VSEEING HER FATHER

VSEEING HER FATHER

ON the second floor of the Washington house of George Clearwater, lumber king and United States Senator, there was a small room whose windows commanded the entrance. They gave upon one of those useless and never used balconies wherewith architects strive to conceal the feebleness of their imagination and the poverty of their invention. Of that particular balcony some facetious congressman said that Clearwater might one day find it convenient—“when he needs a place to stand and explain to the mob how he happens to be so rich.” The remark got round to Clearwater, and he never looked at thelittle balcony without recalling it. The multimillionaire, constantly enveloped by his crowd of sycophants, soon tends to become paranoiac, soon fancies that everybody is thinking about him all the time—about him and his money, which are one and the same thing, for he feels that he is his money and his money he. Also, as his dominant passion has always been wealth, he assumes that it is the universal passion raging in all hearts as firmly as in his; that therefore he must be the object of malignant envy; that those myriad eyes ever fixed upon him are as covetous as his own. Thus Clearwater took that facetious remark seriously—read the distorted tales of the French revolution, discussed the ferocity and restlessness of the masses quite as if he had never been a farm hand, one of those same masses, and had never known the truth about them—their ass-like patience, their worm-like meekness.

He was looking at this balcony and was thinking of the “menacing popular unrest” when George Helm’s name was brought up to him. He was still looking and thinking when Helm himself entered the small room. At the sound of his step, Clearwater turned and greeted him with friendly constraint. Helm looked wretched with embarrassment.

“Ah—Mr. Helm—pardon me, Governor Helm,” said Clearwater who had long since effaced all traces of the farm hand and of the stages intermediate to his arrival at the American business man’s heaven, the plutocracy. “Much has happened since we met last winter.”

Much had indeed happened, but the only blessed thing of it Helm could remember at the moment was the collar he had been beguiled into buying that morning. It was too high for him, and it squeaked. Also,Helm had on a new suit of clothes; he had bought it only a few days before. He had not yet got used to it, but it looked as if he had slept in it. That was the way clothes always acted with George—and being elected governor had made no change. In answer to the senator’s amiable remark he managed to utter—with a violent squeak and creak of the collar—a timid “Yes.”

“It is no small honor to be the youngest governor in the United States,” pursued Clearwater. “Won’t you sit down?”

George looked at him as if “sit down” were a new and puzzling idea to him. Then he looked about at the furniture as if he had small and wanting confidence in it. However, as Clearwater sat, he ventured a nervous imitation and drew out his handkerchief.

A great misfortune—no, a fresh calamity. The handkerchief had been bought withthe collar. It did not squeak; worse, it rustled. The collar creaked, the handkerchief rustled, the new suit caught him under the arms.

Said Clearwater:

“My daughter—Eleanor—she has—has rather prepared me for your visit.”

George feebly echoed Clearwater’s amiable laugh.

“Senator Sayler, too—he has put in a good word for you. He is a great friend of yours—a great and generous admirer. He predicts a future for you—a dazzling future.”

Helm began to murmur a reply, but the catch in his coat seemed somehow to have involved his vocal cords. He put the rustling handkerchief away, but in his pocket it still rustled like a mouse in a waste-paper basket. Helm’s murmurings died in a kind of stifled groan.

“I am an old-fashioned American,” continued Clearwater, passing his hand over his short gray beard in a pompous gesture as if this confession reflected the highest credit upon his courage and upon America. “I believe in the love marriage. I am glad my daughter has chosen—and has been chosen by—a man of the people, a rising, ambitious man, with a career in the making.”

“Thank you, sir,” said George.

Clearwater extended a cigar, which George took—helped him light it—lit one himself. “A very mild smoke,” he explained. “I have Cisneros make it up for me in Havana from a specially selected leaf. If you’d prefer something stronger?”

“No, thank you,” said George.

“Lord Cuffingham—the British ambassador—asked me to let him have a box to send to the King. Personally I have no more respect for a king than I have for aplain American citizen. But we were talking about your wish to marry my daughter.”

“Yes, sir,” said George, a trifle less embarrassed, now that the cigar relieved him of worry about his large, very brown and very powerful hands.

“I shall confess to you, Governor, that if it had not been for the generous words Senator Sayler spoke in your behalf I should have hesitated about giving my consent.”

George forgot his collar, the handkerchief, the coat—all his embarrassments.

“Your speeches in the legislature last winter—such report of them as I got—and in your campaign—I must say in all candor, Governor, that while I appreciate the necessity of pleasing the people, of soothing them by seeming to agree with them—still I must say that you—in fact at times you seemed to go even further than—than theirdemagogues, in assaults upon property, and wealth and all that has built up the country.”

Helm was leaning forward now, his elbows upon his knees, a fascinating look in his rugged face, in the kind yet somehow inflexible, blue-gray eyes.

“However,” continued Clearwater, “Sayler assures me that you are a sound, safe man—that you have nothing of the demagogue in you—that you stand for the fine old American principle of freedom, of the utmost opportunity.”

“What do you mean by opportunity?” asked George.

Clearwater frowned slightly. “I mean—opportunity,” said he, in the tone of one forbidding further questioning as impertinence.

George settled himself back in his chair with a long sigh. “I see that SenatorSayler has been too kind about me,” said he. “He has given you a false impression of me.”

“I am sorry to hear it,” said Clearwater curtly.

His look and his voice were a warning that Helm would better draw back if he did not wish to provoke a wrath that had been not without difficulty soothed by Sayler and Eleanor. Helm understood. His eyes had never been kinder or gentler—or more direct—than as he replied:

“There can never be any political sympathy between you and me, Senator. I have made my fight thus far along the lines I believe to be right. I have not said more than I meant, but less.”

Clearwater rose, rage flaming in his cheeks. “I suspected so!” he cried. “I can’t imagine Sayler’s object in trying to deceive me—to trick me into admitting to my familyone of this new breed of dangerous young demagogues who want to substitute anarchy and socialism for the republic of the fathers.”

He glowered at George, sitting and staring into space, the look of tragedy, of profound melancholy strong upon his homely, gaunt face. He went on:

“You look like an intelligent man. How can you fly in the face of your common-sense? To get office, to lift yourself, you are willing to rouse the ignorant and the idle to hate and to assault the men whom God has raised up to develop and to guard this country! I was poor myself, and I was anxious to get up in the world. But I’d rather have thrust my right hand into the fire than have lifted it against my country.”

George Helm heaved another long sigh, rose and regarded the old lumber king sadly. Said he:

“I sha’n’t argue with you, sir. We’d only get into a wrangle. I simply couldn’t allow you to misunderstand about me.”

“Why did you come here, at all?” demanded Clearwater. “Did Sayler fool you, too? Has he been trying to make us both puppets in some political game of his? Why should he wish to humiliate me by tricking me into letting my daughter marry a demagogue?”

Helm flushed, but his voice was gentle as he replied:

“I think you’re unjust to Senator Sayler, sir. He knew that your daughter and I loved each other. He likes both of us, and he knew you’d put your daughter’s happiness above what he probably regards as simply a difference of political opinion.”

“Anarchy and socialism aren’t political opinions,” retorted Clearwater. “They’re criminal, sir, criminal. And I regard anyone who holds the ideas you profess—I regard him as a criminal. Heisa criminal—an inciter of riot and murder and theft.”

“No doubt you are honest in your opinions, sir,” said George with quiet dignity. “But I must request you not to insult me again. I shall detain you only a moment.”

“I can’t conceive how you dared aspire tomydaughter. Did you thinkIwould be impressed by your being a governor?”

Helm’s eyes twinkled humorously. “Hardly,” said he. “They say that you own two or three governors. I know Sayler owns nearly a dozen. No, Senator, I didn’t come to you as a public man but just as a chap who loves your daughter and intends to do the best he knows how to make her not regret having married him. You can see for yourself that I’m not pretty to look at, and haven’t the graces of manner, or any of those things to recommend me to a lady. Idon’t know why she’s willing to take me. So far as my side of it’s concerned, of course, as soon as I sawherI couldn’t help wanting her.”

Helm was so ingenuous and winning that in spite of himself Clearwater was mollified somewhat. “I guess Sayler’s responsible for this,” said he, with a grudging graciousness. “Well—we’ve found him out, and as there’s no harm done we can laugh at him.”

“Come to think it over,” said George, “I shouldn’t be surprised if Sayler didn’t have a notion in the back of his head that if he got me married right I’d come round—fall into line and drop my principles.”

Clearwater nodded. “And no doubt you will. ButIshall not permitmydaughter to be used for any such purpose.” Very graciously, after the manner of the thoroughly virtuous, praising the feeble andhalting efforts of a young fellow man essaying the lower reaches of the path of virtue: “I congratulate you on your honesty—on not trying the unprincipled game of hiding your principles. I admire an honest man. It must have cost you a struggle.”

“No,” said George, “I had nothing to lose by speaking out. You are the courageous one, sir—for you might have lost your daughter—if I had been over sensitive and had taken up your hot words.”

Senator Clearwater showed that he was at a loss to understand. Said he:

“At any rate, it’s all settled. I shall explain to my daughter. For I must ask you not to try to see her again.”

Helm looked at him vaguely.

“It would only cause both you and her pain,” explained Clearwater.

“Yes, it will distress us both to disregard your advice,” said Helm.

“My advice?” inquired the puzzled Clearwater.

“You are advising against her marrying me, as I understand it,” explained George. “Of course, we may be mistaken, but we can’t see it that way.”

Clearwater was so astounded that his mouth fell open and gave him some difficulty before it permitted him to say:

“Why—what in thehelldo you mean?”

“Now look here, Senator,” remonstrated Helm, “what’s the use of getting excited? You don’t want to lose your daughter. It’s me you don’t like. Well—you need never see me. I’ll go away when you visit our house, and she’ll visit you whenever she wants to and leave me behind. Why shouldn’t we get along peaceably? She’s your only child. She’s all you’ve got. It’ll grieve her to know she’s going against your wishes. Why not make her as easy as youcan? I don’t expect you to pretend to like me. But you can just kind of—pass me over. I’ll help.”

Clearwater, warned by a slight vertigo, had seated himself. Said he slowly:

“Do you mean to say, sir, that you thinkmydaughter will marry you?”

“Oh, come now, Senator,” pleaded George, “you know how it was when you went courting. Would your wife have given you up, because her father and mother didn’t like you?”

“Enough of this,” said Clearwater quietly. He rose. “I wish you good day, sir. I wish you to understand that you will not see my daughter again—that she will not marry you—that if she did I’d cut her off without a cent. As you”—with scathing contempt—“have no doubt heard, she has some property of her own. It is very small—very small, sir. And I have control of ituntil she is thirty—time enough to starve her out and to spare, as she knows——”

“Senator,” interrupted George, “I hope you won’t say these things to her. Do them if you think it right. I shall be glad if you do, as I don’t want my wife beholden to anybody but me. Do them, Senator, but don’t let on to her. She might feel that you didn’t love her. She might—I hate to say it, sir—she might stop loving you herself, if she thought you could put money before love.”

“I need no assistance in managing my family,” said Clearwater, in cold fury. He bowed, “Good day, sir.”

Helm hesitated, then bowed with simple dignity and withdrew. Clearwater watched at one of the windows until he saw him walking slowly out of the grounds and down the street—tall and lean, awkwardly dressed. Said Clearwater aloud with anangry sneer: “He looks as if he belonged at the servants’ entrance.” The remark was not without justification, yet Clearwater knew—and the knowledge enraged him—that there was in the air of that figure, in the expression of that face, a quality, far removed from the menial, or even the humble. And it was that quality that made the arrogant and confident old man a little nervous as he awaited the coming of the daughter for whom he had sent as soon as Helm disappeared round the corner.

As Eleanor came in, radiant, expectant, she gave a quick glance round and exclaimed:

“Why, papa, where’s George?”

To “papa” George had up to this time been simply what one man is to another—simply a specimen of the male sex. In this case, not a specimen likely to appeal strongly to the female sex, according toClearwater’s notion of female likes and dislikes in males. But Eleanor’s look and tone put a sudden very different complexion on the matter. Clearwater abruptly realized that his daughter—this lovely, delicate creature of fine manners, speech and raiment—was in love with the lanky, baggily-dressed fellow, half crank, half knave and altogether detestable.

This discovery, thus all in an instant made real to the father, instead of angering him, threw him into a panic. And out of panic, with its chaos of fermenting emotions, any emotion is as likely to emerge as any other. No one, in a panic, can predict whether he will emerge furious and implacable or trembling and abject. The reason for the panic was his adoration of his daughter. Rarely is there any greater intimacy between father and daughter than friendly acquaintance. But almost always there isa tenacious and worshipful admiration—which, naturally, forbids the frankness of intimacy because each fears that the delusion of the other would be impaired, if not destroyed, should the truth of human weakness come out. The daughter adores the father as the superior type of the superior sex; the father adores the daughter as the embodiment of the female sex’s two awe-inspiring charms, beauty and purity. Clearwater thought his daughter the most beautiful woman in the world, and an angel for purity—certainly, such purity could have no place in the mud-geyser of the world as he knew it. And he was now in terror lest she, idealist, ignorant of the realities, should not understand his attitude toward Helm. No doubt the fellow had talked his theories to her—and they were just the sort of stuff that would appeal to idealism and worldly-ignorance.

“Helm?” said Clearwater, almost as nervous as George had been with his squeaking collar and his rustling handkerchief. “Helm? Oh—he’s gone.”

“But I told him to send for me as soon as you and he had finished.”

“We—that is, he——. Now, Eleanor, you must trust to my judgment about men.”

Eleanor had an expression different from any he had seen before—in her face, in any one’s face. “Father,” she said in a voice that made him quail, though it was neither loud nor in any other obtrusive way emotional, “what did you say to him?”

“He was insulting,” said Clearwater. “He insulted me. His presence was an insult. His ideas are an insult to us both. Eleanor, he is one of those men who go up and down the country denouncing me andmen of my sort—all the leading men of the country as robbers, and rousing the passions of the poor and the ignorant against us.”

“You mean he’s a Democrat and you are a Republican,” said Eleanor angrily. “But what do I care for that? I can’t fall in love with a man because he’s a Republican, papa.”

“He’s not a Republican, nor a Democrat,” declared Clearwater. “There are sane, sound men in both parties, and both are one when it comes to questions like law and order, respect for the courts——”

“Father,” interrupted the girl, “whatdid you say to George? Did you send him away?”

“He is an anarchist, a socialist—a—a demagogue. He insulted me. He——”

“Whatdid he say?” she again interrupted.

“As I’ve told you, he has attacked me—my sort of men—with lies and filth. He has——”

“What did he say here—a while ago—in this room?”

Clearwater, thus cornered, dared not wander too far from the truth. “He said plainly that he meant all he had said—that he had spoken less than he thought. He refused to retract or modify. He was——”

“How like him!” cried Eleanor, with shining eyes. “Do you wonder that Ilovehim, papa!”

Clearwater was taken completely aback. “Youapproving insults tome!” exclaimed he.

“You know you’d have despised him if he had weakened.”

“Eleanor, you don’t understand. This man’s conduct is criminal—is a grave offenseagainst society—is an insult to me—a menace to our property——”

“Don’t try to scare me, papa,” laughed the girl. “You can’t. Maybe I don’t understand his political principles. What do I care for them? It’s a woman’s business to love and then to trust. I love him. So—whatever he says goes with me, you foolish old papa.” And she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him and mussed his carefully arranged beard with her chin.

Clearwater had the shrewd man’s knowledge of human nature, was not without insight into his daughter. It is a mistake to think that men are fooled because they let themselves be cajoled; they are fooled, usually, because they wish to be, because their vanity or their hope or their affection gives their cajoler the aid without which he—or she—would fail. Clearwater waswell aware that Eleanor was artfully dodging the real issue. But how does knowledge that his beloved daughter is lovingly artful aid a loving father to corner her and bring her to ways of sense and reason?

“Let my beard alone,” said Clearwater fretfully. But no one would have been deceived; under the fretfulness there was the male, ashamed of his weakness of affection for the female—but none the less weak.

Eleanor laughed and persisted in the mussing and mauling.

“You can’t wheedle me, miss,” declared he.

“Of course I can,” laughed she. “You told me I could have him.”

“I didn’t know what kind of man he was. Now that I know, I forbid it.”

She kissed him. “Then I’ll marry him, anyhow. I’ve simplygotto do it, papa. And—as Mr. Sayler says, if you were runningfor vice-president, or anything, it would be a good thing to have a man like George compelled to keep quiet.”

“He’d attack me just the same.”

“Then he’d do you good. People would simply think less of him for coming out against his wife’s father.”

“I’ll not have such a character in my family,” cried Clearwater desperately. He pushed his daughter away. “I can’t understand your wanting him. After all the money that’s been spent on your education, all the pains that’s been taken!”

“I should thinkyou’dlook on my education as a tearing success,” replied she. “It seems to have taught me to appreciate a man. But the education isn’t responsible for that. It’s because I’myourdaughter. How could I help despising the men who couldn’t do anything for themselves, who owe everything to others, who live like fleason a dog, papa—instead of being strong and rising up and up? Like you, papa!”

“Never!” exclaimed Clearwater. “I never was a demagogue, an inciter of class hatreds, a fermenter of envy—telling the shiftless and thoughtless——”

She shook her finger laughingly. “Now, papa! Be careful! I’ve read some of your early speeches—when you were running for Congress and starting unions in the logging camps.”

The red, so difficult to bring to old cheeks, so slow to spread, crept over his whole face. It is fortunate that his daughter did not know the whole of the why of that red—the deep-hidden story of treason to the people who had believed in him, of viler preceding treason to his honester self.

“I was an ignorant fool in those days,” shuffled he. “And this fellow isn’t. He’s intelligent and cunning.”

She was too wise to linger upon this dangerous ground of politics, once she had scored. Away she sped, with a delightfully crafty, “I do believe you think he’s after my money, father. I can see how you might think so. And you’re right to convince yourself. Yes, I understand. You’re putting him to the test. I’m glad of it.”

“What do you mean?” inquired the puzzled father.

She was laughing gayly. “Yes—I see it all. Go ahead, papa. Oppose all you like. Make him feel that you will cut me off if I marry him. Iknowhim. I know he doesn’t need that test. But I can’t blame you for not trusting him. You see, you don’t love him—yet.”

Clearwater was dumfounded. To have his flank thus neatly turned! And that, just as he was about to deliver the final and decisive blow—the threat of cutting her off.He gathered himself together as best he could, whipped up his anger and said:

“But I shall do that very thing.”

She looked at him with sudden, touchingly sweet incredulity. “Oh, no—you couldn’t, papa. Not that I—not that we—want anything from you but your love. But you couldn’t make a base thing like money a test of the love between you and me.”

His eyes shifted. When a father seriously makes the threat to cut off a son or a daughter, however great the reflection upon the father, it is greater upon the son or daughter. Eleanor Clearwater had lived under her father’s eye all the years of her life. He knew her—knew her character—respected it, feared it, as baser character ever fears finer. And stronger than his aversion to the George Helm sort of man, stronger than his passion for autocratic rule, stronger eventhan his reverence for his wealth, was—of necessity—his fear lest his daughter should justly estimate him, should lose her delusion as to his true nature.

Our conduct is less a measure of ourselves than of those about us—those whose opinions we respect, those of whom we feel the need. George Clearwater gave up the struggle. Eleanor had won, not because her father doted upon her—for mere doting readily turns toward hate when its object offends—but because he respected her. Said he:

“If you marry him, it’s without my consent. It’s against my wishes.”

His tone of gloomy resignation told her that she had won. She was astonished; for from time to time there had been in his voice a note that set her to quivering with alarm lest she should have to face the alternative of breaking with him or with GeorgeHelm. And it seemed to her that in choosing Helm she would show herself selfish, unappreciative of all her father had done for her and would make her love for him look a poor feeble unmasked pretense. Said she demurely:

“You’ll let us marry here?”

He made an angry gesture. “I don’t want a scandal.”

“You being rich,” she went on adroitly, “a story that you were snobbish would be put out, if we married anywhere else.”

“I don’t care a damn what people think or say,” retorted he so violently that she knew her shot had penetrated.

“But I do,” replied she. “I want you to be vice-president, and I’d hate to be even indirectly the cause of anything that might interfere. You remember, Mr. Sayler said my marrying George Helm would make you more attractive as a candidate.”

“You weren’t thinking of marrying anyways soon!” cried he, angry and alarmed.

“George wants us to be inaugurated together. He goes in the first of January.”

Clearwater began to pace the room with quick, nervous steps. “That means right away,” he said.

“Oh, no, papa. In about two weeks.”

He stopped before her. “And what’s to become ofme?”

“Why, I’ll be with you almost as much as ever. We’ve always been separated most of the time—your fault, not mine. And I’m not going to take Aunt Louisa away from you.”

“You are a heartless girl!”

“Father, for several years you’ve been urging me to marry. I’ve heard you tell dozens of people that you wanted to see your grandchildren.”

At the thought ofhisgrandchildren thechildren of George Helm, Clearwater became purple and abruptly left the room. Also, hehadbeen urging Eleanor to marry.

About an hour later, as he was at the front door to motor to the club, he met George Helm entering. He was so absorbed in the attempt to conceal his anger and hatred behind a manner of stiff politeness that he did not really look at Helm, therefore did not see Helm’s frigid bow far more ominous than his own lack of cordiality. “Impudent adventurer,” he muttered—when there was not a possibility of Helm’s hearing any faint rumble of that carefully suppressed wrath. He cursed his weakness of paternal affection, marveled at his unaccountable lack of the courage to rise up and put down the whole abominable business.

At the club he took into his confidence old Senator Tingley, his bosom friend andhis partner in many a stealthy business adventure which neither would have cared to have had visited by any ray of the sunlight of publicity. Business aside—how often it is necessary to leave out of account a man’s way of making his money!—business aside, Tingley was a kindly old patriarch, as genial as wise. Said he:

“George, it’s the same old story.”

“He’s got her hypnotized,” said Clearwater.

“Don’t talk like a child,” replied Tingley. “Nature’s got her hypnotized. You could have prevented this if you’d married her off pretty soon after she got to the marriageable age. She’s simply obeying nature that refuses to be put off any longer. We parents are damn fools not to realize that our children, even our pure, innocent daughters, are human.”

Clearwater did not see how to denyTingley’s unromantic but impressively simple and sensible explanation. However, he felt that he owed it to his daughter’s innocence to say something in mitigation. Said he:

“She seems to be in love with him.”

“And probably will be after they’re married. Certainly will be, if he knows his business at all. He’ll have the inside track and it’ll be his fault if he don’t convince her that he, the only man she ever knew, is a wonder of a special creation. She’ll never suspect that all men are pretty much the same.”

Clearwater winced before the frankness of his friend, too old to make pretenses and too wise to believe them. Said he:

“Aaron, how can I break it up?”

“Well—in a nominating convention, if you want to beat a popular candidate, you’ve got to have a man to beat him with.It’s the same way in these heart matters. Find another man—one she’ll like better.”

Clearwater groaned. “These damned young nincompoops you find round in society!” he cursed. “Really I can’t blame her for taking the first fellow with jump and ginger.”

Old Tingley nodded. “The altar men—the fellows that’ll marry young girls—do seem to be mighty poor pickings. At least here in Washington—in ‘our set.’”

When Helm entered the presence of Eleanor his manner had lost its frigidness and reserve but none of the gravity. She flung herself into his arms, clung to him passionately with a complete giving up of herself to her love for him. He held her, he caressed her gently, he showed in every look and gesture how deeply he loved her. Yet—if she had not been so intoxicated by her emotions, she would have felt, wouldhave seen that this peculiar young man not only was master of her love but also was master of his own.

“Iknewyou wouldn’t let anything come between us,” said she. “George, how wonderful it is to love a man one simply couldn’t doubt. Do you feel that way about me?”

“That’s why we’re engaged,” said he. “That’s why we’ve got to marry.”

“Father’ll get over this,” she assured him. Helm shook his head. “No; he’ll be worse and worse—more against me. It can’t possibly be otherwise. When you go with me, you leave him.”

“Let’s not talk about that!” cried she. “Since I’ve got to marry you—the rest doesn’t matter.”

“But you’ve thought about it?” insisted he. “You realize what you’re doing?”

She stopped his lips with her fingers.

He kissed her finger tips and put them aside—with the compelling look of his eyes rather than with his gentle hand. He said:

“You understand you’re leaving your class and coming to mine—and that the war between these two classes is going to be bitter and more bitter until——”

“But that’s a long ways off. George,” she said abruptly, “let’s get married at once—to-day—to-morrow—as soon as we can.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you wish it?”

He smiled tenderly. “I’m married to you already—for good and all.” He held her tightly in his long arms that gave her such a sense of peace and security. “For ever—and ay, Ellen.”

She was sobbing. “Oh—I’m so happy—so happy,” she murmured.

“But you must tell me why you want to marry at once.”

She did not answer.

“Is it because you are nervous about—about divided loyalty?”

She nodded, keeping her face hid.

“Then you do understand? You have thought?”

She nodded. “And I know you’ll do nothing but what you ought to do.”

“What Ihaveto do,” he replied. “I’m going to enforce the laws. I’m going to ask for more laws of the kind that are for the benefit of the whole people—and I’m going to get them.”

“You are going to attack—father?” she said, speaking as if she were compelled.

“Probably you’ve heard of Voltaire’s dilemma?”

“No,” said she.

“Suppose there were a button before you,and by pressing it you could have your heart’s dearest wish—wealth, fame, power, love, happiness—but if you did press that button, instantly a human being away off in China would fall dead. It might be an old man about to die anyhow—or horribly diseased—or some dreadful criminal—or the mother of some baby needing all her love and care—or the father and only support of a family—or some girl like yourself, about to marry and be happy. You would never know whom you had killed; but—some one would be dead. Would you press the button or not?”

“Isn’t that terrible!” said she.

“Well, in these days the gentlemen who are so eager to be very rich have constructed a button—the corporation. It gives them their dearest wish—wealth and power. It removes responsibility away off, beyond their sight. They do not hesitate. Theypress the button. And then, away off, beyond their sight, so far from them that they can pretend—can make many believe, including themselves—that they really didn’t know and don’t know what theotherconsequences of pressing the button are—away off there, as the button is pressed, people die, people starve, babies are slaughtered, misery blackens countless lives. The prosperous, respectable gentlemen press the button. And not they, but the corporation grabs public property—bribes public officials—hires men they never see to do their dirty work, their cruel work, their work of shame and death. They press the button—and the dividends pour in—and they ignore and forget the rest.”

A long silence. He sat in one of his favorite attitudes—body bent forward, elbow on knees, eyes staring at the carpet. She slowly smoothed down first one sleeve ofher blouse, then the other. At last she said:

“Yes—that is it. I understand.”

“We can’t take any of that money.”

Again silence. Then she:

“No, George—we can’t.”

“You aresureyou understand?”

“Ever since we became engaged I’ve been getting ready to be your wife.”

“You have no secret hope—perhaps unknown to yourself—that I will change—will join your class?”

“For a while—last spring—I had,” she confessed. “But soon—when I knew you better—and understood your speeches—then I didn’t want you to change.” She smiled quizzically—“not even your tailor.”

He looked down at the new suit in which he thought himself almost too fine. But he couldn’t see how characteristically it bunched and bagged upon his figure intolerantof fashionable clothing. “Don’t you like this suit?” he inquired anxiously. “I got it to please you. I hoped you’d like it.”

“Iloveit,” she declared. “I wouldn’t have you changed one least little bit.”

He rose. “I’ll go get the license. We can marry to-morrow—and start for home. We can stop off and look at Niagara Falls if you like. I’ve never seen it.”

She laughed and hugged him. He thought it was altogether because of the decision about the marriage. “Yes—do let’s take in Niagara,” she said, and she laughed again.

“I’ve got a lot to do before inauguration,” he went on. “After we get to Harrison I may not be able to spend much time with you.”

“How much’ll we have to live on, George?”

“Oh—lots of money. The salary’s eight thousand a year. We’re going to live verysimply. I don’t believe in acting the way our governors have been acting lately. We mustn’t forget that we are working for the people—and that they are very poor. I take it that you don’t care for luxury—or you wouldn’t have bothered with me.”

“I don’t care for anything but you,” she said. “And I know what I’m about.”

“Oh, you’ll soon get your bearings, and we’ll be saving money. We’ve got to live after we get out, you know. And I may not be able to make as much as eight thousand at lecturing and law—mykind of law.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said she.

He laid his hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. Said he:

“You understand that I mean what I say, Ellen?”

“Yes—George.”

“And that it isn’t going to be any different with me after we’re married.”

“It mustn’t be.”

“Out of your class—into mine—to stay there, Ellen.”

“To stay there. I’ve learned about the men who use the people to step up on, and then turn traitors. I am marrying your life, George. You are not marrying mine—what mine has been.”

They looked at each other gravely. And it was then and there that they took their real marriage vows.

The ceremony in the large drawing-room two days later was less impressive. In fact, it was absurd, as marriage ceremonies in the customary surroundings of pretentiousness usually are—to all who have an unspoiled sense of humor. The fussy and angry father, alternating thoughts of tenderness with longings to slay—the solemn-ass preacher in robes, with affected voice and sycophant manner toward rich Senator Clearwater—thepretty grotesque accidents due to the agitation of Eleanor and the awkwardness of the lank and long governor-elect—the snufflings and weepings of Aunt Louisa, glad Eleanor was making a marriage that improved the prospects of her own grown and married children for a large share of the Clearwater fortune—these and all other absurdities and hypocrisies made the wedding something for the happy pair to joke about on the train.

“How much did you tell Mr. Desbrough to give the clergyman?” she asked.

George blushed. “I was going to give him twenty-five, but Bill said he was such a swell he must have fifty. So I had to let it go at that.”

“Weakening already!” mocked she. “Five dollars would have been too much. He’s a frightful cad—always fawning on rich peopleand hunting a rich wife—and he a servant of Jesus Christ.”

“You’ll have to look after the money, Ellen,” confessed Helm. “I’m a fool about it. I’ve got mighty little use for the blamed stuff, anyhow. Besides, it’ll give you something to do.”

She looked at him with a shrewd smile.

“You’re going to test me?—isn’t that it?”

He nodded. “I want to find out just what you’ve got to learn. Just because Ihadto go into this, I didn’t go in blind. I can’t do things that way.”

“I guess we’ve both been doing a lot of thinking since last spring.” She slipped her hand into his. “I don’t know what I’ve got to learn, but I do know that I’m going to learn it.”

He looked at her, with that expression in his eyes which gave her the sense of loveand strength and tenderness superhuman. He said:

“Yes—I can count on you, Ellen.”

“As long as you look at me like that,” said she, “I’ll not ever be anything but happy. I’d not be a woman, if I were.”

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