Galt laughed, with a wave of his thin, nervous hand.
"My dear governor, you are the one great man in State politics, but that unimportant fact would not have landed you into your present seat had not the little revivalistic episode befuddled the brains of the convention."
Nicholas shook his head impatiently. "You make too much of that," he said.
"Perhaps. I want to impress upon you that you have a hard fight before you. The Webb men are already putting in a little quiet work in the legislature--and they have even been after the guards at the penitentiary. Major Rann is your man, and he tells me the Webb leaders are the quietest, most insidious workers he has ever met. As it is, he is your great card, and his influence is immense. Webb would give his right hand for him."
The governor tossed the hair from his brow with a quick movement.
"I have the confidence of the people," he said.
"The people! How long does it take a clever politician to befuddle them?
You aren"t new to the business, and you know these things as well as I do--or better. I tell you, when Dudley Webb begins to stump the State the people will begin to howl for him. He"ll win over the women and the old Confederates when he gets on the Civil War, and the rest will come easy. There won"t be need of bogus ballots and disappearing election books when the members of the Democratic caucus are sent up next session."
"What do you want?" demanded the governor abruptly. He leaned forward, his arms on the desk.
Galt tapped the list of appointments significantly.
"As a beginning, I want you to scratch out a good two-thirds of these names. The others will go all right. The men I have cross marked are not all Webb men to-day, but they will throw their influence on Webb"s side when the pull comes."
Nicholas took up the list and reread it carefully. "The men I have named I believe to be best suited to the positions," he returned. "One, you may observe, is a Republican--that will call for hostile criticism--but he was beyond doubt the best man. I regret the fact that the majority of these men are Webb partisans, but I wish to make these appointments for reasons entirely apart from politics."
Galt had risen, and he now stood looking down upon the governor with a smile in his eyes.
"So it goes?" he asked, pointing to the sheet of paper.
The other nodded.
"Yes, it goes. I am not a fool, Ben. I wish things were different--but it goes."
"And so do I," laughed Galt easily. "You won"t mind my remarking, by the way, that you are a brick, but a brick in the wrong road. However, you hold on to Rann, and the rest of us will hold on to you. Oh, we"ll see you to-night at Carrie"s coming-out affair, of course. The child wouldn"t have you absent for worlds. If my wife and daughter represented the community you might become Dictator of Richmond. Good morning!"
As he crossed the little gallery where the portraits hung there was an abstracted smile about the corners of his shrewd mouth.
V
"Juliet!" called Galt as he swung open his house door.
It was his habit to call for his wife as soon as he crossed the threshold, and she was accustomed to respond from the drawing-room, the pantry, or the nursery, as the case might be. This evening her voice floated from the dining-room, and following the sound he stumbled over a shadowy palm and came upon Juliet as she put the last touches to a long white table, radiant with cut gla.s.s and roses.
She wore a faded blue dressing-gown, caught loosely together, and her curling hair, untouched by gray, fell carelessly from its coil across her full, fair cheek. She had developed from a fragile girl into a rounded matron without losing the peculiar charm of her beauty. The abundant curve of her white throat was still angelic in its outline. As she leaned over to settle the silver candelabra on the table, the light deepened the flush in her face and imparted a shifting radiance to her full-blown loveliness.
"How is it, little woman?" asked Galt as he put his arm about the blue dressing-gown. "Working yourself to death, are you?"
Since entering his home he had lost entirely the air of business-like severity which he had worn all day. He looked young and credulous.
Juliet laughed with the pettish protest of a half-spoiled wife and drew back from the table.
"It is almost time to dress Carrie," she said, "and the ice-cream hasn"t come. Everything else is here. Did you get dinner downtown?"
"Such as it was--a miserable pretence. For heaven"s sake, let"s have this over and settle down. I only wish it were Carrie"s wedding; then we might hope for a rest."
"Until Julie comes out--she"s nearly fourteen. But you ought to be ashamed, when we"ve been working like Turks. Eugenia cut up every bit of the chicken salad and Emma Carr made the mayonnaise--she makes the most delicious you ever tasted. Aren"t those candelabra visions? Emma lent them to me, and Mrs. Randolph sent her oriental lamps. There"s the bell now! It must be Eugie"s extra forks; she said she"d send them as soon as she got home."
"Good Lord!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Galt feebly. "You are as great at borrowing as the children of Israel."
His comments were cut short by the entrance of Eugenia"s silver basket, accompanied by an enormous punch bowl, which she sent word she had remembered at the last moment.
"Bless her heart!" exclaimed Juliet. "She forgets nothing; but I hope that bowl won"t get broken, it is one somebody brought the general from China fifty years ago. Eugie is so careless. She invited the children to tea the other afternoon and I found her giving them jam on those old Tucker Royal Worcester plates."
She broke off an instant to draw Galt into the reception rooms, where her eyes roved sharply over the decorations.
"They look lovely, don"t they?" she inquired, rearranging a bowl of American Beauty roses. "I got that new man to do them Mrs. Carrington told me about--Yes, Carrie, I"m coming! Why, I declare, I haven"t seen the baby since breakfast. Unnatural mother!"
And she rushed off to the nursery, followed by Galt.
An hour later she was in the drawing-room again, her fair hair caught back from her plump cheeks, her white bosom shining through soft falls of lace.
"I wonder how a man feels who isn"t married to a beauty," remarked Galt, watching her matronly vanity dimple beneath his gaze. He was as much her lover as he had been more than twenty years ago when pretty Juliet Burwell had put back her wedding veil to meet his kiss. The very exactions of her petted nature had served to keep alive the pa.s.sion of his youth; she demanded service as her right, and he yielded it as her due. The unflinching shrewdness of his professional character, the hardness of his business beliefs, had never entered into the atmosphere of his home. Juliet possessed to a degree that pervasive womanliness which vanquishes mankind. After twenty years of married life in which Galt had learned her limitations and her minor sins of temperament, he was not able to face her stainless bosom or to meet her pure eyes without believing her to be a saint. In his heart he knew Sally Burwell to be a n.o.bler woman than Juliet, and yet he never found himself regarding Sally through an outward and visible veil of her virtues.
Even Tom Ba.s.sett, who was married to her, had lost the lover in the husband, as his emotions had matured into domestic sentiment. Galt had seen Sally wrestle for a day with one of her father"s headaches, to be rewarded by less grat.i.tude than Juliet would receive for the mere laying of a white finger on his temple--Sally"s services were looked upon by those who loved her best as one of the daily facts of life; Juliet"s came always as an additional bounty.
To Galt himself, the different developments of the two women had become a source of almost humorous surprise. After her marriage Sally had sunk her future into Tom"s; Galt had submerged his own in Juliet"s. Behind Tom"s not too remarkable success Galt had seen always Sally"s quicker wit and more active nature; to his own ambitions, his love for Juliet had been the r.e.t.a.r.ding influence. He had been called "insanely aspiring"
in his profession, and yet he had sacrificed his career without a murmur for the sake of his wife"s health. He had sundered his professional interests in New York that he might see the colour rebloom in her cheek, and neither he nor she had questioned that the loss was justified. In return she had rendered him a jealous loyalty and an absorbing wifehood, and he had found his happiness apart from his ambition.
Now she dimpled as he looked at her and he pinched her cheek.
"The mother of six children!" he exclaimed; "they"re changelings." He looked at Carrie, who was flitting nervously from room to room.
"It"s a shame she didn"t take after you," he added. "She carries the curse of my chin."
"She"s splendid!" protested Juliet. "I never had such a figure in my life; Sally says so. Carrie is a new woman, that"s the difference."
"But the old lady"s good enough for me," finished Galt triumphantly; then he melted towards his daughter. "I dare say she"s stunning," he observed. "Come here, Carrie, and bear witness that you"re as handsome as your parents."
Carrie floated up, a straight, fine figure in white organdie, her smooth hair shining like satin as it rolled from her brow. Her mouth and chin were too strong for beauty, but she was frank and clean and fresh to look at.
"Oh, I am just like you," she declared, "and I"m not half so pretty as mamma. There"s the bell. Somebody"s coming!"
There was a rustle of women"s skirts on the way upstairs, and in a moment several light-coloured gowns were fringed by the palms in the doorway.
When the governor entered, several hours later, the rooms were filled with warmth and laughter and the vague perfume of women"s dresses mingled with the odour of American Beauty roses. An old-fashioned polka was in the air, and beyond the furthest doorway he saw young people dancing. The red candles were burning down, and drops of wax lay like flecks of blood upon the floor. Near the entrance, a small, dark woman was leaning upon a marble table, and as she saw him she held out a cordial hand. She was plain and thin, with pale, startled eyes and a mouth that slanted upward at one corner, like a crooked seam. She spoke in an abrupt, skipping manner that possessed a surprising fascination.
"Behold the conquering hero!" she exclaimed, her pale eyes roving from side to side. "I suppose if you were never late, you would never be longed for."
"My dear Miss Preston," protested pretty little Mrs. Carrington, who was soft and drowsy, with eyes that reminded one of a ruminating heifer"s.