The Candidate: A Political Romance
it was yet dusk. From a corner of the dining-room, where he snatched a
quick breakfast, he saw the sun shoot out of the prairie like a great
red cannon-ball and the world swim up into a sea of rosy light. Then he
ran for the special train, which was puffing and whistling at the
station, and the flock of correspondents was at his heels.
Harley saw Mr. and Mrs. Grayson alighting from a cab, and, satisfied
with the one glance, he entered the car and sought his place. Always,
like the trained soldier, he located his camp, or rather base, before
beginning his operations, and he made himself comfortable there with his
fellows until the train was well clear of the city and the straggling
suburbs that hung to it like a ragged fringe. Then he decided to go into
the next coach to see Mr. and Mrs. Grayson, making, as it were, a dinner
call.
The candidate and his wife had taken the drawing-room, not from any
desire of his for seclusion or as an artificial aid to greatness, but
because he saw that it was necessary if he would have any time for
thought or rest. Harley approached the compartment, expecting to be
announced by the porter, but a veiled lady in the seat next to it rose
up before him. She lifted the veil, which was not a disguise, instead
being intended merely as a protection against the dust that one gathers
on a railroad journey, and Harley stopped in surprise.
"And so you see, Mr. Correspondent," she said, "that your farewell was
useless. You behold me again inside of twelve hours. I wanted to tell
you last night that I was going on this train, as Uncle James has great
confidence in my political judgment and feels the constant need of my
advice, but I was afraid you would not believe me. So I have preferred
to let you see for yourself."
She gave Harley a look which he could not interpret as anything but
saucy, and his attention was called again by the bold, fine curve of her
chin, and he was saying to himself: "A wild life in the mountains surely
develops courage and self-reliance, but at the expense of the more
delicate and more attractive qualities." Then he said aloud, and
politely:
"I see no reason, Miss Morgan, why you should have credited me with a
lack of faith in your word. Have I said anything to induce such a belief
in your mind?"
"No, you have merely looked it."
"I do not always look as I feel," said Harley, in embarrassment, "and I
want to tell you, Miss Morgan, that I am very glad you are going with us
on this Chicago trip."
"You look as if you meant that," she said, gravely; "but if I am to take
you at your word, you mean nothing of the kind."
"I do mean it; I assure you I do," said Harley, hastily. "But are Mr.
and Mrs. Grayson ready to receive visitors?"
"That depends. I am not sure that I want Uncle James interviewed so
early in the day. At least I want to know in advance the subject of the
interview. You can give me, as it were, the heads of your discourse.
Come, tell me, and I will render a decision."
She regarded Harley with a grave face, and he was divided between
vexation and a sort of reluctant admiration of her coolness. She was
bold and forward, not to say impertinent, but she seemed wholly
unconscious of it, and, after all, she was from one of the wildest parts
of Idaho. He kindly excused much of her conduct on the ground of early
association.
"I do not seek to interview any one," he said; "I merely wish to pay my
respects to Mr. and Mrs. Grayson, having been their guest, as you know."
"Oh, then you can go in," she said, and, calling to the porter, she told
him to announce Mr. Harley, of the New York _Gazette_. "Of the New York
_Gazette_," she said again, with what Harley considered unnecessary
repetition and emphasis, and he had a new count against her.
Mr. and Mrs. Grayson received him with courtesy, even with warmth, and
Harley saw that he had made new progress in their esteem. He remained
with them only a few minutes, and he said nothing about the
objectionable conduct of Miss Morgan, who had set herself as a guard
upon their door. He deemed it wiser to make no reference to her at all,
because she was only an insignificant and momentary incident of the
campaign, not really relevant. Chicago was merely a beginning, and they
would drop her there. When he returned from the drawing-room, she was
still sitting near the door, and at his appearance she looked up pertly.
"Did you find him in a good-humor?" she asked.
"I think Mr. Grayson is always in a good-humor, or at least he is able
to appear so."
"I doubt whether perpetual good-humor, or the appearance of it, is
desirable. One ought to make a difference in favor of friends; I do not
care to present an amiable face to my enemies."
She pursed up her lips and looked thoughtful.
"When Uncle James goes to Washington to take the Presidency," she
continued, "he will need me to protect him from the people who have no
business with him."
"I hope the last remark is not personal?"
"Oh no," she said; "I recognize the fact that the press must be
tolerated."
Harley again felt piqued, and, not willing to retire with the sense of
defeat fresh upon him, he sat down near her and began to talk to her of
her Western life. He wished to know more about the genesis and progress
of a girl who seemed to him so strange, but he was not able to confine
her to certain channels of narrative. She was flippant and vague, full
of allusions to wild things like Indians or buffaloes or grizzly bears,
but with no detailed statement, and Harley gathered that her childhood
had been in complete touch with these primitive facts. Only such early
associations could account for the absence of so many conventions.
The correspondents who travelled with Harley were mostly men of
experience, readily adaptable, and the addition of a new member to Mr.
Grayson's party could not escape their attention. Harley was surprised
and shocked to find that all of them were well acquainted with Miss
Morgan inside of six hours, and that they seemed to be much better
comrades with her than he had been. Hobart, the most frivolous of the
lot, and the most careless of speech, returning from the Grayson car,
informed him that she was a "great girl, as fine as silk."
"That's a queer expression to apply to a lady," said Harley. "It smacks
of the Bowery."
"And what if it does?" replied Hobart, coolly. "I often find the Bowery
both terse and truthful. And in this case the expression fits Miss
Morgan. She's the real article--no fuss and frills, just a daughter of
the West, never pretending that she is what she isn't. I heard her speak
of you, Harley, and I don't think she likes you, old man. What have you
been doing?"
"I hope I have been behaving as a gentleman should," replied Harley,
with some asperity; "and if I have been unlucky enough to incur her
dislike, I shall endure it as best I can."
He spoke in an indifferent tone, as if his endurance would not be
severely tested.
"But you are missing a good time," said Hobart. "There are not less than
a dozen of us at her feet, and the Grayson car is full of jollity. I'm
going back."
He returned to the car, and Harley was left alone just then, as he
wished to be, and with an effort he dismissed Miss Morgan from his
thoughts. Mr. Grayson would speak that night in Chicago, and an audience
of twenty thousand people was assured; this fact and the other one, that
it would be his initial address, making the event of the first
importance.
Harley as a correspondent was able not only to chronicle facts, which is
no great feat, but also to tell why, to state the connection between
them, and to re-create the atmosphere in which those facts occurred and
which made them possible. He was well aware that a fact was dependent
for its quality--that is, for its degree of good or evil--upon its
surrounding atmosphere, just as a man is influenced by the air that he
breathes, and for this reason he wished to send in advance a despatch
about Mr. Grayson and his personality as created by his birth and
associations.
He rested his pad on the car-seat and began to write, but Miss Morgan
intruded herself in the first line. This question of character, created
by environment, would apply to her as well as to her uncle; but Harley,
angrily refusing to consider it, tore off the sheet of paper and,
throwing it on the floor, began again. The second trial was more
successful, and he soon became absorbed in the effort to describe Mr.
Grayson and his remarkable personality, which might be either deep and
complex or of the simplest Western type.
As he wrote Harley became more and more absorbed in his subject, and
with the absorption came spontaneity. He did not know how well he was
writing, nor what a vivid picture he was presenting to the vast Eastern
population to whom Jimmy Grayson was as yet but a name. It was a
despatch that became famous, reprinted all over the Union, and quoted as
the first description of the candidate as he really was--that is, of the
man. And yet Harley, reading it days later, recognized in it something
that nobody else saw. It was a blend. In every fourth line Sylvia Morgan
again, and despite his efforts, had obtruded herself. He had borrowed
something from her to add to Jimmy Grayson, and he felt that he had been
seeking excuses for her manner.
But this fact did not impinge upon Harley now, when he read the
despatch preparatory to filing it at Chicago. He merely felt that he had
made an attempt to solve Jimmy Grayson, and in doing so had fulfilled
his duty.
As he folded up the article the loud voice of Hobart hailed him from the
other end of the car, and he beheld that irresponsible man entering with
the candidate's niece.
"You see what he has been about all this time, Miss Morgan?" said
Hobart. "He has been at work. Harley, you know, is the only
conscientious man among us."
"I have remarked already his devotion to duty," she said, sedately; "but
do you think, Mr. Hobart, we should disturb him now? We do not know that
he has finished his task."
Harley flushed. He did not wish to be thought a prig or one who made a
pretence of great industry, and, although Miss Morgan's voice was
without expression, he believed that irony lay hidden somewhere in it.
"You are mistaken," he said; "my work is over, for the time, at least.
It was something that had to be done, or I should not have stolen off
here alone."
Then he went back with them to the Grayson car, where a joyous group had
gathered. Mr. and Mrs. Grayson were in the drawing-room, with the door
shut, working upon the candidate's speech at Chicago, Harley surmised,
and hence there was no restraint. Of this group the girl from Idaho was
the centre and the sun. She seemed to be on good terms with them all, to
the great surprise of Harley, who had known her longer than they, and
who had not been able to get on with her at all, and he sat rather on
the fringe of the throng, saying but little.
Again she inspired him with hostility; she seemed, as before, too bold,
too boisterous, too much the mountain maid, although he could not
analyze any particular incident as wrong in itself. And clearly she had
won the liking, even the admiration, of his associates, all of whom were
men of wide experience. Tremaine, the dean of the corps, a ruddy,
white-haired old fellow, who had written despatches from the
Russo-Turkish war, which was ancient history to Harley, warmed visibly
to Miss Morgan. "It is always the way with those old gallants," was
Harley's silent comment. But he had never before characterized Tremaine
in such a manner.
He was afraid of her sharp tongue, knowing that a woman in such respects
is never averse to taking an unfair advantage of a man; but she paid no