One Man in His Time Part 16

"That, I suppose, is the charm of which they talk. Warmth, or perhaps heat, is a better word for it. Fortunately I'm proof against it because of what you might call an asbestos temperament; but I've seen it catch fire in a crowd, and it sweeps over an audience like a blaze over a prairie. It is a cheap kind of oratory; yet it is a power in unscrupulous hands--and Vetch is unscrupulous."

"You believe that?"

"I know it. It has been proved again and again that he will stoop to any means in order to advance his ideas, which mean of course his ambition.

Oh, I'm not denying that in the main he is sincere, that he believes in his phrases. As a matter of fact one has only to look at his appointments, those that he is able to make by his own authority! There isn't a doubt in the world that he deliberately sold his office in exchange for his election--"

So this was one honest man's view of Gideon Vetch! John Benham believed this accusation, for some infallible intuition told her that Benham would never have repeated it, even as a rumour, if he had not believed it. Her father's genial defence of the Governor; his ironic aristocratic sympathy with the radical point of view appeared superficial and unconvincing beside Benham's moral repudiation. And yet what after all was the simple truth about Gideon Vetch? What was the true colour of that variable personality, which appeared to s.h.i.+ft and alter according to the temperament or the convictions of each observer?

She had never known two men who agreed about Vetch, except perhaps Benham and his disciple, Stephen Culpeper. Each man saw Vetch differently, and was this because each man saw in the great demagogue only the particular virtue or vice for which he was looking, the reflection of personal preferences or aversions? It seemed to her suddenly that the Governor, whom she had thought commonplace, towered an immense vague figure in a cloud of misinterpretation and misunderstanding. His followers believed in him; his opponents distrusted him; but was this not true of every political leader since the beginning of politics? The power to inspire equally devotion and hatred had been throughout history the authentic sign of the saviour and of the destroyer. Her curiosity, which had waned, flared up more strongly than ever.

"I should like to know," she said aloud, "what he is truthfully?"

Benham laughed as he rose to go. "Do you think he can be anything truthfully?"

"Oh, yes, even if it is only a demagogue."

"Only a demagogue! My dear Corinna, the demagogue is the one everlasting and unalterable American inst.i.tution. He is the idol of the Senate chamber; the power behind the Const.i.tution."

"But what does he really stand for--Vetch, I mean?"

"Ask him. He would enjoy telling you."

"Would he enjoy telling me the truth?"

With the laughter still in his eyes Benham drew nearer and stood looking down on her. "Oh, I don't mean that he is pure humbug. I haven't a doubt, as I told you, that he believes, sufficiently at least for election purposes, in the fallacies that he advocates, even in the old age pension, the minimum, or more accurately, the maximum wage, and of course in what doesn't sound so Utopian since we have experimented with it, that favourite dogma of the near-Socialists, the Government owners.h.i.+p of railroads. His main theory, however, appears to be some far-fetched abstraction which he calls the humanizing of industry--you've heard that before! Mere bombast, you see, but the kind of thing that is dangerous in a crowd. It is the catchpenny politics that has been the curse of our country."

"And of course he is not a gentleman." Corinna's voice was regretful. "I may be old-fas.h.i.+oned, but I can't help feeling that the Governor ought to be a gentleman. That sounds like General Plummer, I know," she concluded apologetically.

"The archaic cult of the gentleman? Well, I like to think that in Virginia it still has a few obscure followers. It is a prejudice that I dare to admit only when I am not on the platform, for the belief in the gentleman has become a kind of underground religion, like the wors.h.i.+p in the Catacombs."

Her eyes had grown wistful when she answered: "It is the price we pay for democracy."

"The price we pay is the reign of social justice in theory, and in practice the rule of the Gideon Vetches of history. Oh, I admit that it may all work out in the end! That is my political creed, you know--that everything and anything may work out in the end. If I stood simply for tradition without progress, I should long ago have been driven to the wall."

"I feel as you do," she said after a moment, "and yet I am curious to see what will become of our experimental Governor."

"And I also. The man may have executive ability, and it is possible that he may give us an efficient administration. But, of course, it is merely a stepping-stone for his inordinate greed for power. His vanity has been inflamed by success, and he sees the Senate, it may be even the Presidency, ahead of him."

Though she smiled there was a note of earnestness in her voice. "Well, why not? There was once a rail splitter--"

"Oh, I know. But the rail splitter was born a president; and it is a far cry to a circus rider who was not born even a gentleman."

"Perhaps. Yet, right or wrong, hasn't the war stretched a little the safety net of our democracy? Isn't it just possible to-day that we might find a circus rider who was born a president too?" Then before he could toss back her questions she asked quickly, "After all, he didn't actually ride, did he?"

Benham shrugged his shoulders, a gesture he had acquired in France.

"I've heard so, but I don't know. They tell queer tales of his early years. That was before the golden age of the movies, you see; and I suspect that the movies rather than the war introduced the mock heroic into politics."

He was still standing at her side, looking down into her upraised eyes, which made him think of brown velvet. For a long pause after speaking he remained silent, drinking in the fragrance of the room, the whispering of the flames, and the dreamy loveliness of Corinna's expression. A change had come over her face. In the flushed light she looked young and elusive; and it seemed to him that, beneath the glowing tissue of flesh, he gazed upon an indestructible beauty of spirit.

"Do you know what I was thinking?" he asked presently. "I was thinking that I'd known all this before--that I'd been waiting for it always--the firelight on these splendid colours, the smell of the roses, the sound of the flames, and the way you looked up at me with that memory in your eyes. 'I have been here before'."

A quiver as faint as the shadow of a flower crossed her face. "Yes, I remember. It is an odd feeling. I suppose every one has felt it at times--only each one of us likes to think that he is the particular instance."

"It is trite, I know," he said with a smile, "but feeling is never very original, is it? Only thought is new."

"But I would rather have feeling, wouldn't you?" she asked in a low voice, and sat waiting in a lovely att.i.tude, prepared without and within, for the moment that was approaching. There was no excitement in such things now, she had had too much experience; but there was an unending interest.

"Then it isn't too late?" he asked quickly; and again after a pause in which she did not answer: "Corinna, is it too late?"

For a minute longer she looked up at him in silence. The glow was still in her eyes; the smile was still on her lips; and it seemed to him that she was wrapped in some enchantment which wrought not in actual life but in allegory--that the light in which she moved belonged less to earth than to Botticelli's springtime. Was romance, after all, he thought sharply, the only reality? Could one never escape it?

While he looked down on her she had stirred, as if she were awaking from a dream, or a memory, and stretched out her hand.

"Is it ever too late," she responded, "as long as there is any happiness left in the world?"

She smiled as she answered him; but suddenly her smile faded and that faint shadow pa.s.sed again over her face. In the very moment when he had bent toward her, there had drifted before her gaze the soft anxious eyes of Alice Rokeby, and the look in them as they followed John Benham that evening a week ago.

"Oh, my dear," said Benham softly. Then his voice broke and he drew back hurriedly, for a figure had darkened the low window, and a minute afterward the door opened and Patty Vetch entered the room.

"The latch was not fastened, so I came in," she began, and stopped as her look fell on Benham. "I--I hope you don't mind," she added in confusion.

CHAPTER X

PATTY AND CORINNA

Patty had come straight to Corinna after a conversation with Stephen.

She needed sympathy, and she had meant to be frank and confiding; but when Benham left them alone in the lovely room, which made her feel as if she had stepped into one of the stained gla.s.s windows in the old church she attended, her courage failed, and she forgot all the impulsive words she had learned by heart in the street.

"I am so glad," said Corinna sweetly. "I went to see you after luncheon to-day, and I was very much disappointed not to find you at home."

"That was why I came," answered Patty. "Your card was there when I got in, and I couldn't bear missing you."

"That was right, dear. It was what I hoped you would do."

Turning back to the fire, Corinna stooped and flung a fresh log on the Florentine andirons. Then, without glancing at the girl, she sat down in one of the deep chairs by the hearth, and motioned invitingly to a place at her side. She was determined to win Patty's heart, and she wanted to be near enough to reach out her hand when the right moment came. That moment had not come yet, and she knew it, for she was wise from experience. There was time enough, and she felt no impulse to hasten developments. She was strongly attracted, and since her sympathy was easily stirred, she wished, without any great desire, to help the girl if she could. The only way, she realized, was to watch and hope, to play the waiting game as far as this was possible to her active nature. For, above all things, Corinna hated to wait; and this potent energy of soul, this vital flame, had given the look of winged radiance to her eyes.

"You are always so happy," said Patty breathlessly, as she leaned forward and held out her hands to Corinna as if she were the fire.

"Everything about you seems to give out joy every minute."

"You dear!" murmured Corinna softly, for admiration was to her nature what suns.h.i.+ne is to a flower. "I am happy to-day--happy as I thought I should never be again. I am so happy that I should like to take the whole world to my heart and heal its misery." Then she added hastily before the girl could reply: "You came just at the right moment. I have wanted a talk with you, and there couldn't be a better opportunity than this. The other night I tried to join you after dinner; but Mrs.

Berkeley got all the women together, and I didn't have a chance to speak a word to you alone. You looked charming in that scarlet dress. Your head is shaped so prettily that I think you are wise to cut your hair.

It makes you look like a page of the Italian Renaissance."

"Do you really like it?" asked Patty, and her voice trembled with pleasure. "Father hates it, but men never know."

Corinna laughed. "Not much more about fas.h.i.+ons than they know about women."