Then the day for the election came nearer and nearer by what seemed fleeting hours. The whole city was thoroughly aroused and fighting hard under one banner or the other. As the last week drew to a close and left only the few days of the following week for a round-up of the forces before the Wednesday election, the men all became absorbed to the point of oblivion to everything save the speculation as to how the race would go. But it was not in the nature of David Kildare to be held against the grindstone of serious endeavor too long at a time, and in the midst of the turmoil he proceeded to plot for a brief and exciting relaxation for himself and his strenuous friends, and he chose Sat.u.r.day for the accomplishment thereof.
The morning dawned in a fluff of gray fog that hung low down over the avenue, though the sun showed signs of soon piercing the gloom. The clash and clatter of the city was fast approaching a noonday roar but still Phoebe slept in the room which adjoined that of Caroline Darrah Brown.
Caroline cautiously opened the door and stole in gently to the side of the bed, then paused and looked down with delight. Phoebe, asleep, was a thing calculated to bring delight to any beholder. The brilliant, casual, insouciant, worldly Phoebe had gone out on a dream-hunt and a delicious curled-up flower lay in her place, with turned lashes dipping against soft tinted cheeks. Her head rested on one bare white arm and one hand curled under her daintily molded chin. Caroline caught her breath--this was a pathetic Phoebe when one thought of the most times Phoebe, cool, self-reliant--perforce!
"The darling," she whispered to herself as she slipped to her knees by the low bed, "I can"t bear to wake her, but I"m afraid not to; it"s an hour late already. Dear!" She slipped her arm under the glossy head and pressed a little kiss on the dimple over the northeast corner of the warm lips.
Phoebe"s gray eyes smiled themselves open for a fraction of a second, then she nestled to Caroline"s shoulder and calmly drifted off again in pursuit of the dream.
"Dearie," Caroline begged, "it"s after ten!"
Phoebe sighed, nestled closer and drifted again. Caroline settled herself against the pillows and pressed her cheek against the thick black braid that curled across the sleeper"s bare shoulder. She was incapable of another combat with the sleep-G.o.d and decided to wait. Besides, the awake Phoebe was busy--and elusive--not given to bestowing or receiving aught save the most fleeting caresses. So for a few moments Caroline Darrah"s arms held her hungrily.
"Be-autiful," came in a sleepy voice from against her arm, "is the water cold?"
"Awful this morning," answered Caroline tightening her arms. "Just a little hot, Phoebe, please! I"ll tell Annette."
"No," answered Phoebe, as with a whirl of the covers she sat up and took her knees into her embrace. "No, sweetie, in I go! The colder the better after I"m in. How grand and Burne-Jonesy you look in that linen pinafore--indulging in the life domestic? I think I catch a whiff of your culinary atmosphere--and, oh, I--am so--hungry."
"Tempie has a dear little plump bird for you and some waffles and an omelet. Let me have Annette bring them to you here! Please, Phoebe, please!"
"Caroline Darrah Brown," said Phoebe in a tragic voice, "do you know I gained a pound and a quarter last week and that makes me three and a half pounds past the danger-mark? Two raw eggs and an orange is all I can have this morning. I"m going to cry, I think!"
"No," answered Caroline Darrah positively, "you are going to eat that bird and the omelet. You may subst.i.tute dry toast for the waffle if Tempie will let you. She"s angry, and I"m in trouble. She won"t use that recipe I got from your Mammy Kitty to make the cake I promised David Kildare for tea. She says she and her family have been making Buchanan cake ever since there was any cake and she is not going to begin now making Donelson mixtures. I think I hurt her feelings. What must I do?"
"Let her alone, she has the right of it and the cake is sure to be just as good," laughed Phoebe.
"But I promised him it should be just like the one you gave us the other afternoon, only with the icing and nuts thicker than the cake," answered Caroline in real distress. "He says that Mr. Sevier likes it that way, too," she added ingenuously.
"Caroline Darrah, you spoil those men to the most outrageous extent. It"s like David to want his icing and nuts thicker than the cake; he always does--and gets it, but it isn"t good for him." As Phoebe spoke she smiled at Caroline Darrah indulgently.
"I can"t help it, Phoebe," she answered with the rose wave mounting under her eyes. "I"m stupid--I don"t know how to manage them. I"m just--fond of them."
For a second Phoebe regarded her from under veiled eyes, then said guardedly, "Doesn"t that give them rather the advantage to start with--if you let them find it out?"
"Yes," answered Caroline as she pressed her cheek against Phoebe"s arm, "I know it does but I can"t help it. I have to trust to them to understand."
For a moment Phoebe was silent and across her mind there flashed David"s description of a man who sat into the gray dawn fighting his battle--his own and hers--a man who wouldn"t run!
"Perhaps that"s the best way after all, dearie," she said as she prepared to slip out of bed. "Only it takes the exceptional woman to get results from your method. It ought to work with David; others don"t seem to!"
"Phoebe, Phoebe--why--why?" and Caroline caught and held Phoebe for a few seconds. "Don"t you care at all?"
"Yes, child--a lot! Having admitted which I will betake myself to the plunge--leaving you to finish the cake for the precious thing." In a second Phoebe smiled back from the door:
"Just one little waffle, tell Tempie," she said. "And I"m due to make a lightning toilet if I get to that Woman"s Guild meeting at eleven-thirty.
Call the office for me and tell them not to send Freckles until one-thirty to-day. And, dearie, please call Polly and tell her to be sure and go to that meeting of the Daughters of the Colonies so she can tell me what happens. Tell her to get it all straight--names and all and I will phone her. And not to let them office or committee me just because I"m not there! You are a dear!"
Caroline smiled happily as she went back to the mixing of the confection of affection to be administered to David with his tea as by request, and she laughed as she heard Phoebe"s mighty splash.
And a half-hour later, during the discussion of the plump bird and the one crisp waffle, David Kildare whirled in, beaming with joy over his plans. In fact he failed to manage anything in the way of a formal greeting.
"Girls!" he exclaimed from the doorway, "the hunt is on for to-night!
Everybody hurry up! Caroline, Mrs. Matilda wants you to motor out with her to the Forks to see about having Jeff and Tempie get ready for the supper cooking--barbecue, birdies and the hot potato! Milly and Billy Bob are going and Polly and that Boston lad of yours, Caroline--yours if you can hold him, which I don"t think you can. And Mrs. Matilda says--"
"Stop," demanded Phoebe, "and tell us what you are talking about, David."
"I"m surprised at you, Phoebe, for being so dense," answered David with a delighted grin at having created a flurry. "Didn"t you hear me tell Caroline Darrah Brown at least a week ago that possums and persimmons are ripe and that the first night after a rain and a fog we would all turn out and show her how to shake down a few? The whole glad push is going. Mrs. Matilda and I decided it an hour ago while you were still asleep. I"ve telephoned everybody--possums and persimmons wait for no man."
"How perfectly delightful," said Caroline with eyes agleam with enthusiasm. "Can everybody go?" David had failed to mention Andrew Sevier in his enumeration, an omission that she had instantly caught.
"Yes," answered David, "everybody that had engagements we asked the engagement to go, too. Even Andy is going to cut the poems for the lark!
Thuse up a little, Phoebe, please--give us the smile! I"m backing you to shake down ten possums against anybody"s possible five."
"I don"t think that I can go," answered Phoebe quietly. "Mrs. Cherry has the president of the Federation of Women"s Clubs staying with her and I"m going to dine there to-night to discuss the suffrage platform." There was a cool note in Phoebe"s voice and a sudden seriousness had come into her expression.
"Now, Phoebe," answered David, looking down at her with the quickly concealed tenderness that always flashed up in his eyes when he spoke directly to her, "do you suppose for one minute that I hadn"t fixed all that the first thing? Mrs. Cherry held back a bit but I rabbit-footed the old lady into being wild to go and then wheedled the correct hostess some; and there you are! Caroline is to send them out in her motor and I"m going to make Hob and Tom chase the possum in company of the merry widow and Mrs. Big Bug. Now give me a glad word!"
"I"ll see," answered Phoebe. "I can let you know by two o"clock whether I can go," and as she spoke she gathered up her gloves and bag and settled her trim hat by a glance at the long mirror across the room.
"What--what did you say?" demanded David aghast in a second. "If you think for one minute that I"m going to stand for--"
"But you must remember that my business engagements must always be settled before I can make social ones--at two o"clock then! Good-by, Caroline, dear, such a comfy night under your care! I"m going to stop in the library to speak to the major and then on to the guild if any one calls. Here"s to you both!" and she coolly tipped them a kiss from the ends of her fingers.
"Caroline," remarked David, "I reckon I must have giggled too loud in my cradle, and the Lord turned around and made Phoebe to settle my glee, don"t you think?"
And as Caroline saw him depart with his usual smile and jest she little realized that a jagged wound ran across his blithe heart.
The David within was awakening and developing a highly sensitized nature, which caught Phoebe"s note of disapproval, divined its reason and winced under the humiliation of its distrust. The old David would have laughed, chaffed her and gone his way rejoicing--the new David suffered, for a deeply-loved woman can inflict a wound on the inner man that throbs to the depths.
Across the hall Phoebe found the major at his table and, as usual, buried in his books. He was reading one and holding another open in his hand while his pen balanced itself over a page for a note. Phoebe hesitated on the threshold, loath to disturb his feast. But before she could retreat he glanced up and his smile flashed a welcome and an invitation to her, while his books fell together as he rose and held out his hands.
"My dear," he said, "I was just reading what Bob Browning says about a "pearl and a girl"--and thinking of you when up I look to behold you."
"Thank you, and good morning, Major," returned Phoebe as a slow smile spread over her grave face. "I won"t disturb you, for I"ve only a moment!
This hunt to-night--it--it troubles me. Has David forgotten that he is to make a speech on the cutting of the conduit over in the sixteenth ward at half-past seven o"clock? It is one of his most important appointments and--"
"Phoebe," answered the major as he balanced his pen on one long lean finger, "do you suppose that women will ever learn that men could dispense with them entirely after their second year--if it wasn"t for the loneliness? I see David Kildare failed to make a sufficiently full ap.r.o.n-string report to you this morning of his intentions for the day."
"Sometimes, Major, you are completely horrid," answered Phoebe with both a smile and a spark in her eyes, "but I do care--that is, I"m interested, and--"
"It seems to me," the major filled in the pause, "that you are a trifle short on a woman"s long suit--patience. Now in the case of David Kildare, you don"t want to give him one moment of tortoise speed but must keep him pacing with the hare entirely. Remember the result of that race?"
"But I want him to win--he must! I think--"
"Did you hear that speech he made to the motley and their friends last Monday night? That was as fine an interpretation of the ethics involved in the enforcement of law as I have ever heard or read--delivered to simple minds unversed in the science ethical. He landed hot shot into the very stronghold of the enemy and his audience saw his points. I find the mind of David Kildare rather well provisioned with the diverse ammunition needed in political warfare. The whisky ring is making a stand and fighting the inches of retreat. I believe it to be retreat!"
"But can it be, Major? Andrew says that money is pouring into the city, even from other states. They intend to buy the election, come what will.