Chapter 22

"We met again after that," said Davy--by way of proving that even the most devoted apostle of civic righteousness is yet not without his share of the common humanity, "and from that time I felt differently toward her.... I've never been able to understand my folly.... I wonder if you could forgive me for it?"

Davy was a good deal of a bore, she felt. At least, he seemed so in this first renewing of old acquaintance. But he was a man of purpose, a man who was doing much and would do more. And she liked him, and had for him that feeling of sympathy and comprehension which exists among people of the same region, brought up in much the same way. Instead of cutting him off, she temporized. Said she with a serenely careless laugh that might have let a man more expert in the ways of women into the secret of how little she cared about him: "You mean forgive you for dropping me so abruptly and running after her?"

"That's not exactly the way to put it," objected he.

"Put it any way you like," said Jane. "I forgive you. I didn't care at the time, and I don't care now."

Jane was looking entrancing in that delicate light. Davy was noting--was feeling--this. Also, he was reflecting--in a high-minded way--upon the many material, mental and spiritual advantages of a marriage with her. Just the woman to be a governor's wife--a senator's wife--a president's wife. Said he:

"Jane, my feeling for you has never changed."

"Really?" said Jane. "Why, I thought you told me at one time that you were in love with me?"

"And I always have been, dear--and am," said Davy, in his deepest, tenderest tones. "And now that I am winning a position worthy of you----"

"I'll see," cut in Jane. "Let's not talk about it tonight." She felt that if he kept on she might yield to the temptation to say something mocking, something she would regret if it drove him away finally.

He was content. The ice had been broken. The Selma Gordon business had been disposed of. The way was clear for straight-away love-making the next time they met. Meanwhile he would think about her, would get steam up, would have his heart blazing and his words and phrases all in readiness.

Every human being has his or her fundamental vanity that must be kept alive, if life is to be or to seem to be worth living. In man this vanity is usually some form of belief in his mental ability, in woman some form of belief in her physical charm. Fortunately--or, rather, necessarily--not much is required to keep this vanity alive--or to restore it after a shock, however severe. Victor Dorn had been compelled to give Jane Hastings' vanity no slight shock. But it recovered at once. Jane saw that his failure to yield was due not to lack of potency in her charms, but to extraordinary strength of purpose in his character. Thus, not only was she able to save herself from any sense of humiliation, but also she was without any feeling of resentment against him. She liked him and admired him more than ever. She saw his point of view; she admitted that he was right--IF it were granted that a life such as he had mapped for himself was better for him than the career he could have made with her help.

Her heart, however, was hastily, even rudely thrust to the background when she discovered that her brother had been gambling in wheat with practically her entire fortune. With an adroitness that irritated her against herself, as she looked back, he had continued to induce her to disregard their father's cautionings and to ask him to take full charge of her affairs. He had not lost her fortune, but he had almost lost it. But for an accidental stroke, a week of weather destructive to crops all over the country, she would have been reduced to an income of not more than ten or fifteen thousand a year--twenty times the income of the average American family of five, but for Miss Hastings straitened subsistence and a miserable state of shornness of all the radiance of life. And, pushing her inquiries a little farther, she learned that her brother would still have been rich, because he had taken care to settle a large sum on his wife--in such a way that if she divorced him it would pass back to him.

In the course of her arrangings to meet this situation and to prevent its recurrence she saw much of Doctor Charlton. He gave her excellent advice and found for her a man to take charge of her affairs so far as it was wise for her to trust any one. The man was a bank cashier, Robert Headley by name--one of those rare beings who care nothing for riches for themselves and cannot invest their own money wisely, but have a genius for fidelity and wise counsel.

"It's a pity he's married," said Charlton. "If he weren't I'd urge you to take him as a husband."

Jane laughed. A plainer, duller man than Headley it would have been hard to find, even among the respectabilities of Remsen City.

"Why do you laugh?" said Charlton. "What is there absurd in a sensible marriage?"

"Would you marry a woman because she was a good housekeeper?"

"That would be one of the requirements," said Charlton. "I've sense enough to know that, no matter how much I liked a woman before marriage, it couldn't last long if she were incompetent. She'd irritate me every moment in the day. I'd lie awake of nights despising her. And how she would hate me!"

"I can't imagine you a husband," laughed Jane.

"That doesn't speak well for your imagination," rejoined Charlton. "I have perfect health--which means that I have a perfect disposition, for only people with deranged interiors are sour and snappy and moody. And I am sympathetic and understanding. I appreciate that women are rottenly brought up and have everything to learn--everything that's worth while if one is to live comfortably and growingly. So, I shouldn't expect much at the outset beyond a desire to improve and a capacity to improve. Yes, I've about all the virtues for a model husband--a companionable, helpful mate for a woman who wants to be more of a person every day she lives."

"No, thanks," said Jane, mockingly. "The advertisement reads well, but I don't care to invest."

"Oh, I looked you over long ago," said Charlton with a coolness that both amused and exasperated her. "You wouldn't do at all. You are very attractive to look at and to talk with. Your money would be useful to some plans I've got for some big sanatoriums along the line of Schulze's up at Saint Christopher. But---" He shook his head, smiling at her through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

"Go on," urged Jane. "What's wrong with me?"

"You've been miseducated too far and too deeply. You KNOW too much that isn't so. You've got the upper class American woman habit of thinking about yourself all the time. You are an indifferent housekeeper, and you think you are good at it. You don't know the practical side of life--cooking, sewing, house furnishing, marketing. You're ambitious for a show career--the sort Davy Hull--excuse me, Governor David Hull--is making so noisily. There's just the man for you. You ought to marry. Marry Hull."

Jane was furiously angry. She did not dare show it; Charlton would merely laugh and walk away, and perhaps refuse to be friends with her. It exasperated her to the core, the narrow limitations of the power of money. She could, through the power of her money, do exactly as she pleased to and with everybody except the only kind of people she cared about dominating; these she was apparently the less potent with because of her money. It seemed to put them on their mettle and on their guard.

She swallowed her anger. "Yes, I've got to get married," said she. "And I don't know what to do about it."

"Hull," said Charlton.

"Is that the best advice you can give?" said she disdainfully.

"He needs you, and you need him. You like him--don't you?"

"Very much."

"Then--the thing's done. Davy isn't the man to fail to seize an opportunity so obviously to his advantage. Not that he hasn't a heart. He has a big one--does all sorts of gracious, patronizing, kind things--does no end of harm. But he'd no more let his emotions rule his life than--than--Victor Dorn--or I, for that matter."

Jane colored; a pathetic sadness tinged the far-away expression of her eyes.

"No doubt he's half in love with you already. Most men are who know you. A kindly smile and he'll be kneeling."

"I don't want David Hull," cried Jane. "Ever since I can remember they've been at me to marry him. He bores me. He doesn't make me respect him. He never could control me--or teach me--or make me look up to him in any way. I don't want him, and I won't have him."

"I'm afraid you've got to do it," said Charlton. "You act as if you realized it and were struggling and screaming against manifest destiny like a child against a determined mother."

Jane's eyes had a look of terror. "You are joking," said she. "But it frightens me, just the same."

"I am not joking," replied he. "I can hear the wedding bells--and so can you."

"Don't!" pleaded Jane. "I've so much confidence in your insight that I can't bear to hear you saying such things even to tease me.... Why haven't you told me about these sanatoriums you want?"

"Because I've been hoping I could devise some way of getting them without the use of money. Did it ever occur to you that almost nothing that's been of real and permanent value to the world was built with money? The things that money has done have always been badly done."

"Let me help you," said Jane earnestly. "Give me something to do. Teach me how to do something. I am SO bored!--and so eager to have an occupation. I simply can't lead the life of my class.

"You want to be a lady patroness--a lady philanthropist," said Charlton, not greatly impressed by her despair. "That's only another form of the life of your class--and a most offensive form."

"Your own terms--your own terms, absolutely," cried Jane in desperation.

"No--marry Hull and go into upper and middle class politics. You'll be a lady senator or a lady ambassador or cabinet officer, at least."

"I will not marry David Hull--or anybody, just yet," cried Jane. "Why should I? I've still got ten years where there's a chance of my being able to attract some man who--attracts me. And after that I can buy as good a husband as any that offers now. Doctor Charlton, I'm in desperate, deadly earnest. And I ask you to help me."

"My own terms?"

"I give you my word."

"You'll have to give your money outright. No strings attached. No chance to be a philanthropist. Also, you'll have to work--have to educate yourself as I instruct you."

"Yes--yes. Whatever you say."

Charlton looked at her dubiously. "I'm a fool to have anything to do with this," he said. "You aren't in any way a suitable person--any more than I'm the sort of man you want to assist you in your schemes. You don't realize what tests you're to be put through."

"I don't care," said Jane.

"It's a chance to try my theory," mused he. "You know, I insist we are all absolutely the creatures of circumstance--that character adapts itself to circumstance--that to change a man or a town or a nation--or a world--you have only to change their fundamental circumstances."

"You'll try me?"

"I'll think about it," said Charlton. "I'll talk with Victor Dorn about it."

"Whatever you do, don't talk to him," cried Jane, in terror. "He has no faith in me--" She checked herself, hastily added--"in anybody outside his own class."

"I never do anything serious without consulting Victor," said Charlton firmly. "He's got the best mind of any one I know, and it is foolish to act without taking counsel of the best."

"He'll advise against it," said Jane bitterly.

"But I may not take his advice literally," said Charlton. "I'm not in mental slavery to him. I often adapt his advice to my needs instead of adopting it outright."

And with that she had to be content.

She passed a day and night of restlessness, and called him on the telephone early the following morning. As she heard his voice she said:

"Did you see Victor Dorn last night?"

"Where are you?" asked Charlton.

"In my room," was her impatient answer.

"In bed?"

"I haven't gotten up yet," said she. "What IS the matter?"

"Had your breakfast?"

"No. I've rung for it. It'll be here in a few minutes."

"I thought so," said Charlton.

"This is very mysterious--or very absurd," said Jane.

"Please ring off and call your kitchen and tell them to put your breakfast on the dining-room table for you in three-quarters of an hour. Then get up, take your bath and your exercises--dress yourself for the day--and go down and eat your breakfast. How can you hope to amount to anything unless you live by a rational system? And how can you have a rational system unless you begin the day right?"

"DID you see Victor Dorn?" said Jane--furious at his impertinence but restraining herself.

"And after you have breakfasted," continued Charlton, "call me up again, and I'll answer your questions."

With that he hung up his receiver. Jane threw herself angrily back against her pillow. She would lie there for an hour, then call him again. But--if he should ask her whether she had obeyed his orders? True, she might lie to him; but wouldn't that be too petty? She debated with herself for a few minutes, then obeyed him to the letter. As she was coming through the front hall after breakfast, he appeared in the doorway.

"You didn't trust me!" she cried reproachfully.

"Oh, yes," replied he. "But I preferred to talk with you face to face."

"DID you see Mr. Dorn?"

Charlton nodded. "He refused to advise me. He said he had a personal prejudice in your favor that would make his advice worthless."

Jane glowed--but not quite so thrillingly as she would have glowed in the same circumstances a year before.

"Besides, he's in no state of mind to advise anybody about anything just now," said Charlton.

Jane glanced sharply at him. "What do you mean?" she said.

"It's not my secret," replied Charlton.

"You mean he has fallen in love?"

"That's shrewd," said Charlton. "But women always assume a love affair."

"With whom?" persisted Jane.

"Oh, a very nice girl. No matter. I'm not here to talk about anybody's affairs but yours--and mine."

"Answer just one question," said Jane, impulsively. "Did he tell you anything about--me?"

Charlton stared--then whistled. "Are YOU in love with him, too?" he cried.

Jane flushed--hesitated--then met his glance frankly. "I WAS," said she.

"WAS?"

"I mean that I'm over it," said she. "What have you decided to do about me?"

Charlton did not answer immediately. He eyed her narrowly--an examination which she withstood well. Then he glanced away and seemed to be reflecting. Finally he came back to her question. Said he:

"To give you a trial. To find out whether you'll do."

She drew a long sigh of relief.

"Didn't you guess?" he went on, smilingly, nodding his round, prize-fighter head at her. "Those suggestions about bed and breakfast--they were by way of a beginning."

"You must give me a lot to do," urged she. "I mustn't have a minute of idle time."

He laughed. "Trust me," he said.

While Jane was rescuing her property from her brother and was safeguarding it against future attempts by him, or by any of that numerous company whose eyes are ever roving in search of the most inviting of prey, the lone women with baggage--while Jane was thus occupied, David Hull was, if possible, even busier and more absorbed. He was being elected governor. His State was being got ready to say to the mayor of Remsen City, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things; I will make thee ruler over many."

The nomination was not obtained for him without difficulty. The Republican party--like the Democratic--had just been brought back under "safe and sane and conservative" leadership after a prolonged debauch under the influence of that once famous and revered reformer, Aaron Whitman, who had not sobered up or released the party for its sobering until his wife's extravagant entertaining at Washington had forced him to accept large "retainers" from the plutocracy. The machine leaders had in the beginning forwarded the ambitions of Whitman under the impression that his talk of a "square deal" was "just the usual dope" and that Aaron was a "level-headed fellow at bottom." It had developed--after they had let Aaron become a popular idol, not to be trifled with--it had developed that he was almost sincere--as sincere as can be expected of an ambitious, pushing fellow. Now came David Hull, looking suspiciously like Whitman at his worst-and a more hopeless case, because he had money a plenty, while Whitman was luckily poor and blessed with an extravagant wife. True, Hull had the backing of Dick Kelly--and Kelly was not the man "to hand the boys a lemon." Still Hull looked like a "holy boy," talked like one, had the popular reputation of having acted like one as mayor--and the "reform game" was certainly one to attract a man who could afford it and was in politics for position only. Perhaps Dick wanted to be rid of Hull for the rest of his term, and was "kicking him upstairs." It would be a shabby trick upon his fellow leaders, but justifiable if there should be some big "job" at Remsen City that could be "pulled off" only if Hull were out of the way.

The leaders were cold until Dick got his masters in the Remsen City branch of the plutocracy to pass the word to the plutocracy's general agents at Indianapolis--a certain well-known firm of political bankers. Until that certification came the leaders, having no candidate who stood a chance of winning, were ready to make a losing campaign and throw the election to the Democrats--not a serious misfortune at a time when the machines of the two parties had become simply friendly rival agents for the same rich master.

There was a sharp fight in the convention. The anti-machine element, repudiating Whitman under the leadership of a shrewd and honest young man named Joe Bannister, had attacked Hull in the most shocking way. Bannister had been reading Victor Dorn's New Day and had got a notion of David Hull as man and mayor different from the one made current by the newspapers. He made a speech on the floor of the convention which almost caused a riot and nearly cost Davy the nomination. That catastrophe was averted by adjournment. Davy gave Dick Kelly's second lieutenant, Osterman, ten thousand in cash, of which Osterman said there was pressing need "for perfectly legitimate purposes, I assure you, Mr. Mayor." Next day the Bannister faction lost forty and odd sturdy yeomen from districts where the crops had been painfully short, and Davy was nominated.

In due time the election was held, and Mayor Hull became Governor Hull by a satisfactory majority for so evenly divided a State. He had spent--in contributions to the machine campaign fund--upwards of one hundred thousand dollars. But that seemed a trifling sacrifice to make for reform principles and for keeping the voice of the people the voice of God. He would have been elected if he had not spent a cent, for the Democratic machine, bent on reorganizing back to a sound basis with all real reformers or reformers tainted with sincerity eliminated, had nominated a straight machine man--and even the politicians know that the people who decide elections will not elect a machine man if they have a chance to vote for any one else. It saddened David Hull, in the midst of victory, that his own town and county went against him, preferring the Democrat, whom it did not know, as he lived at the other end of the State. Locally the offices at stake were all captured by the "Dorn crowd." At last the Workingmen's League had a judge; at last it could have a day in court. There would not be a repetition of the great frauds of the Hull-Harbinger campaign.

By the time David had sufficient leisure to reopen the heart department of his ambition, Jane was deep in the effort to show Doctor Charlton how much intelligence and character she had. She was serving an apprenticeship as trained nurse in the Children's Hospital, where he was chief of the staff, and was taking several extra courses with his young assistants. It was nearly two weeks after David's first attempt to see her when her engagements and his at last permitted this meeting. Said he:

"What's this new freak?"

"I can't tell you yet," replied she. "I'm not sure, myself."

"I don't see how you can endure that fellow Charlton. They say he's as big a crank in medicine as he is in politics."

"It's all of a piece," said Jane, tranquilly. "He says he gets his political views from his medicine and his medical ideas from his politics."

"Don't you think he's a frightful bounder?"

"Frightful," said Jane.

"Fresh, impudent--conceited. And he looks like a prize fighter."

"At some angles--yes," conceded Jane. "At others, he's almost handsome."

"The other day, when I called at the hospital and they wouldn't take my name in to you--" David broke off to vent his indignation--"Did you ever hear of such impertinence!"

"And you the governor-elect," laughed Jane. "Shall I tell you what Doctor Charlton said? He said that a governor was simply a public servant, and anything but a public representative--usually a public disgrace. He said that a servant's business was attending to his own job and not hanging round preventing his fellow servants from attending to their jobs."

"I knew he had low and vulgar views of public affairs," said David. "What I started to say was that I saw him talking to you that day, across the court, and you seemed to be enjoying his conversation."

"ENJOYING it? I love it," cried Jane. "He makes me laugh, he makes me cold with rage, he gives me a different sensation every time I see him."

"You LIKE--him?"

"Immensely. And I've never been so interested or so happy in my life." She looked steadily at him. "Nothing could induce me to give it up. I've put everything else out of my mind."

Since the dismal end of his adventure with Selma Gordon, David had become extremely wary in his dealings with the female sex. He never again would invite a refusal; he never again would put himself in a position where a woman might feel free to tell him her private opinion of him. He reflected upon Jane's words. They could have but the one meaning. Not so calmly as he would have liked, but without any embarrassing constraint, he said:

"I'm glad you've found what suits you, at last. It isn't exactly the line I'd have thought a girl such as you would choose. You're sure you are not making a mistake?"

"Quite," said Jane.

"I should think you'd prefer marriage--and a home--and a social circle--and all that," ventured David.

"I'll probably not marry."

"No. You'd hardly take a doctor."

"The only one I'd want I can't get," said Jane.

She wished to shock David, and she saw with pleasure that she had succeeded. Indeed so shocked was he that in a few minutes he took leave. And as he passed from her sight he passed from her mind.