Part 35 (2/2)

She smiled a little.

”I, too, have been dreading the subject,” she said, ”if it is what I think it is. You are going to speak of Sylvia, Mr. Plummer, and Mr.

Harley.”

”Yes, Harley has a letter from Sylvia, and he will have more. She doesn't want to write to him, but she will. The girl is breaking her heart, and I am not sure that you and I are doing what we ought to do.”

”And you do not think that Mr. Plummer would make a suitable husband for her?”

She regarded him keenly from under lowered eyelids--the question was merely intended to lead to something else.

”That is not the point. Harley is the man she loves, and Harley is the man she should marry.”

”Should she not decide this question for herself?”

The candidate studied the face of his wife. Her words, if taken simply as words, would seem metallic and cold, but there was an expression that gave them a wholly different meaning to him.

”Under ordinary circ.u.mstances, yes,” he said, ”but the circ.u.mstances in which Sylvia finds herself are not ordinary, and I am not sure how far we are responsible for them.”

”I undertook to act once, and I was sorry that I did so.”

The candidate did not speak again for several moments, but Mrs. Grayson read his expressive face.

”You have thought of something else,” she said, ”that is or seems to be connected with this affair of Sylvia's.”

”I have, and I am afraid it is that which has been holding me back.”

The eyes of the two met, and, although they said no more upon that point, they understood each other perfectly.

”Anna,” said the candidate, with decision, ”you must write to Mr.

Plummer. I do not s.h.i.+ft this burden from myself to you because of any desire to escape it, but because I know you will write the letter so much better than I can.”

Her eyes met his again, and hers shone with admiration--he was not less brave than she had thought him.

”I do not know what will come of it,” he said; ”perhaps nothing, but in any event we ought to write it.”

”I will write,” she said, firmly.

The candidate said nothing more but he bent down and kissed his wife on the forehead.

When Jimmy Grayson returned from the drawing-room, they noticed that the frown was gone from his face, and at once there was a new atmosphere in the car. The sleepy politicians awoke and made new or old jokes; the correspondents ceased writing, and asked Mr. Grayson what he intended to put in his next speech. Obviously the current of life began to run full and free again, and the incomparable scenery gliding by their car-windows no longer pa.s.sed without comment. But Mrs. Grayson, in the drawing-room, taking much thought and care, was writing this letter, which she addressed to Mr. Plummer, in Boise, where she heard that he was going from Salt Lake City:

”DEAR MR. PLUMMER,--I want to tell you how we are getting on, because I know how deeply you are interested in the campaign, and all of us have enjoyed the way in which you affiliated with our little group. We have been so long together now that we have become a sort of family--speakers, writers, and well-wishers, with Mr.

Grayson as the head in virtue of his position as nominee. You have had a large place in this family--what shall I call it?--a kind of elder brother, one who out of the fund of his experience could wisely lead the younger and more impulsive.”

Mrs. Grayson stopped here and tapped her finger thoughtfully with the staff of her pen. ”That paragraph,” she mused, ”should bring home to him the fact that he is old as compared with Sylvia and Mr. Harley, and that is the first thing I wish to establish in his mind.” Then, dipping her pen in the ink again, she wrote:

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