第55章

He stretched out his hand, so large and strong, and somehow as honest as his eyes; the tempest stilled.He was speaking--what did he say? She hardly heard, though she knew that it was of and for right and justice--what else could that voice utter or the brain behind those proud features think? With her, and with all there, far more than his words it was his voice, like music, like magic, rising and falling in thrilling inflections as it wove its spell of gold and fire.Whenever he paused there would be an instant of applause--a huge, hoarse thunder, the call of that mysterious and awful and splendid soul of the mass--an instant full of that one great, deep, throbbing note, then silence to hear him again.

Scarborough had measured his task--to lift that convention from the slough of sordidness to which the wiles and bribes of Dumont and his clique had lured it; to set it in the highroad of what he believed with all his intensity to be the high-road of right.

Usually he spoke with feeling strongly repressed; but he knew that if he was to win that day against such odds he must take those delegates by surprise and by storm, must win in a suddenly descended whirlwind of passion that would engulf calculation and craft, sordidness and cynicism.He made few gestures; he did not move from the position he had first taken.He staked all upon his voice; into it he poured all his energy, all his fire, all his white-hot passion for right and justice, all his scorn of the base and the low.

"Head above heart, when head is right," he had often said.

"But when head is wrong, then heart above head." And he reached for hearts that day.

Five minutes, and delegates and spectators were his captives.

Fifteen minutes, and he was riding a storm such as comes only when the fountains of the human deeps are broken up.Thirty minutes and he was riding it as its master, was guiding it where he willed.

In vain Larkin sought to rally delegates round the shamed but steadfast nucleus of the bribed and the bossed.In vain his orator moved an adjournment until "calmness and reason shall be restored." The answer made him shrink and sink into his seat.

For it was an awful, deafening roll of the war-drums of that exalted passion which Scarborough had roused.

The call of counties began.The third on the list--Bartholomew--was the first to say what the people longed to hear.A giant farmer, fiery and freckled, rose and in a voice like a blast from a bass horn bellowed: "Bartholomew casts her solid vote for Hampden Scarborough!"Pauline had thought she heard that multitude speak before.But she now knew she had heard hardly more than its awakening whisper.For, with the pronouncing of that name, the tempest really burst.She sprang to her feet, obeying the imperious inward command which made every one in that audience and most of the delegates leap up.And for ten long minutes, for six hundred cyclonic seconds, the people poured out their passionate adoration.At first Scarborough flung out his arms, and all could see that he was shouting some sort of protest.But they would not hear him now.He had told them WHAT to do.He must let them say HOW to do it.

Pauline looked out at those flaming thousands with the maddest emotions streaming like lightning from their faces.But she looked without fear.They--she--all were beside themselves; but it was no frenzy for blood or for the sordid things.It was the divine madness of the soldier of the right, battling for THECAUSE, in utter forgetfulness of self and selfishness.

"Beautiful! Beautiful!" she murmured, every nerve tingling.

"I never knew before how beautiful human beings are!"Finally the roll-call could proceed.Long before it was ended the necessary votes had been cast for Scarborough, and Larkin rose to move that the nomination be made unanimous--Larkin, beaten down in the open, was not the man to die there; he hastened to cover where he could resume the fight in the manner most to his liking.Again Scarborough was borne to the platform;again she saw him standing there--straight and mighty, but deathly pale, and sad--well he might be bowed by the responsibility of that mandate, given by the god-in-man, but to be executed by and through plain men.A few broken, hesitating words, and he went into the wings and left the theater, applause sweeping and swirling after him like a tidal wave.

Pauline, coming out into the open, looked round her, dazed.Why, it was the same work-a-day world as before, with its actions so commonplace and selfish, with only its impulses fine and high.

If these moments of exaltation could but last, could but become the fixed order and routine of life! If high ideal and courage ruled, instead of low calculation and fear! She sighed, then her eyes shone.

"At least I have seen!" she thought."At least I have lived one of those moments when the dreams come true.And `human being' has a new meaning for me."Two men, just behind her in the crowd, were talking of Scarborough."A demagogue!" sneered one.

"A demi-god," retorted the other.And Pauline turned suddenly and gave him a look that astonished and dazzled him.