Part 32

The candidate wisely kept silent, and waited for the speaker of the house to proceed.

"Sylvia is your niece, and Mr. Plummer is your most powerful political supporter in the West," she said. "If she jilts him because of any fancy or impulse--well, you know such things can make men, especially elderly men, do very strange deeds. I speak of it because I am sure it must have been in your thoughts."

The candidate stirred uneasily.

"It is a thing that I do not like to take into consideration," he said.

"Nor do I, but it forces itself upon us."

"It is right that Harley should pay her attention. They are members of this party, and they are of an age likely to make them congenial."

"That is where the danger lies. It may not amount at present to anything more than a fancy, but a fancy can make a very good beginning."

They talked on at length and with much earnestness, but they could come to no other conclusion than to use that last refuge, silence and waiting.

Meanwhile Sylvia was enjoying herself. She was young and vigorous, and she had a keen zest in life. She was surrounded by men, some young, too, who had seen much of the world, and they interested her; neither would she have been human, nor of her sex, if their attentions had not pleased her; and there, too, was the great campaign throwing its glow over everything. She was gracious even to the "King," whom she had been treating rather worse than he deserved for several days. She seemed to appreciate his increased gallantry, and it was "dear old daddy" very often now, whether in the comparative privacy of the Grayson family circle or in the larger group of the young correspondents and politicians. The "King" was delighted with the change, and his own manner became easy and happy. He looked once or twice at the lady whom he considered his mentor, Mrs. Grayson, and expected to see approval and satisfaction on her face, too, but she was stern and impenetrable, and the "King" said to himself that after all she was not so startlingly acute.

Sylvia was telling some anecdote of the West to her new friends, and, as the incident was rather remarkable, she thought it necessary to have confirmation.

"It happened before I was born, but you were there then, and you know all about it, don't you, daddy?"

"King" Plummer quickly nodded confirmation and smiled at the memory. The event had interested him greatly, and he was glad to vouch for its truth. He was pleased all the more when he saw the others looking at him with the respect and deference due to--his thoughts halted suddenly in their course and turned into another channel. Then he found himself frowning. He did not like the conjunction of "dear old daddy" and of a thing that had happened many years ago.

The "King" quietly slipped away from the party, and he noticed with intense gloom that his departure did not seem to make as much difference as it should. For a whole afternoon he was silent, and many corrugations formed temporarily in his brow, indicating resolved thought. Nor were appearances wrong, because the "King" was laboriously dragging himself up to the edge of a mighty resolution. He was physically as brave a man as ever walked; in early and rougher days he had borne a ready Winchester, but this emergency was something new in his experience, and naturally he hesitated at the venture. However, just after supper, when Sylvia was alone in the drawing-room of the car, he approached her. She looked up at him and smiled, but the "King's" face was set with the power of his resolve.

"Come in, daddy," she said.

The "King" did not smile, nor did he sit down.

"Sylvia," he said, "I have a favor to ask of you."

"Why certainly, daddy, anything in reason, and I know you would not ask anything out of it."

"Sylvia, I want you to promise me never to call me daddy again, either in private, as here between ourselves, or before others."

She looked up at him, her eyes wide with astonishment.

"Why," she exclaimed, "I've called you that ever since you found me a little, little girl alone in the mountains."

"I know it, but it's time to stop. I'm no blood kin to you at all. And I'm not so ancient. The history of the West didn't begin with me."

The wonder in her eyes deepened, and the "King" felt apprehensive, though he stood to his guns. But when she laughed, a joyous, spontaneous laugh, he felt hurt.

"I'll make you the promise readily enough," she said, "but I can't keep it; I really can't. I'll try awful hard, but I'm so used to daddy that it will be sure to pop out just when I'm expecting it least."

The "King" looked at her moodily, not sure whether she was laughing at him or at her own perplexity.

"Then you just try," he said, at last, yielding to a mood of compromise, and stalked abruptly out of the drawing-room.

Sylvia, watching him, saw how stiffly and squarely he held his shoulders, and what long and abrupt strides he took, and her mood of merriment was suddenly succeeded by one of sadness mingled just a little with apprehension. She spoke twice under her breath, and the two brief sentences varied by only a single word. The first was "Dear old daddy!" and the second was "Poor old daddy!"

THE HARRYING OF HERBERT

An unexpected addition and honor was now approaching, and it was Hobart who told them of it.