The Grafters Part 27

It was chiefly due to Portia's urgings that Kent took Ormsby into his confidence when the campaign was fairly opened. She put it diplomatically on the ground of charity to an exiled millionaire, temporarily out of a job; but her real reason went deeper. From its inception as a one-man fight against political chicanery in high places, the criticism of the Bucks formula was beginning to shape itself in a readjustment of party lines in the field of State politics; and Miss Van Brock, whose designs upon Kent's future ran far in advance of her admissions to him, was anxiously casting about for a managerial promoter.

A little practice-play in munic.i.p.al politics made the need apparent. It came in the midst of things, basing itself upon the year-gone triumph of agrarianism in the State. In the upheaval, the capital city had partic.i.p.ated to the extent of electing a majority of the aldermen on the People's Party ticket; and before long it developed that a majority of this aldermanic majority could be counted among the spoilsmen--was in fact a creature of the larger ring.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE JAMMED THE FIRE END OF HIS CIGAR AMONG THE FINGERS OF THE GRASPING HAND.]

Late in the summer an ordinance was proposed by the terms of which a single corporation was to be given a franchise granting a complete monopoly of the streets for gas and water mains and transit rights of way.

Thereupon a bitter struggle ensued. Party lines were obliterated, and men who shunned the primaries and otherwise s.h.i.+rked their political duties raised the cry of corruption, and a Civic League was formed to fight the ring.

Into this struggle, as giving him the chance to front the enemy in a fair field, David Kent flung himself with all the ardor of a born fighter. Ma.s.s meetings were held, with Kent as spokesman for the League, and the outcome was a decency triumph which brought Kent's name into grateful public prominence. Hildreth played an able second, and by the time the obnoxious ordinance had been safely tabled, Kent had a semi-political following which was all his own. Men who had hitherto known him only as a corporation lawyer began to prophesy large things of the fiery young advocate, whose arguments were as sound and convincing as his invective was keen and merciless.

Figuratively speaking, Portia stood in the wings and applauded. Also, she saw that her protege had reached the point where he needed grooming for whatever race lay before him. Hence her urgings, which made a triumvirate out of the council of two, with Brookes Ormsby as the third member.

"You understand, I'm not interested a little bit in the merits of the case," said the newly elected chairman, in his first official interview with Miss Van Brock. "So far as the internal politics of this particularly wild and woolly State are concerned, I'm neither in them nor of them. But I am willing to do what I can for Kent."

"Owing him a good turn?" said Portia, with malice aforethought.

Ormsby's laugh was an Englishman's deep-chested haw-haw.

"So he has been making you his confidante in that, too, has he?"

"There was no confidence needed," she retorted. "I have eyes; and, to use one of your own pet phrases, I was not born yesterday. But let that go: you are willing to help us?"

"I said I was willing to help Kent. If you bracket yourself with him, I am more than willing. But I am rather new to the game. You will have to tell me the moves."

"We are only in the opening," she said, continuing the figure. "You will learn as you go along. By and by you will have to spend money; but just now the need is for a cool head to keep our young firebrand out of the personalities. Where is he to-night?"

Ormsby's smile was a grin.

"I left him at 124 Tejon Avenue half an hour ago. Do you think he is likely to get into trouble there?"

On the porch of the Brentwood apartment house David Kent was answering that question measurably well for himself. With the striking of the City Hall clock at nine Mrs. Brentwood had complained of the glare of the electric crossing-lamp and had gone in, leaving the caller with Penelope in the hammock on one side of him and Elinor in a basket chair on the other.

Their talk had been of the late munic.i.p.al struggle, and of Kent's part in it; and, like Miss Van Brock, Penelope was applausive. But Elinor's congratulations were tempered with deprecation.

"I am glad you won for the League, of course; everybody must be glad of that," she said. "But I hope the _Argus_ didn't report your speeches correctly. If it did, you have made a host of bitter enemies."

"What does a man--a real man--care for that?" This from the depths of the hammock.

"I, at least, can afford to be careless," said Kent. "I am not running for office, and I have nothing to lose, politically or otherwise."

"Can any man say that truthfully?" Elinor queried.

"I think I can. I have given no hostages to fortune."

Penelope lifted the challenge promptly.

"Lord Bacon said that, didn't he?--about men marrying. If he were alive now he wouldn't need to say it. Men don't have to be discouraged."

"Don't they?" said Kent.

"No, indeed; they are too utterly selfish for any matrimonial use, as it is. No, don't argue with me, please. I'm fixed--irrevocably fixed."

Elinor overtook the runaway conversation and drove it back into the path of her own choosing.

"But I do think you owe it to yourself to be more careful in your public utterances," she insisted. "If these men on the other side are only half as unprincipled as your accusations make them out to be, they would not stop short of personal violence."

"I am not hunting clemency or personal immunity just now," laughed Kent.

"On the contrary, I am only anxious to make the score as heavy as possible. And so far from keeping prudently in the background, I'll confess that I went into this franchise fight chiefly to let the capitol gang know who I am and where I stand."

A sudden light came into Elinor's eyes and burned there steadily. She was of those who lay votive offerings upon the shrine of manly courage.

"One part of me approves as much as another part disapproves," she said after a time. "I suppose it isn't possible to avoid making political enemies; but is it needful to turn them into personal enemies?"

He looked at her curiously.

"I am afraid I don't know any middle path, not being a politician," he objected. "And as for the enmity of these men, I shall count it an honor to win it. If I do not win it, I shall know I am not succeeding."

Silence for another little s.p.a.ce, which Miss Brentwood broke by saying:

"Don't you want to smoke? You may."

Kent felt in his pocket.

"I have no cigar."

She looked past him to the hammock. "Penelope!" she called softly; and when there was no response she went to spread the hammock rug over her sister.

"You may smoke your pipe," she said; and when she had pa.s.sed behind him to her chair she made another concession: "Let me fill it for you--you used to."

He gave her the pipe and tobacco, and by a curious contradiction of terms began to wonder if he ought not to go. Notwithstanding his frank defiance of Brookes Ormsby, and his declaration of intention in the sentimental affair, he had his own notions about the sanct.i.ty of a betrothal. Mrs.

Brentwood had vanished, and Penelope was asleep in the hammock. Could he trust himself to be decently loyal to Ormsby if he should stay? Nice questions of conscience had not been troubling him much of late; but this was new ground--or if not new, so old that it had the effect of being new.

He let the question go unanswered--and stayed. But he was minded to fling the biggest barrier he could lay hands on in the way of possible disloyalty by saying good things of Ormsby.

"I owe you much for my acquaintance with him," he said, when the subject was fairly introduced. "He has been all kinds of a good friend to me, and he promises to be more."

"Isn't your debt to Penelope, rather than to me?" she returned.

"No, I think not. You are responsible, in the broader sense, at all events. He did not come West for Penelope's sake." Then he took the plunge: "May I know when it is to be--or am I to wait for my bidding with the other and more formally invited guests?"

She laughed, a low little laugh that somehow grated upon his nerves.

"You shall know--when I know."

"Forgive me," he said quickly. "But from something Ormsby said----"

"He should not have spoken of it; I have given him no right," she said coldly.

"You make me twice sorry: once if I am a trespa.s.ser, and again if I have unwittingly broken a confidence. But as a friend--a very old friend--I ventured----"