"Why, no," said the major, "not last night. The fact is, Colonel McCorkle and I served in the same regiment, and belong to the post here, and he expected me to support him. At the same time, the nomination of Mr. Brassfield appeared to be the only right thing from the standpoint of party expediency or business wisdom. Brassfield can be elected. He is strong in business circles. His integrity is unquestioned, and there'll be no graft or shady deals under him. He stands well in society, too. I just saw Doctor Bulkon, who expressed himself as thoroughly delighted with the nomination of so good a man as Brassfield, and intends to preach next Sunday on 'The Christian's Vote,' handling the subject in such a way as to point to Brassfield as the right man. I couldn't consistently oppose Brassfield, and so I stayed at home."
"Oh, you're quite right!" exclaimed Mr. Smith. "My attendance would not have made any difference in the result. Colonel McCorkle is a good man, but after Mr. Brassfield made us a present of the money to pay off our church debt recently none of us could decently have gone out and worked against him even for the colonel. They say that McCorkle is a good deal chagrined by the small showing he made—claims that the saloons and the lower classes ran the caucuses, and that the decent element stayed away altogether."
"Pooh!" scoffed Mr. Pumphrey. "A little sore is all—soon get over it. I only hope Brassfield will be able to get us that trolley line he promises. That would bring Bellevale abreast of the times."
"That's certainly true," was Mr. Smith's answer. "Mr. Brassfield is an enterprising citizen, broad and liberal, safe and sane, and fully in touch with the great business interests of the country. His nomination will reflect credit on Bellevale."
Inasmuch as such citizens as Conlon, Pierson, Sheehan and Zalinsky were equally well contented, no one, it would seem, ought to have been dissatisfied. The fact that Mr. Brassfield's success meant the giving away of Bellevale's streets to Brassfield's interurban trolley line must be considered in connection with the fact that Bellevale seemed only too anxious to give them away.
One must look at such things from all sides, if one is to come to a satisfactory conclusion. Miss Waldron, having a keenly personal interest in the matter, and being a member of the cultured and leisure class, endeavored to do this. Her conclusions, both personal and political, seem to be fully set forth in a letter which she wrote to her friend Estelle in New York.
"You know I always was a queer little beast," said this letter, after a few pages in which such words as "chiffon," "corsage," "lingerie," "full ritual," and similar expressions occur with some frequency, but the contents of which are quite obscure in their bearing on the course of this history—"and was ever finding happiness where others saw misery, and vice versa. Well, I am doing something of the same sort now in turning over and over in my mind the question as to whether I should ever marry any one or not. I know perfectly well that no one can ever be the One for me if Eugene is not—but is there a One? Don't say that I am a little—goose, but listen and ponder.
"You remember the sort of literary friendship I had with George L——? Well, of course George was a veritable Miss Nancy, and perfectly absurd, but there was something basically likeable about him. Now, I always have thought that if one could grind George and Eugene to a pulp and mix them, the compromise would be my ideal. I like men who do things, and Eugene is the most forceful man I ever knew. Owing to your absence when he was in New York you missed seeing him, but his pictures must have shown you how handsome and strong and masterly he is. Well, this phase of a man must please any girl.
"Is it possible for such qualities to subsist in the same personality with those I loved (there's no use denying it—in a platonic sense) in George? In other words, can one reasonably expect to find a man who can win battles in the world's life of this twentieth century, who will not stare at one in utter lack of comprehension when he finds one dropping tears on the pages of Charmides, or McAndrew's Prayer, or Omar, and perhaps try to comfort one—at the moment when the divine despair wrought by poignant beauty fills one with divine happiness? It's horribly clumsy as I put it; but you'll know.
"He's just as good and kind and considerate as a man can be, and as little spoiled by the fierce battles which he has fought—and won!—as could possibly be expected—in fact, not at all spoiled. Even this suspicion of a lack of the gift of seeing that the violet 'neath a mossy stone is a good deal more than that—the chief good quality George had—around which I have been writing in these pages, seems to be more a suspicion than a reality; for recently he has once or twice ventured on discussions of such matters with a confidence and an insight which put me—me, who have plumed myself on my mental St. Simeon's tower, like a detestable intellectual cockatoo (you must untwist the metaphors!)—at his feet in the attitude of a humble learner. It took some of the conceit out of me; and yet, with true Elizabethan inconsistency I turned this new view of his character against him, and because he—well, it doesn't matter what—I gave him a pre-nuptial instalment of 'cruel and inhuman treatment.'