Altsheler Joseph Alexander
The Candidate: A Political Romance
"What a splendid night!" he said. "What a grand horizon!"
They stood upon a slight elevation, and they looked down the street and out upon the prairie, which rippled away, silver in the moonlight, like the waves of the sea. A wind, faint, like a happy sigh, was blowing.
"An evening for lovers," said the candidate, and he smiled as his mind ran back to some happy evenings in his own life. "Now, why should such a moonlight as this ever be spoiled by a political speech?" he continued.
"I was thinking of lovers myself," said Harley, "because here is the Anderson house before us. Don't you see its white walls shining through the trees?"
"Poor girl!" said the candidate. "It is a terrible thing for a woman to be separated from the man she loves. A woman, I think, can really love but once. And yet her father's pride is natural; young Lee has not even made a start in life."
"All he needs is a chance, which he will get—when it is too late," said Harley.
The house and its grounds, surrounded by a stone wall not more than three feet high, occupied an entire square in the outskirts of the little city, and the candidate and Harley followed the least frequented of the streets—one running beside the stone wall, which was shaded presently by thick and arching boughs of trees that grew within. As they entered the shadow they saw a man leap over the low barrier and disappear in the Anderson grounds.
"A burglar!" exclaimed Harley. His first thought was of Helen Anderson and her beautiful, appealing face, and without a moment's hesitation he sprang over the wall to pursue. Jimmy Grayson looked at him in astonishment, and then followed.
Harley stopped for an instant inside the grounds, and saw the dark figure just ahead of him, but now walking with such slowness that pursuit was easy. Evidently the burglar was making sure of the way before he sought to enter the Anderson mansion; but Harley was surprised, in a few moments, to notice something familiar in the shoulders and bearing of the man whom he followed. His burglar never looked back, but entered an open space; and then Harley, his surprise increasing, stopped when he saw him approach a little summer-house of lattice-work. The hand of the candidate fell at that moment upon his arm, and a deep voice said in his ear:
"I think we have gone far enough, don't you, Harley?"
"I do," replied Harley, with conviction.
A woman was coming, a woman with a beautiful, pale face, more lovely and sad than ever in the moonlight, and the two men knew at once that Helen was about to meet her lover. They would have turned and fled from the grounds, because a woman's pure love was sacred, to be hidden from all eyes and ears save those of one, but her face was towards them, and had they stepped from the shadow of the oak she would have seen the two.
"Ah, Helen!" said Lee, as he met her and took her hands in his.
"Arthur, for the last time!" she exclaimed.
"Yes, I know it is for the last time," said Arthur, and there was a moving sadness in his voice.
Their faces were turned towards the two there in the shadow of the great oak, although unwitting that others were so near, and neither man dared to move. The moonlight, in softened silver, fell upon the faces of the lovers, disclosing all the beauty of the woman's and all the loftiness of the man's. Harley thought he had never seen a nobler pair.
The man took both the girl's hands in his and held them for a few moments. Then he walked back and forth, taking quick little steps. Every motion of his figure expressed agony and despair. The girl stood still, and her face, clearly shown in the moonlight, was turned towards Harley; it, too, expressed agony and despair; but her stillness showed resignation, Lee's fierce movements were full of rebellion.
"I am going away, Helen," said Arthur. "I have decided upon it. I shall not be here more than a week or two longer. I cannot be in the same town, seeing you every day and knowing that you cannot be mine. I could not stand it."
"I suppose it is best," said Helen; "but, Arthur, I love you. I have told you that, and I am proud of it. I shall never love any one else. It is not possible."
Her beautiful, pale face was still turned towards Harley, and he saw again upon it that touch of ineffable sadness and resignation that had moved him so deeply. Lee stopped his despairing walk back and forth and looked at Helen. Then he uttered a little cry and seized her hands again.
"Helen," he said, "I cannot do it! I came here to give you up forever, to tell you that I was going away, and I meant to go, but I cannot do it. We love each other—then who has the right to separate us? I thought that I could stand this, that I had hardened myself to endure it, but when the time comes I find that it is too much. My right to you is greater than that of father or mother. Come with me; we can go to Longford to-night, and in three hours we shall be man and wife."
He still held her hands in his, and his face was flushed and his eyes shining with an eager but noble passion.
Harley and the candidate, in the shrubbery, never stirred. They listened, but they forgot that they were listening.
The girl lifted her eyes to those of her lover, and there was in them no reproach, only a high, sad courage.
"You do not mean what you say now, Arthur," she said. "I have given my promise to my father, and you must help me to be strong, for alone I am weak, very weak. None can help me but you. You must go, as you said you would go, but your face shall always be with me here. Though I may not be your wife, I shall be true to you all my life."
"In such moments as these the woman is always stronger than the man," breathed Jimmy Grayson.
Lee dropped her hands again and walked a step or two away.
"Helen," he said, "forgive me, and forget what I said. I was base when I spoke. But I have found it too hard!—too hard!"
Her eyes still expressed no reproach; there was in them something almost divine. She loved him the more because of his weakness, although she would not yield to it.
"It is hard, very hard for us both," she whispered, "but it must be done. But, Arthur, I love you. I have told you that, and I am not ashamed of it. I shall never love any one else. It is not possible."
"I know it. I know, too, that your heart will always be mine, but, as the world sees it, your father is right. I am nothing. I have no right to a wife—above all, to one such as you. I feel that I have a power within me, the power to do things which the world would call good, but there is no chance. I suppose that the chance will come some day—when it is too late."
Harley started. The words were the echo of his own. "We must go," he whispered to the candidate. "No one has a right to listen, even without intention, at this, their last meeting." Jimmy Grayson had already turned away, and by the faint moonlight sifting through the branches Harley saw a mist in his eyes. But their movement made a sound, and the lovers looked up.
"Did you hear a noise? What was it?" asked Helen.
"Only a lizard in the grass or a squirrel rattling the bark of a tree," replied Arthur.
They listened a moment, but they heard nothing more, save the faint stirring of the wind among the leaves and the grass.
"Are you really going, Arthur?" asked Helen, as if, approving it once, she would like now to hear him deny it.
He looked at her, his face flushing and his eyes alight, as if at last he heard her ask him to stay; but he saw in her gaze only brave resolve. She could love him, and yet she had the strength to sacrifice that love for what she considered her duty. He drew courage from her, and he lifted his head proudly, although his eyes expressed grief alone.
"Yes, I have only to start," he replied; "you know I have little to take. I make just one more public appearance in Egmont. Mr. Grayson speaks here again to-morrow night, and the committee, by some chance—a chance it must have been—has put me on the list of speakers."
"Oh, Arthur, it may be an opportunity for you!"
She was eager, flushed, her eyes flaming and uplifted to his.
"It might be, Helen, at any other time, but this is evil fortune. I am of the other party; I must speak against him—we are fair to both sides here; he will have the right of rejoinder, and you know what he is, Helen—the greatest orator in America, perhaps in all the world. No one yet has ever been able to defeat him, and what chance have I, with no experience, against the most formidable debater in existence? I should shirk it, Helen, if the people would not think me a coward."
"Oh, Arthur, what an ordeal!" She looked up at him with wet, tender eyes.
Harley, at the mention of Jimmy Grayson's name, glanced away from the lovers and towards the candidate. He saw him start, and a singular, soft expression pass over his face, to be followed by one of doubt.
"Now I shall go, Helen," said Arthur. "It was wrong of me to ask you to meet me here, but I could not go away without seeing you alone and speaking to you alone, as I do now."
"I was glad to come."
He took her hands again, and for a few moments they stood, gazing into each other's eyes, where they saw all the grief of a last parting. Harley wished to turn his gaze away, but, somehow, he could not. There was silence in the grounds, save that gentle, sighing sound of the wind through the leaves and grass, and only the moon looked down.
Suddenly the youth bent his head, kissed the girl on the lips, and then ran swiftly through the shrubbery, as if he could not bear to hesitate or look back.
"It was their first kiss," murmured Harley.
"I did not see it," said Jimmy Grayson, turning his eyes away.
"And their last," murmured Harley.
The girl stood like a statue, still deadly pale, but Harley saw that her eyes were luminous. It was the man whom she loved who had taken her first kiss; nothing could alter that beautiful fact. She listened, as if she could hear his last retreating footstep on the grass dying away like an echo. Harley and the candidate watched her until her slender figure in the white draperies was hid by the house, and then they, too, went back to the street.
Neither spoke until they passed the low stone wall, and then the candidate said, brusquely:
"Harley, unless this moonlight deceives me, there is moisture on your eyelids. What do you mean by such unmanly weakness?"
Harley smiled, but, refraining from the tu quoque, left Jimmy Grayson to lead the way, and he noticed that he chose a course that did not take them back to the hotel. Moreover, he did not speak again for a long time, and Harley walked on by his side, silent, too, but thoughtful and keenly observant. He saw that his friend was troubled, and he divined the great struggle that was going on in his mind. Whether he could do it if he were in the place of the candidate he was unable to say, and he was glad that the decision did not lie with himself.
They walked on and on until they left the town and were out upon the broad prairie, where the wind moaned in a louder key, and the candidate's face was still troubled.
"Harley," said the candidate, at last, "I cannot get rid of the look in that girl's eyes."
"I do not wish to do so," said Harley.
It was nearly midnight when he turned and began to walk back towards the town. The moonlight, breaking through a cloud, again flooded Jimmy Grayson's face, and Harley, who knew him so well, saw that the look of trouble had passed. The lips were compressed and firm, and in his eyes shone the clear light of decision. Harley's feelings, as he saw, were mingled, a strange compound of elation and apprehension. But at the hotel he said, gravely, "Good-night," and the candidate replied with equal seriousness, "Good-night." Neither referred to what they had seen nor to what they expected.
The second speech at Egmont drew an even greater audience than the first, as the fame of Jimmy Grayson's powers spread fast, and there would be, too, the added spice of combat; members of the other party would accept his challenge, replying to his logic if they could, and the hall was crowded early with eager people. Harley, sitting at the back of the stage, saw the Honorable John Anderson come in, importantly, his wife under one arm and his daughter under the other. Helen looked paler than ever, but here under the electric lights her sad loveliness made the same appeal to Harley. Lee arrived late, and although, as one of the speakers, he was forced to sit on the stage, he hid himself behind the others. But a single glance passed between the two, and then the girl sat silent and pale, hoping against hope for her lover.
The candidate spoke well. His voice was as deep and as musical as ever, and his sentences rolled as smoothly as before. All his charm and magnetism of manner were present; the old spell which he threw over everybody—a spell which was from the heart and the manner as well as from the meaning of his words—was not lacking, but to Harley, keenly attentive, there seemed to be a flaw in his logic. The reasoning was not as clear and compact as usual. Only a man with a penetrating, analytical mind would observe it, but there were openings here and there where his armor could be pierced. Blaisdell, one of the correspondents, noticed the fact, and he whispered to Harley:
"It's a good thing that Jimmy Grayson has no great speaker against him to-night; I never knew him to wander from the point before."
"Where's your great speaker?" asked Harley, with irony.
But the crowded audience was oblivious. It heard only the music of the candidate's voice and felt only the spell of his manner; therefore, it was with a sort of contempt that it looked upon Lee, the young lawyer without a case, who rose to reply. Lee was pale, but there was a fire in his eyes, as if he, too, had noticed something, and Harley, observing, caught his breath sharply.
The correspondent again looked down at the girl, and he saw a deep flush sweep over her face, and then, passing, leave it deadly pale. The next moment she averted her eyes as if she would not see the failure of her lover, not the less dear to her because he was about to go away forever. But though he did not see her face now, Harley, as he looked at the bent head, could read her mind. He knew that she was quivering; he knew that she, too, had been completely under the spell of the candidate's great voice and manner, and she feared the painful contrast.
Harley glanced once at Jimmy Grayson, sitting quietly, all expression dismissed from his face, and then he looked back at the girl; she should receive all his attention now. Presently he saw her raise her head, the color returned to her face, and a sudden look of wonder and hope appeared in her eyes. Arthur was speaking, not timidly, not like one beaten, but in a strong, clear voice, and with a logic that was keen and merciless he drove straight at the weak points in the candidate's address. Even Harley was surprised at his skill and penetration.
The correspondent watched Helen, and he read every step of her lover's progress in her eyes. The wonder and hope there grew, and the hope turned to delight. She looked up at her father, as if to tell him how much he had misjudged Arthur, and that here, in truth, was the beginning of greatness; and the important man, as he felt her eyes upon him, moved uneasily in his seat.
The feelings of the audience were mingled, but among them amazement led all the rest. The great Jimmy Grayson, the Presidential nominee, the unconquerable, the man of world-wide fame, the victor of every campaign, was being beaten by a young townsman of their own, not known twenty miles from home. Incredible as it seemed, it was true; the fact was patent to the dullest in the hall. Harley saw a look of astonishment and then dismay overspread the faces of Mrs. Grayson and Sylvia, and he knew that of all in the hall they were suffering most acutely.
The keen, cutting voice went on, tearing Jimmy Grayson's argument to pieces, clipping off a section here and a section there, and tossing the fragments aside. By-and-by the amazement of the people gave way to delight. Their home pride was touched. This boy of their own was doing what no other had ever been able to do. They began to thunder forth applause, and the women waved their handkerchiefs. Hobart leaned over and whispered to Harley:
"Old man, what does this mean? Is Jimmy Grayson sick?"
"He was never better than he is to-night."
Hobart gave him an inquiring look.
"I'll ask more about this later," he said.
But Harley already had turned his attention back to Helen, and as he watched the growing joy on her face his own heart responded. It was relief, elation, that he felt now, and, for the moment, no apprehension. He saw the color yet flushing her cheeks, and the eyes alight with life and joy. He saw her suddenly clasp her father's arm in both hands, and, though he was too far away to hear, he knew well that she was telling him what a great man Arthur was going to be. For her all obstacles were driven away by this sudden flood of fortune, and Harley again saw the important man move uneasily while a look, half fear, half shame, came into his eyes.
The speech was finished, and young Lee, a man now on a pedestal, sat down amid thunders of applause. Jimmy Grayson undertook to respond, but for the first time in his life he was weak and halting. He wandered on lamely, and at last retired amid faint cheers, to be followed quickly by an astonished silence. Then, when the people recovered themselves, they poured in a tumult from the hall; but the hero to whom they turned admiringly was Arthur Lee, their own youthful townsman, and not the candidate.
The next day Hobart told Harley that Lee had won everything. Mr. Anderson, sharing the pride of Egmont, could resist no longer, and had withdrawn his refusal. Arthur and Helen would be married in the winter.
"You see," said Hobart, "young Lee is now a hero."
"But not the greatest hero," said Harley.
"That is true," said Hobart, and then he added, after a moment's pause, "I could never have done it."
But that night, when Jimmy Grayson left the hall, he went at once to the hotel with Mrs. Grayson. Luckily there was a side-door, out of which they slipped so quietly and quickly that not many people had a chance either to pity him or to exult over him, at least in his presence. Yet he did not fail to notice more than one sneer on the faces of those who belonged to the other party, and his cheeks burned for a moment, as James Grayson, the candidate, had his full store of human pride.
In the hall the amazed crowd lingered, and the correspondents, not less surprised than the people, gathered in a group to talk it over. Sylvia was there, too, and she was almost in tears. To none had the blow been harder than to her, and she was so stunned that she could yet scarcely credit it. All of the group were sad except Churchill, who felt all the glory of an I-told-you-so come to judgment.
"It was bound to happen, sooner or later," he said, when he noticed that Sylvia was not listening; "the man is all froth and foam, but who could have thought that the bubble would be pricked by an obscure little Western attorney? Was ever anything more ignominious?"
Then the ancient beau, Tremaine, spoke from a soul that was stirred to the depths.
"Churchill," he exclaimed, "I've been travelling about the world forty years, but there are times when I think you are the meanest man I ever met."
Churchill flushed and clinched his fist, but thought better of it, and turned off the matter with an uneasy laugh.
"Tremaine," he said, "the older you grow the fonder you become of superlatives."
"I admired Jimmy Grayson in his triumphs, and I admire him more than ever in his defeat," said Tremaine, still bristling, and fiercely twisting his short, gray mustache.
"Mr. Tremaine, I want to thank you," said Sylvia, who, turning to them, had heard Tremaine's warm speech; and she put her hand in his for a moment, which was to him ample repayment.
Harley stood by, and was silent because he did not know what to say. To state that Mr. Grayson had allowed himself to be beaten for a purpose would have an incredible look in print—it would seem the poorest of excuses; nor did he wish to make use of it in the presence of Churchill, who would certainly jeer at it and present it in his despatches as a ridiculous plea. He had begun to have a certain sensitiveness in regard to the candidate, and he did not wish to be forced into a quarrel with Churchill.
But Sylvia caught a slight smile, a smile of irony, in the eyes of Harley, and the tears in her own dried up at once. She felt instinctively, with all the quickness of a woman's intuition, that Harley knew something about the speech which she did not know, but she meant to know it, and she watched for an opportunity.
They were turning out the lights in the hall and the people began to go away, the correspondents closing up the rear. Sylvia fell back with Harley, and touched his arm lightly.
"There is something that you are not telling me," she said.
"I am willing to tell it to you, because you will believe it."
Tremaine, with ever-ready gallantry, was about to join them, but Sylvia said:
"I thank you, Mr. Tremaine, but Mr. Harley has promised to see me to the hotel."
Her tone was light, but so decisive that Tremaine turned back at once, and Hobart, who was ahead, hid a smile.
"Now, I want to know what it is," she said, eagerly, to Harley. "That was a good speaker, an able man, but I don't believe that he or anybody else could beat Uncle James. How did it happen?"
Harley did not answer her at once, because it seemed to him just then that the action of Jimmy Grayson was an illustration, and the idea was hot in his mind.
"Perhaps there is nothing to tell, after all," she said, and her face fell.
"There is something to tell; I hesitated because I was looking for the best way to tell it. Mr. Grayson to-night made a sacrifice of himself, purposely and willingly."
"A sacrifice of himself! How could he have done such a thing?"
"For the best reason that makes a man do such a thing. For love."
She stared at him a moment, and then broke into a puzzled but ironic laugh.
"You are certainly dreaming a romance. Uncle James and Aunt Anna have been happily married for years, and there is nothing now that could force him to make such a sacrifice."
Harley smiled, and his smile was rarely tender, because he was thinking at that moment of Sylvia.
"The sacrifice was not to help his own cause, but the cause of another, the cause of the man who beat him—that is, seemed to beat him. Mr. Lee, through his victory to-night, wins the girl whom he loves, and he could have won her in no other way. There are people who can do great deeds and make great sacrifices for love, even to help the love of two others. It will be printed in every paper of the United States in the morning that Mr. Grayson was defeated in debate to-night by a young local lawyer. His prestige will be greatly impaired."
Her eyes glowed, and her face, too, became rarely tender.
"Uncle James was truly great to-night!" she exclaimed.
"At his greatest. I know of no other man who could have done it. After all, Sylvia, don't you think love is the greatest and purest of motives, and that we should consider it first?"
"John," she said, and it was the first time that she had ever called him by his first name, "you must not tempt me to break my sacred word to the man to whom I owe all things. Oh, John, don't you see how hard it is for me, and won't you help me to bear it, instead of making the burden heavier?"
She turned upon him a face of such pathetic appeal that Harley was abashed.
"Sylvia," he replied, almost in a whisper, "God knows that I do not wish to make you unhappy, nor do I wish to make you do what is wrong. I spoke so because I could not help it. Do you think that I can love you, and know you to be what you are, and then stand idly by and see you passing to another? I believe in silence and endurance, but not in such silence and endurance as that. It is too much! God never asks it of a man!"
She looked at him. Her eyes were dewy and tender, filled with love, a love tinged with sorrow, but he saw the brave resolution shining there, and he knew that, despite all, she would keep her word unless "King" Plummer himself willingly released her from it. And he loved her all the more because she was so true.
"Sylvia," he said, "I was wrong. I should not have spoken to you in such a manner. I am a weak coward to make your duty all the harder for you."
They were at the "ladies' entrance" of the hotel, and the others either had gone in or had turned aside. They were alone, and she bent a little towards him.
"The things that you say may be wrong," she whispered, "but—oh, John—I love to hear you say them!"
Then she went into the hotel, and Harley wisely did not seek to follow.
