"I disappointed!" exclaimed she. "Why, could you bring yourself to give them up? I hate to say it--but--I just detest the whole thing!"

"So do I!" said Amidon.

They wondered in the next room what could have excited so much hilarity.

"What a beginning!" said Elizabeth. "To start out in our life with such a mutual deception! But I wanted to have a part in your life, whatever it might be; and I could organize Primrose Leagues, and succeed in them, if it were necessary to help in any ambition of yours.

So there! Oh, it was silly to write in that way--but you really seemed at that time----"

"I never did, my dear! It was that Bra.s.sfield; and when I was caught and restored by Madame le Claire, I should have declined if it hadn't been for the--the Washington career, you know----"

"Oh, please don't say any more----"

"And I had Blodgett get up a letter of withdrawal----"

"Do you suppose he has it yet?" she cried.

"'Letter of withdrawal!' It sounds so sort of parliamentary and correct and comforting!"

"It does," agreed Amidon, "especially in view of the fact that I believe I'm beaten anyhow. Judge Blodgett thinks I am, and Mr.

Alvord----"

"Poor Jim Alvord!" interposed Elizabeth. "His wife says he would desert his family for you."

"For Bra.s.sfield, she means," said Amidon. "It is really not the same thing, dear. But I was saying that even he half confesses defeat.

I've made an awful mess of this thing, Elizabeth, on account of not really knowing anything of the people or their opinions or desires.

Even that platform of ours couldn't pull us through. No wisdom--and I haven't much--could keep a man from making blunders when he went out to do things for himself, knowing nothing of the situation except what he got from his inner consciousness, and from what he was told. A political situation is too delicately balanced for that. If I had done nothing, I should have remained undeservedly popular and reaped the reward of Bra.s.sfield's cunning and hypocrisy--don't stop me, please!

But you and I tried to impose righteousness on the people from the outside and above. It never comes in that way, but always from the inside and below, like lilies from the mud. I'm really a most unpopular man, opposed by most of the 'good citizens' and all of the bad except a few who still believe me dishonest, and will desert me as soon as their fellows can convince them that I'm sincere--isn't it a pretty plot! Facing defeat because of my advocacy of principles everybody concedes to be right, because I'm suspected of an actual intention to act according to my platform pledge; when that man Bra.s.sfield, who was preparing to carry out a policy of selfish spoliation, could have carried every precinct!"

"It does me so much good," she said, "to see you in such a glow of indignation, that I allowed you to go on with that unjust condemnation of my Eugene. Well, then, it seems my n.o.ble platform actually ruined you. How nasty of the people! Can't we elope--run away--and never come back, or look at a paper or think of it again? Or shall we use Judge Blodgett's letter of withdrawal--bless him!"

Something--perhaps it was the elopement proposal--induced eventualities which delayed the conversation again for some minutes.

"Let's go out," said she, "and ask him to--to do whatever they do with letters of withdrawal--at once!"

The room into which Amidon led the shy Elizabeth had been a clearing-house of confused ideas during their long tete-a-tete. Madame le Claire had explained the mystery of dual personality as well as it can be explained, with some comment on the fact that such things happen to people occasionally, no one knows why. Alvord and Judge Blodgett agreed that the candidate for mayor should be withdrawn. Alvord even raised the question as to whether, the nomination papers being issued to Bra.s.sfield, Amidon could be legally elected. Judge Blodgett said it raised the finest legal question he ever had encountered, and if carried up would be a case of first impression in the world's jurisprudence. Alvord a.s.sented to this without argument.

Then Le Claire told them of Amidon's life in his old home as she had learned of it, of his bewildered application to her in New York, and how he had been helped. She was a long time telling it, and all the while she was thinking of the tender things happening in the next room.

She heard the murmuring of their voices, as full of meaning as the flutings of mating birds. And she faltered and stopped.

"Papa, papa!" she cried, "help me out! Tell them the rest."

"You vill vonder, berhaps," said the professor, "at sairtain egsentricities of gonduct of our friendt, in his later Bra.s.sfield phace, in vitch he has shown de kvality of sportiness--or sportif--vat iss de vort?"

"Sportiness," said Miss Scarlett, "is the word."

"T'anks!" said the professor. "Vell, de egsblanation is dus: te Bra.s.sfield state vas vun of gontinuous self-hypnotismus. It iss apnormal. Its shief garacteristic is suchestibility. Now, if ve find dat te supchect ha.s.s been frown into de society of people of--vat you gall?--sporty tendencies, he vould gradually yield to te suchestion of dese tendencies. He vould----"

"I am glad I heard that," said Elizabeth. "We must not allow you to return to this abnormal state!"

"Mr. c.o.x," said Judge Blodgett, "do we need a detective to run this sporty influence down? or shall we look among the Christian Martyrs?"

"It will relieve me," said Miss Scarlett, hugging Mr. c.o.x's arm, "if you won't look. I'm afraid to be searched!"

Elizabeth and Florian appeared in the archway. Her eyes were shining with the soft radiance which, like the flush of dawn, comes only once in the day's journey, and never returns. His sought her face in a worship that she would never have seen had Eugene Bra.s.sfield looked out from them.

"I am taking Miss Waldron home," said Mr. Amidon. "Matters have just taken such a turn that I shall leave soon for my former home in Wisconsin, where I have large interests, and I may not be able to return. Such being the case, we do not feel that it would be just to the people of this city to continue in the position of a candidate for public office, and--pshaw! why not be honest? We're beaten, and we don't want the office, anyhow. Judge, have you that letter of withdrawal convenient?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I am taking Miss Waldron home," said Mr. Amidon.]

"I have," said the judge. "I figured all the time that you'd need it."

"Thanks!" said Amidon. "Take it, Mr. Alvord, and give it to the world at large. You understand, do you not, the peculiar change of personality which makes it improper----?"

"Sure," said Alvord. "The man who put out that platform of ours can't afford to be caught short-changing the public by switching candidates on them on the eve of election. And right here let me say, that be it Amidon or Bra.s.sfield, the ties of brotherhood still hold with Jim Alvord, in F. D. and B., and I hate to use this letter. I believe still we could pull through, with proper management from now on, and, confound it! I'd rather be licked with you than to win with any other man on earth!"

"In all phases of my life," said Amidon, grasping the little man's hand warmly, "I'm going to take the liberty of holding you as my friend. I know faithfulness and unselfishness when I see it, no matter if I don't quite fall in with its methods."

Alvord's eyes filled, as his emotions rose with the parting. Yet he could not allow his methods to be questioned even by implication.

"Well, now, as to methods," he began, "theoretically you may be right about publicity and that platform, but practically--well, let's forget it! But, 'Gene--or whatever your d.a.m.ned name is!--don't forget me!

Good-by!"

The judge, the professor, Miss Scarlett, and all the rest had gone on their various ways, and Madame le Claire was in one of the inner rooms attended by Aaron, whom she had summoned.

"I'm not going to adopt poor Jim's language yet," said Elizabeth, when she and Florian were again left alone. "'Florian, Florian!'--I like that name. But think how hard it was to learn to call you 'Eugene.'

Do you remember where we were when I first called you that?"

"Don't you realize, dearie," said he, "that I know nothing of all that?

And except for your sweet letter, I knew nothing of you before that day when I came from New York?"

"O----h!" she cried. "And all the lovely things you did to win me---- Oh, dear, I never thought of that. And you remember nothing--nothing at all? Oh, it is dreadful, dreadful! No wonder I almost hated you that night!"

He put his arm about her and kissed her lingeringly.

"Dearest! Sweetheart!" he said. "The loss is all mine! And to make up for it, you must let me do them all over again--every one, a thousand times. Come, let us go!"

At the door, she stopped and turned back.

"I must see Madame le Claire," said she.

Already the rooms were filled with the disorder of packing, and Aaron was busy preparing for one of their Arab-like flittings. Madame le Claire stood looking down into the street.

"Are you leaving Bellevale?" said Miss Waldron.

"On the next train," answered the hypnotist. "Our tour has been a long time delayed."

"I hope," said Elizabeth, "that we shall see you again some time."