Meredith Nicholson

“ It's because we know that he must be broken upon the wheel before he realizes the vile use he has made of his power that we are sorry for him. Why, Sylvia, he's the worst foe we have—all of us who want to do what we call the great things—ease the burdens of the poor, make government honest, catch the gleam we seek! Even poor Allen, when he stands on the Monument steps at midnight and spouts to me about the Great Experiment, feels what Morton Bassett can't be made to feel. ”

“ That is something we leave behind us with our youth," he said; and looking down at the bent head and sturdy shoulders, and watching the strong fingers turning the key, Dan wondered what the man's youth had been and what elements were mixed in him that soft textures of leather and delicate tracings of gold on brown and scarlet and olive could so delight him. His rather jaunty attitude toward the "Home Life of Hoosier Statesmen" experienced a change. Morton Bassett was not a man who could be hit off in a few hundred words, but a complex character he did not pretend to understand. ”

“ Only the lights of the sailboat were visible now, but suddenly a girl's voice rose clear and sweet, singing to the accompaniment of guitar and mandolin. The guitar throbbed; and on its deep chords the mandolin wove its melody. The voice seemed to steal out of the heart of the night and float over the still waters. The unseen singer never knew the mockery of the song she sang. It was an old song and the air was one familiar the world round. And it bore the answer to Dan's question which Sylvia had carried long in her heart, but could not speak. ”

“ Harwood took his politics seriously and the petty politicians with whom he had thus far become acquainted in his newspaper work had impressed him chiefly by their bigotry or venality. It was not for nothing that he had worshiped at Sumner's feet at Yale and he held views that were not readily reconcilable with parochial boss-ships and the meek swallowing of machine-made platforms. Bassett was not the vulgar, intimate good-fellow who slapped every man on the back—the teller of good stories over a glass of whiskey and a cigar. He was, as Pettit had said, a new type, not of the familiar cliché. ”

“ Harwood's white-gloved hand led her hither and thither through the intricate maze; one must have been sadly lacking in the pictorial sense not to have experienced a thrill of delight in a scene so animate with grace, so touched with color. It was ungracious to question the sincerity of those who pronounced Marian the belle of the ball when Colonel Ramsay, the supreme authority in Hoosier pulchritude, declared her to be the fairest rose in a rose-garden of girls. ”

“ He kept the canoe moving slowly while they listened for some sign of the lost quarry. Then suddenly they heard a paddle stroke behind them, and an instant later a canoe's bow brushed their craft as lightly as a hand passing across paper. Dan threw himself forward and grasped the sides firmly; there was a splashing and wobbling as he arrested the flight. A canoe is at once the most docile and the most intractable of argosies. Sylvia churned the water with her paddle, seeking to crowd the rocking canoes closer together, while Marian endeavored to drive them apart. ”

“ They loitered in the quiet paths of the campus. "Bright College Years" followed them from the singers at the library. If there's any sentiment in man or woman the airs of a spring night in our midwestern country will call it out. The planets shone benignantly through the leaves of maple and elm; and the young grass was irregular, untouched as yet by the mower—as we like it best who love our Madison! A week-old moon hung in the sky—ample light for the first hay-ride of the season that is moving toward Water Babble to the strains of guitar and banjo and boy and girl voices. ”

“ There was something the least bit insinuating in his manner. The room, the map, the fact that Morton Bassett of Fraserville had, so to speak, planted a vedette in the heart of the capital, seemed to afford him mild, cynical amusement. He drew his hand across his face, twisted his mustache, and took the cigar from his mouth and examined the end of it with fictitious interest.
"Well," he ejaculated, "damn it all, why not?"
Harwood did not know why not; but a man as rich as Edward Thatcher was entitled to his vagaries. ”

“ Mrs. Owen thinks you will; she's not a person for any one to disappoint."
"Oh, she has a way of thinking in large totals of people she likes, and she does like me, most unaccountably."
"She has real illusions about me," laughed Sylvia. "She has an idea that colleges do things by magic; and I'm afraid she will find out that the wand didn't touch me."
"You didn't need the wand's magic," he answered, "for you are a woman of genius."
"Which sounds well, Mr. Harwood; no one ever used such words to me before! I've learned one thing, though: that patience and work will make up for a good many lacks. ”

“ You are still in college, and that is what undergraduates are taught to call ideals, Miss Garrison. I hope you will hold on to them: I had mine, but I'm conscious of late that I'm losing my grip on them. It's inevitable, in a man's life. It's a good thing that women hold on to them longer; without woman's faith in such things the world would be a sad old cinder, tumbling aimlessly around in the void. ”

“ There was no questioning Bassett's sincerity, nor was there any doubt that this appeal was having its effect on the younger man. If Bassett had been a weakling timorously making overtures for help, Harwood would have been sensible of it; but a man of demonstrated force and intelligence, who had probably never talked thus to another soul in his life, was addressing him with a candor at once disarming and compelling. It was not easy to say to a man from whom he had accepted every kindness that he had ceased to trust him ”

“ I'd like to see Bassett driven out of politics, but I assure you that I don't mean to do it. There's no possibility of my having the chance. He put me in the legislature to use me; and I'm glad that's all over. As I tell you, I'm out of the game."
"I don't sympathize with that at all, Dan; you not only ought to stay in, but you ought to do all you can to make it impossible for men like Bassett and Thatcher to have any power. The honor of the state ought to be dear to all of us; and if I belonged to a party I think I should have a care for its honor too." ”

“ He bent to his paddle vigorously. "They can't possibly get away."
But it was not in Marian's blood to be thwarted in her pursuit of adventure. She was past-mistress of the canoeist's difficult art, and her canoe flew on as though drawn away into the dark on unseen cords.
"You'd better lend a hand," said Dan, and Sylvia turned round and knelt, paddling Indian fashion. The canoe skimmed the water swiftly. It was in their thoughts that Marian and Allen must not land at Waupegan, where their intentions would be advertised to the world. The race must end before the dock was reached. ”

“ The day of reckoning is coming fast for men like you, who have made a mystery of politics, playing it as a game in the dark. I don't pretend to know much of these things, but I can see that men of your type are passing out; there would be no great glory for you in waiting to be the last to go. And there are things enough for you to do. If you ally yourself with the good causes that cry for support and leadership, you can be far more formidable than you have ever been as a skulking trickster; you can lead men up as you have led them down. ”

“ He had rarely discussed politics with women; he had an idea that a woman's politics, when she had any, partook of the nature of her religion, and that it was something quite emotional, tending toward hysteria. He experienced a sense of guilt at the relief he found in Sylvia's laughter, remembering that scarcely half an hour earlier he had been at pains to justify himself before his wife for the very act which had struck this girl as funny. He had met Mrs. Bassett's accusations with evasion and dissimulation, and he had accomplished an escape that was not, in retrospect, wholly creditable. ”

“ It's always the way with me. Nobody ever really loves me for myself alone. What does the adorable do besides midnight lobsters? I thought Aunt Sally said she was at Miss Waring's school."
"She is, more or less," growled Dan. "Her mother wants to put her through college, to please the wealthy great-aunt. Mrs. Owen has shown interest in another girl who is now at Wellesley; hence Marian must go to college, and the bare thought of it bores her to death. She's as little adapted to a course in college as one of those bright goddesses who used to adorn Olympus." ”

“ I was never happier than the day I found Marian curled up on a lounge reading Keats. It may be that the real literary instinct, such as I feel Marian has, would only be spoiled by college; and I should like nothing better than to have Marian become a writer. A good many of our best American women writers have not been college women; I was looking that up only the other day."
Sylvia listened, deeply interested; then she laughed suddenly, and as Mrs. Bassett turned toward her she felt that it would do no harm to repeat a remark of Mrs. Owen's that had struck her as being funny. ”

“ It's largely because this work can't be done at home that girls such as we have at Elizabeth House have no sort of manual dexterity and have to earn a poor living doing something badly that they're not interested in or fitted for. Women have one terrible handicap in going out into the world to earn their living; it's the eternal romance that's in all of us," said Sylvia a little dreamily. "I don't believe any woman ever gets beyond that." It was a note she rarely struck and Mrs. Owen looked at her quickly. "I mean, the man who may be always waiting just around the corner." ”

“ Dan was a victim of that error to which young men yield in exultant moments, when, after a first brush with the pickets, they are confident of making their own terms with life. Dan's attitude toward the world was receptive; here in the Bassett domestic circle he felt no shame at being a Bassett man. All but Sylvia had spoken to him of his part in the convention, and she turned to him now after a passage with Allen that had left the young man radiant.
"You have a devoted admirer in Mr. Thatcher. He must be a difficult friend to satisfy," said Sylvia. ”

“ In spite of the clashing winter at the state house and all he had heard and read of the senate leader since the Fraserville visit, Dan's opinion of Bassett stood. His sturdy figure, those firm, masterful hands, and his deep, serious voice all spoke for strength.
"It has occurred to me, Mr. Harwood, that we might be of service to each other. I have a good many interests. You may have gathered that I am a very practical person. That is wholly true. In business I aim at success; I didn't start out in life to be a failure." ”

“ Just changing parties doesn't help anything. I'd rather not shift at all than send some fellow to the Senate just because he can capture a caucus. It's my honest conviction that any man can get a caucus vote if he will play according to the old rules. You and I go out over the state bawling to the people that they are governing this country. We appeal to them for their votes when we know well enough that between Thatcher and Bassett as Democrats, and 'Big' Jordan and Ridgefield in the Republican camp, the people don't stand to win. ”