Part 12

The Massachusetts woman meditated. She was a handsome woman, a woman with ancestors, it was evident, for the blue and gold of the Colonial Dames badge, and the enamel star and scarlet ribbon of the Order of Colonial Governors illuminated the white chiffon of her bodice; and there were five bars on the scarlet ribbon. "My idea of the object is simply that it is a clearing-house," said she; "and so far it is democratic, for it brings us all together; and I," said the descendant of governors and warriors, "_I'm_ democratic. Look at us. It is not only that we represent so many different classes, we represent so many sections of the country. In fact, about this color question, I feel that it is more important for the north and the south to get acquainted and friendly, working together, than it is for us to give the opportunities of the federation to a few colored people."

"I don't look at it that way, it is a question of right and wrong"--thus the ardent soul from Massachusetts unfurled her banner to the breeze--"are you going to do what is right or what is expedient?" The smouldering fire which had made the deck hot walking all through the meetings, showed signs of breaking out of cover; everybody in hearing craned her neck; there were murmurs of approval and polite sniffings of dissent to the right and to the left. The Massachusetts woman said "Life is a compromise;" and shrugged her shoulders. Mrs. Hardy put up the white flag in a mild sentence: "Mrs. Lowe is calling us to order, I think."

* * * * *

The convention had passed safely to the ballot. The opposition had sprung its mines; and the regulars had discharged their heavy artillery behind the proper parliamentary subterfuges. The undecided voters had, as usual, asked to take back their ballots, and as usual had been refused. The excitement had risen until it showed in white or flushed faces and strained voices, in clapping, and hisses; but the chairman's inscrutable calm never changed, and through it all she held the convention perfectly in hand.

Two men had safely run the gauntlet of ticket takers, and were seated in the lower gallery. They were a middle-aged man, dark, portly, carefully dressed in silver-gray tweeds, with a silk shirt; and a young man, dark, slender, in a lighter suit, with a stiff white collar on his pink negligee shirt. There was an air of distinction about both men; they looked to be men of importance in their own locality, men accustomed to command and deference; but nothing of gentler modesty and meekness than their demeanor can be imagined. They shrank back in their seats and sat close to each other, as one will observe timid children sitting, who have wandered into a strange house.

"You--you don't suppose they will put us out? eh, Darrie?" said the elder, in a low voice, "not _now_?"

"Of course not," responded Darrie, with simulated lightness; "look there to the left, there's Myrtie. That president is a good presiding officer; you would not guess all this row is over her, she's absolutely impartial--by Jove!"

"What's the matter? Do you see mother anywhere?"

"No, sir; did you catch that, the secretary's explanation of the parliamentary question? Pretty clear, I call it; but they're getting in all their points, I observe, working questions of privilege for all they are worth."

"Very clever, very clever," assented Darius; "there's Hester, mother isn't with _her_; you don't suppose mother would stay away, this afternoon?"

"Never; this is the election afternoon."

"Myrtie said mother was very much admired and sought after, lots of invitations; maybe she has gone out to some tea--"

"They wouldn't have anything this afternoon; don't you see how keyed up they all are?"

"I thought I was monstrous clever planning all this," pursued Darius, with a knitted brow; "your mother forgot this was our anniversary, but I didn't; I have her present in my pocket; and the dinner ordered; and I was expecting to surprise her; but if she isn't here--she couldn't have gone _home_?"

"Of course not--there she is, don't you see her? looking fresh as paint!"

A lady had risen, her voice, mellow and clear, dove through the sonorous buzz of the hall.

"Why it's _mother_!" cried Darius, "and if she isn't taking an appeal from the chair; mother has her nerve with her, to-day."

Darrie grinned; but as he watched his father's face kindle, his own changed; he laid his hand on his father's, nodding, softly: "I tell you, mother's _great_," said he.

"That little dark-eyed lady is speaking on mother's side"--Darius was leaning forward with excited interest--"isn't she a pretty creature, she's little--but, oh my! How clearly she puts it; these southerners have a natural gift of oratory. Don't think much of that woman who's trying to call mother down!"

He was as eager as a boy, the man whose cool head and hard sense had won him a great fortune; his eyes glistened, the color crept into his cheek; and he drew a long sigh when the appeal was withdrawn. "Very pretty, Darrie," he said, "appeal withdrawn, but they have got in their work on the voters; chairman had to decide against her own friends, and did it like a Roman soldier. The extraordinary thing to me, Darrie, is how well they are all keeping their temper. Darrie, didn't you think mother's voice was good when she spoke; how'd she learn to speak so well?"

"Oh, she took lessons," returned Darrie, easily; "Hester got her into them; Hester and mother are great pals."

"I know; Hester's a remarkable girl, Darrie; she has always appreciated your mother. Begun again, have they? Started something else while the ballots are counted. Like a continuous show, isn't it?"

He listened with a slackened zest while the questions of reorganization and details of the duties of chairmen pattered through the hour, the rain after the thunder-storm. Then, unexpectedly, Mrs. Hardy made her little speech. It was an excellent little speech, good-natured, full of sense, and with a dash of humor. At first, she was a little nervous, but she was too interested in her subject to be nervous more than an instant. Had she known of the presence of two auditors in the gallery, perhaps her composure had wavered. There could be no doubt regarding their agitation. They turned pale and clutched each other; then, first on Darrie's, next on his father's features, dawned and spread a light of exceeding confidence; with shameless effrontery--considering their relationship--they stimulated the applause; they beamed over the hits; and at the close they were radiant. Without a word Darius held out his hand to his son, who wrung it. Then, they both took a long, long breath of relief and satisfaction. Darius was the first to speak: "My son," said he, "I have known your mother for forty years and have been her husband for thirty-three, but she can surprise me still!"

"Mother certainly _is_ great," assented Darrie, solemnly; he added his own little feather of marital triumph: "Hetty always told me so," said he.

"Look at those women all around her," said Darius, "patting her on the shoulder and whispering; _they_ know. Darrie, I'll bet you anything, there hasn't been another speech in this convention that has put things as clearly as mother's."

* * * * *

Myrtle started when she saw her husband and son smiling in the doorway. Her daughter-in-law was on one side, her daughter on the other, half a dozen of her delegation radiated complacency in her wake. "Hasn't she covered us with glory?" one of the followers called, gleefully to another. And a little din of compliments fell upon Darius' ears. It is pleasant to reflect that all over the hall similar groups were exulting unselfishly over their own prowess and their own heroines. Little did Darius Hardy concern himself with them. He took his wife under his arm with a proud and blissful smile. He waved a direction at Darrie: "You take the girls, Darrie, you'll find a cab, somewhere; I want your mother to myself. Now, Myrtle, if sated vanity can demand any more, I'll give it to you in the carriage!"

A few minutes later, she was gazing, through a happy mist, at the gems on her heart-shaped locket, murmuring: "And I thought you had forgotten the day. And you planning this lovely, lovely surprise for me. Oh, I am so glad, Dar, I didn't know you were there, I couldn't have said a _word_! Did I--were you--was it _passable_?"

"You're fishing!" chuckled he; and he kissed her hand. But he whispered in her ear; and she blushed like a young girl.

Presently he laughed. "By the way, Myrtle, you haven't told me! Have you discovered what is the object of the federation?"

"Certainly," said she, "I don't know what it is for others, but in my case it is to help me find myself--and my husband!"

THE LITTLE LONELY GIRL

The golf links were picturesque; spreading along the shore or climbing through the heart of the island set in the great river; here and there a vista of the huge bulk of the arsenal-shops; walled over the river by the hills behind opulent, bustling little cities, the fair greens jeweled by the sun and dappled with shadow from trees older than the Louisiana Purchase. A breeze shifted the shadows. Willy Butler felt its touch on his wet forehead.

He half turned to take out his handkerchief. In the act he saw her. It was the same girl who had followed the course yesterday. She was alone, just as she had been alone yesterday.

The gallery was bobbing like the crest of a wave over the brow of the hill; the carriages and machines glittered in slow pomp after the rope, while the favorites and their caddies marched over the slope toward the bunkers. But Willy and Dickson had only this one follower, a little lonely figure, slim and straight and nimble, in white linen, whose brown arms and brown face against her dazzling gown made the effect of a Russian eikon minus the gold-incrusted robe. She halted when Willy halted. With impersonal interest she watched Dickson make a strike. At the clean, beautiful drive she nodded approval. Then her black brows met in a slightly worried frown. Willy, club in hand, was aware of the frown. He was aware--in a sort of subconscious way--that she wanted him to play well; and he was acutely aware that he had not played well this afternoon. Even his direction, which had always been his best ally, had not kept its form. Twice had he gone into the rough, losing a shot each time, despite his really hair-raising recoveries. Now the other man was two up, with only four more holes to play. At best Willy could but halve this hole, at best, with a perfect approach and a long putt. "A duffer at golf, like everything else!" ran his own bitter comment to himself. He didn't know why he looked up; swinging his club for a trial stroke on a leaf. Look he did, however, to catch the dark eyes of the little lonely girl intently watching him. If she had called to him aloud "Brace up!" he couldn't have heard the words more distinctly. He almost thought he did hear them, and gave the child an involuntary, half-starved smile.

With the same smile on his lips he sent a faultless approach into easy putting distance, and he felt absurdly pleased because she clapped her hands. They halved the hole. Dickson, the Harvard champion, looked bored as he sank on the bench by the red water-cooler. He had been Willy's classmate a year ago at college, knowing him as the man who makes all the best societies and "leads the life" may know the recluse who makes none; he was conscious of a certain irritation peppering his cool superiority. To think of the millions that shuffling, cowed-looking, insignificant chap would have, while he, Dickson, had to slave on a salary. A duffer who couldn't even win a golf game that belonged to him, because he was rattled! Dickson felt that the ways of Fate were scandalous.

Willy had limped up. The day before he had blistered his heel somehow, and every step cost a pang. He eased the lame foot by resting his weight on the other. His gray-blue eyes, which only his dead mother had ever found handsome, scanned with a certain wistfulness Dickson's graceful, athletic figure and clean, dark profile. His own profile was irregular and his figure was awkward, with arms too long and shoulders too square for harmony; he stooped in an ungainly fashion, as if he had the habit of musing as he walked; his plain face was deeply freckled. Yet as there was a suggestion of strength in the figure, so there was the same suggestion in the young mouth and chin, and something clear and strangely innocent, for a young man, looked out of his eyes. As he stood, every muscle seemed to sag; he appeared utterly spent; but the instant Dickson had driven he stepped alertly into his place and sent a drive like a bird sailing far beyond Dickson's dot of white on the green. Somehow a new uplift of energy and hope had come to him; bless that kid, he would show her that he could still do something with the sticks! He heard her whispered, unconscious "_Beauty!_" This time he kept his head straight, but when the hole was won, he met her smile frankly with another. The next hole was easy. He had steadied; he had his nerve back; every calculation worked; and when Dickson stymied, it was a simple trick (the like of which he had practiced often) to hop over the ball and roll into the hole, to the artless joy of his caddy. "You're going to be the champeen," this worthy told Willy when they trudged on; "guess that young lady's a mascot."

"I guess she is," said Willy. He was sure of it when at the home hole, guarded by a high hedge, Dickson's ball was sliced into the stubborn net of osage-orange roots. When his own ball sailed cleanly over the wall he made an excuse of tying his shoe in order to get another view of "that kid's" brilliant smile. The girl herself went on to the bench in sight of the blackboard. Here she found herself beside an elderly man with a great head of thick gray hair. He was clapping so vigorously that she took him to be Willy's father, and sent him a glance of sympathy. "You been all 'round with him?" said he. "What sort of a game is he playing?"

"Pretty bad until the fifteenth, and then a wonder," she returned calmly.

"Rattled!" he snorted in disgust, as he chewed his cigar out of shape. "First match game. How are the others? What's his chance?"

"He can beat them all if he will only think so," she returned in the same even tone. Her voice was fuller, with a different and more melodious intonation than those about him; he looked up at her quickly, as if from a passing sense of the difference.

"Yes, he's rattled!" grunted the elderly gentleman. "Gone stale, practicing every minute. Too anxious. Wants to please his father by getting a little silverware."

"Aren't you his father?"

"_Me?_ No. His father could buy me up out of his pocket-money. His father is Hiram G. Butler. I'm only his boss. He's learning the steel business with me. I wish I _was_ his father; he's a genius in his way."

"I suppose his father is awfully proud of him."

"Proud nothing!" exploded the stout gentleman. "His father has bought and sold and fought inventors so long that when he discovered that his son was hatching formulas for open-hearth steel he was disgusted. Then at college Will took honors in chemistry and was a grind; and when his father wanted to load him with money, and told him to go ahead and make all the societies, he sent the money back and said he didn't know any boys in societies; the boys who ran after him were only after his money and the other boys didn't want him. The trouble simply is he is too all-fired shy and modest. Takes his father's word he is a failure because he couldn't make their fool societies. How should a fellow who has spent his life in English schools and traveling about with a tutor, and then is dumped into Harvard, be expected to make a splash among those snippy young swells? Harvard's no violet cold-frame! The other boys did, but they were chips of the old block, hard as nails and hustlers from 'way back. And since his mother died this poor chap has had nobody to chirk him up. Father didn't mind until the other boys died. All three in one year; pretty tough on their father. Pretty tough. Ever lose--ur-r!--any one in your family? Then you know. Now Willy's the only child, and his father wants to make him over in his brothers' image. Wants to give him a wife to help! And Willy so scared of a petticoat he walked two hours up and down before the Somerset Hotel at his first college dance trying to screw up courage to go in--and couldn't. Hiram never will get over that. But Willy, though he won't marry to please his father, is fond of the old dictator just the same. And mighty proud. That's why he has worked so at golf. Trying to show he can do some things like other boys, you see. Well, I see that Harvard dude has got his ball on the green at last. Now it's up to Willy--Didn't I tell you? In all right! Shall--Oh!" It was a singularly small, soft "Oh!" which the elderly man uttered, and it slipped out of his rugged lips when he caught the shy flash from Willy's eyes at the girl. He studied her an infinitesimal space before he spoke, and he turned a chuckle into a cough as he said, "Aren't you Lady Jean Bruce-Hadden and aren't you visiting the Brookes?"

She said that she was, rather indifferently, her gaze still following Willy, who was accepting Dickson's congratulations less awkwardly than was his wont.

"I guess Major Brooke has told you about me, Jabez Rivers--"

But ere he could finish the name, she had held out her hand with a kindling face, crying, "Oh, indeed, yes. I'm ever so glad to meet you, Mr. Rivers."

After this it was only natural to present Willy; but it was a bit of a surprise to have Willy, when presented, say, "This is my mascot, sir. I lost the game and she made me win it."

Willy was astonished at his own fluency; but then he had thought Lady Jean a very young girl, not quite the "kid" that he had styled her, but still hardly a young lady. Then, anyhow, she was different. Oh, _very_ different!

His friend was eying him critically, with queer little grunts, according to his fashion. "You're not fit to walk," he grumbled. "Why _will_ young folks wear shoes that don't fit! Say, you take Lady Jean home while I go over to the club-house with the major. And keep the car if you don't find me. I'll go back with Standish. And--I don't know but you better take her 'round the head of the island and show her that motor mowing-machine--lawn-mower, you know; I want her to see it."

He grinned as the young people obeyed him with grateful docility, speeding away in his electric runabout; and bestowed a look of orphic sagacity upon the officer in white undress uniform who had joined him. The officer was younger than Rivers, although not young.

"That is one of the very finest little ladies in the world," he remarked.

To which Rivers returned dryly, "So you've told me. And that's one of the finest, decentest, cleanest fellows in the world with her."

"As you've told _me_."

Rivers grunted. "Go over that lingo you told me about the girl again--or I'll repeat to see if I've got it straight. She's the fifth daughter of the Earl of Paisley, Scotch earl, and poor as even a Scotch earl can be. He has no sons. Distant cousin heir to title. Countess dead. Oldest daughter married to Baron Fairley; second, widow of a bishop; third, wife of army officer. Bishopess manages family. She has brought Lady Moira and the earl over here to give American millionaires a chance with Lady Moira, who is the family beauty; and little Jean, who is good as gold, and has sense, but isn't showy, was just thrown in because an old-maid aunt offered to pay her expenses. Your wife, who knew them in Scotland, asked her to come here while the Bishopess, in New York, picks out the most eligible of the millionaire admirers. So?"

"Yes. Well?"

"Come on over to the club-house; and while we rest a bit, you telephone over to Mrs. Brooke, who only needs a tip to go straight, to _make_ Willy Butler stay to dinner--"

"Oh, I say--" began the major.

"No, you don't say anything. You don't ask questions. You have confidence in your Uncle Jabez and do what he asks. _Not?_"

"I will," said the major, and he went away smiling.

* * * * *

How astonishing to be taking a girl about alone and not be in torments of embarrassment! But this girl was so nice and simple and boyish; not the least like those snippy Boston buds! And she knew golf to the ground; it seemed the most natural thing in the world to ask her if she was going to watch Cleaves play to-morrow.

"I thought I'd follow you," she said quietly. "Do you want to--fire--isn't that what you call it?--your mascot?"

"Will you? Will you really?" he stammered in his pleasure. "I had a sneaking hope, but I didn't d-dare--I feel if you d-do, I'll beat my man; they say he is easy, and then I'll be Cleaves' runner-up and get a cup."

"Why not beat Cleaves and get the big cup?" said she in the same cool tone. "You can if you will. You know perfectly well you can. Promise me you will."

"Here and now?" said Willy, smiling faintly, but the light in her eyes struck a glint in his own. "Done," he added, holding out his hand. Her clasp was cool and soft, but as firm and frank as a boy's.

"And now," said she, "where's your lawn-mower?"

They had reached the head of the island, where there was a beautifully shaven sweep of lawn, but no vestige of mower; Willy's pulses beat a thought faster, and he felt himself a master of stratagem when he suggested their searching for it in an impossible locality at the farther end if the island. He found that she could talk as well about other things as golf. There was no froth in her talk, but she was very witty; Willy, who passed for an abnormally serious young fellow, laughed several times. He confessed to her that it was more like talking to a boy than to a girl to talk to her. "I've always wanted to be a boy," she laughed. "You can play I am one, if you like."

"But I'm afraid you would miss the pretty speeches, and all that."

"I never had any," she answered, with her flashing smile. "Maybe when I'm presented I shall have if we have enough money next year to have me come out. But I don't believe I shall. If you had four sisters all raving beauties and tremendously fetching, and you couldn't even sing a song, do nothing but ride and play tennis--well, you wouldn't expect pretty speeches!"

"Why not? You are pretty, too. You--"

She stopped him with a raised finger and a shrug of her shoulders. He wondered why he had never noticed before what lovely lines pertain to girls' shoulders and how daintily their little heads are set on their smooth olive throats. "Plain truth, you know," said she; "we're playing being two boys."

To save the situation he went on precipitately, "I dare say I know, though. I never was lucky enough to have a sister, but as I had three brothers who did everything I can't do, I know how it feels to--to be out of it."

"But you understand my sisters are splendid and no end nice to me."

"So were my brothers," said Willy loyally.

She looked at him with a quick sympathy. "I know," she murmured. "Mr. Rivers told me. And all in one year. It must have been dreadful."

"Yes, it was. But it was worse when my mother died."

"Oh, yes. I was sixteen when my mother died. And I miss her so now. Don't you?"

"Yes. I was fifteen."

They were both silent. The weight of their piteous memories was on both young hearts, and yet in each was a sense of companionship, of the sympathy of a common pain. The tears gathered slowly in the girl's eyes; she put her hand up her sleeve, but withdrew it empty, and the young man, taking out his own handkerchief, which had surely seen hard usage, looked disconsolately on it before tendering the freshest corner. "It's pretty mussy, but I lost the others," he apologized.