Part 64

Harley stood by, and was silent because he did not know what to say. To state that Mr. Grayson had allowed himself to be beaten for a purpose would have an incredible look in print--it would seem the poorest of excuses; nor did he wish to make use of it in the presence of Churchill, who would certainly jeer at it and present it in his despatches as a ridiculous plea. He had begun to have a certain sensitiveness in regard to the candidate, and he did not wish to be forced into a quarrel with Churchill.

But Sylvia caught a slight smile, a smile of irony, in the eyes of Harley, and the tears in her own dried up at once. She felt instinctively, with all the quickness of a woman's intuition, that Harley knew something about the speech which she did not know, but she meant to know it, and she watched for an opportunity.

They were turning out the lights in the hall and the people began to go away, the correspondents closing up the rear. Sylvia fell back with Harley, and touched his arm lightly.

"There is something that you are not telling me," she said.

"I am willing to tell it to you, because you will believe it."

Tremaine, with ever-ready gallantry, was about to join them, but Sylvia said:

"I thank you, Mr. Tremaine, but Mr. Harley has promised to see me to the hotel."

Her tone was light, but so decisive that Tremaine turned back at once, and Hobart, who was ahead, hid a smile.

"Now, I want to know what it is," she said, eagerly, to Harley. "That was a good speaker, an able man, but I don't believe that he or anybody else could beat Uncle James. How did it happen?"

Harley did not answer her at once, because it seemed to him just then that the action of Jimmy Grayson was an illustration, and the idea was hot in his mind.

"Perhaps there is nothing to tell, after all," she said, and her face fell.

"There is something to tell; I hesitated because I was looking for the best way to tell it. Mr. Grayson to-night made a sacrifice of himself, purposely and willingly."

"A sacrifice of himself! How could he have done such a thing?"

"For the best reason that makes a man do such a thing. For love."

She stared at him a moment, and then broke into a puzzled but ironic laugh.

"You are certainly dreaming a romance. Uncle James and Aunt Anna have been happily married for years, and there is nothing now that could force him to make such a sacrifice."

Harley smiled, and his smile was rarely tender, because he was thinking at that moment of Sylvia.

"The sacrifice was not to help his own cause, but the cause of another, the cause of the man who beat him--that is, seemed to beat him. Mr. Lee, through his victory to-night, wins the girl whom he loves, and he could have won her in no other way. There are people who can do great deeds and make great sacrifices for love, even to help the love of two others. It will be printed in every paper of the United States in the morning that Mr. Grayson was defeated in debate to-night by a young local lawyer. His prestige will be greatly impaired."

Her eyes glowed, and her face, too, became rarely tender.

"Uncle James was truly great to-night!" she exclaimed.

"At his greatest. I know of no other man who could have done it. After all, Sylvia, don't you think love is the greatest and purest of motives, and that we should consider it first?"

"John," she said, and it was the first time that she had ever called him by his first name, "you must not tempt me to break my sacred word to the man to whom I owe all things. Oh, John, don't you see how hard it is for me, and won't you help me to bear it, instead of making the burden heavier?"

She turned upon him a face of such pathetic appeal that Harley was abashed.

"Sylvia," he replied, almost in a whisper, "God knows that I do not wish to make you unhappy, nor do I wish to make you do what is wrong. I spoke so because I could not help it. Do you think that I can love you, and know you to be what you are, and then stand idly by and see you passing to another? I believe in silence and endurance, but not in such silence and endurance as that. It is too much! God never asks it of a man!"

She looked at him. Her eyes were dewy and tender, filled with love, a love tinged with sorrow, but he saw the brave resolution shining there, and he knew that, despite all, she would keep her word unless "King" Plummer himself willingly released her from it. And he loved her all the more because she was so true.

"Sylvia," he said, "I was wrong. I should not have spoken to you in such a manner. I am a weak coward to make your duty all the harder for you."

They were at the "ladies' entrance" of the hotel, and the others either had gone in or had turned aside. They were alone, and she bent a little towards him.

"The things that you say may be wrong," she whispered, "but--oh, John--I love to hear you say them!"