"We'll wait, Sylvia," he said, gloomily. "Of course a woman's wish in such a matter as this is law, and more than law."
"Oh, daddy, don't you see how it is?" she cried, moved by his tone. "I'm but twenty-two. I don't want to marry just yet. I haven't seen enough of this big world. Why can't we wait a little?"
"Don't be afraid, child; no one shall make you marry when you don't want to," he said, soothingly and protectingly, and this rôle became him superbly. "The subject sha'n't be mentioned to you again while the campaign lasts."
"You are the best man in the world, daddy!" she exclaimed. Suddenly she rose on tiptoe, kissed him lightly on the cheek, and then ran away. "King" Plummer walked gravely back to the lobby of the hotel, where a crowd was gathered.
Harley was one of this crowd, and on entering the room he had been met at once by Churchill, upon whose face was a look of consternation.
"Harley," he asked, "is the report true that Grayson was in danger of being kidnapped by bandits on this trip to Crow's Wing?"
"It is true, every word of it."
"My God! what will Europe say?" exclaimed Churchill, aghast.
Harley laughed, but he did not attempt to reason with Churchill. He knew that the correspondent of the Monitor was too far gone to be reached by argument.
Churchill sent a lurid despatch to the Monitor, describing in detail the folly and recklessness of the candidate, and the manner in which he neglected the great issues of the campaign for the sake of impulses, which always terminated in frivolous or dangerous adventures. And the Monitor fully backed up its correspondent, because, when the issue of the paper that published the despatch reached them, it also contained an editorial, in which the editor wrote in anguish of heart: