The Candidate: A Political Romance
harmony with the majesty of these great and silent spaces, but she did
not now seem bold and forward to him; she was clothed in a different
atmosphere altogether.
There was a warm greeting for Mr. Grayson and the hand of fellowship for
the others. Harley held Sylvia's fingers in his for a moment--just a
moment--and said, with some emphasis:
"Our little party has not been the same without you, Miss Morgan."
"I'm glad to hear you say it," she replied, frankly, "and I'm glad to be
back with all of you. It's a campaign that I enjoy."
"It can be said for it that it is never monotonous."
"That's one reason why I like it."
She laughed a little, making no attempt to conceal her pleasure at this
renewed touch with fresh, young life, and, because it was so obvious,
Harley laughed also and shared her pleasure. He noticed, too, the new
charm that she had in addition to the old, a softening of manner, a
slight appeal that she made, without detracting in any wise from the
impression of strength and self-reliance that she gave.
"Where did you leave 'King' Plummer?" he asked, unguardedly.
"In Idaho," she replied, with sudden gravity. "He is well, and I believe
that he is happy. He is umpiring a great quarrel between the cattlemen
and the sheepmen, or, rather, he is compelling both to listen to him and
to agree to a compromise that he has suggested. So he is really enjoying
himself. You do not know the delight that he takes in the handling of
large and rather rough affairs."
"I can readily guess it; he seems to have been made for them."
But she said no more of "King" Plummer, quickly turning the talk to the
campaign, and showing at once that she had followed every phase of it
with the closest and most anxious attention. Mrs. Grayson had walked on
a little and was talking to her husband, but she glanced back and saw
what she had expected. She and her husband turned presently in their
walk, and she said, looking significantly at Harley and Miss Morgan:
"It is a great pleasure to Sylvia to be with your party again."
There was such a curious inflection to her voice that the candidate
exclaimed, "Why, what do you mean, Anna?" and she merely replied, "Oh,
nothing!" which meant everything. The candidate, understanding, looked
more attentively, and his eyes contracted a little, as if he were not
wholly pleased at what he saw.
"It's a free world," he said, "but I am glad that 'King' Plummer will be
with us again in a few days."
But his wife, able to see further than he, merely looked thoughtful and
did not reply.
Harley's solitary talk with Miss Morgan was brief; it could not be
anything else under the circumstances; Hobart, with all sail set, bore
down upon them.
"Come! Come, Harley!" he cried, with the perfect frankness that usually
distinguished him, "we don't permit any selfish monopolists here. We are
all cast away on a desert island, so to speak, and there are a lot of us
men and only two women, one of whom is mortgaged!"
Then he was welcoming Miss Morgan in florid style; and there, too, was
the ancient beau, Tremaine, displaying all his little arts of elegance
and despising Hobart's obvious methods; and Blaisdell, and all the
others, forming a court about her and giving her an attention which
could not fail to please her and bring a deeper red to her cheeks and a
brighter flash to her eyes. It seemed to Mrs. Grayson, looking on, that
the girl had been hungry for something which she had now found, and in
finding which she was happy, and, despite her sense of loyalty, she felt
a glow of sympathy.
But the sense of duty in Mrs. Grayson was strong, and while she
hesitated much and sought for mental excuses to avoid it, she wrote a
long letter to "King" Plummer that evening in the waiting-room of a
little wayside hotel. In many things that she said she was beautifully
vague; but she told him how glad she was that he would join them so
soon; she spoke of the quarrel between the cattlemen and the sheepmen as
a closed affair, and complimented him on his skill in bringing it to an
end so quickly; it was all the better because now he could come to them
at once, and she boldly said how much Sylvia was missing him. But when
she sealed and addressed the letter she reflected awhile before dropping
it in the box on the wall.
"Now, ought I to do this?" she asked herself. "Have I the right to
hasten or to divert the course of affairs?"
She decided that she had the right, and mailed the letter.
"King" Plummer came a few days later--he said that he "just blew in a
few days ahead of time"--and received a hearty welcome from everybody,
which he returned in double measure in his broad, spontaneous way. He
placed a sounding kiss upon the somewhat flushed brow of Sylvia Morgan,
and exclaimed, "Well, my little girl, aren't you glad to see me ahead of
time?" She replied quickly, though not loudly, that she was, and then he
announced that he would stay with them for a long while. "These are my
mountains," he said, "and I'll have to show you the way through them."
"King" Plummer, although inclined to be masterful, was admitted at once
into the full membership of the party, and he entered upon what he
called his first long vacation. He showed the keenest enjoyment in the
speeches, the crowds, the enthusiasm, the travelling, and the
quick-shifting scenes. He was a boy with the boys, but the watchful Mrs.
Grayson noticed a shade of difference between Sylvia with the "King"
present and Sylvia with the "King" absent. With him present there was a
little restraint, a slight effort on her part to watch herself; but with
him away there was great spontaneity and freedom, especially with the
younger members like Harley and Hobart, and even Churchill, who
reluctantly admitted that Miss Morgan was a fine girl, "though rather
Western, you know."
Mrs. Grayson began to take thought with herself again, and the thought
was taken with great seriousness. Had she been right in bringing "King"
Plummer on so soon, although he did not even know that he was brought?
She resolutely asked herself, too, how much of her action had been due
to the knowledge that the "King" was a very important man to her
husband, controlling, as he probably could, the vote of several mountain
states. This question, which she could not answer, troubled her, and so
did the conduct of Sylvia, who, usually so frank and straightforward,
seemed to be suffering from a strange attack of perverseness. For years
she had obeyed "King" Plummer as her protector and as the one who had
rightful control, but now she began to give him orders and to criticise
many things that he did, to the unlimited astonishment of the "King,"
who had never expected anything of the kind.
"What is the matter with Sylvia? I never knew her to act in such a way
before," he said to Mrs. Grayson.
"As she is to be your wife, and not a sort of ward, she is merely giving
you a preliminary training," replied the candidate's wife, dryly.
"King" Plummer looked at her in doubt, but he pondered the question
deeply and was remarkably meek the next time Sylvia scolded him, whereat
she showed less pleasure than ever. "King" Plummer was still in a maze
and did not know what to say. The very next day he found himself deeper
in the tangle, being scolded by Mrs. Grayson herself.
They were waiting at a small station for some carriages which were to
take them across the prairie, and, the air being clear and bracing, they
stood outside, where Miss Morgan, as usual, held an involuntary court. A
cloud of dust arose, and behind it quickly came a great herd of cattle,
driven with much shouting and galloping of horses by a half-dozen
cowboys. The herd was passing to the south a few hundred yards from the
station, but Sylvia, thoroughly used to such sights, was not interested.
Not so some of the others who went out to see, and among them was "King"
Plummer, who began at once to calculate the number of cattle, their
value, and how far they had come, all of which he did with great
shrewdness.
The "King's" absorption in this congenial occupation was increased when
he recognized the leader of the cowboys as an old friend and former
associate in Idaho and Montana, with whom he could exchange much
interesting news. Borrowing a horse from one of the men, he rode on with
them for a mile or two.
Mrs. Grayson had seen "King" Plummer leave the group about Sylvia, and
she marked it with a disapproving eye. She would have spoken to him
then, but she had no chance, and she watched him until he borrowed the
horse and rode on with the cowboys. Then she looked the other way and
saw two figures walking up and down the station platform. They were
Sylvia and Harley, engrossed in talk and caring not at all for the
passage of the herd. The two brown heads were not far apart, and Mrs.
Grayson was near enough to see that Sylvia's color was beautiful.
The candidate's wife was annoyed, and, like any other good woman, she
was ready to vent her annoyance on somebody. She walked out a little
from the station, and presently she met "King" Plummer coming back. He
dismounted, returned the horse to its owner, and approached her, the
sparkle of enthusiasm in his eyes lighting up his brown face.
"That was a pleasant surprise, Mrs. Grayson," he exclaimed. "The leader
of those boys was Bill Ascott, whom I've known twenty years, an' he's
brought those cattle so cleverly all the way from Montana that they are
in as good condition now as they were the day they started. And I had a
fine gallop with them, too."
He had more to say, but he stopped when he noticed her deeply frowning
face.
"What is wrong, Mrs. Grayson?" he asked, in apprehension.
"Oh, you had a fine gallop, did you!" she said, in a tone of biting
irony. "I am glad of it. Mr. William Plummer ought to have his gallop,
under any circumstances!"
He stared at her in increasing amazement.
"I don't know that I'm counted a dull man, but you've got me now, Mrs.
Grayson."
She pointed to the station platform, where the two brown heads were
still not far apart.
"Without a word you left the woman that you are going to marry to look
at a lot of cattle."
"Why, Sylvia is only a child, an' we've been used to each other for
years. She understands."
"Yes, she will understand, or she isn't a woman," said Mrs. Grayson, and
if possible the biting irony of her tone increased. "You will see, too,
Mr. William Plummer, that one man at least did not neglect her for the
sake of some dusty cattle."
Mr. Plummer stared again at the pair on the platform, and a mingled look
of pain and apprehension came into his eyes.
"You surely can't mean anything of that kind! Why, little Sylvia has
promised--"
"All things are possible, Mr. Plummer. My husband is a lawyer, and I
have heard him quote often a maxim of the law which runs something like
this, 'He must keep who can.'"
She turned away and would not have another word to say to him then,
leaving Mr. Plummer in much perplexity and trouble.
Mrs. Grayson herself was in a similar perplexity and trouble throughout
the day. Her doubts about the letter she had written to "King" Plummer
increased. Perhaps it would have been wiser to let affairs take their
own course. The sight of the two brown heads and the two young faces on
the station platform had made her very thoughtful, and she drew
comparisons with "King" Plummer; there might be days in autumn which
resembled those of spring, but it was only a fleeting resemblance,
because autumn was itself, with its own coloring, its own fruits, and
its own days, and nothing could turn it into spring. "I will not meddle
again," she resolved, and then her mind was taken off the matter by an
incident in her husband's progress. In Nebraska the men left the train