that one, Mayor."

She indicated the large armchair with the rose-coloured tapestry in which Mollie June had been ensconced half an hour before, and laid her own hand on the back of the smaller one close by in which Merriam had sat.

Then she turned to Mollie June:

"Do you wish to leave us, dear, or to stay?"

"I'll stay!" said Mollie June. Her colour was still high, and the glance she threw in the Mayor's direction was distinctly hostile, but she had recovered her self-control. We shall be able to forgive young Merriam a throb of admiration at her spirit.

"Very well," said Aunt Mary. "Sit over there, then. Mr.--Wilson," she added, to Merriam, "on that table yonder you will find a humidor. Pass the cigars, please. And pick up that ash stand and set it here by the Mayor."

She and the Mayor and Mollie June sat down. Rockwell remained standing. Merriam, though somewhat confused at having turned from Norman into Wilson, hastened to do as he was bid. He picked up the ash stand, straightening the box of matches into place, and brought it and set it by the Mayor's chair. Then he got the humidor, opened its heavy lid, and passed the gold-banded perfectos therein to the Mayor and to Rockwell.

"Are you leaving me out, young man?" demanded Aunt Mary, who had watched him in appraising silence.

Merriam turned to her with the humidor, hesitating.

"There don't seem to be any cigarettes," he said.

"I have some in my pocket."

But Aunt Mary leaned forward and took from the humidor a package of "little cigars" that had been slipped in at one end of the box of perfectos.

"No cigarettes for me," she said. "I smoke when I'm with men so as to be one of them. A cigarette leaves me a woman. A cigar, even one of these little ones, makes a man of me. Give me a match, please."

With what seemed to himself amazing self-control, Merriam took a match from the ash stand, struck it, and would have held the light for her. But Aunt Mary took it from him and, looking all the while amazingly like his own mother, deliberately and efficiently ignited the "little cigar."

Then she looked up quizzically at Merriam, blew out the match, handed it to him, and said, "Sit down, Mr. Wilson."

Having seated himself, Merriam found Aunt Mary looking intently at the Mayor, who was smoking and returning her gaze.

But Rockwell broke in:

"How much do you know, Miss Norman? And how do you know it?"

"As to how I know it," said Aunt Mary, "that's my own business for the present. Not because there need be any secret about it, but because we haven't time for explanations." She puffed at her little cigar. "As to how much I know, I believe I understand the whole affair--except how Mrs. Norman came into it." She looked at Rockwell.

That gentleman did not reply. Merriam broke the silence:

"I sent for her."

He said it very well--not defiantly, but as a plain, necessary statement of fact.

Aunt Mary turned in her chair to look at him.

"Ah!" she said.

He felt that he was colouring under her gaze. Perhaps that colour answered her obvious next question as to why he had done so. She did not ask that question, but turned back to the Mayor:

"I overheard a little of your conversation from the doorway before I spoke. Mr. Rockwell was saying he thought that, as things stand now, it would be best for you to sign the Ordinance. I think so too."

The Mayor would have interrupted, but she waved her little cigar at him.

"You can, of course," she continued, "explain that you were tricked. But how much would that help you with Mr. Crockett or any of his cronies and allies? They would only think the worse of you and throw you over the more quickly. A man of your age and standing cannot afford to be tricked. If he is, he had better conceal the fact. And how about the people of Chicago, before whom you come up for reelection in the fall? Will their sympathies be with you or with the persons who tricked you into giving them the Ordinance they wanted? The American people love a clever trick. And a trick is clever if it succeeds. As for the illegality, they won't care a picayune for that. You said you would fight it in the courts. Well, you might. But it would be a long fight. You yourself mentioned the Supreme Court. And in the meantime it is a law and goes into effect at once. Unless, of course, you take out an injunction. And if you do that, you will make yourself so unpopular that you can never even be nominated again. Let us suppose it goes into effect. Then by the time your fight was won, if you won it, the new conditions would be established, and nobody would dare try to unscramble the eggs. The Council would simply have to pass it over again, and you--or your successor, rather, for you would be out by then--would promptly sign it. No, my friend, there is no road for you in that direction. You would lose out both ways--with the bosses, who would have no more use for a man who had allowed himself to be fooled at a critical juncture, and with the people. Your only chance--unless you wish to retire quickly and ignominiously to private life--is to cut loose from the bosses and throw in your lot with the people--sign the Ordinance, claim the credit, join forces with Rockwell here, defy Crockett, and come out as the people's champion!"

The Mayor was not smoking. He was looking hard at Aunt Mary, as one man looks at another. (Her little cigar had effected that.) There was aroused interest in his eyes.

"Wouldn't you rather like to go into politics as your own boss for a change?" Aunt Mary asked. "Rather than as one miserable little cog in a big, dirty machine?"

The Mayor flushed a little and took refuge behind a puff of smoke.

"Perhaps I would," he said. Then, suddenly: "How about Senator Norman? Do I defy him too?"

"Not at all," said Aunt Mary. "He also will go over to the people."

"Can you answer for him?"

"I think I can. He will be forced to do so in the same way you are. He too has been victimised."

She leaned forward and deposited her small cigar, of which she had really smoked very little, in the ash tray. Sitting erect, she folded her hands in her lap and became forthwith a woman again--a sedate, almost prim, elderly woman.

"That," she explained simply, "is the source of my interest in this matter. I like you, Mayor Black, because you have some of the courtliness of the old school in your manner. I should be sorry to see you in misfortune. But I care much more, naturally, for my brother, George Norman, and more still for the name of Norman"--from her tone she might have referred to the Deity,--"which has been an honourable name in this country for eight generations, and which George, with his spoils politics and his dissipations, is compromising. I have long wanted him to break with his present associates, to live straight, and to become a real leader, as the Normans were in New York State in the early years of the last century. I have tried again and again to get him to do so. Over and over he has promised me he would. But he is weak. He has never done it. Now he will have to do it!"

All the members of the little group looked with some admiration, I fancy, at Aunt Mary, sitting straight, an incarnation of aristocratic, elderly femininity, in her chair. Where a moment or two before she had been an unsexed modern, she looked now like an old family portrait.

Rockwell broke the momentary silence:

"Miss Norman has presented, so much better than I could have done, the argument which I tried to suggest to Mr. Black."

It was probably unfortunate that Rockwell had recalled attention to himself. The Mayor glanced at him with animosity, and at the silent Merriam, and over at Mollie June, listening eagerly in the background. Then at Aunt Mary again. He leaned back, pulling at his cigar, thinking hard.

In the silence a slight noise became audible from the bedroom behind Aunt Mary--a word or two of whispering and then a sound as if some one tiptoeing had stumbled a little.

The Mayor jumped to his feet.

"Who's there?" he cried, pointing.

For an instant Aunt Mary was out of countenance. But only for an instant. Then, without rising or turning her head, she called:

"Come in, Alicia."

A moment's silence. Then a laugh, of a premeditated sweetness which Merriam remembered, and Alicia Wayward stood in the doorway.

The Mayor and Merriam rose. Mollie June, too, jumped up. Only Aunt Mary remained calmly seated.

After a second's pause in the effective framing of the door, Alicia advanced with an air of eager pleasure and held out her hand to the Mayor.

"Good evening, Mr. Black."

The Mayor was a very susceptible male where women like Alicia were concerned. He took her hand.

"Good evening, Miss Wayward." But, still holding the hand, he looked steadily at her and asked, "Who else is in there?"

"Who else?" repeated Alicia, raising her pretty dark eyebrows.

"Or were you whispering to yourself?" pursued the Mayor.

Alicia laughed and drew her hand away. "It's only Father Murray." Then, raising her voice a little: "You'll have to come in, Father Murray, to save my reputation. This is really all of us," she added, as the priest rather sheepishly presented himself. "You can search the room if you like."

She smiled at him in the manner which novelists commonly describe as roguish.

The Mayor smiled back at her, but he turned to the latest arrival.

"Were you in this plot, too, Father Murray?"

"Indeed he was," Alicia answered for him. "He didn't quite approve of it at first. But we quite easily converted him. So, you see, it can't be so black as it first seemed to you, Mr. Mayor. And really," she hurried on, "you ought to do as Miss Norman suggests. It's a splendid chance for you. To really be a--a Man, you know! And I can help."

"How can you help?" asked the Mayor.

"I am quite sure," said Alicia, "that I can get my father to subscribe quite a lot of money--a hundred thousand dollars, say--to your campaign fund--yours and Senator Norman's and the Reform League's."

"Is Mr. Wayward so keen on reform? I should think he had had nearly enough of it. They've practically put him out of business, these reformers."

"He's rather keen on me, you know," said Alicia. "And he likes Mollie June and Miss Norman and George Norman and----"

"Father Murray, I suppose," interrupted the Mayor, "and anybody else you can think of. You mean you can get it out of him." But his appreciative smile made a compliment of the accusation.

Alicia only raised her eyebrows again.

Aunt Mary rose and took the reins of business into her own hands once more.

"I should be willing to subscribe something, too, out of my own income," she said. "And the League can raise plenty of money. You won't lack for funds. Here's my proposition, Mr. Black. You lie low and keep still till noon to-morrow. Don't go to the Council meeting at all. Keep the Ordinance in your own possession. Refuse to see any one. See what the papers say in the morning. And wait for a message from George Norman. If by noon to-morrow he telephones you that he will go with you, will you go over to the League, sign the Ordinance, break with Crockett and the rest of them, and appeal to the people on your own?"

The Mayor looked from Aunt Mary to Alicia's appealing and admiring eyes and back at Aunt Mary. He avoided Rockwell and Merriam and Mollie June.

"That's fair enough," he said. "I'll do that." Then: "You know where Norman is, do you?"

"Yes," said Aunt Mary. It was plain, however, that she did not intend to communicate the information.

"And what becomes of this young gentleman?" The Mayor looked at Merriam.

"He will disappear where he came from."

"Well, well," said the Mayor genially, "it has been a very stimulating evening. Rather like a play. You have certainly put me in a box. But I'll admit I'm interested in your suggestion, Miss Norman. I'll think it over carefully. Now I believe I'll call a taxi."

"Let me," said Rockwell, and he stepped to the telephone.

The Mayor addressed himself to Merriam:

"Will you bring me my hat, Mr.--Wilson?"

Merriam was near the writing table on which the hat stood. He picked it up and brought it.

"The resemblance is marvellously close," said the Mayor, studying his face. "And you did your part very well, young man. But let me advise you to keep away from the neighbourhood of Senator Norman. You might get into serious trouble."

Merriam did not reply or smile but handed him the hat.

"There's a taxi ready," said Rockwell, turning from the telephone into which he had been speaking.

"Thank you," said the Mayor. He looked at Mollie June, who stood some distance from him:

"I hope you will forgive me, Mrs. Norman, for my--rudeness earlier this evening. I am afraid I was too angry then to know what I was saying."

Like Merriam, Mollie June did not answer or smile. Possibly she was imitating his demeanour. But she bowed slightly.

"Really," interjected Alicia, "Mollie June had never seen Mr.--Mr. Wilson since before she was married until five minutes before you came in."

"Quite so. Of course," said the Mayor. He held out his hand to Aunt Mary. "You are a wonderful woman, Miss Norman."

"George shall telephone before noon," she replied, shaking hands like a man.

"Till then at least you can depend on me."

He turned to Alicia.

Alicia kept his hand a long minute. "We have always liked you, Mr. Black--we women," she said. "In your new role we shall admire you so much!"

"I would do much to win your admiration," returned the Mayor, somewhat guardedly gallant. "Good night, Father Murray. Good night, Rockwell--you precious reformer! Good night, Mr. Wilson. That's only a stage name, isn't it? Well, good night, all!"

The suave politician bowed himself out.

*CHAPTER X*

*A SENATOR MISSING*

The members of the group that remained looked at one another. Alicia dropped into a chair.

"Whew!" she said.

Father Murray crossed quickly from the doorway, where he had stood silent ever since his shamefaced entrance, to Aunt Mary's side.

"Wonderful, Miss Norman!" he cried.

Aunt Mary smiled at him--her first smile in that scene. "Thank you, Arthur," she said.

But she added instantly to Rockwell:

"See if George is _there_. Telephone. He must be by now. Then you and Arthur must take a taxi and go after him and bring him back here. The number is Harrison 3731."

Rockwell turned back to the telephone.

Merriam walked over to Mollie June and put his hands on the back of the chair in which she had been sitting prior to the entrance of Alicia.

"Hadn't you better sit down?" he said.

"Yes, if you'll move it up a little." She wanted to be closer to the rest of the group.

He pushed the chair forward, and she sat and smiled up at him:

"Thank you!"

A woman's eyes are never so appealingly beautiful as in a quick upward glance. Merriam fell suddenly more deeply in love with her than he had ever been. And he was for the moment very happy. There was something between them, something very slight, as tenuous and as innocent as youth itself, but existent and precious.

Rockwell turned from the telephone.

"He's not _there_," he said, "and he's not been there."

(There was a tacit conspiracy among them, on account of Mollie June, not to refer more definitely to George's destination.)

"Not!" exclaimed Aunt Mary. Like the men, she was still standing. She looked at Alicia. "The driver was instructed to go directly there?"

"Yes," said Alicia. Then she added in a low tone:

"The driver was Simpson."

"Simpson!" Aunt Mary echoed. "That's dangerous. Why didn't you tell me that before?"