The Imperialist - Sara Jeannette Duncan (general ebook reader .txt) 📗

that is the desire to lift a nation to the level of its mountain-ranges"? Both dispositions have a tendency to overwork the heart; and it is easy to imagine that they might interact. Lorne Murchison's wish, which was indeed a burning longing and necessity, to believe in the Dora Milburn of his passion, had been under a strain since the night on which he brought her the pledge which she refused to wear. He had hardly been conscious of it in the beginning, but by constant suggestion it had grown into his knowledge, and for weeks he had taken poignant account of it. His election had brought him no nearer a settlement with her objection to letting the world know of their relations. The immediate announcement that it was to be disputed gave Dora another chance, and once again postponed the assurance that he longed for with a fever which was his own condemnation of her, if he could have read that sign. For months he had seen so little of her, had so altered his constant habit of going to the Milburns', that his family talked of it, wondering among themselves; and Stella indulged in hopeful speculations. They did not wonder or speculate at the Milburns'. It was an axiom there that it is well to do nothing rashly.

Lorne, in the office on Market Street, had been replying to Mr Fulke to the effect that the convention could hardly be much longer postponed, but that as yet he had no word of the date of it when the telephone bell rang and Mr Farquharson's voice at the other end asked him to come over to the committee room. "They've decided about it now, I imagine," he told his senior, putting on his hat; and something of the wonted fighting elation came upon him as he went down the stairs. He was right in his supposition. They had decided about it, and they were waiting, in a group that made every effort to look casual, to tell him when he arrived.

They had delegated what Horace Williams called "the job" to Mr Farquharson, and he was actually struggling with the preliminaries of it, when Bingham, uncomfortable under the curious quietude of the young fellow's attention, burst out with the whole thing.

"The fact is, Murchison, you can't poll the vote. There's no man in the Riding we'd be better pleased to send to the House; but we've got to win this election, and we can't win it with you."

"You think you can't?" said Lorne.

"You see, old man," Horace Williams put in, "you didn't get rid of that save-the-Empire-or-die scheme of yours soon enough. People got to think you meant something by it."

"I shall never get rid of it," Lorne returned simply, and the others looked at one another.

"The popular idea seems to be," said Mr Farquharson judicially, "that you would not hesitate to put Canada to some material loss, or at least to postpone her development in various important directions, for the sake of the imperial connection."

"Wasn't that," Lorne asked him, "what, six months ago, you were all prepared to do?"

"Oh, no," said Bingham, with the air of repudiating for everybody concerned. "Not for a cent. We were willing at one time to work it for what is was worth, but it never was worth that, and if you'd had a little more experience, Murchison, you'd have realized it."

"That's right, Lorne," contributed Horace Williams. "Experience--that's all you want. You've got everything else, and a darned sight more. We'll get you there, all in good time. But this time--"

"You want me to step down and out," said Lorne.

"That's for you to say," Bingham told him. "We can nominate you again all right, but we're afraid we can't get you the convention. Young and Windle have been working like moles for the past ten days--"

"For Carter?" interrupted Lorne: "Carter, of course."

They nodded. Carter stood the admitted fact.

"I'm sorry it's Carter," said Lorne thoughtfully. "However--" And he dropped, staring before him, into silence. The others eyed him from serious, underhung faces. Horace Williams, with an obvious effort, got up and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Brace up, old chap," he said. "You made a blame good fight for us, and we'll do the same for you another day."

"However, gentlemen," the young man gathered himself up to say, "I believe I understand the situation. You are my friends and this is your advice. We must save the seat. I'll see Carter. If I can get anything out of him to make me think he'll go straight on the scheme to save the Empire"--he smiled faintly--"when it comes to a vote, I'll withdraw in his favour at the convention. Horace here will think up something for me--any old lie will do, I suppose? In any case, of course, I withdraw."

He took his hat, and they all got up, startled a little at the quick and simple close of the difficult scene they had anticipated. Horace Williams offered his hand.

"Shake, Lorne," he said, and the other two, coming nearer, followed his example.

"Why, yes," said Lorne.

He left them with a brief excuse, and they stood together in a moment's silence, three practical politicians who had delivered themselves from a dangerous network involving higher things.

"Dash these heart-to-heart talks," said Bingham irritably, "it's the only thing to do, but why the devil didn't he want something out of it? I had that Registrarship in my inside pocket."

"If anybody likes to kick me round the room," remarked Horace Williams with depression, "I have no very strong objection."

"And now," Mr Farquharson said with a sigh, "we understand it's got to be Carter. I suppose I'm too old a man to do jockey for a three-year-old, but I own I've enjoyed the ride."

Lorne Murchison went out into the companionship of Main Street, the new check in his fortunes hanging before him. We may imagine that it hung heavily; we may suppose that it cut off the view. As Bingham would have said, he was "up against it" and that, when one is confidently treading the straight path to accomplishment, is a dazing experience. He was up against it, yet already he had recoiled far enough to consider it; already he was adapting his heart, his nerves, and his future to it. His heart took it greatly, told him he had not yet force enough for the business he had aspired to, but gave him a secret assurance. Another time he would find more strength and show more cunning; he would not disdain the tools of diplomacy and desirability, he would dream no more of short cuts in great political departures. His heart bowed to its sorry education and took counsel with him, bidding him be of good courage and push on. He was up against it, but he would get round it, and there on the other side lay the same wide prospect, with the Idea shining high. At one point he faltered, but that was a matter of expediency rather than of courage. He searched and selected, as he went along the street, among phrases that would convey his disaster to Dora Milburn.

Just at that point, the turning to his own office, he felt it hard luck that Alfred Hesketh should meet and want a word with him. Hesketh had become tolerable only when other things were equal. Lorne had not seen him since the night of his election, when his felicitations had seemed to stand for very little one way or another. His manner now was more important charged with other considerations. Lorne waited on the word, uncomfortably putting off the necessity of coming out with his misfortune.

"I haven't come across you, Murchison, but you've had my sympathy, I needn't say, all this time. A man can't go into politics with gloves on, there's no doubt about that. Though mind you, I never for a moment believed that you let yourself in personally. I mean, I've held you all through, above the faintest suspicion."

"Have you?" said Lorne. "Well, I suppose I ought to be grateful."

"Oh, I have--I assure you! But give me a disputed election for the revelation of a rotten state of things--eh?"

"It does show up pretty low, doesn't it?"

"However, upon my word, I don't know whether it's any better in England. At bottom we've got a lower class to deal with, you know. I'm beginning to have a great respect for the electorate of this country, Murchison--not necessarily the methods, but the rank and file of the people. They know what they want, and they're going to have it."

"Yes," said Lorne, "I guess they are."

"And that brings me to my news, old man. I've given the matter a lot of time and a lot of consideration, and I've decided that I can't do better than drive in a stake for myself in this new country of yours."

"It isn't so very new," Lorne told him, in rather dull response, "but I expect that's a pretty good line to take. Why, yes--first rate."

"As to the line," Hesketh went on, weightily, leading the way through an encumbering group of farmers at a corner, "I've selected that, too. Traction-engines. Milburn has never built them yet, but he says the opportunity is ripe--"

"Milburn!" Lorne wheeled sharply.

"My future partner. He was planning extensions just as I came along, a fortunate moment, I hope it will prove, for us both. I'd like to go into it with you, some time when you have leisure--it's a scheme of extraordinary promise. By the way, there's an idea in it that ought to appeal to you--driving the force that's to subdue this wilderness of yours."

"When you've lived here for a while," said Lorne, painfully preoccupied, "you'll think it quite civilized. So you're going in with Milburn?"

"Oh, I'm proud of it already! I shall make a good Canadian, I trust. And as good an imperialist," he added, "as is consistent with the claims of my adopted country."

"That seems to be the popular view," said Lorne.

"And a very reasonable view, too. But I'm not going to embark on that with you, old fellow--you shan't draw me in. I know where you are on that subject."

"So do I--I'm stranded. But it's all right--the subject isn't," Lorne said quietly; and Hesketh's exclamations and inquiries brought out the morning's reverse. The young Englishman was cordially sorry, full of concern and personal disappointment, abandoning his own absorbing affairs, and devoting his whole attention to the unfortunate exigency which Lorne dragged out of his breast, in pure manfulness, to lay before him.

However, they came to the end of it, arriving at the same time at the door which led up the stairs to the office of Fulke, Warner, and Murchison.

"Thank you," said Lorne. '"Thank you. Oh, I dare say it will come all right in the course of time. You return to England, I suppose--or do you?--before you go in with Milburn?"

"I sail next week," said Hesketh, and a great relief shot into the face of his companion. "I have a good deal to see to over there. I shan't get back much before June, I fancy. And--I must tell you--I am doing the thing very thoroughly. This business of naturalizing myself, I mean. I am going to marry that very charming girl--a great friend of yours, by the way, I know her to be--Miss Milburn."

For accepting the strokes of fate we have curiously trivial demonstrations. Lorne met Hesketh's eye with the steadiness of a lion's