CHAPTER IV

INTERLUDE

The weeks between his election and his inauguration Wint spent as a guest at Amos Caretall’s home. At which the townsfolk put their tongues in their cheeks and smiled behind the back of the elder Chase. This open alliance between Wint and the Congressman was taken as confession that Wint’s election had been planned between them; and after a day or two Wint perceived the hopelessness of denial, and perceived, too, that those who believed him concerned in the trick respected him the more for it. Therefore, Wint ceased to deny; and it was one of Amos Caretall’s rules never to discuss a thing accomplished.

Between Amos and the young man, a strong friendship began to develop in these weeks. Congressman Caretall was a good politician, largely through the advice and counsel of Peter Gergue; but he was also a man of level head and good common sense, and he found beneath Wint’s pride and stubbornness a surprising store of good qualities. A week after Wint went to live at his house, he said as much to Gergue.

“He’s a fine boy, Peter,” he declared. “Looks to me like a colt that hadn’t been gentled right.”

Gergue nodded slowly and scratched the back of his head, tilting his hat forward with his knuckles. “He has his points,” he agreed. “But--he ain’t set in th’ traces yet, Congressman.”

Amos looked at the man. “What’s wrong?”

“Noth’n’,” said Peter. “Noth’n’. But--there will be.”

Jack Routt brought Wint’s trunk to the Caretall house and, before he left that day, he took occasion to drop a word of warning in Wint’s ear. “Look out for Agnes,” was his warning. “She’s the darndest little flirt you ever saw.”

Wint lifted his head angrily. “Cut it out, Jack!”

Routt laughed. “I’m only giving you some good advice,” he insisted. “You know--a certain young lady will not be pleased if you pay Agnes too much attention. And Agnes loves to make trouble.”

Wint repeated: “Shut up! Drop it!” And Routt lifted his shoulders and obeyed.

Two or three days after the election, Wint remembered that he was supposed to be working in his father’s office at the furnace. With an unadmitted twist of conscience, he went down to the office, half hoping to see his father and find some common ground for a reconciliation. But the elder Chase was not there, and the office manager greeted Wint coldly and told him that his place had been filled. Wint had ten days’ salary due him, and the manager paid it punctiliously. Wint took the money without thinking, thrust it in his pocket, and went back uptown.

While he was in college, he had been on an allowance; since then his father had paid him a salary out of proportion to his deserts. This was one of the vanities of the elder Chase. His own youth had been hard and straitened; and he took a keen delight in lavishing upon Wint the money he himself had lacked. He did this, not to please Wint, but to please himself; and whenever Wint crossed him, he was accustomed to bring up the matter, to remind Wint of his good fortune as though it were a reproach.

“Be sure I never had money to spend, when I was your age,” he was fond of saying. “And you roll in it. You ought to be ashamed, Wint. You ought to be ashamed.”

Then he would give Wint twenty dollars and tell him to mend his ways; and afterward he would complain to Mrs. Chase of Wint’s ingratitude.

Wint had always taken this money without scruple. Whenever inner doubts perplexed him, he would say: “He’s got more than he can use. I might as well have it as any one else.” In all honesty, he knew the falsity of such an argument; but he used it successfully to stifle the reproaches of his own heart.

A day or two after his visit to the office, however, Amos Caretall asked him: “Wint, you need any money?”

Wint shook his head.

“Didn’t know but you might,” Amos insisted. “Carry you over till your salary starts.”

“I’ve got enough,” Wint said. “Dad was always pretty liberal. Gave me more than I could spend.”

Amos did not seem surprised at this. He nodded his head. “That’s good,” he agreed. “If any one had told me, I wouldn’t have believed it. Wouldn’t have believed Senior had so much sense. Keeps you in his debt, like, don’t he? Keeps you d’pendent on him?”

Wint had never thought of it in that way, and he did not like the thought. He looked uneasy. Amos went on, puffing at his old black pipe: “Guess he figures to get it all back some way. ’F he sh’d come and ask you for something, after you’re in, you’d naturally have to give it to him. Yes, Senior’s a smart man.”

They were sitting in front of the coal fire in Amos’ sitting room; and for a time after that, neither of them spoke. Wint was thinking hard, and in the end he asked quietly: “Know any way I can earn a living till I’m inaugurated?”

Amos swung his head around, tilting it on one side, and squinting thoughtfully at Wint; and presently he smiled approvingly. “Guess you might,” he said. “Might do some o’ my letter writing. You’d learn things, that way. I never had no secretary. I’m allowed one. You c’n have the job, long’s I’m here.”

Next morning Wint mailed a money order to his father without explanation, and thereafter he drew a salary from Amos until his salary as Mayor began.

From his work for Amos, Wint learned many things. He got for the first time an insight into the scope of the Congressman’s work, into the extent of his interests and influence. One of the things he learned was a sincere respect for Caretall’s ability, and he also came to admire the shrewdness of Gergue. Wint did a deal of thinking in those weeks.

Living, as he did, as one of Caretall’s family, he was thrown constantly with Agnes; and the girl put herself out to please him. She and old Maria Hale worked together in this. The girl discovered Wint’s favorite dishes, and Maria produced them and brought them to a perfection that Wint had never known. It was Agnes’ task to take care of the dusting and housework; and she began, after a time, to put an occasional cluster of flowers from the greenhouses next door in his room. When they talked together, she deferred to him with a pretty fashion of tilting her head and widening her serious eyes that he found exceedingly attractive. It stimulated his self-respect; and at the same time it gave him a new respect for her. Since she so obviously approved of him, there must be more to her than he had supposed. She was, he decided, a person of judgment. He had always thought her a giddy little thing with a brisk, gay tongue and laughing eyes. He found in her an unexpected capacity for silence and for attention. She encouraged him to talk about himself, about his plans; she sympathized with him, and advised him when he asked her advice. They became surprisingly good friends.

She suggested, one evening, that they telephone Jack Routt to bring Joan for a game of cards. Wint shook his head; and the girl, without asking questions, made her curiosity so obvious that Wint told her that Joan had cast him off. He leaned forward, elbows on knees and fingers intertwined, staring idly into the fire, while he told her; and the girl leaned back in her chair and listened and studied him, and when he finished she laid her hand lightly on his arm.

“It’s a shame, Wint,” she said.

Wint shook his head. “Oh--she was right!”

“She wasn’t right. She ought to have stuck by you, and helped you fight it out.”

Wint thought so too, and his respect for Agnes rose. But he said insistently: “No, she was right.”

Agnes patted his arm, and then leaned back in her chair again. “It’s fine of you to think so,” she said.

One night Wint asked her to go uptown with him to the moving-picture theater. She was delighted, and she was gay as a cricket on the way. At the entrance of the theater, they came face to face with Jack Routt and Joan.

Wint felt his cheeks burn. Agnes greeted the other two with a burst of rapid chatter that covered the awkward moment. Routt studied Wint, and Joan nodded to him without speaking. Then Routt and Joan went inside, and Wint and Agnes sat three rows behind them.

While the picture was flashing on the screen, Wint watched the heads of the two. He could not help it; and when their heads, silhouetted against the light, leaned toward one another for a whispered word, he felt something boil within him. His reaction was to bend more attentively toward Agnes; and the gay little girl beside him responded to this new mood so that when the film was done and they filed out, she and Wint were the most obviously happy young couple in the house. They had ice cream together at the bakery next door, and walked home in comfortable comradeship, the girl’s hand on his arm.

That night, Wint’s sleep was disturbed and wretched; and next day when he met Routt at the Post Office, he stiffened with resentment. But Routt caught his arm and drew him to one side. “See here, Wint,” he said, “Joan tells me you and she have quarreled.”

Wint nodded.

“You ought to go to her and make it up, Wint. I don’t know what it’s about, but you ought to make it up with her.”

“I’ve nothing to make up.”

“She’s a dandy girl.”

“I’ve nothing against her.”

“It makes her sore to have you chase around with Agnes.”

“There’s no reason why it should,” Wint said stiffly. “She has no hold on me.”

Routt hesitated. “Well, Wint,” he said uneasily, “if that’s so, you’ve no claim on her.”

“Of course not.”

“Then you don’t mind my--showing her some attention? I don’t want anything to come between us, Wint.”

Wint laughed. “Go as far as you like, Jack,” he said cheerfully. “You can’t hurt my feelings.”

Routt gripped his hand. “That’s great, Wint.” He looked about them, and then added slowly: “I think she likes me, Wint. I’m--in to win.”

“Go as far as you like,” Wint repeated.

They separated, and Wint went back to the house and remained in his room half the morning. He was tormented by angry pride and irresolution; he could not decide what to do. A recklessness took possession of him; he repented of his determination to stick, and fight out this fight to the end. He sought for some way out....

Muldoon had become a part of the Caretall household with Wint; and he looked out of the window now and saw the dog starting toward town at Agnes’ heels. He made a move to whistle Muldoon back, then thought better of it. Joan might see Muldoon with Agnes; he hoped she would, hoped it would make her miserable.... He wanted Joan to be unhappy.

As the time for his inauguration as Mayor approached, Wint became more and more uneasy. He felt as though he were about to submit to bonds that would pin him fast; he felt as though he were on the steps of a prison. A fierce revolt began to brood in him and grow and boil.

He broke out once, in a talk with Caretall. He would throw the whole thing over, leave town, go away, never to return.

Amos agreed with this project perfectly. He agreed that Wint was not the man for the job, that it would mean hard work, and difficulties; he thought Wint was wise not to attempt it. He offered to straighten out any tangle and free Wint from the obligations of the office; and he offered to lend Wint money that Wint might make a start elsewhere.

His great complaisance angered Wint, so that he stubbornly declared that he would stick if every man in town urged him to go.

On the morning of the day before he was to take office, he met Jack Routt uptown, and Jack took his arm. They walked together toward Jack’s office, and went in and sat down.

It was evident that Routt had something on his mind. He talked of the weather, of Agnes, of Joan; and Wint, watching him, saw that Routt was holding something back, and at last asked impatiently: “Jack, what’s on your mind?”

Routt looked surprised. “Why--nothing.”

“Yes, there is.” Wint laughed at him. “What’s the matter? Open up.”

Routt hesitated; but at last he said frankly: “Well, Wint, I was wondering....”

“About what?”

“Have you been hitting the booze lately?” Routt asked.

Wint shook his head; his eyes hardened a little.

Routt seemed pleased. He thrust out his hand. “I’m darned glad, Wint,” he said. “Congratulations! You ought to leave it alone. You’re right.”

Wint flushed angrily. “I haven’t sworn off,” he said shortly. “It--just happens--” He stared at Routt. “You didn’t bring me up here to ask that?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

Routt shifted in his chair and lighted a cigarette. “Never mind,” he said. “Forget it, Wint.”

Wint laughed unpleasantly. “Come on. I’m a grown man. What’s eating you?”

Routt lifted his shoulders. “Well--fact is, some of the boys wanted to get up a little supper to-night, at the lodge rooms, in honor of your--inaugural. I told them nothing doing. Said you were off the stuff. They didn’t believe it; and I promised to ask you.”

Wint looked at him angrily. “You’re not my wet nurse, Jack. That supper idea tickles me. It’s on.”

Routt protested. “No, Wint. I won’t stand for it. You’ve stayed off the stuff this long; and it’s the best thing for you. You can’t stop when you once start. So--leave it alone.”

Wint got up hotly. “Go to the devil!” he snapped. “Don’t be an old woman. Who’s running the thing?”

“Dick Hoover. But you leave it alone....”

“Rats! Tell Dick I’ll be there. Or I’ll tell him myself.”

Routt lifted his hands in surrender. “Oh--I’ll tell him,” he agreed. “But you’re a darned fool, Wint.”

“Rats!” Wint repeated; and he grinned. He was unaccountably elated, as though he had shaken off restraining bonds. “Rats!” And he went out to the street with his head high.

Routt picked up the telephone and called Hoover. He was smiling.