“Evidently.”
Emily was silent for a moment, and her brows were knit.
“I hope—” she began, but checked herself. “I’ve often thought,” she said, beginning over, “that we ought to have Mr. Rankin and his poor little wife here to dinner. I feel guilty about them. You—we—will be good to them, won’t we?”
Garwood laughed again.
“You needn’t worry about Jim Rankin,” he said, “though I don’t know that I owe him much after his letting the delegation here in Polk get away from me. I had a hard time licking it back into line.”
It was several days after that Cowley published an article in the Chicago Courier which told of the tremendous promises that had been made at Pekin in exchange for votes. He said that Garwood had shown himself a clever politician, for he had not only been able to hold up most of the appointments in his district until after his second nomination, but he had had the help of the administration’s influence at Pekin. Cowley then proceeded to schedule the distribution of patronage that would be made; Hale for the post-office at Pekin, Bailey for Speaker of the House, and Rankin, of course, for the post-office at Grand Prairie. He could not dispose of Pusey as definitely, but it was not to be supposed that Pusey had gone to Garwood and saved him from political oblivion for nothing at all.
Emily read the article aloud to Jerome. He knew by her silence when she had finished that questions were forming in her mind. She set her lips and began shaking her head, until she produced a low “No, I don’t like that.”
“That New England conscience of yours troubling you again?” asked Garwood.
“I wish we had more New England conscience in our politics!” she replied with a wife’s severity.
“We’ve got enough of New England in our politics now!” Garwood said, with a flare of the western animosity to New England’s long domination of public affairs.