"With men," said Alonzo, "I am. With ladies I am not so much so. I think a good woman ought to be told--"
"But you are interested," she interrupted, "in defeating that bill?"
"Yes ma"am," he returned. "It is an iniquitous measure."
"Why?"
"Mrs. Protheroe!" he exclaimed, taken aback. "I thought all the ladies were against it. My own mother wrote to me from Stackpole that she"d rather see me in my grave than votin" for such a bill, and I"d rather see myself there!"
"But are you sure that you understand it?"
"I only know it desecrates the Sabbath. That"s enough for me!"
She leaned toward him and his breath came quickly.
"No. You"re wrong," she said, and rested the tips of her fingers upon his sleeve.
"I don"t understand why--why you say that," he faltered. "It sounds kind of--surprising to me--"
"Listen," she said. "Perhaps Mr. Truslow told you that I am studying such things. I do not want to be an idle woman; I want to be of use to the world, even if it must be only in small ways."
"I think that is a n.o.ble ambition!" he exclaimed. "I think all good women ought--"
"Wait," she interrupted gently. "Now, that bill is a worthy one, though it astonishes you to hear me say so. Perhaps you don"t understand the conditions. Sunday is the labouring-man"s only day of recreation--and what recreation is he offered?"
"He ought to go to church," said Alonzo promptly.
"But the fact is that he doesn"t--not often--not at _all_ in the afternoon. Wouldn"t it be well to give him some wholesome way of employing his Sunday afternoons? This bill provides for just that, and it keeps him away from drinking too, for it forbids the sale of liquor on the grounds."
"Yes, I know," said Alonzo plaintively. "But it ain"t _right_! I was raised to respect the Sabbath and--"
"Ah, that"s what you should do! You think _I_ could believe in anything that wouldn"t make it better and more sacred?"
"Oh, no, ma"am!" he cried reproachfully. "It"s only that I don"t see--"
"I am telling you." She lifted her veil and let him have the full dazzle of her beauty. "Do you know that many thousands of labouring people spend their Sundays drinking and carousing about the low country road-houses because the game is played at such places on Sunday? They go there because they never get a chance to see it played in the city. And don"t you understand that there would be no Sunday liquor trade, no working-men poisoning themselves every seventh day in the low groggeries, as hundreds of them do now, if they had something to see that would interest them?--something as wholesome and fine as this sport would be, under the conditions of this bill; something to keep them in the open air, something to bring a little gaiety into their dull lives!" Her voice had grown louder and it shook a little, with a rising emotion, though its sweetness was only the more poignant. "Oh, my dear Senator," she cried, "don"t you _see_ how wrong you are? Don"t you want to _help_ these poor people?"
Her fingers, which had tightened upon his sleeve, relaxed and she leaned back, pulling the veil down over her face as if wishing to conceal from him that her lips trembled slightly; then resting her arm upon the leather cushions, she turned her head away from him, staring fixedly into the gaunt beech woods, lining the country road along which they were now coursing. For a time she heard nothing from him, and the only sound was the monotonous chug of the machine.
"I suppose you think it rather shocking to hear a woman talking practically of such common-place things," she said at last, in a cold voice, just loud enough to be heard.
"No ma"am," he said huskily.
"Then what _do_ you think?" she cried, turning toward him again with a quick imperious gesture.
"I think I"d better go back to Stackpole," he answered very slowly, "and resign my job. I don"t see as I"ve got any business in the Legislature."
"I don"t understand you."
He shook his head mournfully. "It"s a simple enough matter. I"ve studied out a good many bills and talked "em over and I"ve picked up some influence and--"
"I know you have." she interrupted eagerly. "Mr. Truslow says that the members of your drains and dikes committee follow your vote on every bill."
"Yes ma"am," said Alonzo Rawson meekly, "but I expect they oughtn"t to. I"ve had a lesson this afternoon."
"You mean to say--"
"I mean that I didn"t know what I was doing about that baseball bill. I was just pig-headedly goin" ahead against it, not knowing nothing about the conditions, and it took a lady to show me what they were. I would have done a wrong thing if you hadn"t stopped me."
"You mean," she cried, her splendid eyes widening with excitement and delight; "you mean that you---that you--"
"I mean that I will vote for the bill!" He struck his clenched fist upon his knee. "I come to the Legislature to do _right_!"
"You will, ah, you _will_ do right in this!" Mrs. Protheroe thrust up her veil again and her face was flushed and radiant with triumph. "And you"ll work, and you"ll make a speech for the bill?"
At this the righteous exaltation began rather abruptly to simmer down in the soul of Alonzo Rawson. He saw the consequences of too violently reversing, and knew how difficult they might be to face.
"Well, not--not exactly," he said weakly. "I expect our best plan would be for me to lay kind of low and not say any more about the bill at all. Of course, I"ll quit workin" against it; and on the roll-call I"ll edge up close to the clerk and say "Aye" so that only him"ll hear me. That"s done every day--and I--well, I don"t just exactly like to come out too publicly for it, after my speech and all I"ve done against it."
She looked at him sharply for a short second, and then offered him her hand and said: "Let"s shake hands _now_, on the vote. Think what a triumph it is for me to know that I helped to show you the right."
"Yes ma"am," he answered confusedly, too much occupied with shaking her hand to know what he said. She spoke one word in an undertone to the driver and the machine took the very shortest way back to the city.
After this excursion, several days pa.s.sed, before Mrs. Protheroe came to the State house again. Rawson was bending over the desk of Senator Josephus Battle, the white-bearded leader of the opposition to the "Sunday Baseball Bill," and was explaining to him the intricacies of a certain drainage measure, when Battle, whose attention had wandered, plucked his sleeve and whispered:
"If you want to see a mighty pretty woman that"s doin" no good here, look behind you, over there in the chair by the big fireplace at the back of the room."
Alonzo looked.
It was she whose counterpart had been in his dream"s eye every moment of the dragging days which had been vacant of her living presence. A number of his colleagues were hanging over her almost idiotically; her face was gay and her voice came to his ears, as he turned, with the accent of her cadenced laughter running through her talk like a chime of tiny bells flitting through a strain of music.
"This is the third time she"s been here," said Battle, rubbing his beard the wrong way. "She"s lobbyin" for that infernal Sabbath-Desecration bill, but we"ll beat her, my son."
"Have you made her acquaintance, Senator?" asked Alonzo stiffly.
"No, sir, and I don"t want to. But I knew her father--the slickest old beat and the smoothest talker that ever waltzed up the pike. She married rich; her husband left her a lot of real estate around here, but she spends most of her time away. Whatever struck her to come down and lobby for that bill I don"t know _yet_--but I will! Truslow"s helping her to help himself; he"s got stock in the company that runs the baseball team, but what she"s up to--well, I"ll bet there"s a n.i.g.g.e.r in the woodpile _some_where!"
"I expect there"s a lot of talk like that!" said Alonzo, red with anger, and taking up his papers abruptly.
"Yes, _sir_!" said Battle emphatically, utterly misunderstanding the other"s tone and manner. "Don"t you worry, my son. We"ll kill that venomous bill right here in this chamber! We"ll kill it so dead that it won"t make one flop after the axe hits it. You and me and some others"ll tend to _that_! Let her work that pretty face and those eyes of hers all she wants to! I"m keepin" a little lookout, too--and I"ll--"
He broke off, for the angry and perturbed Alonzo had left him and gone to his own desk. Battle, slightly surprised, rubbed his beard the wrong way and sauntered out to the lobby to muse over a cigar. Alonzo, loathing Battle with a great loathing, formed bitter phrases concerning that vicious-minded old gentleman, while for a moment he affected to be setting his desk in order. Then he walked slowly up the aisle, conscious of a roaring in his ears (though not aware how red they were) as he approached the semicircle about her.
He paused within three feet of her in a sudden panic of timidity, and then, to his consternation, she looked him squarely in the face, over the shoulders of two of the group, and the only sign of recognition that she exhibited was a slight frown of unmistakable repulsion, which appeared between her handsome eyebrows.
It was very swift; only Alonzo saw it; the others had no eyes for anything but her, and were not aware of his presence behind them, for she did not even pause in what she was saying.
Alonzo walked slowly away with the wormwood in his heart. He had not grown up among the young people of Stackpole without similar experiences, but it had been his youthful boast that no girl had ever "stopped speaking" to him without reason, or "cut a dance" with him and afterward found opportunity to repeat the indignity.