An American Politician Part 12

"No, not cold. Perhaps less cold than we are; but less demonstrative."

"I like that," answered Joe. "I like people to feel more than they show."

"Why?" asked John. "Why should not people be perfectly natural, and show when they feel anything, or be cold when they do not?" "I think when you know some one feels a great deal and hides it, that gives one the idea of reserved strength."

They had reached a distant part of the ice, and were slowly skating round the limits of a little bay, where the slanting moonbeams fell through tall old trees upon the glinting black surface. They were quite alone, only in the distance they could hear the long-drawn clang and ring of the other skaters, echoing all along the lake with a tremulous musical sound in the still bright night. "You must be very cold yourself, Mr. Harrington," Joe began again after a pause, stopping and looking at him.

John laughed a little.

"I?" he cried. "No, indeed, I am the most enthusiastic man alive."

"You are when you are speaking in public," said Joe. "But that may be all comedy, you know. Orators always study their speeches, with all the gestures and that, before a gla.s.s, don't they?"

"I do not know," said John. "Of course I know by heart what I am going to say, when I make a speech like that of the other evening, but I often insert a great deal on the spur of the moment. It is not comedy. I grow very much excited when I am speaking."

"Never at any other time?" asked Joe.

"Seldom; why should I? I do not feel other things or situations so strongly."

"In other words," replied Joe, "it is just as I said; you are generally very cold."

"I suppose so," John acquiesced, "since you will not allow the occasions when I am not cold to be counted."

Joe looked down as she stood, and moved her skates slowly on the ice; the shadows hid her face.

"Do you know," she said presently, "you lose a great deal; you must, you cannot help it. You only like people in a body, so as to see what you can do with them. You only care for things on a tremendously big scale, so that you may try to influence them. When you have not a crowd to talk to, or a huge scheme to argue about, you are bored to extinction."

"No," said John; "I am not bored at present, by any means."

"Because you are talking about big things. Most men in your place would be talking about the moonlight, and quoting Sh.e.l.ley."

"To oblige you, Miss Thorn, I could quote a little now and then," said John, laughing. "Would it please you? I dare say you have seen elephants stand upon their hind legs and their heads alternately. I should feel very much like one; but I will do anything to oblige you."

"That is frivolous," said Joe, who did not smile.

"Of course it is. I am heavy by nature. You may teach me all sorts of tricks, but they will not be at all pretty."

"No, you are very interesting as you are," said Joe quietly. "But I do not think you will be happy."

"It is not a question of happiness."

"What is it then?"

"Usefulness," said John.

"You do not care to be happy, you only care to be useful?" Joe asked.

"Yes. But my ideas of usefulness include many things. Some of the people who listen to me would be very much astonished if they knew what I dream."

"Nothing would astonish me," said Joe, thoughtfully. "Of course you must think of everything in a large way--it is your nature. You will be a great man."

John looked at his companion. She had struck the main chord of his nature in her words, and he felt suddenly that thrill of pleasure which comes from the flattery of our pride and our hopes. John was not a vain man, but he was capable of being intoxicated by the grandeur of a scheme when the possibility of its realization was suddenly thrust before him. Like all men of exceptional gifts who are constantly before the public, he could estimate very justly the extent of the results he could produce on any given occasion, but his enthusiastic belief in his ideas could see no limit to the multiplication of those results. His strong will and natural modesty about himself constantly repressed any desire he might have to speak over-confidently of ultimate success, so that the prediction of ultimate success by some one else was doubly sweet to him. We Americans have said of ourselves that we are the only nation who accomplish what we have boasted of. Rash speech and rash action are our national characteristics, and lead us into all manner of trouble, but in so far as such qualifications or defects imply a positive conviction of success, they contribute largely to the realization of great schemes. No one can succeed who does not believe in himself, nor can any scheme be realized which has not gained the support of a sufficient number of men who believe in it and in themselves.

John was gratified by Miss Thorn's speech, for he saw that it was spontaneous.

"I will try to be great," he said, "for the sake of what I think is great."

There was a short pause, and the pair by common consent skated slowly out of the shadow into the broad moonlight.

"Not that I believe you will be happy if you think of nothing else," said Joe presently.

"In order to do anything well, one must think of nothing else," answered John.

"Many great men find time to be great and to do many other things," said Joe. "Look at Mr. Gladstone; he has an immense private correspondence about things that interest him, quite apart from the big things he is always doing."

"When a man has reached that point he may find plenty of time to spare,"

answered Harrington. "But until he has accomplished the main object of his life he must not let anything take him from his pursuit. He must form no ties, he must have no interests, that do not conduce to his success. I think a man who enters on a political career must devote himself to it as exclusively as a missionary Jesuit attacks the conversion of unbelievers, as wholly as a Buddhist ascetic gives himself to the work of uniting his individual intelligence with the immortal spirit that gives it life."

"I do not agree with you," said Joe decisively, and in her womanly intelligence of life she understood the mistake John made. "I cannot agree with you. You are mixing up political activity, which deals with the government of men, with spiritual ideas and immortality, and that sort of thing."

"How so?" asked John, in some surprise.

"I am quite sure," said Joe, "that to govern man a man must be human, and the imaginary politician you tell me of is not human at all."

"And yet I aspire to be that imaginary politician," said John.

"Do not think me too dreadfully conceited," Joe answered, "in talking about such things. Of course I do not pretend to understand them, but I am quite sure people must be like other people--I mean in good ways--or other people will not believe in them, you know. You are not vexed, are you?"

She looked up into John's face with a little timid smile that might have done wonders to persuade a less prejudiced person than Harrington.

"No indeed! why should I be vexed? But perhaps some day you will believe that I am right."

"Oh no, never!" exclaimed Joe, in a tone of profound conviction. "You will never persuade me that people are meant to shut themselves from their fellow-creatures, and not be human, and that."

"And yet you were so good as to say that you thought I might attain greatness," said John, smiling.

"Yes, I think you will. But you will change your mind about a great many things before you do."

John's strong face grew thoughtful, and the white moonlight made his features seem harder and sterner than ever. Slowly the pair glided over the polished black ice, now marked here and there with clean white curves from the skates, and in a few minutes they were once more within hail of the remainder of their party.

CHAPTER VIII.

Eight days after the skating party, Ronald Surbiton telegraphed from New York that he would reach Boston the next morning, and Josephine Thorn knew that the hour had come. She was not afraid of the scene that must take place, but she wished with all her heart that it were over.

As Sybil Brandon had told her, there had been time to think of what she should say, and although she had answered recklessly that she would "trust to luck," she knew when the day was come that she had in reality thought intensely of the very words which must be spoken. To Miss Schenectady she had said nothing, but on the other hand she had become very intimate with Sybil, and to tell the truth, she hoped inwardly for the support and sympathy of her beautiful friend.