The Candidate Part 33

Sylvia was sitting in the parlor beside a window that looked out upon a vast range of snow-covered mountains, rising like the serrated teeth of a saw, and, although she heard his footsteps, she did not turn her face until Harley stood beside her. Then she said, irrelevantly:

"Isn't that a grand view!"

"You did not send for me to tell me that," said Harley, with a certain protecting tenderness in his tone, because what he took to be the sadness in her face appealed to his manly qualities.

"No, I did not. I have been thinking over what we said to each other when we were coming back from Crow's Wing, and I have concluded that it was wrong."

"Why was it wrong? I love you, and I had the right to tell you so."

"No, you did not. You would have had were I free, but I am promised to another. I was wrong to let you speak; I was wrong to listen to you."

"I will not admit it," said Harley, doggedly, "because Mr. Plummer is going to give you up. He will see that he ought not to hold you to this promise."

She smiled sadly.

"I must be loyal to him," she said, "and before starting for Salt Lake City I want to tell you that you must not again speak to me of this."

"But I shall write to you in Salt Lake."

"You must not write of this. If you do, I will not open another one of your letters."

"I promise not to write to you of love, but I make no promise after that. You are not going from Salt Lake to Idaho? This is not an excuse to leave us for good?"

Her eyes wavered before his. It may be that she had intended to abandon the campaign permanently, but, with his straight and masterful glance demanding an honest answer, she could not say it.

"Yes, I will come back," she said, and then, with a sudden burst of feeling: "Oh, I like your group; I like all of you. This great journey has been something fresh and wonderful to me, and I do not want to leave it!"

"I thought not," said Harley, with returning confidence, "and I am glad that you sent for me here, because it has given me a chance to tell you that, while you mean to keep your promise, I also mean to keep mine.

Mr. Plummer will yet yield you up. You are mine, not his, you know you are!"

He bent suddenly and kissed her lightly on the forehead, and every nerve in her tingled at the first touch of the lips of the man whom she loved.

Yet with the sense of right, of loyalty to another, strong within her, she was about to protest, but he was gone, and the first kiss still tingled on her forehead. She felt as if he had put there an invisible seal, and that now in very truth she belonged to him.

The two ladies under the escort of Mr. Plummer left an hour later for Salt Lake City, and everybody was at the station to see them go. Mrs.

Grayson was quiet as usual, and Sylvia was noticeably subdued, a fact which most of them ascribed to the tragedy of Flying Cloud and her coming absence of two weeks from a most interesting campaign.

"You ought to cheer up, Miss Sylvia," said Hobart, "because you are not half as unlucky as we are. You can spare us much more easily than we can spare you."

"I am really sorry that I must go," she said, sincerely.

"But you will come back to us?"

"I have promised to do so."

"That is enough; we know that you will keep a promise, Miss Sylvia."

Sylvia at first would not look at Harley. His kiss still burned upon her brow, and she yet felt that it was his seal, his claim upon her. And her conscience hurt her for it, because there was "King" Plummer, strong, protecting, and overflowing with love for her and faith in her. But as she was telling them all good-bye she was forced to say it to Harley, too, in his turn, and when he took her hand he pressed it ever so little, and said, for her ear only:

"I am still hoping. I refuse to give you up."

She retreated quickly into the Salt Lake car to hide her blush.

When they saw the last smoke of the train melting into the blue sky, Harley and Mr. Heathcote walked back to the hotel together. A strong friends.h.i.+p had grown up between these two, and each valued the other's opinion.

"A fine woman," said Mr. Heathcote, looking towards the silky blue of the sky where the smoke had been.

"Yes, Mrs. Grayson has always impressed me as a woman of great dignity and strength," said Harley, purposely misunderstanding him.

"That is apparent, but I was not speaking of her. I meant Miss Morgan; she seems to me to be of a rare and n.o.ble type. The man who gets her, whoever he may be, ought to think himself lucky."

Harley noticed that Mr. Heathcote did not take it for granted that "King" Plummer would get her, but he said nothing in reply.

XVII

THE SPELLBINDER

An hour after the smoke of the Salt Lake train was lost in the blue sky, the special car bearing the candidate whirled off in another direction, deep into the wonderland of the mountains. Now white peaks were on one side and mighty chasms on the other; then both chasm and peak were lost behind them, and they shot through an irrigated valley, brown with the harvest, neat villages snuggling in the centre. But always, whether near or far, the mountains were around them, blue on the middle slopes, white at the crests, unless those crests were lost in the clouds and mists.

The people in the car were more quiet than usual, the candidate absorbed in somewhat sad thoughts, the state politicians respecting his silence, and the correspondents planning their despatches. But all missed Mrs.

Grayson and Miss Morgan, who, whether they talked or not, always contributed brightness and a gentler note to their long campaign. "King"

Plummer, too, with his loud laugh and his large, sincere manner, left a vacancy. Every one felt that there was now nothing ahead but business--cold, hard business--and so it proved.

Every campaign enters upon successive phases, in which the contestants advance, through politeness and consideration, first to wary feint and parry, and then to the stern death-grip of the battle which can mean nothing but the victory of one and the defeat of the other. They were now approaching this last stage, and great piles of Eastern newspapers, which reached them in Utah, reflected all the progress of the combat.

It was obvious to all of those skilled readers and interpreters that the breach within the party was widening, and that this breach could become a chasm before the election. The _Monitor_ and other papers, the chosen or self-appointed champions of vested interests, were almost openly in revolt; in Harley's mind their course amounted to the same thing; they printed in their news columns many things derogatory to Grayson, and likely to shatter public faith in his judgment, and in nearly all of them appeared signed contributions from members of the wealthy faction led by the Honorable Mr. Goodnight, attacking every speech made by the candidate, and intimating that he was a greater danger to the country than the nominee of the other side.

"The split will have to come," was Harley's muttered comment, "and the sooner the better for us."

The journals of the rival party were a singular contrast to those of Grayson's side, as they expressed unbounded and sincere confidence. In all that had occurred they could not read anything but victory for them, and Harley was bound to admit that their exultation was justified.

But amid all these troubles the candidate preserved his remarkable amiability of disposition, and Harley witnessed another proof that he was a man first and a statesman afterwards.

The train was continually thronged with local politicians and others anxious to see Mr. Grayson, and at a little station in a plain that seemed to have no end they picked up three men, one of whom attracted Harley's notice at once. He was young, only twenty four or five, with a bright, quick, eager face, and he was not dressed in the usual careless Western fas.h.i.+on. His trousers were carefully creased, his white s.h.i.+rt was well-laundered, and his tie was neat. But he wore that strange combination--not so strange west of the Mississippi--a sack-coat and a silk-hat at the same time.

The youth was not at all shy, and he early obtained an introduction to Mr. Grayson. Harley thus learned that his name was Moore--Charles Moore, or Charlie Moore, as those with him called him. Most men in the West, unless of special prominence, when presented to Jimmy Grayson, shook hands warmly, exchanged a word or two on any convenient topic, and then gave way to others, but this fledgling sought to hold him in long converse on the most vital questions of the campaign.

"That was a fine speech of yours that you made at b.u.t.te, Mr. Grayson,"

he said, in the most impulsive manner, "and I endorse every word of it, but are you sure that what you said about Canadian reciprocity will help our party in the great wheat states, such as Minnesota and the Dakotas?"

The candidate stared at him at first in surprise and some displeasure, but in a moment or two his gaze was changed into a kindly smile. He read well the youth before him, his amusing confidence, his eagerness, and his self-importance, that had not yet received a rude check.

"There is something in what you say, Mr. Moore," replied Jimmy Grayson, in that tone absolutely without condescension that made every man his friend; "but I have considered it, and I think it is better for me to stick to my text. Besides, I am right, you know."

"Ah, yes, but that is not the point," exclaimed young Mr. Moore; "one may be right, but one might keep silent on a doubtful point that is likely to influence many votes. And there are several things in your speeches, Mr. Grayson, with which some of us do not agree. I shall have occasion to address the public concerning them--as you know, a number of us are to speak with you while you are pa.s.sing through Utah."