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.
XXI.
A COYOTE AT BAY.
Six weeks later, on the morning after the general election, Dumont awoke bubbling over with good humor—as always, when the world went well with him and so set the strong, red currents of his body to flowing in unobstructed channels.
He had not gone to bed the previous night until he had definite news from Indiana, Illinois and New York, the three states in which his industrial-political stakes were heaviest. They had gone as he wished, as he and his friends had spent large sums of money to assist them to go. And now a glance at the morning papers confirmed his midnight bulletins. Indiana, where he had made the strongest efforts because the control of its statute book was vital to him, had gone his way barely but, apparently, securely; Scarborough was beaten for governor by twenty-five hundred. Presently he had Culver in to begin the day's business. The first paper Culver handed him was a cipher telegram announcing the closing of an agreement which made the National Woolens Company absolute in the Northwest; the second item in Culver's budget was also a cipher telegram—from Merriweather. It had been filed at four o'clock—several hours later than the newspaper despatches. It said that Scarborough's friends conceded his defeat, that the Legislature was safely Dumont's way in both houses. Culver always sorted out to present first the agreeable part of the morning's budget; never had he been more successful.
At the office Dumont found another cipher telegram from Merriweather: "Later returns show Scarborough elected by a narrow majority. But he will be powerless as Legislature and all other state offices are with us."