The Lieutenant-Governor Part 12

"I wish I could think so," said the Lieutenant-Governor. "G.o.d knows I'd willingly cut one of them off, if I thought its loss could benefit the commonwealth. But, as I've had occasion to say to others, in the present emergency I'm as helpless as a babe unborn. You see how things are going--one might as well appeal, so far as any hope of success is concerned, to McGrath himself as to Governor Abbott. There's no getting around it, Spencer. It's a declaration of anarchy pure and simple, and with the official seal of Alleghenia at the bottom of the doc.u.ment.

Iniquitous wrong is being done, not only to Mr. Rathbawne in refusing him the protection of the law to which he is ent.i.tled, but to the cause of the strikers themselves, if they can justly be said to have a cause.

Nothing ever was or ever will be gained for the benefit of the many by the violence of the few. It can only end in one way: by the interposition of the federal troops. You know what happened at Chicago.

It will be the same thing here; and before it is over we shall see people shot down like rats in the streets of Kenton City."

"I hope it won't come to that," said Cavendish; "but even so, all's well that ends well. Provided that order is finally restored"--

"But what credit is it," broke in Barclay, "to the state of Alleghenia to have her law-breakers suppressed by the national government? Don't you see that it would be only a final proof that she is too incompetent or too indifferent to do it herself? From the point of view of the state's good name, I doubt which is worst, her present att.i.tude or the interference of federal force."

"Will it come to the latter in any event?"

"Undoubtedly. They've already tried to prevent the delivery of Mr.

Rathbawne's mail, both at the mills and at his house. You know what that means, don't you? One carrier interfered with in the performance of his duty is sufficient excuse for mobilizing a brigade."

"But the Governor"--

Barclay came forward, laid his hand on Cavendish's shoulder, and looked down at him, slowly nodding his head.

"The Governor of Alleghenia is a dyed-in-the-wool scoundrel, my good sir," he said. "It is his manifest duty to enforce the law rigidly and at once, and if the police of Kenton City cannot or will not a.s.sist him, to summon the militia to his aid. In that way only can the honor of Alleghenia be saved. And that is what Elijah Abbott will never do. There is anarchy open and flagrant in the streets of Kenton City--there is anarchy silent and sneering in the Governor's chair. G.o.d save the state!"

XI

YOUNG NISBET FINDS HIS TONGUE

"I have promised to marry Colonel Broadcastle," announced Mrs. Wynyard when the silence had lasted twenty minutes.

Dorothy flung round from the window against which she had been mercilessly pressing her pretty nose.

"Why, Aunt Helen!" she exclaimed. "You really are the most startlingly abrupt person I ever knew. Are you in earnest? What under the sun possessed you to do that?"

"I think it must have been Colonel Broadcastle," answered Mrs. Wynyard, with an air of reflection. "It was last night when he was showing us over the armory, after the review. He not only asked me, but appeared to have quite set his heart upon my giving him an affirmative answer. And he had been so extremely civil, Dorothy, about our seats and all that, that I thought it would seem rather ungracious to refuse the first favor he had ever asked of me. So I said yes."

"Aunt Helen, Aunt Helen! One of these fine days you will be the death of me. Did any one _ever_ hear of such a reason for accepting a man?"

"I couldn't think of a better one for refusing him," said Mrs. Wynyard serenely. "So there you are!"

"Talk about logic!" said Dorothy. She came across the room, and seated herself beside her aunt. "I never heard anything so exciting in my life!" she added. "Do you really mean it? Are you really going to marry him?"

"That is the arrangement, as I understand it," replied Mrs. Wynyard. "Of course, I haven't his promise in writing, but I think I can trust him. I once looked him up in your father's business guide, and he had three A's after his name. I'm sure I don't know what they can stand for, if it's not Acquaintance, Appeal, and Acceptance. I don't really see what else I could have done. It seems to have all been arranged without consulting me at all. One can't very well set one's self up in opposition to a business guide, you know."

"But he's old enough to be your father, Aunt Helen!"

"That's precisely the reason why there wouldn't have been any sense in my promising to be a sister to him. You see, I was quite helpless in the matter from start to finish."

"And it was only last night that you called me preposterous!" laughed Dorothy. "Really, Aunt Helen, people who live in gla.s.s houses shouldn't throw stones. I think you are the most absurd creature in the world. Do you love him?"

"I can even go so far as to say that I think I do," said Mrs. Wynyard, without a break in her gravity. "I have all the symptoms,--palpitation of the heart, a morbid craving for Sh.e.l.ley and chocolate caramels, a tendency to wake up singing, and a failing for flattening my nose against the window-pane for twenty minutes at a stretch without saying a word to my poor old aunt, on the mere chance that he may be coming down the avenue."

The blush which Dorothy paid as tribute to this subtle innuendo came near to rivaling one of young Nisbet's celebrated performances in the same line.

"You're making fun of me," she said reproachfully.

"I, my dear?--not the least in the world. It's all as true as the gospel according to St. Valentine. I've told you first because we're not only aunt and niece, but the very best friends possible besides, and I knew you would like to hear the news before any one else. Colonel Broadcastle is by all odds the finest man I know,--I won't even except John Barclay, much as I admire him. He has paid me a very great honor. I respect him tremendously; I trust him absolutely. These alone are good reasons; but there's a better one,--so much better that nothing else really has any bearing on the subject. Can you guess?"

"Yes," said Dorothy softly, "you just love him. Isn't that it?"

"Exactly. It's a curious thing, this love. There may be every reason why one should marry a man, his own wish included, and yet one doesn't.

There may be no reason at all, so far as outsiders can see, and yet one does! I've known a woman to throw over one suitor who had everything in his favor--money, character, position--and accept another who had none of these advantages--because she liked the way he parted his hair!

That's the way it goes. It's the most illogical thing in the world, if we except the stock market and other women's gowns. And then, when it's all arranged, his friends wonder what she could have seen in him, and her friends what he could have seen in her! But I'm wandering from the subject. Seriously, Dorothy dear, I love him very sincerely, and I have been more happy than I can say ever since I found out that it wasn't going to be one of those one-sided love-affairs which a.s.sure the incomes of the poets and the lawyers. And now,--confidence for confidence, Dorothy!"

"Aunt Helen! I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, Dorothy! 'I don't know what you mean' is one of those phrases like 'Not at home' and 'Yours very sincerely,' which are white lies on the face of them. I don't want to force your confidence. We all have what our friends recognize as our private affairs, with the accent--worse luck!--on the _pry_! But this is very different. I'm very fond of you, as you know, and my interest is far from being vulgar curiosity. Of a woman's five cardinal failings--inquisitiveness, extravagance, vanity, vacillation, and loquacity--I'm guiltless of all except the last and most innocent. But don't we all need to talk at times? Don't we all long for a trustworthy _confidante_? Aren't our little secrets often like precious liquors?--if we don't make use of them, share them with our friends, they either ferment and sour, or else lose all their sweetness and significance by slow evaporation."

"You would draw confidence from a stone," said Dorothy, with a little smile, "but what have I to tell you?"

"How should I know? Perhaps nothing--as yet; perhaps everything. Take your time about it, dear. I'm not trying to get you to commit yourself.

I only want you to know that I'm ready to share your secret when it's ready to be shared, and to help and counsel you in any way I can. I know the main great fact already. Because, you see, Dorothy, one may conceal an infinite amount, even from one's nearest and dearest, when they don't understand--and they are so _apt_ not to understand, one's nearest and dearest! And the financier may hide his schemes from his partners, or the general his plan of campaign from his fellow-officers, or the politician his ambitions from his most ardent supporters--but I doubt, my dear, if a woman in love was ever able to hide very much from another woman in the same lamentable condition!

"If it were not," she added, taking Dorothy's hand in hers, "for the great happiness which has come into my life, do you think that I should have been able to divine that other great happiness which seems to be hovering over yours? I am the physician afflicted with the disease which it becomes his duty to study and to cure. Only, it's not a disease, Dorothy, but a great, a beautiful revelation. I should have compared myself, instead, to the prophet who is enabled to interpret the dreams of others because they are identical with his own. There's my little speech. And when you are prepared to answer it, you'll find me ready."

As she was speaking the last words, the butler flung back the curtains at the doorway of the drawing-room.

"Mr. Nisbet," he announced imperturbably.

Dorothy looked at her aunt, and then, with her frank laugh:--

"If there _is_ an answer," she said, "that's it!"

As young Nisbet entered, Mrs. Wynyard was the first to greet him.

"So," she observed, looking him over approvingly, "you've beaten your swords into walking-sticks, and your spears into top-hats, as my friend Isaiah so aptly observes! That's very commendable, but I almost think I like you better in your war-paint. Do you know, a Colonel's orderly is the spickest-and-spanest object upon which I've ever laid, or hope to lay, my eyes?"

"He just naturally has to be," said young Nisbet, with a grin. Somehow, he was always more at his ease with Mrs. Wynyard than with other women.

"You see," he added, "if it wasn't that way, he wouldn't be it."

Which was as near as he had ever come to making an epigram.

"Well, I shall leave you to the tender mercies of Dorothy," said Mrs.

Wynyard. "I've promised to take a walk with your--what is it you call him--instead of commanding officer, you know?"

"K. O.," said young Nisbet.

"Yes, that's it. How deplorably you militiamen spell! Well, at all events, I'm going to walk with your K. O., and it's time I was getting ready. Good-by."

"Good-by, Mrs. Wynyard."