Chapter 19

But she knew that he was withholding something from her. She mustered her courage.

“Mr. Provancher, the bad men are making threats that they will print stories about the child--and its mamma--to hurt your friend. And the stories will make the mamma very sad.”

“No stories can make her sad,” said old Etienne, solemnly. But he did not say that he had raked the mother from the canal. The law must not know!

“But I have heard about her,” she insisted.

The old man's mouth trembled; he was frightened. “What you hear?” he faltered.

“Only good things. That she was very tender and went with you to the grave.”

“_Oui_,” admitted Etienne, visibly relieved and grasping at this opportunity. “She's sweet and good. She's play-mamma.”

“And her name is Zelie Dionne?” she asked, her face growing white in the dusk.

“_Oui_, ma'm'selle--she live across in the little house where there are plant in the window--she live with the good Mother Maillet what I told you about.” He pointed to the cottage. “You go some time and talk with her--but not now,” he added, his fears flaming. He was anxious to be the first to talk to Zelie Dionne, in order that she might help him to protect their friend. “You shall talk with her--soon--p'raps. I will tell her so that she will not be afraid. Yes, you shall hear the play-mamma say good things of poor Rosemarie.”

She bowed and hurried away.

And before her tear-wet eyes the words “play-mamma” danced in letters of fire. It seemed to be only another sordid story.

But she remembered the face of Walker Farr, and in her heart she wondered why she still refused to condemn him.

XXVI

THE DRIVEN BARGAIN

The Honorable Daniel Breed, “sipping” his thin lips and propping his coat-tails on his gaunt fingers, patrolled the lobby of the National Hotel and his complacency was not a whit disturbed when Richard Dodd passed in front of him and sneered in his face.

“Keep on practising making up faces,” advised the old man, amiably. “Perhaps in the course of time your uncle will give you a job making up faces as his understudy, seeing that his physog is getting so tough he can't manage it very well these days.”

Young Dodd whirled on his heel and returned. “We've got a line on you and your amateur angels, Breed.”

“Don't consider me an amateur, do you?” asked the old politician, smacking his lips complacently.

“You're a has-been.”

“Sure thing!” agreed Mr. Breed. “The state committee told me so, and the state committee never made a mistake.”

“We've got so much of a line on your crowd that my uncle has called off the organizers. There's no need of our wasting money in this campaign. You're that!” He clacked a finger smartly into his palm.

“Oh yes! You're right! Some snap to us.”

“I mean you're nothing.”

“Run in and take another drink, sonny,” advised Breed, giving slow cant of his head to denote the baize door through which Dodd had emerged. “What you have had up to date seems to be making you optimistic--and there's nothing like being optimistic in politics. I'm always optimistic--but naturally so. Don't need torching!”

“Look here, Breed, we've got enough dope on that ex-hobo who is doing your errand-boy work--we know enough about him to kill your whole sorehead proposition. But I don't believe my uncle will even use it. No need of it.”

“Probably not,” said Mr. Breed, without resentment. “And I wouldn't if I were he.”

“We won't descend to it. Now that we have got rid of a lot of old battle-axes of politicians--and I'm calling no names--we can conduct a campaign with dignity.”

“So do! So do! And it will save a lot of trouble, son; that's why the newspapers wouldn't print that stuff about Mr. Farr after your uncle got it ready. Libel cases make a lot of trouble.”

Dodd grew red and scowled. “Look here, Breed, you're licked before the start, and as a good politician you know you are. My uncle wants you to drop in and see him. He told me to tell you so. This is no official order, you understand. Just drop in informally, and he'll probably have something interesting to say to you.”

“I'm terribly rushed up--shall be till after convention,” averred Mr. Breed, piercing the end of a cigar with a peg he had whittled from a match.

“What's the good of your being a fool any longer?”

“Always have been, so I've found out from that state committee who never told a lie--and it's comfortable to keep on being one,” he said, with great serenity.

“You don't think for a minute that you are going to get control of the next legislature, do you?”

“How much money have you got--your own money, I mean?” inquired Mr. Breed, guilelessly, his eyes centered carefully on the lighted tip of his cigar.

“Say--you--you--What do you mean by that?” rasped Dodd, putting the cracker of a good round oath on the question.

“I meant that I wanted to bet something--and I wouldn't want you to go out and borrow money--or--or--anything else.” From the cavernous depths where his eyes were set Mr. Breed turned a slow and solemn stare on the enraged chief clerk of the state treasury.

“What do you want to bet?”

“Any amount in reason that after the first of next January there'll be a fresh deal in the way of state officers in every department in the Capitol. Arguing futures don't get you anywhere, son. If you've got money to back that opinion you just gave me it will express your notions without any more talk. But don't go borrow--or--or anything else.”

Dodd stared at the shrewd old political manipulator for a long time.

“You have money to bet, have you?” he asked.

Mr. Breed languidly drew forth a wallet which would make a valise for some men and carelessly displayed a thick packet of bills.

“There it is,” he said, “and I earned it myself and so I ain't poking it down any rat-hole without being condemned sure that I'll be able to pull it all back again with just as much more sticking to it. That wouldn't be sooavable--and from what you know of me I'm always sooavable.”

Dodd looked at the bills, carefully straightened in their packet, and giving every evidence of having been hoarded with an old man's caution.

There was something about that money which impressed him with the sincerity of Mr. Breed's belief in his own cause. The young man grew visibly white around the mouth.

“I'll see you later, Breed,” he gulped. “I don't believe you know what you are talking about--but I'm not national bank on legs. I'll be around and cover your cash.”

He went back into the bar, swallowed a glass of whisky, and went out and hailed a cab. He directed the driver to carry him to the Trelawny Apartment.

Mrs. Kilgour admitted him to the vestibule of the suite.

“Is Kate at home?” he demanded.

“Yes, Richard!” She shrank away from him, for his aspect was not reassuring. “You know--she has given up her work--she is--”

“I know all about it, Mrs. Kilgour. But I want to ask you whether she has given up her work in order to marry me at once?”

“Why, I--She said--I think it will come about all right, Dicky.” She was pitifully unnerved.

“Have you told her why she must marry me?”

“It is not time to tell her--it is not right--I can't--”

He seized her arm and pulled her into the sitting-room. The daughter rose and faced them, reproof and astonishment mingling in her expression.

“This thing is going to be settled here and now,” said the lover, roughly. “There is going to be no more fooling. Has your mother put this matter up to you so that you understand it, Kate?”

“She has told me that she owes you five thousand dollars,” returned the girl. Her eyes flashed her contempt. “You told me that yourself. I repeated the statement to her and she admits it.”

“But did she tell you how it happens that she owes me that money?”

“For God's sake, Richard, have some pity! This is my own daughter. I will sell everything. I will slave. I will pay you. Kate, for my sake--for your own sake, tell him that you will marry him.”

“I will not marry this man,” declared the girl. “It has been a mistake from the beginning. As to your business with him, mother, that is not my affair. You must settle it.”

“You belong in the settlement,” declared Dodd. “Hold on! Don't leave this room, Kate.”

He reached out his hands to intercept her, and Mrs. Kilgour, released, fell upon the floor and began to grovel and cry entreaties.

But his raucous tones overrode her appeals.

“We're all together in this. I am five thousand dollars shy in the state treasury, Kate. I took that money and loaned it to your mother when she begged me to save her stocks. But she didn't have any stocks.”

Mrs. Kilgour grasped his knees and shook him. But he kept on.

“She had embezzled from Dalton & Company. What I did saved her from prison and you from disgrace, Kate. And now I am in the hole! Listen here! There's hell to pay in this state just now! The soreheads are banding together. A man has just offered to bet me big money that there's going to be an overturn in the State House departments. I don't know whether it will happen--but you can understand what kind of torment I'm in. Kate, are you going to let me stand this thing all alone?”

The girl stood silent and motionless in the middle of the room.

She did not weep or faint. Her face displayed no emotion. It was as white as marble.

“Do you want to drag my daughter down with you?” cried Mrs. Kilgour.

“You'd better not talk about dragging down,” he shouted, passionately. “I didn't steal for myself. Give me your love, Kate! Give me yourself to encourage me, and I'll get out of the scrape somehow. I'll find ways. But if you don't come with me I won't have the courage or the desire to fight my way through. I'll not disgrace you if you marry me--I swear I will not! With you to protect from everything I'll make good. Symonds Dodd is my uncle. He won't see the family name pulled in. But you must marry me!”

“And if I do not?” she asked.

“We'll all go to damnation together. I don't care! I'll blow it all. I won't be disgraced alone because of something I did for your mother. I may sound like a cur. I don't care, I say! I'm going to have you, and I don't care how I get you!”

“We need not be so dramatic,” said the girl. Some wonderful influence seemed to be controlling her. “Mother, stop your noise and go and sit in that chair. You demand, do you, Mr. Dodd, that to save my mother from exposure as a woman who has stolen, I must be your wife?”

“I do.”

“Do you really want a wife who has been won in that fashion?”

“I want you.”

“You realize, fully, don't you, the spirit in which I shall marry you?”

“We'll take care of that matter after we are married, Kate. You have liked me. You will care for me more when you come to your senses in this thing.”

“You remember what my father did in the way of sacrifice, I suppose? It was no secret in this state.”

“Yes,” he muttered, abashed under her steady gaze.

“I am like my father in many ways--in many of my thoughts. Perhaps if he had not set me such an example in the way of sacrifice I should say something else to you, Mr. Dodd. But as the matter stands between us, considering the demand you make on me, I will marry you.”

The concession was flung at him so suddenly--he had expected so much more of rebellion--that he staggered where he stood. He advanced toward her. But she waved him back.

“Sit down!” she commanded. “This matter has gone far outside romance. It has become one of business. It is a matter of barter. I have had some experience in business. You say that mother owes you five thousand dollars which you took from the state treasury?”

“Yes, Kate.”

“And your books will be examined very carefully, of course, if there is an overturn in your office?”

“Yes. It won't be any mere legislative auditing.”

“I know something about politics as well as about business, Mr. Dodd. I cannot very well help knowing, after my experience in your uncle's office. I suppose the next state convention will determine pretty effectually whether there will be an overturn or not?”

“If we renominate Harwood it ought to give us a good line on the control of the next legislature,” he told her. “A hobo and a goody-goody,” he added, with scorn, “think they have stirred up a revolution, but they have another think coming.” He had been calmed by her outwardly matter-of-fact acceptance of the situation. But he did not perceive the fires of her soul gleaming deep in her eyes.

“If Governor Harwood is renominated and the next legislature is in the hands of your uncle, as usual, you will be sure to remain in your position?”

“Of course!”

“And you can hide the discrepancy on your books from the auditing committee?”

“I am pretty sure I can.”

“You appreciate fully, don't you, Mr. Dodd, why, after all my troubles in this life up till now, I should hesitate to marry a man with state prison hanging over him?”

“Yes.”

“If Governor Harwood is not renominated I shall expect you to defer our marriage until you can work out of your difficulties. There will be danger and it is not in the bargain of my sacrifice that I shall pass through such disgrace with you; at any rate, I do not consider that added suffering is in the trade and will not agree to it. I prefer to remain as I am and share the disgrace of my mother. Do you agree to that?”

“I don't like it, but I suppose I've got to be decent in the matter.”

“But if Governor Harwood is renominated at the convention I will concede a point on my part and will marry you at once, taking it for granted that you will be able to clear yourself. In that way both of us are making concessions--and such things should be considered in a bargain.” She was coldly polite.

He bowed, not knowing exactly what reply to make to her.

“You have accused me of trifling in the past,” she continued. “I will now try to show you that I can conduct straight business as it should be handled. Shall I make a memo of our agreement and hand it to you?”

“There is no need of it,” he stammered.

“Thank you, Mr. Dodd. And now that the matter has been settled to our mutual satisfaction, I will ask you to go. I think my mother needs my attention. And I am reminded that our bargain does not dispose of the fact that my mother owes you five thousand dollars. I will reflect on how that debt may be paid--by insurance”--her face grew whiter still--“or by some arrangement.”

“I wish you wouldn't say such--” But she interrupted him.

“On my part, this is strictly business, Mr. Dodd, and I must consider all sides. I will give the money matter careful thought. I'm sure we can arrange it. I have merely bought my mother's good name with _myself_!”

He stumbled out of the room and went on his way.

“Mother, you and I have some long, long thoughts to busy ourselves with before we attempt to talk to each other,” said the girl when the two were alone. “I am going to my room. Please do not disturb me until to-morrow.”

For an hour Kate Kilgour was a girl once more, sobbing her heart out against her pillow, stretched upon her bed in abandon of woe, torn by the bitter knowledge that she was alone in her pitiful fight. She was more frank with herself in her sorrow than she ever had been before. She owned to her heart that a few days before even a mother's desperate plight would hardly have won such a sacrifice as she had made.

She was ready to own that she loved that tall young man of mystery whose face had refuted the suspicion that he was a mere vagrant. It was strange--it was unaccountable. But she had ceased to wonder at the vagaries of love. In her prostration of mental energies and of hope she confessed to herself that she had loved him.

But now between his face and hers, as she shut her eyes and reproduced his features, limned in her memory, those fiery words danced--there was a “play-mamma” who with him had loved the little girl named Rosemarie.

Checking her sobs, she sighed, and her heart surrendered him.

Her sacrifice had been made both easier and yet more difficult.

Then she snuggled close to her pillows and gazed out into the gathering night, and pondered on the fact that if Walker Farr won his fight in the state convention that victory put an end to her poor little truce in the matter of Richard Dodd.

Then she was sure that she had put Walker Farr out of her heart for ever, because she found herself hoping that he would win. The girl had not yet grown into full knowledge of the dynamics of a true and unselfish love--she did not fully know herself.

XXVII

A DICKER FOR A MAN'S SOUL

The populace came first and packed solidly into the galleries of the great auditorium of Marion city.

For years the state conventions of the dominant party had attracted but little public attention. They had been simple affairs of routine, indorsing the men and the principles of the Big Machine. The next governor had been groomed and announced to the patient people long months before the date of the convention; platforms protecting the interests were glued placidly and secretly and brought forth from the star chamber to be admired; and no delegate was expected or allowed to joggle a plank or nick the smooth varnish which had been smoothed over selfish privilege.

But this year came all the people who could pack themselves into galleries and aisles.

Below on the main floor were more than two thousand delegates. Every town and city sent the full number accredited. After these men had been seated the men and women who thronged the corridors and stairways were allowed to enter and stand in the rear of the great hall.

Strange stories, rumors, predictions, had been running from lip to lip all over the big commonwealth. It was reported that the throne of the tyrant was menaced at last by rebellion which was not mere vaporings of the restless and resentful; organized revolt had appeared, marching in grim silence, not revealing all its strength, and therefore all the more ominous.

A military band brayed music unceasingly into the high arches of the hall. The music served as obbligato for the mighty diapason of men's voices; the thousands talked as they waited.

The broad platform of the stage was untenanted. The speakers, the chairman, the clerks, the members of the state committee, did not appear, though the hour named as the time of calling the meeting to order arrived and passed.

In an anteroom, so far removed from the main hall that only the dull rumble of voices and the shredded echoes of the blaring music reached there, was assembled the state's oligarchy awaiting the pleasure of Colonel Symonds Dodd.

He sat in a big chair, his squat figure crowding its confines.

The state committee and the rest of his entourage were gathered about him.

There was a committeeman from every county in the state--the men who formed the motive cogs of his machine.

One after the other they had reported to him.

And each time a man finished talking the colonel drove a solid fist down on the arm of the chair and roared: “I say again I don't believe it's as bad as you figure it. It can't be as bad. Do you tell me that this party is going to be turned upside down by a kid-glove aristocrat who has hardly stirred out of his office during this campaign?”

“He has had a chap to do his stirring for him,” stated one of the group.

“A hobo, scum of the rough-scruff, hailing from nowhere! Shown up in our newspapers as a ditch-digger--a fly-by-night--a nobody! I'm ashamed of this state committee, coming here and telling me that he has been allowed to influence anybody.”

“Colonel Dodd, what I'm going to say to you may not sound like politics as we usually talk it,” declared a committeeman, a gray-haired and spectacled person who had the grave mien of a student, “and it is not admitted very often by regular politicians who run with the machine. But we are up against something which has happened in this queer old world of ours a good many times. We have had the best organization here in this state that a machine ever put together. But in American politics it's always just when the machine is running best that something happens. Something is dropped into the gear, and it's usually done by the last man you'd expect to do it. The fellows who are tending the machine are too busy watching that part of the crowd they think is dangerous, and then the inconspicuous chap slips one over.”

“I don't want any lecture on politics,” snapped the boss. “Do you mean to insinuate that that low-lived Farr has put _this_ over on _us_?”

“I have hunted to the bottom of things and I do say so, Colonel Dodd.”

“How in blazes did that fellow ever get any influence? I haven't been able to believe that he has been accomplishing anything.”

“You ought to have listened a little more closely to us, Colonel,” insisted the committeeman. “Every once in a while there comes forward a man whom the people will follow. And he is never the rich man nor the proud man, but he is one who knows how to reach the hearts of the crowd. A shrewd politician can get power by building up his machine. And then some fellow in overalls who has some kind of a God-given quality that has never been explained yet so that we can understand, smashes into sight like a comet. It may be his way of talking to men, it may be his personality--it is more likely a divine spark in him that neither he himself nor other men understand. But every now and again some humble chap like that has changed the history of the world, and I reckon it's pretty easy for such a man to change the politics of a mere state.”

His associates were staring at him and Colonel Dodd was giving him furious glances. He had spoken with enthusiasm. He broke off suddenly.

“I beg your pardon. I don't mean to go quite so far. But I'm a student of history and I've read a lot about natural-born leaders.”

“You evidently know more about history than you do about politics,” growled the colonel. “This whole state committee doesn't seem to know much politics. If you have allowed that Farr to slime his way around under cover and do you up in your own counties, I'll see to it that we have a new state committee.”

“I have an idea that that convention out there will attend to the matter of a new state committee for us.”

The new speaker's voice was very soft. His nickname in state politics was “Whispering Saunders.” He was known as being the most artistic political “pussy-foot” in the party. It was averred that he could put on rubber boots and run twice around the State House on a fresh fall of light snow and not leave a track.

“If I'm any kind of a smeller--and I reckon it's admitted that I am,” purred Saunders, “we are walloped before the start-off in every county delegation out on that floor.”

“But what has been the matter with you fellows all the time?” blazed the boss. “Up to now you have been reporting simply that the soreheads were growling and were not getting together so as to be dangerous.”

“Did you ever try to shovel up soft soap from a cellar floor with a knitting-needle?” inquired the politician. “That's how it's been in this case. Every man I talked with was slippery. I know slippery times when I see 'em. I've been afraid, but I hoped for the best. Now that they are here, with this convention due to be called to order, they are not slippery any longer. They don't need to be. I've just been through the convention hall. They are out and open--and they're against us.”

“That Farr has a proxy from a delegate in the Eleventh Ward and is on the floor,” stated another.

“But he isn't a voter.”

“He wasn't a little while ago, but he is to-day, Colonel. The board of registration had to put his name on the books--he has lived here long enough to become a voter.”

Colonel Dodd glared from face to face. It was plain that he was angered rather than dismayed; he was like a bull at bay, shaking the pricking darts out of his shoulders. He took a hasty glance at his watch. 'Twas twenty minutes past the hour appointed for the calling of the convention. He could hear the distant band still bellowing bravely to kill time.