The Vision Splendid

by Raine, William MacLeod

  Desire of her throbbed through him, but he spoke very quietly. "Listen, dear. There is nobody I respect more... and none I like so much. I can't tell you how... fond of you I am. But I must go now. You don't understand."

  She bit her lip to repress the sobs that would come and turned away to hide her shame. Jeff caught her in his arms, kissed her passionately on the lips, the eyes, the soft round throat.

  "You do... like me," she purred happily.

  Abruptly he pushed her from him. Where were they drifting? He must get his anchors down before it was too late.

  Somehow he broke away, leaving her there hurt and bewildered at his apparent fickleness, at the stiffness with which he had beaten back the sweet delight inviting them.

  Jeff went to his rooms, his mind in a blind chaotic surge. He sat before the table for hours, fighting grimly to persuade himself he need not put away this joy that had come to him. Surely friendship was a good thing... and love. A man ought not to turn his back on them.

  It was long past midnight when he rose, took his father's sword from the wall where it hung, and unsheathed it. A vision of an open fireplace in a log house rose before him, his father in the foreground looking like a picture of Stonewall Jackson. The kind brave eyes that were the soul of honor gazed at him.

  "You damned scoundrel! You damned scoundrel!" Jeff accused himself in a low voice.

  He knew his little friend was good and innocent, but he knew too she had inherited a temperament that made her very innocence a anger to her. Every instinct of chivalry called upon him to protect her from the weakness she did not even guess. She had given him her kindness and her friendship, the dear child! It was up to him to be worthy of them. If he failed her he would be a creature forever lost to decency.

  There was a sob in his throat as Jeff pushed the blade back into the worn scabbard and rehung the sword upon the wall. But the eyes in his lifted face were very bright. He too would keep his sword unstained and the flag of honor flying.

  All through the next day and the next his resolution held. He took pains not to see her alone, though there was not an hour of the day when he could get away from the thought of her. The uneasy consciousness was with him that the issue was after all only postponed, that decisions of this kind must be made again and again so long as opportunity and desire go together. And there were moments of reaction when his will was like a rope of sand, when the longing for her swept over him like a great wave.

  As Jeff slipped quietly into the hall the door of her room opened. Their eyes met, and presently hers fell. She was troubled and ashamed at what she had done, but plainly eager in her innocence to be forgiven.

  Jeff spoke gently. "Nellie."

  Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. "Aren't we ever going to be friends again?"

  Through the open door he could see the fire glowing in the grate and the chocolate set on the little table. He knew she had prepared for his coming and how greatly she would be hurt if he rejected her advances.

  "Of course we're friends."

  "Then you'll come in, just for a few minutes."

  He hesitated.

  "Please," she whispered. "Or I'll know you don't like me any more."

  Jeff followed her into the room and closed the door behind him.

  Part 2

  Two days before the election Big Tim's detective wired from Shelby, Tennessee, the outline of a story that got two front page columns in both the Advocate and the Herald. Jefferson Davis Farnum was the son of a thief, of a rebel soldier who had spent seven years in the penitentiary for looting the bank of which he was cashier. In addition to featuring the news story both papers handled the subject at length in their editorial columns. They wanted to know whether the people of this beautiful state were willing to hand over the Commonwealth to be plundered by the reckless gang of which this son of a criminal was the head.

  The paper reached Jeff at his rooms in the morning. He had lately taken the apartments formerly occupied by his cousin, James moving to Mrs. Anderson's until after the election. The exchange had been made at the suggestion of the editor, who gave as a reason that he wanted to be close to his work until the winter was past. It happened that James was just now very glad to get a cheaper place. He was very short of funds and until after the election had no time for social functions. All he needed with a room was to sleep in it.

  Jeff was still reading the story from Shelby when his cousin came in hurriedly. James was excited and very white.

  "My God, Jeff! It's come at last. I knew it would ruin me some day," the lawyer cried, after he had carefully closed the door of the bedroom.

  "It won't ruin you, James. Your name isn't mentioned yet. Perhaps it may not be. It can't hurt you, even if it is."

  "I tell you it will ruin me both socially and politically. Once it gets out nobody will trust me. I'll be the son of a thief," James insisted wildly.

  "You're the son of a man who made a slip and has paid for it," answered Jeff steadily. "Don't let your ideas get warped. This town is full of men who have done wrong and haven't paid for it."

  "That's one of your fool socialist theories." James spoke sharply and irritably. "No man's guilty till the law says so. They haven't been in the penitentiary. He has. That's what damns me if it gets out."

  Jeff laid a hand affectionately on his cousin's shoulder. "Don't you believe it for a moment. There's no moral distinction between the man who has paid and the man who hasn't paid for his sins toward society. There is good and there is bad in all of us, closely intertwined, knit together into the very warp and woof of our lives. We're all good and we're all bad."

  It was with James a purely personal equation. He could not forget its relation to himself.

  "My name is to be voted on at the University Club next month. I'll be blackballed to a dead certainty," he said miserably.

  "Probably, if the story gets out. It's tough, I know." Jeff's eyes gleamed angrily. "And why should they? You're just as good a man to-day as you were yesterday. But there's nothing so fettering, so despicable as good form. It blights. Let a man bow down to the dead hand of custom and he can never again be true to what he thinks and knows. His judgment gets warped. Soon Madame Grundy does his thinking for him, along well-grooved lines."

  "Oh, well! That's just talk. What am I to do?" James broke out nervously.

  "I know what I would do in your case."

  "What?"

  "Come out with a short statement telling the exact facts. I'd make no apologies or long explanation. Just the plain story as simply as you can."

  "Well, I'll not," the lawyer broke out. "Easy enough for you to say what I ought to do. Look at who my friends are—the Fromes and the Merrills and the Gilmans. Best set in town. I strained a point when I broke loose from them to take up this progressive fight. They'd cut me dead if a story like this came out."

  "I daresay. Communities are loaded to the guards with respectable cowards. But if you stand on your own feet like a man they'll think more of you for it. Most of them will be glad to know you again inside of five years. For you're going to be successful, and people like the Merrills and the Gilmans bow down to success."

  The lawyer shook his head doggedly. "I'm not going to tell a thing I don't have to tell. That's settled." He hesitated a moment before he went on. "I've got a reason why I want to stand well with the Fromes, Jeff. I'm not in a position to risk anything."

  Jeff waited. He thought he knew that reason.

  "I'm going to marry Alice Frome if I can."

  "You've asked her." Jeff's voice sounded to himself as if it belonged to another man.

  "No. Not yet. Ned Merrill's in the running. Strong, too. He's being backed by his father and old P. C. Frome. The idea is to consolidate interests by this marriage. But I've got a fighting chance. She likes me. Since I went into this political fight against her father she's taken pains to show me how friendly she feels. But if this story gets out—I'm smashed. That's all."

  "Go to her. Tell her the truth.
She'll stand by you," his cousin urged.

  "You don't understand these people, Jeff. I do. Even if she wanted to stand by me she couldn't. They wouldn't let her. Right now I'm carrying all the handicap I can."

  Jeff walked to the window and stood looking out with his hands in his pockets. The hum of the busy street rose to his ears, but he did not hear it. Nor did he see the motor cars whizzing past, the drays lumbering along, the thronged sidewalks of Powers Avenue. A door that had for years been ajar in his heart had swung to with a crash. The incredible folly of his dream was laid bare to him. Despised, distrusted and disgraced, there was no chance that he might be even a friend to her. She moved in another world, one he could not reach if he would and would not if he could. All that he believed in she had been brought up to disregard. Much that was dear to her he must hammer down so long as there was life in him.

  But James—he had fought his way up to her. Why shouldn't he have his chance? Better—far better James than Ned Merrill. He had heard the echoes of a disgraceful story about that young man in his college days, the story of how he had trampled down a working girl for his pleasure. James was clean and honorable... and she loved him. Jeff's mind fastened on that last as a thing assured. Had he not seen her with starry eyes fixed on her hero, held fast as a limed bird? She too was entitled to her chance, and there was a way he could give it to her.

  He turned back to James, who was sitting despondently at the managing editor's desk, jabbing at the blotting sheet with a pencil.

  Jeff touched the Advocate he still held in his hand. "Did you read this story carefully?"

  "No. I just ran my eye down it. Why?"

  "Whoever dug it up has made a mistake. He has jumped to the conclusion that I'm Uncle Robert's son. Why not let it go at that?"

  His cousin looked up with a flash of eager hope. "You mean—"

  "I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Let it go the way they have it."

  The lawyer's heart leaped, but he could not let this go without a protest. "No, I—I couldn't do that. It's awfully good of you, Jeff."

  The managing editor smiled in his whimsical way. "My reputation has long been in tatters. A little more can't hurt it."

  James conceded a reflective assent with a manner of impartiality. "Of course your friends wouldn't think any the less of you. They're not so—so—"

  "respectable as yours," Jeff finished for him.

  "I was going to say so hidebound."

  "All the same, isn't it?"

  "But it would be a sacrifice for you. I recognize that. And I'm not sure that I could accept it. I will have to think that over," the lawyer concluded magnanimously.

  "You'll find it is best. But I think I would tell Miss Frome, even if I didn't tell anybody else. She has a right to know."

  "You may depend upon me to do whatever is best about that."

  James was hardly out of the office before Captain Chunn blew in like a small tornado. He was boiling with rage.

  "What's this infernal lie about you being the son of a convict, David?" he demanded, waving a copy of the Herald.

  "Sit down, Captain. I'll tell you the story because you're entitled to it. But I shall have to speak in confidence."

  "Confidence! Dad burn it, what are you talking about? Are you trying to tell me that Phil Farnum was a thief and a convict?"

  Jeff's steel-blue eyes looked straight into his. "Nothing so impossible as that, Captain. I'm going to tell you the story of his brother."

  Jeff told it, but he and the owner of the World disagreed radically about the best way to answer the attack.

  "Why must you always stand between that kid glove cousin of yours and trouble? Let him stand the gaff himself. It will do him good," Chunn stormed.

  But Jeff had his way. The World made no denial of the facts charged. In a statement on the front page that covered less than three sticks he told the simple story of the defalcation of Robert Farnum. One thing only he added to the account given in the opposition papers. This was that during the past two years the shortage of the bank cashier had been paid in full to the Planters' First National at Shelby.

  There were many forecasts as to what the effect of the Farnum story would be on the election returns. It is enough to say that the ticket supported by the World was chosen by a small majority. James was elected to the legislature by a plurality of fifteen hundred votes over his antagonist, a majority unheard of in the Eleventh District.

  CHAPTER 8

  Is not this the trouble with our whole man-made world, that

  the game is played with loaded dice? Against the poor, the

  weak and the unfortunate have the cards been stacked. A

  tremendous percentage is in favor of the crook, the

  scoundrel, the smug robber of industry by whom the hands are

  dealt.

  Wealth, created by the many, is more and more flowing into

  the vaults of the few. Legislatures, Congress, the courts,

  all the machinery of government, answer to the crack of the

  whip wielded by Big Business. The creed of the allied

  plunderers is that he should take who has the power and he

  should keep who can.

  Until we mutiny against the timidity of our times Democracy

  and Prosperity will be dreams. The poor and the parasite we

  shall have always with us.

  In that new world which is to be MEN and not THINGS will be

  supreme, property a means and not an end. The heart of the

  world will be born anew under an economic reconstruction

  that will give freedom for individual development. For our

  social and industrial life will be founded not on a denial

  of God but on an affirmation of Brotherhood.—From the Note

  Book of a Dreamer.

  THE HERO MEETS AND ADMIRES A MONA LISA SMILE. HE IS TENDERED AN APOLOGY FOR A PAST DISCOURTESY

  Part 1

  Came James Farnum down Powers Avenue carrying with buoyant dignity the manner of greatness that sat so well on him. His smile was warm for a world that just now was treating him handsomely. There could be no doubt that for a first term he was making an extraordinary success of his work in the legislature. He had worked hard on committees and his speeches had made a tremendous hit. Jeff had played him up strong in the world too, so that he was becoming well known over the state. That he had risen to leadership of the progressives in the House during his first term showed his quality. His ambition vaulted. Now that his feet were on the first rungs of the ladder it would be his own fault if he did not reach the top.

  His progress down the busy street was in the nature of an ovation. Everywhere he met answering smiles that told of the people's pride in their young champion. Already James had discovered that Americans are eager for hero worship. He meant to be the hero of his state, the favorite son it would delight to honor. This was what he loved: the cheers for the victor, not the clash of the battle.

  "Good morning, Farnum. What are the prospects?" It was Clinton Rogers, of the big shipbuilding firm Harvey & Rogers, that stopped him now.

  "Still anybody's fight, Mr. Rogers." The young lawyer's voice fell a note to take on a frankly confidential tone, an accent of friendliness that missed the fatal buttonholing familiarity of the professional politician. "If we can hold our fellows together we'll win. But the Transcontinental is bidding high for votes—and there's always a quitter somewhere."

  "Does Frome stand any chance?"

  "It will be Hardy or Frome. The least break in our ranks will be the signal for a stampede to P. C. The Republicans will support him when they get the signal. It's all a question of our fellows standing pat."

  "From what I can learn it won't be your fault if Hardy isn't elected. I congratulate you on the best record ever made by a member in his first term."

  "Oh, we all do our best," James answered lightly. "But I'm grateful for your good opinion. I hope I deserve it."


  James could afford to be modest about his achievements so long as Jeff was shouting his praises through the columns of the World to a hundred thousand readers of that paper. What the shipbuilder had said pleased him mightily. For Clinton Rogers was one of the few substantial moneyed men of Verden who had joined the reform movement. Not a single member of the Verden Club, with the exception of Rogers, was lined up with those making the fight for direct legislation. Even those who had no financial interest in the Transcontinental or the public utility corporations supported that side from principle.

  James himself had thought a long time before casting in his lot with the insurgents led by his cousin. He had made tentative approaches both to Frome and to Edward B. Merrill. Both of these gentlemen had been friendly enough, but James had made up his mind they undervalued his worth. The way to convince them of this was to take the field against them.

  He smiled now as he swung along the avenue. Both Frome and Merrill—yes, and Big Tim too, for that matter!—knew by this time whether they had made a mistake in sizing him up as a raw college boy with his eye teeth not cut.

  A passing electric containing two young women brought his gloved hand to his hat. The long slant eyes of the lady on the farther side swept him indolently. In answer to her murmured suggestion the girl who was driving brought the machine round in a half circle which ended at the edge of the curb in front of Farnum.

  The lawyer's hat came off again with easy grace. The slim young driver leaned back against the cushions and merely smiled a greeting, tacitly yielding command of the situation to her cousin, an opulent young widow adorned demurely with that artistic touch of mourning that suggests a grief not inconsolable.

  "Good morning, Miss Frome—Mrs. Van Tyle," James distributed impartially before turning to the latter lady. "Isn't this a day to be alive in? Who says it always rains in Verden?"

  "I do—or nearly always. At least it finds no difficulty in giving a good imitation," returned the young woman addressed.