_ CHAPTER XXV. WOMEN, AND ONE WOMAN
The next day brought the reign of woman. That festal day in mid-session which preceded the legislative ball had been made woman's field-day by long custom. The politicians arranged the programme in order to bunch events: for the women demanded that they be heard each session on the suffrage question; and the women pleaded for one opportunity to show their best gowns in parade for fashion's sake. So the politicians made one bite at the cherry; "took a double dose and had it over with," as Thelismer Thornton ungraciously expressed it. Frivolity was combined with feminine fervor on the suffrage question. One element was invited to neutralize the other. The politicians could endure the combination better than they could face each faction separately. The advocates of suffrage made their plea while their sisters promenaded the State House corridors to the music of the band. The festival spirit dominated.
The members of the Judiciary Committee wore fresh waistcoats, pinks in their buttonholes, and a genial air--and had not the least idea of granting the suffragists anything except a benignant hearing. The report of "ought not to pass" was a foregone conclusion.
But there were potted palms in the lobbies, decorations in the rotunda, and masses of flowers in the House chamber which was given over to the hearing. And sweet music softened legislative asperities. The women asked, smiling. The men refused, smiling.
The federated women's clubs of the State had the suffrage matter in their keeping. The delegates were not hard-faced women clutching umbrellas. They were the strictly modern suffragists--radiant matrons, fresh-complexioned girls, women who led in culture and fashion in their respective communities.
At the previous session the Legislative Committee had asked that the delegation of women be restricted to the usual number of persons that appeared at legislative hearings. When a dozen came with their petitions and arguments the Committee blandly stated that there seemed to be no general demand in the State for woman's suffrage--witness the attendance of women interested!
This year the women proposed to disprove that assumption. Every woman's literary, social, art, and economic club in the State sent two delegates. The State was raked for women, even the schools were ransacked. At ten o'clock in the forenoon the State House was packed and women were still crowding in. The galleries, aisles, and standing-room of House and Senate were choked with silks, furs, and feathers which decorated the beauty and brains of the State.
The routine was hurried through. Callous man, gasping for breath, wanted to escape.
The few in the lobby who dared to smoke soon hid their cigars under their coat-tails and departed to the hotels. The cuspidors were hidden. Gay frocks swept cigar stubs out of sight.
When the members of the Judiciary Committee attempted to enter the House chamber to conduct the hearing on suffrage, it required full ten minutes of persuasive eloquence and courteous pushing on the part of the messengers to break the jam of women that filled the door and packed the lobby floor adjacent. The fair lobbyists did not want to give up even that vantage-point in order to admit the men who were to listen. And after the committee had managed to wriggle its way in single file to the platform they had not the heart to expel the women who were occupying their chairs. They gallantly stood in a row against the rear wall of the Speaker's alcove and listened to the petitioners--each woman allowed two minutes! Not one member of the legislature, outside the committee, heard. It would have been an ungallant man, indeed, who did not surrender his place in the chamber to a woman who had come to present her cause. So the women amiably listened to themselves, and the committee listened to them in all politeness, and both sides understood that it was only a genial social diversion out of which nothing would come. In that gathering a suffragette would have been squelched by her own sex.
Harlan Thornton came to the State House early.
Morning had brought him wiser counsel. He felt no impulse to rush to the Presson house. He wondered now what he would have said if he had gained access to Madeleine Presson the night before. The astounding insult by Herbert Linton troubled him less. It had been a jealous outburst--Linton's confession of his love for the girl had revealed his animus. Probably Linton regretted it--in Harlan's calmer mood he trusted that such was the case. Conscious of his innocence, it did not seem to Harlan that any man would dare to deal further in such outrageous slander after what had been said in their interview.
Harlan was one of the first to escape from the House through the press of women. There were too many of them. Officious gentlemen had begun to introduce him to wives and daughters and friends. He was not shy, but the presence of so many women--chattering, vivacious, exchanging repartee, challenging retort from him, was disquieting. He made his way to his committee-room. It was in a far corner of the building and was quiet. He had not been able to inspect the bill that Governor Waymouth had placed in his hands. He determined to put behind himself for a time the presence of women and the thoughts of women--even those thoughts which had so occupied him the night before.
There was no one in the committee-room. The State House holiday had attracted his associates. He examined the measure that he was expected to sponsor.
It provided for a commission of three men to be appointed by the Governor and to remain under his direct control--a bipartisan board. These men were to appoint special deputies to any number desired. To any county, city, or town these deputies were to be dispatched when it became apparent that police or sheriffs were lax or dishonest in enforcing the prohibitory law. No limits were placed on the number of these men empowered to kill saloons and put liquor-peddlers out of business. No special amount of money was to be asked of the legislature--the bill provided that the State treasury should stand behind the movement.
The young man was quick to understand the tremendous power granted to the Governor by that bill. Under it no party management, no group of politicians, could club or coax the liquor interests into line at the polls by manipulation of the traffic. No sheriff could enrich himself by selling privileges. No city could govern itself in that respect--declaring that public opinion favored the saloons and making local law superior to the constitutional law of the State. The bill provided that a judge must impose both fines and imprisonment when convictions were secured, and, therefore, no judge could carry on any longer a practical system of low license by imposing fines alone.
It was the principle of
enforced prohibition put on trial.
In the past the Luke Pressons of the State had laughed at interference by a Governor. Local politics, easily handled, had controlled the actions of cities, and police had kept their hands off the traffic for years.
Authority in liquor matters had been vested in the county high sheriffs, and these men were controlled from State headquarters wholly in the interests of politics.
Harlan was sufficiently familiar with the old plan to know how this new system would upset the entire political machine of his State. That folio of document was a bombshell.
He was holding it outspread in his hands when the door opened so suddenly that it startled him. Thelismer Thornton came in, shaking his shoulders disgustedly.
"Feathers and cackle!" he muttered. "This State House turned into a poultry yard! And half of 'em braced back trying to crow! When a hen crows and a woman votes--well, it's all the same thing!"
He relighted the cigar that he had brought through the press hidden in his big palm. He eyed his grandson keenly and with some disfavor as he puffed the cigar alight.
"Look here, bub," he burst out, "there are enough women around here to-day to remind me that I want to have a word with you on the woman question. You intend to marry Madeleine Presson, don't you?"
"
Intend to marry her!" blazed his grandson. "You talk as though it was the fashion to grab a girl and carry her off as they did in the Stone Age."
"You know what I mean very well, sir. I take it you are still decent, and if you're decent you'll marry the girl you've beaued around for six months--providing she'll have you. That was the style in my day--and decency doesn't change much--at least, it ought not to."
Had it been the day before, Harlan Thornton would have declared to his grandfather what his intentions were toward Madeleine Presson. The thoughts of the past night's vigil came upon him now--he hesitated. He was angry with himself--angry with this blunt and persistent old man. He did not know whether resentment held him back from acknowledging that he had been a suitor for the hand of Luke Presson's daughter or whether it was the strange, new feeling toward Clare Kavanagh since he had learned that her good name was in such piteous need of his protection and defence.
"Have you asked her to marry you?" demanded the Duke.
"Yes, I have--that is--" he paused. His air irritated still more the testy humor of the old man, plainly provoked by earlier matters.
"'That is'!" he sneered. "'I have.' 'Perhaps I have!' 'Maybe I have--let's see what my notes say!' What in the devil is the matter with the young men nowadays, anyway? Blood in your veins about as thick as Porty Reek molasses! You say you have asked her to marry you? Well, if you've asked her and mean it, have you got anything to do with that Kavanagh girl being around this State House to-day?"
Harlan sprang to his feet. He threw the document upon the table. His heart leaped within him. Even while his emotions bewildered him he found himself asking his conscience why he had not searched for her in spite of Dennis Kavanagh and her own plain desire to avoid him. The bare knowledge that she was near sent the blood into his face. Her coming to him seemed reproach for his acceptance of her flight.
"Do you mean that?"
"You are certainly giving me a fine imitation of a man who is surprised," stated his grandfather. "Maybe you are! I hope so. But she's here. She's with a bunch of girls from some school or other, paraded around by a hatchet-faced woman--another crowing hen that's trying to teach parliamentary law, I suppose. Harlan, I hope you've been square with me about that girl! Now, if you're honest, and don't know she's here, keep out of sight. I've given you the tip. She'll be speaking to you--and it will mix matters for you. She'd like nothing better than to do it!"
"I'm sick of that kind of talk from you," protested the grandson, angrily. "Can't you mention the name of that innocent girl without a slur or an insult? And there's no reason why I cannot meet Clare Kavanagh any time and at any place."
"Your political rule of out-and-open, as you've been tutored by Vard Waymouth, may work with men, but I'm telling you that it won't operate with girls," replied the Duke. "You may mean all right, but I'm suspicious of you. You sneaked back to Fort Canibas last summer to see her--now didn't you?"
"I saw her."
"You don't pay much attention to my wishes, do you, Harlan?"
"I claim the right, in a few matters, to be my own master."
"Even to making a devilish fool of yourself! You want Madeleine Presson. I can see that you want her. I've been watching. And I'm coming out now and say that I want you to have her. She's my idea of a wife. Now you needn't go to talking about that Kavanagh girl and
friendship! There's no such thing as that kind of friendship."
Harlan had no time then to vent the anger that was seething in him. It seemed that every one who willed took the liberty to intrude upon the affairs which he tried to keep sacred. While that thought was uppermost in his troubled emotions, Linton, the other chief offender, came in, Presson with him.
The chairman began briskly. He was serious, but he spoke kindly.
"I don't usually interfere in these matters, but we'd better have this thing straightened out for the good of all of us. I'm glad you're here, Thelismer. I want you to stand by and listen. Here are two mighty good boys, these two--and now we'll leave out all political differences. We can afford to. We're all better friends than we were when the session opened." In spite of his absorption in his own affairs Harlan thought of the legislative morrow and its possibilities. "Now, this isn't politics! As I say, I don't usually meddle in my wife's or my daughter's--"
"Just one moment, Mr. Presson!" Harlan strode forward. "Has this lying scoundrel dared to bring his dirty scandal to you?"
He looked over the head of the chairman into the defiant face of his rival. The little man threw up his hands, standing between them.
"Hold on! Hold on! You haven't come to me in the usual way, but as near as I can find out both of you are after my daughter. I know of my own knowledge, Harlan, that you have been interested up-country. I simply want to have a general understanding. I brought Linton here with me. No use in running between! Let's have our say face to face."
Harlan controlled himself.
"I think I understand just what prompts you, Mr. Presson," he said. "I respect your motives. You've been imposed upon. But you're not to blame. I know what you're going to ask me. I'll save you the trouble. I admire your daughter greatly. I have intended to ask her hand in marriage." He was suddenly conscious that the determination to persist in that suit was not acute.
"That wasn't what I was going to ask you," said Presson with decision. "It's about the girl whom I saw--"
"The name of no other person belongs in this discussion," broke in Harlan, firmly. "I refuse to permit that name to be dragged in, for it's insult and scandal."
There was silence in the room. The chairman looked at Harlan, impressed by his demeanor. He knew the young man well enough to think twice before he persisted. Thelismer Thornton smoked hard, scowling. He was a little cautious about thrusting himself further into a matter that he knew would test the Thornton spirit in his grandson.
But Linton was determined to win his point. He thought he saw his opportunity. He hoped he could force a break between Presson and the other suitor.
"I'm interested in this matter as much as any one," he declared. "I have not told you the full story, Mr. Presson. But I'm here to see this matter straightened out for good and all, and unless you get an answer from this man, as a father ought to, I'll see that you have the facts to put you right."
"Linton, didn't I tell you last night that you were circulating a lie?" Harlan's face was gray.
"If it's a lie why are you afraid of telling Mr. Presson the whole truth and explaining the matter?" insisted Linton with a lawyer's pertinacity in extracting evidence. He realized that if young Thornton talked, even to admit the facts that information from the north country seemed to prove, a bit of impromptu cross-examination might yield results that would help the Linton cause.
"I refuse because every word that is said on the subject is a gross insult to an innocent girl," declared Harlan, passionately. "And I warn you that if you open your mouth again you'll get the only thing a man can give you and remain a man!"
"You'd better take the hint, Linton," advised the Duke. "I don't know exactly what you're driving at, but you're heading toward trouble. They don't do things up our way as they do in a city court-room."
Linton was angry, desperate, and he was as stalwart as the other. He was not inclined to let that opportunity pass.
Defiantly he plunged into the story that Spinney had reported. To his astonishment Harlan rushed for the door. He went out and slammed it behind him.
A project had come to him, prompted by his furious rage which mocked common-sense. A man more accustomed to the conventions would not have attempted it. But all his north-country passion rioted in him at that moment.
The night before he had wept because the peace and good name of Clare Kavanagh were threatened and he could only beat the ugly phantom of scandal helplessly.
Now suddenly he found work for his hands--and his hands had always been his means of expressing his soul in toil, achievement, and in passion.
He hurried down the stairs into the State House rotunda where the throngs were. The hearing before the committee was adjourned. The band was playing. He thrust himself through the press of the women. Maids and matrons stared after him. His face was pale, his lips made a straight-edge and his eyes swept every group with eagerness that was almost wild. It was search that was distracting. There were women, women. There were so many faces to scan! Chance led him to her--good fortune and the sudden thought that she would probably be found near some object of interest, were she escorted by a teacher. He saw the group near the great case that held the State's battle-flags. He caught her arm and her startled face was turned up to his.
"Come," he whispered, hoarsely. "Come! Do not ask me why. Only come. Hurry!"
With the trustfulness she had always shown in him she did not hesitate. She did not even offer excuses to the tall woman who stepped forward to inquire the intentions of this abrupt young man. She went, as she went in the north country when he called to her. Clinging to his arm she hurried up the broad marble stairway.
She did not ask why. Her faith was complete. But his demeanor frightened her.
"I was sorry after I got here," she gasped, as they hurried on. "But the others came from the school, and I thought it would be such a great place here that no one would notice me. I thought you would not see me, Harlan. But I wanted to learn about--about what you did--what the lawmakers did, so that--so that--"
"Hurry," he urged her. He feared that they would be gone.
This brusqueness, his haste, his sternness troubled her more and more. They were alone in the corridor that led to the committee-room. She stopped, holding him back with her strong young arms. He had hardly looked at her till then. She had changed in the months since he had seen her. Womanly dignity was mingled with the high spirit that had inspired the child. Her garb, her new mien made her beauty brilliant.
"I never lied to you yet, Big Boy," she cried. "I came here because I was hungry for a sight of you. Then I would go back to my work comforted. Now my conscience is clear. Take me where you will."
In that moment his heart was revealed to him. In the stress of new emotions he understood himself at last. He understood that the love which mates, which sweeps away all calculation, which welds, trusts, and never pauses to analyze or compute, is love that disdains mere admiration of intellect or lure of beauty.
His quiet nature had depths. They had never been stirred till then. The child-love had been budding there ready for blossom. It had been fed by faith and ripened by association. Passion now brought it to fruition. Madeleine Presson had appealed only to one side of him. This girl rounded out the whole philosophy of love. She was not a divinity. His nature did not crave divinity. In his strength, sincerity, ingenuousness, his man's soul, primitive as the free woods, required the mate--one to be cherished and protected. And so, now, when all his soul was stirred, this girl, so bitterly in need of protection--the girl whom the years had endeared to him--came into his heart to reign there.
Words, emotion choked him. But he could not wait, then. She saw something in his eyes she had never seen there till that moment. But before she could understand he carried her along with him.
"Come! I can't wait!" he cried.
When he flung open the door of the committee-room the men in it were standing in silence. Presson had picked up the "Thornton Bill" and was reading it, scowling. Whatever Linton had said, it was plain that the father of Madeleine Presson had just found something which diverted his attention from family matters.
Harlan shut the door behind. He locked it. He stepped away from the girl, leaving her standing there. She was a picture to confute slander.
The chairman gazed at her in astonishment. He had not expected such prompt incarnation of the topic.
"I know what foul lies have just been uttered in this room by that fellow!" Harlan leaned forward and drove an accusatory finger at Linton. "Now here stands the woman you have insulted. Look at her, you lying hound! There's only one thing you can do! Acknowledge yourself a liar and apologize!"
Linton did not speak. He raised his eyebrows; it was unspoken comment on the peculiar actions of this young savage from the woods.
"Presson, get out of here and bring help," muttered the Duke. "Hell is going to break loose!"
The chairman slipped the document into his pocket and tiptoed around the side of the room. Harlan paid no attention to him. His eyes were for Linton.
"Are you going to apologize?"
"I'll wait until--" began the lawyer, but he got no further.
The Thornton temper had been strained beyond the breaking-point. Harlan was upon him.
"Bring a dozen!" yelled the Duke after the chairman who had been tugging at the door, and now escaped.
Linton was tall and muscular, but law-practice is not lumbering. He struck viciously at Harlan, ducking to and fro with the briskness of the trained boxer. But the woodsman merely leaped upon him, heedless of his blows. He bore him down. He drove resistless knees into his shoulders. He thrust Linton's face against the floor and ground it against the boards. Then he dragged the limp figure past the cursing Duke toward the girl. She had fled to a corner, covering her eyes and sobbing in terror.
"D--n you, you'll apologize to the girl who's going to be my wife," raved Harlan.
When Presson returned at the head of volunteers the victor was grinding the bleeding face on the floor once more and Linton was screaming appeals.
There were enough of them to separate the men. They dragged Harlan away out of the room in spite of his struggles. The mere sight of the lawyer seemed to infuriate him more.
The Duke hurried the girl out and away while the peacemakers were struggling with the young combatants.
"Stop that blubbering," he commanded, roughly. "If you've got any grit left in you, brace up. Don't let people here notice!"
He was trying to hide as much of the true reason for the affray as he could. He wanted to get the girl out of sight.
"I didn't know--I did nothing--if it was about me I didn't--" He stopped her brutally.
"About you, you little fool? Of course it wasn't about you! My grandson is going to marry Luke Presson's daughter."
She stiffened in the hook of his arm. They were in the corridor and had not come into the view of the people.
"Every one knows it," he hurried on. He saw an opportunity to get in a cruel blow at the romance he suspected and hated. "They have been going together for months. She'll be the right kind of a wife for him. They were fighting about her--those two young hyenas."
She pulled away from him. The tears were on her cheeks, but she held herself straight and looked him in the eye.
"That's a lie, Mr. Thornton!"
"It's the truth. He'll marry her if you haven't spoiled it all for him--spoiled his good name and stirred up all this scandal for him just as he was getting ready to amount to something in the world, with a wife that could help him! You get away from here as quickly as you can. You hear me? If his career is spoiled you've done it. Don't stay around here and disgrace him any more. It's bad enough, as it is, for him and Miss Presson!"
She stared at him, stricken and puzzled. Then she left him.
"I don't need any further escort," she informed him, turning after she had gone a few steps. It was Dennis Kavanagh's girl speaking now. "I have been escorted by the Thorntons quite enough during the past ten minutes. I tell you again, I believe you lie. But I propose to understand something more about this--and I'll not disgrace you nor your grandson!"
"Go ask some questions!" he called after her. He felt sure that gossip would confirm him. But to make sure that Harlan did not follow her and find her and discredit gossip he turned back down the corridor purposing to keep that belligerent young man under watch and ward for a time. _