* * * * *Mr. Phillips could not have been very busy, for he did nothing but walk the room till Porter returned. And two hours had passed before that time."I'm sorry to keep you waitin' so long, suh," the negro apologized; "but me and Mistuh Shaw had to hunt up the officer to git the papers. It was so late when he served 'em he couldn' retu'n 'em to court to-night, and he was holdin' 'em over in his pocket till mornin'.""Thank Heaven for that. Did you tell him to keep his mouth shut?""Yes, suh.""And will he do it?""I think he will, suh. Mistuh Shaw fixed him. He's a frien' of Mistuh Shaw.""Well, he'd better. I'll hold Shaw responsible for him. Let me see the papers.... Yes, this is all right.... Now here's ten dollars and a receipt for that much in full of all claims for breach of promise and so forth you and your daughter have against Hayward Graham. You just sign the receipt, and I'll pay you the balance of the five thousand to-morrow—there's not a tenth of that sum in the house to-night. You'll take my promise for the balance, won't you?""Yes, suh—oh yes, suh," said Mr. Porter, his manner showing his full appreciation of the fact that between gentlemen of standing the ordinary strict rules of business could be waived with perfect safety. With all his discernment, however, he saw nothing more in this proceeding than his trusting Mr. Phillips for $4,990 till the morning.* * * * *When he was ushered into the President's office the next morning Henry Porter received from Mr. Phillips' own hands the $4,990 in currency of the highest denominations fresh from the treasury. He verified the correctness of the amount almost at a glance."I'll give you a receipt, suh," he said."Oh, no, don't trouble; the receipt for ten dollars in Hayward Graham's name in settlement of the claim for breach of promise answers every purpose legally."As he spoke the President smiled in a satisfied way, and it occurred to Black Henry that a ten dollar breach of promise suit would be quite a contemptible and ridiculous affair if it got to the newspapers."And now, Mr. Porter," said Mr. Phillips, anxious as ever to make every bid for silence, "you can see that, adding force to your contract, every consideration of decency and self-respect demands that not the slightest whisper of this matter shall reach the public. The highest consideration I have not hitherto referred to. That is your daughter's good name. It could only do injury to her reputation—injury, and nothing but injury. I am indeed surprised that she was so unwise, that she had the disposition to bring this suit and bring herself into what would have been such unfavourable public notice.""Well, suh,Mistuh Shawsaid she wouldn't like it, and I had a hard time makin' him bring the suit. He said she wou—""Didn't she instigate it?" asked Mr. Phillips."No,suh—that she didn'. Fact is I've been fraid to tell her about it—fraid she'd make me stop it, she thinks such a heap of Mistuh Hayward.... But we've got it all settled satisfact'ry now and there ain't no reason why she sh'd ever know it happened, suh. Good mornin', Mistuh President.""You old scoundrel!"—when Mr. Porter had closed the door behind him.CHAPTER XXXVIIn trying to be philosophical Rutledge took what comfort he could from Elise's "no" in the fact that he would be less distracted from the work of his campaign against Senator Killam. He gave all his energies to that task, which promised to tax his resources to the utmost if he would hope to win. The owners ofThe Mailwere more than willing that he should make the attempt. His temporary stay in the Senate had given the paper a very considerable shove toward the front rank in prominence and authority in affairs political, and there was nothing to be lost by a tilt with that most picturesque figure in national politics, Senator Killam.Let it be understood, however, that Rutledge did not run simply to advertise himself or his paper. His unfailing friend Robertson wrote to him: "There is a very real opposition to Senator Killam growing up in the State, although at this time its force and numbers are very difficult to compute with accuracy. Your admirable conduct of yourself in your short trying-out has commended you to those who are looking for a leader of conceded ability yet not identified with any of the petty factions in State politics nor with any of the local issues upon which the party is divided and dissentient. Your friends think you fill all the requirements in the broader sense and, besides, that you are the antipode of all things peculiarly, personally and offensively Killamic."Although they were of the same broad political creed, the stage of antagonism to which he and Senator Killam had come during the younger man's short term in the Senate bordered on the acute. It had reached the point where they were studiously polite to each other. Senator Killam did not usually trouble himself to be civil to any person who aroused his antipathy, but he had the idea that it would be conceding too much to young Rutledge's importance to show any personal unfriendliness to him. Nevertheless, with all their outward show of friendliness, they were both out for blood: Rutledge, because of the many of the older man's taunts and sarcasms which still rankled in his memory; and Senator Killam, because, whatever the time and whoever his opponent, he always gave a correct imitation of being out for the blood of any man that opposed him.Rutledge had already begun to be very busy with his campaign before his decisive conversation with Elise. When, some ten days later, he received a letter from his mother in which she set out to discuss his admiration for Elise in light of Helen's marriage, he found himself entirely too pressed for time to do more than read the opening sentences, and lay it reverently away.He tried to forget Elise,—as many another lover has done before him, and with about the usual lack of success. For the remainder of the Washington season he cut all his social engagements that were not positively compelling and fortunately did not chance to see her again but twice before he went South to take an active hand in the primary campaign.On those two occasions she exhibited the perfection of impersonal interest, but Rutledge, remorseful for his indefensible behaviour toward her at Mrs. Hazard's, was conscious that, curiously enough to him, her gentle dignity had not the faintest trace of offence. It seemed rather to hold an elusive though palpable element of friendliness. This was puzzling, but he did not attempt to explain it to himself. He had suffered enough from the riddle of her moods, and he was afraid to try to explain it. He was convinced that she was not for him—had she not told him so?—and that, having lost her, it was imperative that he think no more about her lest he lose everything else he had set to strive for. So he strove only to lose the disquieting thought of her out of his work.President Phillips, also, in those days was attempting to flee his thoughts in a wilderness of work. Unlike Rutledge, with him there was a tax upon heart as well as brain in the political task before him. Rutledge could not feel aggrieved if the people of his State declined to send him to the Senate, for by no merit or custom had he a pre-eminent claim upon them. Defeat, however disappointing, could bring him no heart-burning.Mr. Phillips, however, was asking no more than was his due: renomination at the hands of his party. By every consideration both of merit and custom it was his due. His official record wasefficiency, faithful execution, striking ability and uncompromising honesty. But by very virtue of his honesty and ability he had gone up against the two powers in this country that go furthest to make or unmake Presidents: law-breaking corporations and machine politicians. The Greed and The Graft could never be at ease while a Fearless Honesty abode in the White House. They long had planned to displace Mr. Phillips.The fight was not an open one, with each army aligned under its own banners. It was a night attack where the clash and the struggle could be heard and felt but the assailants could not be distinguished and called by name. Mr. Phillips could well imagine who were the leaders of his enemies, but they were too shrewd as yet to openly declare their opposition.The consummate skill with which the campaign was conducted made it appear that there was a growing manifestation of the people's disapproval. The boomlets of a dozen or more favourite sons were assiduously cultivated each in its limited field—but all by the master hand. The favourite sons as a rule deprecated the mention of their names and waived it aside as unworthy of serious thought; but it takes a very great or a very small man to recognize his own unfitness for the presidency of the nation,—and modesty would permit no favourite son to say he was too big for the office.Mr. Phillips was not of the holy sort that is above using some of the traditional methods of the politician. With good conscience he could drive men to righteousness when necessity demanded it: and believing that his own re-election would be for the country's weal he would not have hesitated perhaps to turn the power of the administration to that purpose if he had not been measurably handicapped.He was an honest man—as his predecessors in office had been. He desired—as they had desired before him—to give the country a clean and honest lot of officials to administer its interests. But, unlike some of the Presidents gone before, he had made extraordinary personal efforts to see and know for himself that the men of the government corps were of honest purposes at heart and honest practices in office. Result: many and many a cog-wheel, great and small, in the machine had been broken and thrown into the scrap pile.Therefore the machine silently prayed for deliverance from this Militant Honesty in the executive office, and, with its praying, believed—first article in the creed of Graft: Heaven helps those who help themselves—to deliverance as well as to the public money. So, there was no pernicious activity in Mr. Phillips' behalf among the office-holding class. The defection from his support was impalpable but none the less assured. He could not put his finger upon the men and say "Here are the deserters," for they had not as yet, at four months before the convention, declared against him. But they were not throwing up their hats for him. It was apathy that presaged disaster.And Greed had so quietly and effectively extended its propaganda that "vested" interests began to think they "viewed with alarm" Mr. Phillips' activities. They were persuaded that he had already gone to the limit in bringing to book the methods of Capital and of Business, and were asked to note that not even yet was there the faintest hint of a promise that he would not run amuck amongst them. They preferred to defeat him in the convention. If not, they would defeat him at the polls. With them there was no sentiment about it. They simply wanted no more of him. They desired a "safe" man.... Few times in the political history of this nation has Money failed to get what it really truly wanted.Finished politician that he was, Mr. Phillips could read the signs clear. He knew that his political death was being plotted, had been plotted for months. In the consciousness of his official rectitude and efficiency, and with confidence in the discernment and appreciation of his countrymen, for a long time he had thought contemptuously of the plotters. At length, however, his trained eye had caught the flash of real danger: and his heart was oppressed. Not that overweening ambition made him crave continuance in his exalted office and sicken at the thought of denial. It was not that: not the loss of a double meed of honour in a second term. No; it was the threatened loss of his first term, of the four years already gone, with their unstinted expenditure of energy and honest purpose, brain-fag and strain of heart. To be disapproved, discredited, by the people for whom he had given the very essence of his life! Keener than the sting of ingratitude, even, was the sense of possible loss.Four yearsfor naught! four yearsfor naught!—if the people should repudiate him. He trembled to think it was possible for him to fail of renomination. He was fighting for his life: for the life he had already given to his country in that four years.As the weeks and months wore on toward summer he felt that he was losing strength with every sunset. The Southern delegations, makers of so many second terms, were being sent to the national convention uninstructed. That was not conclusive; but it was ominous, for any administration having Mr. Phillips' political faith that cannot hold the delegations from that section is politically in a bad way.Plausible explanations were offered, assuredly: "Southern delegates have so regularly worn the administration label that they have lost influence and self-respect"—"This time it is unnecessary. There is only one real candidate and they must all vote for him"—"It is better not to appear to endorse the negro luncheon too vigorously, for the negro in the South does not count any more and some of the tenderfoot white recruits might desert." The explanations did appear to explain it; but Mr. Phillips knew that Money and the Machine were taking his Southern delegates from him.And the Southern delegates were not the only ones that were going wrong. The Trusts and the Grafters were throwing Northern and Western delegations into confusion. Beyond that, the Southern country was somewhat surprised to hear that a negro son-in-law to the Presidency was a little too strong even for Northern stomachs, and that some Northern white folks were making bold to say so.Hayward Graham's commission? The opposition in the Senate did not have the slightest difficulty in holding it up. Mr. Phillips with unflinching courage unhesitatingly used every whit of his power and influence to have that commission confirmed. He had nominated Hayward because he believed him worthy; and he said to the Senators with a touch of humour, but with much emphasis nevertheless, that being his son-in-law ought not to be held to the negro's discredit. He said many other things, for he was really very much in earnest: but the Senate was non-committal. It postponed consideration of Mr. Hayward Graham for days, and weeks, and finally adjourned without a vote upon him. That ended it.... With a show of grim determination the President stated that he would send the nomination to the next session, but he knew when he said it that Helen's husband would never be a lieutenant of cavalry in the United States Army.Let it not be inferred that, as the matter is thus dismissed briefly here, there was little or no discussion of it. This entire volume would not compass a tenth of what was said about it, and the reader who cares for details must seek the files of the newspapers of the period. There is not space here even for a digest of all that talk.* * * * *Mr. Phillips could ill brook defeat. In his thinking there were few things worse than failure. So it was that, while in the desperate fight he was making he did nothing unconscionable, he did stand for some things nauseating to him.It was necessary that in the North he hold the full negro vote, which was the balance of power in several States. It certainly looked an easy thing to do. And it was easy—to everybody concerned except Mr. Phillips. The negro race rallied to him with an enthusiasm that was surpassing even for those emotional folk. The overflowing, smothering approbation which they heaped upon him was loud-mouthed, unceasing, extravagant. Yet it took all his self-control to receive it with any show of satisfaction. In fact on several occasions he was almost goaded to break with his negro allies for good and all. In some of those moments he easily could have done so—as far as personal reasons held him. The personal pride in being decorated with a second term was not always a match or antidote for his personal humiliation and suffering under the mouthings and love-makings of the admiring black men. But a rupture, and a declaration of his real sentiments, meant not alone his defeat: it meant the success of the enemies of honest government: it meant that, his tongue once unloosed, Helen must know—and her heart would break. So he held his peace, and let the negroes say on with their fulsome friendlinesses.And what he bore as he kept the faith! It tore his nerves to tatters. One incident as an example:He was invited to address a convention of the Afro-American Association, which was holding its biennial meeting in Washington in May. He accepted the invitation with very great pleasure. It gave him the opportunity he desired. The negroes had been talking to him or at him for months: and he had somewhat to say to them. He welcomed the chance to say it. He was full of his speech, and was intending to be very emphatic. It washisday to talk.But the distinguished chairman of the convention who introduced him thought that it washisday to talk. He presented Mr. Phillips in fifteen minutes of perfervid oratory, sonorous, unctuous, and filled with African imagery. He recited a brief history of the President's life, lauded him as Civilian, Soldier, and Chief Executive, credited to him about every good thing that had come to the human race since he was inducted into office, and crowned him as the negro's Friend, Champion and Hope. He detailed the evidence of Mr. Phillips' love for the negro race, and hailed him as the true and great Exemplar of the Genuine Brotherhood of Man."Yes, my Brothers," the orator-chairman swept volubly to his conclusion, "this great man who holds the Stars of Our Flag in his right hand and in his left hand the Golden Sceptre of Supreme Authority and Power in this Peerless Nation has proved himself beyond any Question or Peradventure the very Apostle and Archetype of Equality and Fraternity in this land of theoretical Freedom and Equal Rights. In each of the three great departments of our life he has practised that Equality and Fraternity. In the civil administration of this Great Government he has called to his assistance black men of Mighty Brain-Power to advise with him about his policies of Statecraft and they have spoken Words of Wisdom to him. In the military department he has appointed to an officer's commission under the Stars and Stripes a brave young negro, a Gentleman, a Scholar, a Soldier, who will reflect Honour upon the Star-Spangled Banner and show the world that the Negro is a Patriot and a Fighter. And more than that, my Brothers! As the crowning act of his Fearless Career the Honourable and Honoured Gentleman who will address you has openly recognized the negro's rightful place in the Homes of this Country, for he has admitted the race as an Equal into the Holy of Holies of his own domestic life, and furnished supreme and convincing proof of his love for black men by freely giving his tender and gentle daughter, the Fairest among Ten Thousand and the One Altogether Lovely, over into the arms and affections of that same young Negro Soldier! Connubial Bliss knows no Colour Line, my Brothers! May the union be blessed with—"But fifteen hundred lusty black throats, not able longer to choke down their cheers, were wildly, exultingly screaming "Phillips! Phillips!! Phillips!!!" The chairman said a few more words in pantomime and gave Mr. Phillips the right to speak.Mr. Phillips was very slow in coming to his feet. The speech that he had purposed to make was gone—all gone. The chairman's last words like a chemical reagent, had turned his every though to vitriol, and he was all afire with the impulse to pour it burning and blistering down their open throats.He stood impassive with tight-shut lips while they cheered and cheered and cheered. In the fires that scorched his spirit, personal and political ambition shrivelled into a cinder and was entirely consumed. A second term—the honour, the approval, the country's weal—might sink into the Pit rather than that he would blacken his soul even by tacit assent to such a monstrous, awful lie! Given Helen freely to a negro's arms!—he would blast that lie with—But Helen! in the tumult he thought ofher. And the tenderness of his love for her made him to tremble. In a moment a war was on within him, and the struggle between his pride and his love shook him as with an ague.But he knew the end from the beginning. As the cheering died away Helen dominated his thoughts as she dominated his heart,—and he did make a speech to the convention. It was not a forcible speech nor a very long speech, for a man cannot think about one thing and discourse very effectively about another. It was on the order of a prayer-meeting talk, consisting mainly of platitudes and good advice. When it was finished he went directly home and lay down on a couch to rest, for he was tired, mortally tired.From that day forth Mr. Phillips was in terror of his negro allies. He made no other addresses to them. But he could not escape them. The negro papers called on the race to rally to the Phillips standard. This the joyful blacks construed to mean that they must form themselves in squads and go over to Washington and tell Mr. Phillips about it personally. Many were the delegations from political clubs and orders and associations of all black sorts that called to pay their respects and assure the President of their loyal support and good wishes; and despite all his forehandedness and precautions it was a very dull day when he was not openly hailed as a brother to the race by virtue of the affinity in Helen's choice of a mate. He was not permitted to forget Helen's plight for an hour,—if he had chosen to forget.Indeed, however, he had lost the zest of thinking about anything else. True, he fought his political battle with energy to the finish, and gave it the best thought his brain could furnish—but that was because he was a born fighter and knew not how to be a laggard: the burden of his voluntary, uncompelled thinking was of Helen, and it grew larger and larger upon his mind. And the more he thought of her, the more he would think of her: and the tragedy of her mating loomed more darkly hopeless and appalling before his face, until his days became one long prayer for a miracle of deliverance.In his meditations he suffered the tortures of a lost soul. He was too brave a man to shirk his accountability for Helen's undoing. In moments of solitude when he was most racked with remorse and wildly despairing he would cry out against the fatal interpretation she had put upon his words and his deeds—"I did notmeanthat, I did not meanthat, oh my daughter, my little girl, my little girl!"—but these moments of self-excusing were only the wild cries of unbearable agony. In composed self-confession he accused himself—with a bitterness that had in it the bitterness of death—and in the genuineness of his penitence he might have proclaimed his error and put his countrymen on guard: if onlyHelen must not know!* * * * *Summer was come and the convention was less than two weeks away when Mr. Phillips' first political lieutenant came back from a trip to New York with the very definite news for his chief that even if at that late day he would promise to be more considerate of the business interests of the country the nomination might yet be his. Mr. Phillips promptly sent his answer to the railroad president who had presumed to speak for Business that he "would see thebusiness interestsdamned before he would make any such promise." ...Three days before the convention met, Mr. Phillips received a letter written in pencil in a weak and uncertain handwriting."We have named the boy Hayne Phillips. When are you coming to see us? Daddy dear, it tires me so to write. I love you. HELEN."CHAPTER XXXVIIThe Mr. Phillips who on July the 3d, 191-, alighted from the car at the little station that served the Stag Inlet folks was a very different figure of a man from the vigorous person who on a day in the preceding October had taken the train there to go back to his work in Washington.There was now no spring in his step, no quickness in his movement. He was plainly fatigued and preoccupied, and he was alone. There was no member of his family with him, nor any of them, except Hayward, to meet him at the station. A single secretary followed him at some little distance as he walked down the platform mechanically raising his hat and smiling at the half score of persons who had stopped to see him take his carriage. He climbed up beside Hayward into the single-seated affair the negro was driving, nodded to the secretary to follow him in the formal and stately victoria that was waiting, and with a parting lift of his hat left the small crowd staring at him as he drove away.The onlookers commented, as onlookers will, upon everything that struck their eyes in the simple proceeding. They wondered why he appeared so listless and careworn. They wondered why he crowded into the narrow buggy instead of taking the roomy carriage. They wondered why none of his daughters nor his wife accompanied him—why he looked just a little bit carelessly dressed—and what had become of his swinging, buoyant stride—and whether he was altogether in good health and—well, they left no question unasked, no surmise unturned.Mr. Phillips had very little to say to Hayward during the drive to Hill-Top. He really desired to say nothing, but it was impossible to ignore all the demands of gentlemanly politeness and interest in his son-in-law's family."How is Helen?" he asked after a long while."Not so very well yet, sir," answered Hayward. "She doesn't seem to regain her strength very rapidly."A very much longer silence."And the baby?""The finest boy in the world, sir—you ought to see him—strong and healthy, with lungs like a steam piano."Mr. Phillips made no comment. Hayward looked round at him."He's not very pretty, sir—no really young baby is, I'm told—but the nurse says it's unusual the way he notices things already. I know all new fathers are said to talk like that about the first baby, but really I think he must be an exception, sir. I think he'll be a credit to his name—which is the most I could say for him."Mr. Phillips acknowledged the compliment by nothing further than a lifting of his chin—-which Hayward had no means of interpreting. Having exhausted the subject and not being encouraged to proceed, the young father became silent—and Mr. Phillips was glad. He had not chosen to ride with Hayward for the pleasure of his conversation, but for the benefit of the onlookers at the railway station; and, having asked the questions absolutely demanded by the occasion, he did no more.* * * * *Mr. Phillips waited in the library till he should be told that his daughter and grandson were ready to receive him. Not in the lull before the battle of Valencia did he so prepare himself for a trial of his nerves and his courage. His courage was of the same old sort, but his nerves were sadly shaken by the cumulative happenings of the last half year; and with Helen's happiness as the ruling purpose of his life he felt almost afraid to trust himself before her eyes in the ordeal through which he must pass. Perhaps she might still be unable to read his dissembling. God save them both if she should read him truly.The nurse came in to tell him that Mrs. Graham was waiting to see him. Hayward had intended to witness that meeting, but there was something in the father's manner as he passed him in the hall which caused him to forego his purpose. Mr. Phillips followed the nurse into the darkened room. Helen half rose to a sitting posture and clasped her white arms about his neck and sobbed in nervous joy."Oh, daddy, you have come!" she said brokenly—and for a long time neither spoke.... "I thought you would never come! I have wanted to see you so. I've been so lonely, daddy. Where are mamma and Elise that they have deserted me?"Mr. Phillips as he bent down over her almost lifted her out of bed in the force and tenderness of his embrace. The pitiful little cry of loneliness almost tore his heart-strings out of him."Your mother has not been strong enough to come, precious heart, and Elise has to stay at her side to care for her. When Dr. Hamilton prescribed Virginia Springs for her in April he thought that two months of rest would restore her to strength. Last winter was a very trying season, and your mother was more broken than usual by its burdens. The doctor tells me that she is recuperating very slowly, almost too slowly, but that rest and absolute quiet and freedom from excitement is the only thing that will cure her. I saw them a week ago to-day—I wrote you—and they sent their love to you. They hope to see you before very long.""Elise might have come, papa. She has written to me quite regularly—but she might have come if only for two or three days—so that I could see some of you"—and her mouth quivered into another muffled sob."No, no, child, she could not leave her mother—you cannot imagine how near your mother has been to collapse—they would not write you for fear that you would worry too much about it—and she is still very weak—nothing seems to benefit her much—the doctor can hardly find the cause of her continued weakness—and perfect rest is the only thing that can help her back to health. So Elise must be there to relieve her from every exertion and effort and be a companion to her, for my visits are necessarily brief. They love you, little girl, as always—though they haven't been permitted to be with you. Katherine is too young to have come, of course, and she would have been more of a care than a comfort, anyway.""Oh, yes, she's young, but she would have beensomebody. The last month has been thelongestmonth, daddy, that I ever lived in all my life—""Well, well, little girl," the father said soothingly as he smoothed the hair on her temple, "don't cry any more. The waiting is over now and we won't be away from you so long again. I could not get away from Washington a day earlier. I have been very busy, you know—doubly busy with the official work and the political campaign too.""Oh, yes, daddy, I want to ask you. Are you going to get the renomination?" There was an excitement in Helen's question that her father saw was unusual for her, with all her characteristic interest in his political fortunes."Why child, I—I think so. We'll know certainly in a very short time now. The convention is in session and they will have the first ballot to-morrow, I think.""But do you really think you will win, daddy? Is there no danger of losing?""I really think I'll win, little woman; but you know politics is a most uncertain thing.""Then you do think there is some danger! Oh, daddy, is what I've done going to hurt you?" There was distress in her accents."Whatyou'vedone?""Yes, daddy. It never occurred to me till yesterday. I've seen very little of the papers since we've been up here, but none of them had ever mentioned such a thing—until last night in the very first one the nurse would let me look at even for a minute it said that 'just how many or just how few votes the President will lose in the convention because of his daughter's having married a negro it is impossible at this time to forecast. Southern delegations this year are unusually uncertain quantities.' It said just that, daddy—and oh, I'm so sorry if—""Oh, no—no—child. You haven't hurt me, my chance of renomination, in the least. The idea is ridiculous. Haven't you learned by this time that the papers will say anything? They must say something, you know; and when they haven't anything sensible to say they are compelled to say things that are absurd. Suppose the Southern delegates are uncertain. They always have been, except when the machine had them tied hard and fast. Don't distress your heart about political rumours, little girl. I'll win all right. I've never failed in my life.""Oh, I'm so glad if it is false, daddy. It would break my heart if I thought I had done anything to defeat you. I wish there were no Southern delegates—and no Southern people, with their bigoted notions!""You are forgetting, little woman, that your grandmother was a South Carolinian—and the dearest, gentlest soul! If she could have lived to know you she would have loved you more than any other girl in all the world, I think. And you would have loved her, Helen.... Don't quarrel with the Southern people. Their ideas about the—about the negro are in the blood, and cannot be eradicated in two or three generations."Helen began to speak and turned her face casually toward the baby lying tucked in on the far side of the bed—when her father snatched the conversation suddenly from her and, taking it thoroughly in hand, gave her little time except to listen.The blow had fallen! And with all his preparation he was unprepared! Helen was confused and bewildered by the incoherency of his talk, by his hurried, disjointed speeches, by his half-made questions. He was making a blind effort to put off and push back the inevitable. His eyes had grown accustomed to the subdued light of the room and as his vision became clear his heart almost ceased to beat. The baby! In that half light was revealed the darkness of the little fellow's face!—many, many shades darker than the face of Hayward Graham: and the spectral fear that had been with Mr. Phillips at noonday, at morning, at evening, at all the midnights through the last months, was now a real, weakening, flesh-and-blood terror.With a hope that was faltering indeed had he prayed for the miracle that might deliver Helen entirely from the consequences of her thoughtless folly, but with all his faith had he besought a merciful Heaven that the child which would come to her should not fall below a fair average of its parental graces. Even that were a torture, that were horrible enough: that Helen's gentle blood should beevenlymixed and tainted with a baser sort. But this recession below the father's type!—this resurgence of the negro blood, with its "vile unknown ancestral impulses!"—there came to him an almost overpowering desire, such as had come of late with increasing frequency but never with such physical weakness as now: the desire to lie down at full length and to rest.As he talked volubly and scatteringly to Helen, his shaking soul cried against fate. Why should Nature have chosen his Helen, the very flower of his heart, as a subject upon which to demonstrate her eccentric laws! Why, oh—but he must keep his tongue going to distract Helen from his distress—why, oh, why should atavism have thought to play its tricks and assert its prerogative here! Were there not enough other mongrel children in all the earth through whom heredity could establish her heartless caprices without the sacrifice of Helen and of Helen's baby! Oh, the sarcasm of pitiless Chance, that the most dear, theveryhighest, should be sacrificed to establish the law of the Persistence of the Lowest in the blood of men! Surely, inthislesson, that law had been taught at an awful cost: and, as if to show that it had been taught beyond cavil, there was poked out from under the white coverlet a tight-shut baby fist that was almost black.* * * * *All things human must have an end,—and Mr. Phillips' subterfuge was very human. His expedients finally failed, he had not a word more to say: and yet he was no nearer being prepared for the inevitable than before. The supreme test was come, and his spirit cowered before it. For the first time in his life he greeted flight as a deliverer, and decided to run away from danger."Well, little woman, I must go and rid myself of the dust of travel;" and he was half way to the door when Helen's weak voice arrested him."Are you not going to notice the baby, daddy?"The pathos in that trembling question would have called him to go against all the Furies. Turning, he hesitated an instant, of which the double would have been fatal: but he saved the moment from disaster."Dear me, I was about forgetting the youngster."He walked quickly around the bed and sat down beside the boy. Pulling the covering a little away, he took the tiny hand in his, and grandfather and grandson looked for the first time each into the face of the other.It was a negro baby: the colour that was of Ethiopia, the unmistakable nose, the hair that curled so tightly, the lips that were African, the large whites of the eyes. Verily a negro baby: and yet in an indefinable way a likeness to Helen, a caricature of Helen, a horrible travesty of Helen's features in combination with—with whose? Not Hayward Graham's. But whose, then? Helen's and whose? ... Mr. Phillips could not answer his own question—he had never seen Guinea Gumbo.In a moment the smaller hand closed over the man's finger as if in approval; but the man straightened up as if to get a freer breath, and glanced involuntarily at the pale mother. Her eyes were painfully intent upon him. Driving himself, he turned. Murmuring a nursery commonplace, he leaned over and kissed the little darkey as tenderly as he might.There was no escape from Helen's eyes. He prayed that she had not seen that his were shut when he kissed her son—it was his only concession to himself.With another pat or two of the small fist he stood up by the bedside, bracing his knees against the rail that he might stand steadily. The fever was not yet gone from Helen's eyes. She had smiled when he caressed the boy, but she was yet expectant. On her father's verdict hung all her hopes, and his face for once in her life she was unable to read. She was vaguely uneasy. His manner was inscrutable, and she had never seen him look just like that. Their eyes met, and the unconscious pleading in hers would have wrung any verdict from him."He's a fine boy, isn't he, little woman? ... So strong and healthy looking.... Shakes hands as if he meant it.... And he looks somewhat like you, missy. That will be the making of him.... But I must go now,"—and he went rather precipitately."And will you hurry back to us, daddy?" Helen called to him."Yes, child; I'll hurry back," he answered,—as he hurried away.His secretary handed him a telegram. He took the yellow envelope and, without so much as glancing at it, went into the library and shut the door.* * * * *Very late in the afternoon the library door was opened, without invitation from within. Mr. Phillips was sitting in a chair with his arms upon his desk and his face upon his arm—dead.[image]"HIS ARMS UPON HIS DESK AND HIS FACE UPON HIS ARM—DEAD."CHAPTER XXXVIIIAgain, and of necessity, is the reader cited to the newspapers of the time.It is not meet that the passing of a chief magistrate of this nation should be passed over quickly or lightly in any history. The people stopped to mourn, to cast up his life in total, and pay respect to its multiplied excellences, to study his virtues as if in hope to reincarnate them, and to glory in his life as a common possession of his country. And yet this narrative may not pause to pay befitting tribute to him, nor to detail the tides of grief that swept the hearts of his countrymen with his outgoing, or the stateliness and grandeur of the ceremonies with which they committed his body to the ground. We may not here give the comprehensive view, for our canvas is not broad enough. Let it be said only that he died as he had lived: a gentleman brave and tender,—honest to his undoing, but dead without having known defeat,—faithful to his love for Helen even to the death, yet making no plaint against love.The physicians ascribed the President's death to heart failure,—which meant little more than that he was dead. They ventured to say that the heart failure had been superinduced by overwork. This verdict doubtless would have stood if a newspaper man the first at Hill-Top had not chanced to hear of a telegram.The telegram could not be found although the secretary searched diligently for it. The energetic reporter conceived that that statement was a subterfuge which in some way betokened a lack of confidence in his discretion, and, besides, it smacked of mystery for a telegram to evaporate into thin air in a dead man's hand. Put on his mettle thus, he made it his business to know what was in that telegram. Being an old telegraph man himself, he hied him down to the station and made himself pleasant and useful to the youngish man in charge.President Phillips had intended to await the decision of the convention in Washington, and all telegraphic arrangements for convention bulletins had been made accordingly. At the last moment Helen's trembling little letter had changed his purpose, and he had slipped quietly off to Hill-Top, notifying only Mr. Mackenzie how to communicate with him directly.The moment the President's death had flashed upon the wires, the capacity of the little Stag Inlet office became sadly overtaxed. The perspiring and flustered operator was very grateful for the assistance of the kindly newspaper man who modestly proffered his help in getting the deluge of messages speedily copied, enveloped, addressed and dispatched. Once having his hand on the copy-file it was an easy thing for the good Samaritan to get the full text of the last message that had gone to Hill-Top.He could not decide whether it was so very valuable now that Mr. Phillips was dead; but he sent it to his paper along with his other stuff, riding a dozen miles in a midnight search for an open telegraph key. Much pride he had in his achievement when he added to his news report a statement to his managing editor that the text of the telegram was a "beat" for his paper and might be displayed as "exclusive." But his feelings were very much hurt next day that they should have published his find under a Chicago dateline and robbed him of his glory.
* * * * *
Mr. Phillips could not have been very busy, for he did nothing but walk the room till Porter returned. And two hours had passed before that time.
"I'm sorry to keep you waitin' so long, suh," the negro apologized; "but me and Mistuh Shaw had to hunt up the officer to git the papers. It was so late when he served 'em he couldn' retu'n 'em to court to-night, and he was holdin' 'em over in his pocket till mornin'."
"Thank Heaven for that. Did you tell him to keep his mouth shut?"
"Yes, suh."
"And will he do it?"
"I think he will, suh. Mistuh Shaw fixed him. He's a frien' of Mistuh Shaw."
"Well, he'd better. I'll hold Shaw responsible for him. Let me see the papers.... Yes, this is all right.... Now here's ten dollars and a receipt for that much in full of all claims for breach of promise and so forth you and your daughter have against Hayward Graham. You just sign the receipt, and I'll pay you the balance of the five thousand to-morrow—there's not a tenth of that sum in the house to-night. You'll take my promise for the balance, won't you?"
"Yes, suh—oh yes, suh," said Mr. Porter, his manner showing his full appreciation of the fact that between gentlemen of standing the ordinary strict rules of business could be waived with perfect safety. With all his discernment, however, he saw nothing more in this proceeding than his trusting Mr. Phillips for $4,990 till the morning.
* * * * *
When he was ushered into the President's office the next morning Henry Porter received from Mr. Phillips' own hands the $4,990 in currency of the highest denominations fresh from the treasury. He verified the correctness of the amount almost at a glance.
"I'll give you a receipt, suh," he said.
"Oh, no, don't trouble; the receipt for ten dollars in Hayward Graham's name in settlement of the claim for breach of promise answers every purpose legally."
As he spoke the President smiled in a satisfied way, and it occurred to Black Henry that a ten dollar breach of promise suit would be quite a contemptible and ridiculous affair if it got to the newspapers.
"And now, Mr. Porter," said Mr. Phillips, anxious as ever to make every bid for silence, "you can see that, adding force to your contract, every consideration of decency and self-respect demands that not the slightest whisper of this matter shall reach the public. The highest consideration I have not hitherto referred to. That is your daughter's good name. It could only do injury to her reputation—injury, and nothing but injury. I am indeed surprised that she was so unwise, that she had the disposition to bring this suit and bring herself into what would have been such unfavourable public notice."
"Well, suh,Mistuh Shawsaid she wouldn't like it, and I had a hard time makin' him bring the suit. He said she wou—"
"Didn't she instigate it?" asked Mr. Phillips.
"No,suh—that she didn'. Fact is I've been fraid to tell her about it—fraid she'd make me stop it, she thinks such a heap of Mistuh Hayward.... But we've got it all settled satisfact'ry now and there ain't no reason why she sh'd ever know it happened, suh. Good mornin', Mistuh President."
"You old scoundrel!"—when Mr. Porter had closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER XXXVI
In trying to be philosophical Rutledge took what comfort he could from Elise's "no" in the fact that he would be less distracted from the work of his campaign against Senator Killam. He gave all his energies to that task, which promised to tax his resources to the utmost if he would hope to win. The owners ofThe Mailwere more than willing that he should make the attempt. His temporary stay in the Senate had given the paper a very considerable shove toward the front rank in prominence and authority in affairs political, and there was nothing to be lost by a tilt with that most picturesque figure in national politics, Senator Killam.
Let it be understood, however, that Rutledge did not run simply to advertise himself or his paper. His unfailing friend Robertson wrote to him: "There is a very real opposition to Senator Killam growing up in the State, although at this time its force and numbers are very difficult to compute with accuracy. Your admirable conduct of yourself in your short trying-out has commended you to those who are looking for a leader of conceded ability yet not identified with any of the petty factions in State politics nor with any of the local issues upon which the party is divided and dissentient. Your friends think you fill all the requirements in the broader sense and, besides, that you are the antipode of all things peculiarly, personally and offensively Killamic."
Although they were of the same broad political creed, the stage of antagonism to which he and Senator Killam had come during the younger man's short term in the Senate bordered on the acute. It had reached the point where they were studiously polite to each other. Senator Killam did not usually trouble himself to be civil to any person who aroused his antipathy, but he had the idea that it would be conceding too much to young Rutledge's importance to show any personal unfriendliness to him. Nevertheless, with all their outward show of friendliness, they were both out for blood: Rutledge, because of the many of the older man's taunts and sarcasms which still rankled in his memory; and Senator Killam, because, whatever the time and whoever his opponent, he always gave a correct imitation of being out for the blood of any man that opposed him.
Rutledge had already begun to be very busy with his campaign before his decisive conversation with Elise. When, some ten days later, he received a letter from his mother in which she set out to discuss his admiration for Elise in light of Helen's marriage, he found himself entirely too pressed for time to do more than read the opening sentences, and lay it reverently away.
He tried to forget Elise,—as many another lover has done before him, and with about the usual lack of success. For the remainder of the Washington season he cut all his social engagements that were not positively compelling and fortunately did not chance to see her again but twice before he went South to take an active hand in the primary campaign.
On those two occasions she exhibited the perfection of impersonal interest, but Rutledge, remorseful for his indefensible behaviour toward her at Mrs. Hazard's, was conscious that, curiously enough to him, her gentle dignity had not the faintest trace of offence. It seemed rather to hold an elusive though palpable element of friendliness. This was puzzling, but he did not attempt to explain it to himself. He had suffered enough from the riddle of her moods, and he was afraid to try to explain it. He was convinced that she was not for him—had she not told him so?—and that, having lost her, it was imperative that he think no more about her lest he lose everything else he had set to strive for. So he strove only to lose the disquieting thought of her out of his work.
President Phillips, also, in those days was attempting to flee his thoughts in a wilderness of work. Unlike Rutledge, with him there was a tax upon heart as well as brain in the political task before him. Rutledge could not feel aggrieved if the people of his State declined to send him to the Senate, for by no merit or custom had he a pre-eminent claim upon them. Defeat, however disappointing, could bring him no heart-burning.
Mr. Phillips, however, was asking no more than was his due: renomination at the hands of his party. By every consideration both of merit and custom it was his due. His official record wasefficiency, faithful execution, striking ability and uncompromising honesty. But by very virtue of his honesty and ability he had gone up against the two powers in this country that go furthest to make or unmake Presidents: law-breaking corporations and machine politicians. The Greed and The Graft could never be at ease while a Fearless Honesty abode in the White House. They long had planned to displace Mr. Phillips.
The fight was not an open one, with each army aligned under its own banners. It was a night attack where the clash and the struggle could be heard and felt but the assailants could not be distinguished and called by name. Mr. Phillips could well imagine who were the leaders of his enemies, but they were too shrewd as yet to openly declare their opposition.
The consummate skill with which the campaign was conducted made it appear that there was a growing manifestation of the people's disapproval. The boomlets of a dozen or more favourite sons were assiduously cultivated each in its limited field—but all by the master hand. The favourite sons as a rule deprecated the mention of their names and waived it aside as unworthy of serious thought; but it takes a very great or a very small man to recognize his own unfitness for the presidency of the nation,—and modesty would permit no favourite son to say he was too big for the office.
Mr. Phillips was not of the holy sort that is above using some of the traditional methods of the politician. With good conscience he could drive men to righteousness when necessity demanded it: and believing that his own re-election would be for the country's weal he would not have hesitated perhaps to turn the power of the administration to that purpose if he had not been measurably handicapped.
He was an honest man—as his predecessors in office had been. He desired—as they had desired before him—to give the country a clean and honest lot of officials to administer its interests. But, unlike some of the Presidents gone before, he had made extraordinary personal efforts to see and know for himself that the men of the government corps were of honest purposes at heart and honest practices in office. Result: many and many a cog-wheel, great and small, in the machine had been broken and thrown into the scrap pile.
Therefore the machine silently prayed for deliverance from this Militant Honesty in the executive office, and, with its praying, believed—first article in the creed of Graft: Heaven helps those who help themselves—to deliverance as well as to the public money. So, there was no pernicious activity in Mr. Phillips' behalf among the office-holding class. The defection from his support was impalpable but none the less assured. He could not put his finger upon the men and say "Here are the deserters," for they had not as yet, at four months before the convention, declared against him. But they were not throwing up their hats for him. It was apathy that presaged disaster.
And Greed had so quietly and effectively extended its propaganda that "vested" interests began to think they "viewed with alarm" Mr. Phillips' activities. They were persuaded that he had already gone to the limit in bringing to book the methods of Capital and of Business, and were asked to note that not even yet was there the faintest hint of a promise that he would not run amuck amongst them. They preferred to defeat him in the convention. If not, they would defeat him at the polls. With them there was no sentiment about it. They simply wanted no more of him. They desired a "safe" man.... Few times in the political history of this nation has Money failed to get what it really truly wanted.
Finished politician that he was, Mr. Phillips could read the signs clear. He knew that his political death was being plotted, had been plotted for months. In the consciousness of his official rectitude and efficiency, and with confidence in the discernment and appreciation of his countrymen, for a long time he had thought contemptuously of the plotters. At length, however, his trained eye had caught the flash of real danger: and his heart was oppressed. Not that overweening ambition made him crave continuance in his exalted office and sicken at the thought of denial. It was not that: not the loss of a double meed of honour in a second term. No; it was the threatened loss of his first term, of the four years already gone, with their unstinted expenditure of energy and honest purpose, brain-fag and strain of heart. To be disapproved, discredited, by the people for whom he had given the very essence of his life! Keener than the sting of ingratitude, even, was the sense of possible loss.Four yearsfor naught! four yearsfor naught!—if the people should repudiate him. He trembled to think it was possible for him to fail of renomination. He was fighting for his life: for the life he had already given to his country in that four years.
As the weeks and months wore on toward summer he felt that he was losing strength with every sunset. The Southern delegations, makers of so many second terms, were being sent to the national convention uninstructed. That was not conclusive; but it was ominous, for any administration having Mr. Phillips' political faith that cannot hold the delegations from that section is politically in a bad way.
Plausible explanations were offered, assuredly: "Southern delegates have so regularly worn the administration label that they have lost influence and self-respect"—"This time it is unnecessary. There is only one real candidate and they must all vote for him"—"It is better not to appear to endorse the negro luncheon too vigorously, for the negro in the South does not count any more and some of the tenderfoot white recruits might desert." The explanations did appear to explain it; but Mr. Phillips knew that Money and the Machine were taking his Southern delegates from him.
And the Southern delegates were not the only ones that were going wrong. The Trusts and the Grafters were throwing Northern and Western delegations into confusion. Beyond that, the Southern country was somewhat surprised to hear that a negro son-in-law to the Presidency was a little too strong even for Northern stomachs, and that some Northern white folks were making bold to say so.
Hayward Graham's commission? The opposition in the Senate did not have the slightest difficulty in holding it up. Mr. Phillips with unflinching courage unhesitatingly used every whit of his power and influence to have that commission confirmed. He had nominated Hayward because he believed him worthy; and he said to the Senators with a touch of humour, but with much emphasis nevertheless, that being his son-in-law ought not to be held to the negro's discredit. He said many other things, for he was really very much in earnest: but the Senate was non-committal. It postponed consideration of Mr. Hayward Graham for days, and weeks, and finally adjourned without a vote upon him. That ended it.... With a show of grim determination the President stated that he would send the nomination to the next session, but he knew when he said it that Helen's husband would never be a lieutenant of cavalry in the United States Army.
Let it not be inferred that, as the matter is thus dismissed briefly here, there was little or no discussion of it. This entire volume would not compass a tenth of what was said about it, and the reader who cares for details must seek the files of the newspapers of the period. There is not space here even for a digest of all that talk.
* * * * *
Mr. Phillips could ill brook defeat. In his thinking there were few things worse than failure. So it was that, while in the desperate fight he was making he did nothing unconscionable, he did stand for some things nauseating to him.
It was necessary that in the North he hold the full negro vote, which was the balance of power in several States. It certainly looked an easy thing to do. And it was easy—to everybody concerned except Mr. Phillips. The negro race rallied to him with an enthusiasm that was surpassing even for those emotional folk. The overflowing, smothering approbation which they heaped upon him was loud-mouthed, unceasing, extravagant. Yet it took all his self-control to receive it with any show of satisfaction. In fact on several occasions he was almost goaded to break with his negro allies for good and all. In some of those moments he easily could have done so—as far as personal reasons held him. The personal pride in being decorated with a second term was not always a match or antidote for his personal humiliation and suffering under the mouthings and love-makings of the admiring black men. But a rupture, and a declaration of his real sentiments, meant not alone his defeat: it meant the success of the enemies of honest government: it meant that, his tongue once unloosed, Helen must know—and her heart would break. So he held his peace, and let the negroes say on with their fulsome friendlinesses.
And what he bore as he kept the faith! It tore his nerves to tatters. One incident as an example:
He was invited to address a convention of the Afro-American Association, which was holding its biennial meeting in Washington in May. He accepted the invitation with very great pleasure. It gave him the opportunity he desired. The negroes had been talking to him or at him for months: and he had somewhat to say to them. He welcomed the chance to say it. He was full of his speech, and was intending to be very emphatic. It washisday to talk.
But the distinguished chairman of the convention who introduced him thought that it washisday to talk. He presented Mr. Phillips in fifteen minutes of perfervid oratory, sonorous, unctuous, and filled with African imagery. He recited a brief history of the President's life, lauded him as Civilian, Soldier, and Chief Executive, credited to him about every good thing that had come to the human race since he was inducted into office, and crowned him as the negro's Friend, Champion and Hope. He detailed the evidence of Mr. Phillips' love for the negro race, and hailed him as the true and great Exemplar of the Genuine Brotherhood of Man.
"Yes, my Brothers," the orator-chairman swept volubly to his conclusion, "this great man who holds the Stars of Our Flag in his right hand and in his left hand the Golden Sceptre of Supreme Authority and Power in this Peerless Nation has proved himself beyond any Question or Peradventure the very Apostle and Archetype of Equality and Fraternity in this land of theoretical Freedom and Equal Rights. In each of the three great departments of our life he has practised that Equality and Fraternity. In the civil administration of this Great Government he has called to his assistance black men of Mighty Brain-Power to advise with him about his policies of Statecraft and they have spoken Words of Wisdom to him. In the military department he has appointed to an officer's commission under the Stars and Stripes a brave young negro, a Gentleman, a Scholar, a Soldier, who will reflect Honour upon the Star-Spangled Banner and show the world that the Negro is a Patriot and a Fighter. And more than that, my Brothers! As the crowning act of his Fearless Career the Honourable and Honoured Gentleman who will address you has openly recognized the negro's rightful place in the Homes of this Country, for he has admitted the race as an Equal into the Holy of Holies of his own domestic life, and furnished supreme and convincing proof of his love for black men by freely giving his tender and gentle daughter, the Fairest among Ten Thousand and the One Altogether Lovely, over into the arms and affections of that same young Negro Soldier! Connubial Bliss knows no Colour Line, my Brothers! May the union be blessed with—"
But fifteen hundred lusty black throats, not able longer to choke down their cheers, were wildly, exultingly screaming "Phillips! Phillips!! Phillips!!!" The chairman said a few more words in pantomime and gave Mr. Phillips the right to speak.
Mr. Phillips was very slow in coming to his feet. The speech that he had purposed to make was gone—all gone. The chairman's last words like a chemical reagent, had turned his every though to vitriol, and he was all afire with the impulse to pour it burning and blistering down their open throats.
He stood impassive with tight-shut lips while they cheered and cheered and cheered. In the fires that scorched his spirit, personal and political ambition shrivelled into a cinder and was entirely consumed. A second term—the honour, the approval, the country's weal—might sink into the Pit rather than that he would blacken his soul even by tacit assent to such a monstrous, awful lie! Given Helen freely to a negro's arms!—he would blast that lie with—
But Helen! in the tumult he thought ofher. And the tenderness of his love for her made him to tremble. In a moment a war was on within him, and the struggle between his pride and his love shook him as with an ague.
But he knew the end from the beginning. As the cheering died away Helen dominated his thoughts as she dominated his heart,—and he did make a speech to the convention. It was not a forcible speech nor a very long speech, for a man cannot think about one thing and discourse very effectively about another. It was on the order of a prayer-meeting talk, consisting mainly of platitudes and good advice. When it was finished he went directly home and lay down on a couch to rest, for he was tired, mortally tired.
From that day forth Mr. Phillips was in terror of his negro allies. He made no other addresses to them. But he could not escape them. The negro papers called on the race to rally to the Phillips standard. This the joyful blacks construed to mean that they must form themselves in squads and go over to Washington and tell Mr. Phillips about it personally. Many were the delegations from political clubs and orders and associations of all black sorts that called to pay their respects and assure the President of their loyal support and good wishes; and despite all his forehandedness and precautions it was a very dull day when he was not openly hailed as a brother to the race by virtue of the affinity in Helen's choice of a mate. He was not permitted to forget Helen's plight for an hour,—if he had chosen to forget.
Indeed, however, he had lost the zest of thinking about anything else. True, he fought his political battle with energy to the finish, and gave it the best thought his brain could furnish—but that was because he was a born fighter and knew not how to be a laggard: the burden of his voluntary, uncompelled thinking was of Helen, and it grew larger and larger upon his mind. And the more he thought of her, the more he would think of her: and the tragedy of her mating loomed more darkly hopeless and appalling before his face, until his days became one long prayer for a miracle of deliverance.
In his meditations he suffered the tortures of a lost soul. He was too brave a man to shirk his accountability for Helen's undoing. In moments of solitude when he was most racked with remorse and wildly despairing he would cry out against the fatal interpretation she had put upon his words and his deeds—"I did notmeanthat, I did not meanthat, oh my daughter, my little girl, my little girl!"—but these moments of self-excusing were only the wild cries of unbearable agony. In composed self-confession he accused himself—with a bitterness that had in it the bitterness of death—and in the genuineness of his penitence he might have proclaimed his error and put his countrymen on guard: if onlyHelen must not know!
* * * * *
Summer was come and the convention was less than two weeks away when Mr. Phillips' first political lieutenant came back from a trip to New York with the very definite news for his chief that even if at that late day he would promise to be more considerate of the business interests of the country the nomination might yet be his. Mr. Phillips promptly sent his answer to the railroad president who had presumed to speak for Business that he "would see thebusiness interestsdamned before he would make any such promise." ...
Three days before the convention met, Mr. Phillips received a letter written in pencil in a weak and uncertain handwriting.
"We have named the boy Hayne Phillips. When are you coming to see us? Daddy dear, it tires me so to write. I love you. HELEN."
CHAPTER XXXVII
The Mr. Phillips who on July the 3d, 191-, alighted from the car at the little station that served the Stag Inlet folks was a very different figure of a man from the vigorous person who on a day in the preceding October had taken the train there to go back to his work in Washington.
There was now no spring in his step, no quickness in his movement. He was plainly fatigued and preoccupied, and he was alone. There was no member of his family with him, nor any of them, except Hayward, to meet him at the station. A single secretary followed him at some little distance as he walked down the platform mechanically raising his hat and smiling at the half score of persons who had stopped to see him take his carriage. He climbed up beside Hayward into the single-seated affair the negro was driving, nodded to the secretary to follow him in the formal and stately victoria that was waiting, and with a parting lift of his hat left the small crowd staring at him as he drove away.
The onlookers commented, as onlookers will, upon everything that struck their eyes in the simple proceeding. They wondered why he appeared so listless and careworn. They wondered why he crowded into the narrow buggy instead of taking the roomy carriage. They wondered why none of his daughters nor his wife accompanied him—why he looked just a little bit carelessly dressed—and what had become of his swinging, buoyant stride—and whether he was altogether in good health and—well, they left no question unasked, no surmise unturned.
Mr. Phillips had very little to say to Hayward during the drive to Hill-Top. He really desired to say nothing, but it was impossible to ignore all the demands of gentlemanly politeness and interest in his son-in-law's family.
"How is Helen?" he asked after a long while.
"Not so very well yet, sir," answered Hayward. "She doesn't seem to regain her strength very rapidly."
A very much longer silence.
"And the baby?"
"The finest boy in the world, sir—you ought to see him—strong and healthy, with lungs like a steam piano."
Mr. Phillips made no comment. Hayward looked round at him.
"He's not very pretty, sir—no really young baby is, I'm told—but the nurse says it's unusual the way he notices things already. I know all new fathers are said to talk like that about the first baby, but really I think he must be an exception, sir. I think he'll be a credit to his name—which is the most I could say for him."
Mr. Phillips acknowledged the compliment by nothing further than a lifting of his chin—-which Hayward had no means of interpreting. Having exhausted the subject and not being encouraged to proceed, the young father became silent—and Mr. Phillips was glad. He had not chosen to ride with Hayward for the pleasure of his conversation, but for the benefit of the onlookers at the railway station; and, having asked the questions absolutely demanded by the occasion, he did no more.
* * * * *
Mr. Phillips waited in the library till he should be told that his daughter and grandson were ready to receive him. Not in the lull before the battle of Valencia did he so prepare himself for a trial of his nerves and his courage. His courage was of the same old sort, but his nerves were sadly shaken by the cumulative happenings of the last half year; and with Helen's happiness as the ruling purpose of his life he felt almost afraid to trust himself before her eyes in the ordeal through which he must pass. Perhaps she might still be unable to read his dissembling. God save them both if she should read him truly.
The nurse came in to tell him that Mrs. Graham was waiting to see him. Hayward had intended to witness that meeting, but there was something in the father's manner as he passed him in the hall which caused him to forego his purpose. Mr. Phillips followed the nurse into the darkened room. Helen half rose to a sitting posture and clasped her white arms about his neck and sobbed in nervous joy.
"Oh, daddy, you have come!" she said brokenly—and for a long time neither spoke.... "I thought you would never come! I have wanted to see you so. I've been so lonely, daddy. Where are mamma and Elise that they have deserted me?"
Mr. Phillips as he bent down over her almost lifted her out of bed in the force and tenderness of his embrace. The pitiful little cry of loneliness almost tore his heart-strings out of him.
"Your mother has not been strong enough to come, precious heart, and Elise has to stay at her side to care for her. When Dr. Hamilton prescribed Virginia Springs for her in April he thought that two months of rest would restore her to strength. Last winter was a very trying season, and your mother was more broken than usual by its burdens. The doctor tells me that she is recuperating very slowly, almost too slowly, but that rest and absolute quiet and freedom from excitement is the only thing that will cure her. I saw them a week ago to-day—I wrote you—and they sent their love to you. They hope to see you before very long."
"Elise might have come, papa. She has written to me quite regularly—but she might have come if only for two or three days—so that I could see some of you"—and her mouth quivered into another muffled sob.
"No, no, child, she could not leave her mother—you cannot imagine how near your mother has been to collapse—they would not write you for fear that you would worry too much about it—and she is still very weak—nothing seems to benefit her much—the doctor can hardly find the cause of her continued weakness—and perfect rest is the only thing that can help her back to health. So Elise must be there to relieve her from every exertion and effort and be a companion to her, for my visits are necessarily brief. They love you, little girl, as always—though they haven't been permitted to be with you. Katherine is too young to have come, of course, and she would have been more of a care than a comfort, anyway."
"Oh, yes, she's young, but she would have beensomebody. The last month has been thelongestmonth, daddy, that I ever lived in all my life—"
"Well, well, little girl," the father said soothingly as he smoothed the hair on her temple, "don't cry any more. The waiting is over now and we won't be away from you so long again. I could not get away from Washington a day earlier. I have been very busy, you know—doubly busy with the official work and the political campaign too."
"Oh, yes, daddy, I want to ask you. Are you going to get the renomination?" There was an excitement in Helen's question that her father saw was unusual for her, with all her characteristic interest in his political fortunes.
"Why child, I—I think so. We'll know certainly in a very short time now. The convention is in session and they will have the first ballot to-morrow, I think."
"But do you really think you will win, daddy? Is there no danger of losing?"
"I really think I'll win, little woman; but you know politics is a most uncertain thing."
"Then you do think there is some danger! Oh, daddy, is what I've done going to hurt you?" There was distress in her accents.
"Whatyou'vedone?"
"Yes, daddy. It never occurred to me till yesterday. I've seen very little of the papers since we've been up here, but none of them had ever mentioned such a thing—until last night in the very first one the nurse would let me look at even for a minute it said that 'just how many or just how few votes the President will lose in the convention because of his daughter's having married a negro it is impossible at this time to forecast. Southern delegations this year are unusually uncertain quantities.' It said just that, daddy—and oh, I'm so sorry if—"
"Oh, no—no—child. You haven't hurt me, my chance of renomination, in the least. The idea is ridiculous. Haven't you learned by this time that the papers will say anything? They must say something, you know; and when they haven't anything sensible to say they are compelled to say things that are absurd. Suppose the Southern delegates are uncertain. They always have been, except when the machine had them tied hard and fast. Don't distress your heart about political rumours, little girl. I'll win all right. I've never failed in my life."
"Oh, I'm so glad if it is false, daddy. It would break my heart if I thought I had done anything to defeat you. I wish there were no Southern delegates—and no Southern people, with their bigoted notions!"
"You are forgetting, little woman, that your grandmother was a South Carolinian—and the dearest, gentlest soul! If she could have lived to know you she would have loved you more than any other girl in all the world, I think. And you would have loved her, Helen.... Don't quarrel with the Southern people. Their ideas about the—about the negro are in the blood, and cannot be eradicated in two or three generations."
Helen began to speak and turned her face casually toward the baby lying tucked in on the far side of the bed—when her father snatched the conversation suddenly from her and, taking it thoroughly in hand, gave her little time except to listen.
The blow had fallen! And with all his preparation he was unprepared! Helen was confused and bewildered by the incoherency of his talk, by his hurried, disjointed speeches, by his half-made questions. He was making a blind effort to put off and push back the inevitable. His eyes had grown accustomed to the subdued light of the room and as his vision became clear his heart almost ceased to beat. The baby! In that half light was revealed the darkness of the little fellow's face!—many, many shades darker than the face of Hayward Graham: and the spectral fear that had been with Mr. Phillips at noonday, at morning, at evening, at all the midnights through the last months, was now a real, weakening, flesh-and-blood terror.
With a hope that was faltering indeed had he prayed for the miracle that might deliver Helen entirely from the consequences of her thoughtless folly, but with all his faith had he besought a merciful Heaven that the child which would come to her should not fall below a fair average of its parental graces. Even that were a torture, that were horrible enough: that Helen's gentle blood should beevenlymixed and tainted with a baser sort. But this recession below the father's type!—this resurgence of the negro blood, with its "vile unknown ancestral impulses!"—there came to him an almost overpowering desire, such as had come of late with increasing frequency but never with such physical weakness as now: the desire to lie down at full length and to rest.
As he talked volubly and scatteringly to Helen, his shaking soul cried against fate. Why should Nature have chosen his Helen, the very flower of his heart, as a subject upon which to demonstrate her eccentric laws! Why, oh—but he must keep his tongue going to distract Helen from his distress—why, oh, why should atavism have thought to play its tricks and assert its prerogative here! Were there not enough other mongrel children in all the earth through whom heredity could establish her heartless caprices without the sacrifice of Helen and of Helen's baby! Oh, the sarcasm of pitiless Chance, that the most dear, theveryhighest, should be sacrificed to establish the law of the Persistence of the Lowest in the blood of men! Surely, inthislesson, that law had been taught at an awful cost: and, as if to show that it had been taught beyond cavil, there was poked out from under the white coverlet a tight-shut baby fist that was almost black.
* * * * *
All things human must have an end,—and Mr. Phillips' subterfuge was very human. His expedients finally failed, he had not a word more to say: and yet he was no nearer being prepared for the inevitable than before. The supreme test was come, and his spirit cowered before it. For the first time in his life he greeted flight as a deliverer, and decided to run away from danger.
"Well, little woman, I must go and rid myself of the dust of travel;" and he was half way to the door when Helen's weak voice arrested him.
"Are you not going to notice the baby, daddy?"
The pathos in that trembling question would have called him to go against all the Furies. Turning, he hesitated an instant, of which the double would have been fatal: but he saved the moment from disaster.
"Dear me, I was about forgetting the youngster."
He walked quickly around the bed and sat down beside the boy. Pulling the covering a little away, he took the tiny hand in his, and grandfather and grandson looked for the first time each into the face of the other.
It was a negro baby: the colour that was of Ethiopia, the unmistakable nose, the hair that curled so tightly, the lips that were African, the large whites of the eyes. Verily a negro baby: and yet in an indefinable way a likeness to Helen, a caricature of Helen, a horrible travesty of Helen's features in combination with—with whose? Not Hayward Graham's. But whose, then? Helen's and whose? ... Mr. Phillips could not answer his own question—he had never seen Guinea Gumbo.
In a moment the smaller hand closed over the man's finger as if in approval; but the man straightened up as if to get a freer breath, and glanced involuntarily at the pale mother. Her eyes were painfully intent upon him. Driving himself, he turned. Murmuring a nursery commonplace, he leaned over and kissed the little darkey as tenderly as he might.
There was no escape from Helen's eyes. He prayed that she had not seen that his were shut when he kissed her son—it was his only concession to himself.
With another pat or two of the small fist he stood up by the bedside, bracing his knees against the rail that he might stand steadily. The fever was not yet gone from Helen's eyes. She had smiled when he caressed the boy, but she was yet expectant. On her father's verdict hung all her hopes, and his face for once in her life she was unable to read. She was vaguely uneasy. His manner was inscrutable, and she had never seen him look just like that. Their eyes met, and the unconscious pleading in hers would have wrung any verdict from him.
"He's a fine boy, isn't he, little woman? ... So strong and healthy looking.... Shakes hands as if he meant it.... And he looks somewhat like you, missy. That will be the making of him.... But I must go now,"—and he went rather precipitately.
"And will you hurry back to us, daddy?" Helen called to him.
"Yes, child; I'll hurry back," he answered,—as he hurried away.
His secretary handed him a telegram. He took the yellow envelope and, without so much as glancing at it, went into the library and shut the door.
* * * * *
Very late in the afternoon the library door was opened, without invitation from within. Mr. Phillips was sitting in a chair with his arms upon his desk and his face upon his arm—dead.
[image]"HIS ARMS UPON HIS DESK AND HIS FACE UPON HIS ARM—DEAD."
[image]
[image]
"HIS ARMS UPON HIS DESK AND HIS FACE UPON HIS ARM—DEAD."
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Again, and of necessity, is the reader cited to the newspapers of the time.
It is not meet that the passing of a chief magistrate of this nation should be passed over quickly or lightly in any history. The people stopped to mourn, to cast up his life in total, and pay respect to its multiplied excellences, to study his virtues as if in hope to reincarnate them, and to glory in his life as a common possession of his country. And yet this narrative may not pause to pay befitting tribute to him, nor to detail the tides of grief that swept the hearts of his countrymen with his outgoing, or the stateliness and grandeur of the ceremonies with which they committed his body to the ground. We may not here give the comprehensive view, for our canvas is not broad enough. Let it be said only that he died as he had lived: a gentleman brave and tender,—honest to his undoing, but dead without having known defeat,—faithful to his love for Helen even to the death, yet making no plaint against love.
The physicians ascribed the President's death to heart failure,—which meant little more than that he was dead. They ventured to say that the heart failure had been superinduced by overwork. This verdict doubtless would have stood if a newspaper man the first at Hill-Top had not chanced to hear of a telegram.
The telegram could not be found although the secretary searched diligently for it. The energetic reporter conceived that that statement was a subterfuge which in some way betokened a lack of confidence in his discretion, and, besides, it smacked of mystery for a telegram to evaporate into thin air in a dead man's hand. Put on his mettle thus, he made it his business to know what was in that telegram. Being an old telegraph man himself, he hied him down to the station and made himself pleasant and useful to the youngish man in charge.
President Phillips had intended to await the decision of the convention in Washington, and all telegraphic arrangements for convention bulletins had been made accordingly. At the last moment Helen's trembling little letter had changed his purpose, and he had slipped quietly off to Hill-Top, notifying only Mr. Mackenzie how to communicate with him directly.
The moment the President's death had flashed upon the wires, the capacity of the little Stag Inlet office became sadly overtaxed. The perspiring and flustered operator was very grateful for the assistance of the kindly newspaper man who modestly proffered his help in getting the deluge of messages speedily copied, enveloped, addressed and dispatched. Once having his hand on the copy-file it was an easy thing for the good Samaritan to get the full text of the last message that had gone to Hill-Top.
He could not decide whether it was so very valuable now that Mr. Phillips was dead; but he sent it to his paper along with his other stuff, riding a dozen miles in a midnight search for an open telegraph key. Much pride he had in his achievement when he added to his news report a statement to his managing editor that the text of the telegram was a "beat" for his paper and might be displayed as "exclusive." But his feelings were very much hurt next day that they should have published his find under a Chicago dateline and robbed him of his glory.