"Mrs. Scarborough," was the answer.
"Oh, is that she?" exclaimed Mrs. Sandys, almost snatching her glasses from me in her eagerness. "You know who she was—John Dumont's widow—you remember him? She must be an unusual person to have attracted two such men."
But Scarborough was nominated now. He waved aside those who tried to take him up and bear him to the platform. He walked down the aisle alone and ascended amid a tense silence; he stood looking calmly out. His face had lost its whiteness of a few minutes before. As he stood there, big and still, a sort of embodiment of fearlessness, I wondered—and I fancy many others were wondering—whether he was about to refuse the nomination. But an instant's thought drove the wild notion from my mind. He could not strike that deadly blow at his party.
"Fellow delegates," said he—a clearer, more musical voice than his I have never heard—"I thank you for this honor. As you know, I opposed the platform you saw fit to adopt. I have nothing to retract. I do not like it. But, after all, a candidate must be his own platform. And I bring my public record as proof of my pledge—that—" he paused and the silence was tremendous. He went on, each word distinct and by itself—"if I am elected"—a long pause—"I shall obey the Constitution"—another long pause—"I shall enforce the laws!"
He was descending to the aisle before the silence was broken—a feeble, rippling applause, significant of disappointment at what seemed an anti-climax. He had merely repeated in condensed form the oath of office which a President takes at his inauguration. But somehow—no doubt, it was the magic of his voice and his manner and superb presence—those simple words kept on ringing; and all at once—full half a minute must have elapsed, a long time in such circumstances—all at once the enormous meaning of the two phrases boomed into the brains of those thousands: If this man is elected, there will be a President without fear or favor, and he will really obey the Constitution, will really enforce the laws! That little speech, though only a repetition of an oath embodied in our century-old supreme law, was a firebrand to light the torch of revolution, of revolution back toward what the republic used to be before differences of wealth divided its people into upper, middle and lower classes, before enthroned corporate combinations made equality before the law a mockery, before the development of our vast material resources restored to the intelligent and energetic few their power over the careless and purposeless many.
As the multitude realized his meaning,—I doubt if many times in all history such a sight and sound has burst upon mortal ears and eyes. For the moment I was daunted; it was impossible not to think that here was the whole people, not to feel that Scarborough had been chosen President and was about to fulfil his pledge. Daunted, yet thrilled too. For, at bottom, are we not all passionate dreamers of abstract right and justice?
Then I remembered; and I said to myself, "He has defied the interests. David has gone out against Goliath—but the Davids do not win nowadays. I can elect Burbank."
But where was the elation that thought would have set to swelling in the me of less than two weeks before? And then I began clearly to see that, for me at least, the prize, to be prized, must be fairly won from start to goal; and to be enjoyed, must gladden eyes that would in turn gladden me with the approval and sympathy which only a woman can give and without which a man is alone and indeed forlorn.