The Fighting Edge (Smith's Magazine 1907)/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
It had been a rapturous hour, from the moment swift pulses had heralded her approach to that other precious moment when Miss Gray had excused herself over the walnuts to finish a letter that must be sent that evening. Maisie had been at her incomparable best, vivid as a flame, sparkling with the sweet gaiety that always went to his head and his heart. Now he was alone with her, smoking the cigar she had insisted upon, ready for any of the dear little confidences her comradeship with him made possible.
“Well, I’m ready for the confessions,” he presently smiled.
“I call them adventures,” she dissented.
“Adventures in Wonderland. That is a good title for it.”
“For what?” she wanted to know, with gay mockery in her eyes.
“For the privilege of being allowed to fall in love with Miss Marriott.”
“How nicely you put it!” she sighed. “If everybody were as reasonable.”
“One reasons from the general to the particular. Am I being told that one of us has been disturbing you lately by not being so reasonable as to show a proper content?”
She nodded blithely. “He considers me responsible.”
“Some fellows are so ill-conditioned they would abuse any privilege, but I supposed it was understood that your part was to be lovely, and ours to fall in love with you unencumbered with the baggage of hope.”
“You have the loveliest appreciation of me, Devvie. I'll never marry so long as I can have you to cheer my bachelor maidhood. I hope you will never leave me to fall in love with a girl.” She dimpled into a smile. “You mentioned hope, I think. Bless you, he doesn’t waste any time in hoping. He takes me for granted. I’m left to do the hoping.”
“I can think of only one nerve so unflawed as that,” he mused aloud.
“You don’t ask me what my hope is.”
“Oh, you’re hoping he will not win you, in spite of yourself,” he told her coolly.
“Dear me! What an uncanny divination you have! Are you ready with his name, too?”
He risked a guess. “The nomination of the gentleman is Jefferson B. Stoneman.”
She smiled. “He has gone a long way since you heard me say that the day of the tournament. But how did you know?”
“I didn’t know, but what you hinted of his manner of wooing seemed to suggest Jefferson B.”
“I have seen him only four times since that first day, but he is an obsession with me already. He thinks nothing of running across the continent for an hour with me. What can you do with a man like that?”
“You might marry him,” he ventured tentatively.
Her return caught him swiftly. “I probably shall, but I don’t contemplate the prospect with joy.”
“Then you don’t want to.”
“Want to? Of course I don’t want to do anything of the sort.” A flicker of fun played in her eyes. “But I would like to go to Washington and wake up things. Can you see me influencing foreign policies, Devvie?”
“I can see you bored to death. It’s a horribly conventional life. Besides, Stoneman is not going to the Senate if I can prevent it.”
“That’s another thing I want to speak with you about, Devvie. Why are you not voting for him? I want to see him elected. He’s a big man, and ought to be in the Senate. You must have your reasons for opposing him. Now, what are they?”
His mind covered the ground swiftly. “I’m sorry, but I can’t give you my reasons.”
“He is a Democrat, is he not?”
“I believe he calls himself one.”
“And you belong to that party?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“We really have come to an impasse,” he smiled.
“He'll be elected in spite of you,” she flung out.
“Perhaps, but I think not.”
A gleam of excitement flickered in her eyes. “He’s a bigger man than you, Devvie. You'll grant me that.”
“Yes, he’s a bigger man than I am,” answered Blake quietly.
“If he does not win this time he will next chance he gets.”
Blake shrugged. “I think it altogether likely. I’m not interested in futurities not immediate.”
She looked straight across at him, her chin resting lightly on little doubled fists. “I’m dreadfully interested, Dev- vie. How are you going to beat him? By voting for What’s-his-name—the smelter man?”
“No, we hope to beat him, too, and elect a compromise candidate. Governor Miller would suit me very well.”
“Dear me, you’re going to be a very Warwick,” she mocked.
Unless a smile could be so construed, he had no answer for that.
“But I think I'll continue to back Mr. Stoneman, nevertheless,” she derided.
“He ought to be glad he is going to have your sympathy.”
“Did I mention sympathy?”
“Not expressly, but I can see there may be a need for it.”
“You're very confident, sir.”
To her surprise, a kind of haggard misery filmed his face for an instant. She leaned forward impulsively. “What’s the matter, Devvie?”
“Nothing.” Then, after a little silence, he added bitterly: “For God’s sake, Maisie, don’t think I want to do what I must do. Don’t think that it’s anything but a torment to me. I’d give a good deal to shirk it, but the thing seems to have fallen on me. You may be sure I hate myself as much as Stoneman will hate me.”
She was startled. “You’re not going to do anything—anything”
“I’m going to try to save this State from the deep pit into which it is being dragged. I’m going to be a man accursed, but I can’t help that.”
She leaned forward and touched his hand. “Tell me, Devvie.”
He shook his head. “I’m under pledge to keep the secret.”
“Excuse me. I did not know that.”
“Of course not.” Shaking off his gloom, he achieved a smile. “We seem to have drifted from your troubles to mine. I move we return to the head of unfinished business.”
“Carried,” she ruled swiftly. “The question before the house is: To wed or not to wed? Are you ready for the question?”
“Madam President, I don’t think you have stated the question quite accurately,” he protested. “I understand the issue to be particular rather than general. May we not limit the discussion to the one name under consideration?”
“Amendment accepted,” she laughed, with a swift, amused look at him from under her long, dark lashes. “Are there any remarks?”
“Rather. I should like to know, if it is a fair question, whether the gentleman has yet announced his intentions.”
“Announced his intentions is very pat. The third time he saw me he told me he expected to marry me some day.”
“And you?”
“Demurred, but it wasn’t of the slightest use; explained that I really could not marry every man I liked, and found him in perfect agreement; added that I was not at all sure that I liked him if it came to that, and learned that I would have plenty of time to do that after the marriage. I found that he considered the stage offered an unreal, feverish existence to its followers, and on the heel of this that he would expect me to retire to private life and the reflected glory of a senator’s wife.”
His smile met hers in full comprehension. “He can’t be said to have wooed under false pretenses.”
“Not he. I tried feebly to intimate to him that I was devoted to art, which is the way we put it when we are talking for publication, you know. Devvie, you should have heard the beautiful oration on the sphere of woman I listened to with my best ingénue manner.”
“He can’t help seeing, of course, how you could help his career a great deal.”
“So he was good enough to tell me. I think I scored there, for I told him innocently that I would be glad to marry him if he would give up politics and become my business-manager, since I was sure his talent for advertising would help me immensely.”
“If she would only make me a proposition like that,” suggested Blake audibly to the chandelier.
“He told me that was flippant,” she continued, ignoring his aside. “There, for the time, the subject dropped, owing to the arrival of a third person, but it has been renewed since. Now it’s up to you to help me, Devvie,” she finished slangily.
“I don’t think you are in much danger,” he told her, with amusement.
“But I am—I am. Don't you see that it is the very audacity of his claim that fascinates me? The thing haunts me. I want to see what he is going to say and do next. Before I know it I shall be in deep water.”
“And just where do I come into this delightful game?” he wanted to know.
“You're the life-guard. When I am in danger of drowning, you jump in and rescue me.”
“Delighted to be cast for so heroic a rôle. Have you planned the details of the rescue, may I ask?”
She waved a hand airily. “Oh, I leave all that to you. I have implicit trust in your skill and courage.”
“That is very like you,” he admitted cheerfully. ‘Reminds me of when we were kiddies. You stole the apples and I protected you from the consequences.”
“You don’t mean quite that, Devvie,” she protested, with a pained, angelic expression that immediately melted into a gurgle of mirth. “Anyhow, after the swishing, you helped me eat the apples behind the barn.”
“‘She gave me of the tree, and I did eat,’” he murmured.
“And you were never sorry, Devvie?” she asked softly.
“No, for I was cast out into paradise,” he answered, with a little laugh that did not wholly belie his words.
“And you are going to help me now if I need you?”
“Since I am a mere man, I can’t insure you against being burnt when you play with fire, but I can promise to kiss the little burnt fingers when you come running to me.”
She canted her head at him in whimsical challenge. “Wouldn’t you like to kiss them now, sir?”
The wafted charm of her personality smote him. He got up with a fast-pumping heart, circled the table, and stood at her elbow.
She tilted a look up at him with the shy gaiety she held at command. “I think we'll wait until the fingers are burnt, if it is the same to you.”
“But it isn’t the same to me. I take the goods the gods provide.
“He who will not when he may,
When he will he shall have nay.”
And he capped his quotation by bowing low to kiss the little hand he had by this time secured.
“Sir, you are very bold,” she said, and blushed divinely.
“Yet my heart is of water, madam,” he assured her, still in the eighteenth century manner into which they had fallen.
“Alackaday! Then pray be seated ere you faint,” she mocked, and indicated with her hand the chair from which he had risen.
Back he went, treading on air, and his blood tingled to still another rare moment, when his glance met hers again, and found the eyes that looked into his shy and timid. The world was going so exquisitely well with him he dared not tempt fortune further, lest he invite a fall. Wherefore he welcomed the return of Miss Gray at this opportune moment as a refuge from the rebuff Miss Marriott’s unexpected moment of weakness might reasonably lead her to inflict as a corrective to wrong impressions in his mind.