Part 27 (1/2)

”I think, Joe,” said David, speaking collectedly, ”we had better go to headquarters. Knowles will be looking for me.”

”Sure,” a.s.sented Joe, eager to get into action.

”Carey,” said David in a low voice, as he was leaving.

As she turned to him, an impetuous rush of new life leaped torrent-like in his heart. Her eyes met his slowly, and for a moment he felt a pleasure acute with the exquisiteness of pain. Such sensations are usually transient, and in another moment he had himself well in hand.

”I want to say good night,” he said quietly, ”and--”

”Will you come here to-morrow at eleven?” she asked hurriedly. ”There is something I want to say to you.”

”I know that you are sorry for me.”

”That isn't what I mean to say.”

A wistful but imperious message was flashed to him from her eyes.

”I will come,” he replied gravely.

When he reached headquarters he found the committee dismayed and distracted. Like Wilder, they counseled a sweeping denial, but David was firm.

”It is true,” he reiterated.

”It will cost us the vote of a certain element,” predicted the chairman, ”and we haven't one to spare.”

David listened to a series of similar sentiments until Knowles--a new Knowles--came in. The usual blank placidity of his face was rippled by radiant exultation.

”David,” he announced, ”before that parade started to-night I had made out another conservative estimate, and thought I could pull you through by a slight majority. Now, it's different. While you may lose some votes from the 'near-silk stocking' cla.s.s, yet for every vote so lost hundreds will rally to you. That all men are created equal is still a truth held to be self-evident. The spark of the spirit that prompted the Declaration of Independence is always ready to be fanned to a flame, and the Democrats have furnished us the fans in their flying pennants.”

David found no balm in this argument. All the wounds in his heart were aching, and he could not bring his thoughts to majorities. He pa.s.sed a night of nerve-racking strain. The jeopardy of election did not concern him. That night at the dinner party he had realized that he had a formidable rival in Fletcher, who had a place firmly fixed in the Winthrop household. Still, against odds, he had determined to woo and win Carey.

He had thought to tell her of his father's imprisonment under softening influences. To have it flashed ruthlessly upon her in such a way, and at such a time, made him shrink from asking her to link her fate with his, and he decided to put her resolutely out of his life.

Unwillingly, he went to keep his appointment with her the next morning. He also dreaded an encounter with Mrs. Winthrop. He felt that the reaction from her moment of womanly pity would strand her still farther on the rocks of her worldliness. He was detained on his way to the hotel so that it was nearly twelve when he arrived. It was a relief to find Carey alone. There was an appealing look in her eyes; but David felt that he could bear no expression of sympathy, and he trusted she would obey the subtle message flashed from his own.

With keen insight she read his unspoken appeal, but a high courage dwelt in the spirit of the little Puritan of colonial ancestry, and she summoned its full strength.

”David,” she asked, ”did you think I was ignorant of your early life until I read those banners last night?”

”I thought,” he said, flus.h.i.+ng and taken by surprise, ”that you might have long ago heard something, but to have it recalled in so sensational a way when you were entertaining me at dinner--”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”_It was a relief to find Carey alone_”]

”David, the first day I met you, when I was six years old, Mrs.

Randall told us of your father. I didn't know just what a prison was, but I supposed it something very grand, and it widened the halo of romance that my childish eyes had cast about you. The morning after you had nominated Mr. Hume I saw your aunt at the hotel, and she told me, for she said some day I might hear it from strangers and not understand. When I saw those banners it was not so much sympathy for you that distressed me; I was thinking of your mother, and regretting that she could not be alive to hear you speak, and see what her bravery had done for you.”

David had to summon all his control and his recollection of her Virginia ancestors to refrain from telling her what was in his heart.

Mrs. Winthrop helped him by her entrance at this crucial point.