Ansel looked sharply at him. Then in astonished bewilderment. He had expected to find the beaten man dejected, bereft of even his customary strong calm. On the contrary, Standish, his face alive with resolve and with some other impulse that baffled even Ansel’s shrewd observation, came into the place like a whirlwind. Kicking aside the litter of dusty stage properties and dingy, discolored hangings that were piled near the door, he made his way to Karl and grasped his hand.
“How goes it?” he asked. “I’m sorry to be late. I thought——”
“Well, Boy, it’s all up,” said Ansel. “Some fool said once that virtue was its own reward, and I guess it just naturally has to be. It never gets any other. In half an hour from now Caleb Conover will be nominated for Governor, and we will be bowing our necks for his collar, and pledging ourselves to support him and his dirty gang, just as we always have in the past and just as we always will in the future, I presume. We put up a good fight and an honest one, but you see where it’s landed us. So far as we are concerned, it’s all over but the shouting.”
And the grim old New Englander dropped his hand upon the shoulder of the defeated candidate with an awkward gesture that was half a caress.
“You’re mistaken,” retorted Clive, “the shouting has just begun. Ansel, I have made up my mind. A man owes more to his State than he owes to his party. Political regularity is one thing, and common decency is another. I marched into this convention a free man, with nobody’s collar on my neck, and I’m going to march out in the same way.”
“What?” almost shouted Ansel. “You’re not going to bolt?”
“Yes, I am,” answered Standish. “And I’m going to bolt right now before the nomination is made.”
“But, man,” protested Ansel, “think of it—the irregularity of it! You’ll be branded as a bolter and a renegade, and a traitor and a lot of other things. Why, man alive, it’ll never do.”
“It will do,” responded Standish. “I have it all planned. If we walk out of this convention now, we are going to take some of the delegates with us. I believe that the Independents will indorse us, and I believe that the Republicans will indorse us; if we take this stand. I believe that there are thousands of Democrats who think more of the State than they do of any one man or any one party. They have followed Conover because there was no one else to follow. Yes, I’m going to bolt, and I’m going out there now and tell these people why I do it.”
“But look here, Standish,” remonstrated Ansel, “that’s mighty near as irregular as the bolting itself, going out there and making a speech. No candidate’s ever supposed to show his face to the convention until after the nomination is made. You know that, don’t you? Then, after the nomination he comes out either to accept it or to promise his support to the winner. You’ll bust the party traditions all to flinders.”