The Naulahka | Page 8

he melted gradually into
an ecstasy of conviction which surprised even himself, and he began to
feel at last that he had his audience under his hand. Then he gripped
them, raised them aloft like a conjuror, patted and stroked them,
dropped them to dreadful depths, snatched them back, to show that he
could, caught them to his heart, and told them a story. And with that
audience hugged to his breast he marched victoriously up and down
upon the prostrate body of the Democratic party, chanting its requiem.
It was a great time. Everybody' rose at the end and said so loudly; they
stood on benches and shouted it with a bellow that shook the building.
They tossed their caps in the air, and danced on one another, and
wanted to carry Tarvin around the hall on their shoulders.
But Tarvin, with a choking at the throat, turned his back on it all, and,
fighting his way blindly through the crowd which had gathered on the
platform, reached the dressing-room behind the stage. He shut and
bolted the door behind him, and flung himself into a chair, mopping his
forehead.
'And the man who can do that,' he muttered, 'can't make one tiny little
bit of a girl marry him.'

III
Who are the Rulers of Ind?--to whom shall we bow the knee? Make thy
peace with the women, and men shall make thee L. G. Maxims of
Hafiz.
IT was an opinion not concealed in Ca–on City the next morning, that
Tarvin had wiped up the floor with his adversary; and it was at least
definitely on record, as a result of Tarvin's speech, that when Sheriff

rose half-heartedly to make the rejoinder set down for him on the
programme, he had been howled back into his seat by a united public
opinion. But Sheriff met Tarvin at the railway station where they were
both to take the train for Topaz with a fair imitation of a nod and smile,
and certainly showed no inclination to avoid him on the journey up. If
Tarvin had really done Kate's father the office attributed to him by the
voice of Ca–on City, Sheriff did not seem to be greatly disturbed by the
fact. But Tarvin reflected that Sheriff had balancing grounds of
consolation--a reflection which led him to make the further one that he
had made a fool of himself. He had indeed had the satisfaction of
explaining publicly to the rival candidate which was the better man,
and had enjoyed the pleasure of proving to his constituents that he was
still a force to be reckoned with, in spite of the mad missionary notion
which had built a nest in a certain young woman's head. But how did
that bring him nearer Kate? Had it not rather, so far as her father could
influence the matter, put him farther away--as far as it had brought his
own election near. He believed he would be elected now. But to what?
Even the speakership he had dangled before her did not seem so remote
in the light of last night's occurrences. But the only speakership that
Tarvin cared to be elected to was the speakership of Kate's heart.
He feared he shouldn't be chosen to fill that high office immediately,
and as he glanced at the stumpy, sturdy form standing next him on the
edge of the track, he knew whom he had to thank. She would never go
to India if she had a man for a father like some men he knew. But a
smooth, politic, conciliating, selfish, easy-going rich man--what could
you expect? Tarvin could have forgiven Sheriff's smoothness if it had
been backed by force. But he had his opinion of a man who had
become rich by accident in a town like Topaz.
Sheriff presented the spectacle, intolerable to Tarvin, of a man who had
become bewilderingly well-to-do through no fault of his own, and who
now wandered vaguely about in his good fortune, seeking anxiously to
avoid giving once. In his politics he carried this far; and he was a
treasury of delight just at this time to the committees of railroad
engineers' balls, Knight Templars, excursions, and twilight coteries,
and to the organisers of church bazaars, theatricals, and oyster suppers,

who had tickets to sell. He went indiscriminately to the oyster suppers
and bazaars of all denominations in Topaz, and made Kate and her
mother go with him; and his collection of Baptist dolls, Presbyterian
embroidery, and Roman Catholic sofa-pillows and spatter-work, filled
his parlour at home.
But his universal good-nature was not so popular as it deserved to be.
The twilight coteries took his money but kept their opinion of him; and
Tarvin, as the opposing candidate, had shown what he thought of his