第20章

When that morning she had seen Peabody running up the steps of the Elevated, all the doubts, the troubles, questions, and misgivings that night and day for the last three months had upset her, fell from her shoulders like the pilgrim's heavy pack.For months she had been telling herself that the unrest she felt when with Peabody was due to her not being able to appreciate the importance of those big affairs in which he was so interested; in which he was so admirable a figure.She had, as she supposed, loved him, because he was earnest, masterful, intent of purpose.His had seemed a fine character.When she had compared him with the amusing boys of her own age, the easy-going joking youths to whom the betterment of New York was of no concern, she had been proud in her choice.She was glad Peabody was ambitious.She was ambitious for him.She was glad to have him consult her on those questions of local government, to listen to his fierce, contemptuous abuse of Tammany.And yet early in their engagement she had missed something, something she had never known, but which she felt sure should exist.Whether she had seen it in the lives of others, or read of it in romances, or whether it was there because it was nature to desire to be loved, she did not know.But long before Winthrop returned from his trip round the world, in her meetings with the man she was to marry, she had begun to find that there was something lacking.And Winthrop had shown her that this something lacking was the one thing needful.When Winthrop had gone abroad he was only one of her brother's several charming friends.One of the amusing merry youths who came and went in the house as freely as Sam himself.Now, after two years' absence, he refused to be placed in that category.

He rebelled on the first night of his return.As she came down to the dinner of welcome her brother was giving Winthrop, he stared at her as though she were a ghost, and said, so solemnly that every one in the room, even Peabody, smiled:

"Now I know why I came home." That he refused to recognize her engagement to Peabody, that on every occasion he told her, or by some act showed her, he loved her; that he swore she should never marry any one but himself, and that he would never marry any one but her, did not at first, except to annoy, in any way impress her.

But he showed her what in her intercourse with Peabody was lacking.At first she wished Peabody could find time to be as fond of her, as foolishly fond of her, as was Winthrop.But she realized that this was unreasonable.Winthrop was just a hot-headed impressionable boy, Peabody was a man doing a man's work.And then she found that week after week she became more difficult to please.Other things in which she wished Peabody might be more like Winthrop, obtruded themselves.Little things which she was ashamed to notice, but which rankled; and big things, such as consideration for others, and a sense of humor, and not talking of himself.Since this campaign began, at times she had felt that if Peabody said "I" once again, she must scream.She assured herself she was as yet unworthy of him, that her intelligence was weak, that as she grew older and so better able to understand serious affairs, such as the importance of having an honest man at Albany as Lieutenant-Governor, they would become more in sympathy.And now, at a stroke, the whole fabric of self-deception fell from her.It was not that she saw Peabody so differently, but that she saw herself and her own heart, and where it lay.And she knew that "Billy" Winthrop, gentle, joking, selfish only in his love for her, held it in his two strong hands.

For the moment, when as she sat in the car deserted by Peabody this truth flashed upon her, she forgot the man lying injured in the street, the unscrubbed mob crowding about her.She was conscious only that a great weight had been lifted.That her blood was flowing again, leaping, beating, dancing through her body.It seemed as though she could not too quickly tell Winthrop.For both of them she had lost out of their lives many days.She had risked losing him for always.Her only thought was to make up to him and to herself the wasted time.

But throughout the day the one-time welcome, but now intruding, friends and the innumerable conventions of hospitality required her to smile and show an interest, when her heart and mind were crying out the one great fact.

It was after dinner, and the members of the house party were scattered between the billiard-room and the piano.Sam Forbes returned from the telephone.

"Tammany," he announced, " concedes the election of Jerome by forty thousand votes, and that he carries his ticket with him.

Ernest Peabody is elected his Lieutenant-Governor by a thousand votes.Ernest," he added, "seems to have had a close call." There was a tremendous chorus of congratulations in the cause of Reform.They drank the health of Peabody.