One day she had picked up his heavy gray gloves from the table and
tightened the buttons, listening all the while to an absorbing account of
a counter-move he was planning for the next day's editorial, and then had
been delightfully confused and distressed by his gratitude. The little
scene had sent him to the bare fields to fight for hours.
The major fairly gloried in her knowledge of the arrangement of his
library and delighted her with quick requests for his books during the
most absorbing moments of their discussions.
And again the observation that the spell was not being woven for him
alone went far to the undoing of Andrew Sevier. Her interest in the
affairs of David Kildare disturbed him not at all, but her sympathetic
and absorbed attention to a bad-luck tale with which Hobson Capers
reported to the major one morning when she sat with them, had sent him
home in a most depressed state of mind, and the picture of her troubled
eyes raised to Hobson's as he recounted the details of the wrenched
shoulder of his favorite horse, followed him through the day with
tormenting displeasure, though the offer of a cut-glass bottle full of a
delightfully scented lotion for the amelioration of the suffering animal
brought the semblance of a grin. And Hob, the brute, had gone away with
it in his pocket, accompanied by explicit directions as to its
application by means of a soft bit of flannel the size of a pocket
handkerchief, also provided. Andrew Sevier had a vision of the bottle
and the rag being installed in the most holy of holies in the apartments
of Hobson Capers and experienced a sweeping smashing rage thereat.
A day or two later a scene he had witnessed in the kitchen, in which
Caroline and Tempie hung anxiously over a simmering pan of lemon juice,
sugar, rye whisky and peppermint which, when it arrived at the proper
sirupy condition, was to be administered as a soothing potion to the
hoarse throat of Peyton Kendrick, who perched croaking on a chair close
by, drove him to seeking comfort from Phoebe much to her apparent
amusement but secret perturbation, for Phoebe both comprehended and
feared the situation.
And thus there is also much of the primitive left in the heart of the
modern man on which the elemental forces work.
Then the day for the election came nearer and nearer by what seemed
fleeting hours. The whole city was thoroughly aroused and fighting hard
under one banner or the other. As the last week drew to a close and left
only the few days of the following week for a round-up of the forces
before the Wednesday election, the men all became absorbed to the point
of oblivion to everything save the speculation as to how the race would
go. But it was not in the nature of David Kildare to be held against the
grindstone of serious endeavor too long at a time, and in the midst of
the turmoil he proceeded to plot for a brief and exciting relaxation for
himself and his strenuous friends, and he chose Saturday for the
accomplishment thereof.