Thorndyke listened attentively, deeply interested in the human side of a man who had seemed to him to have a very small amount of the purely human in him. The little story of Letty Standiford’s health and heart and nature did not strike him as puerile—there was nothing puerile about Silas Standiford, and his love for this child of his old age was, in truth, a Titanic passion, strong enough, as he said, to make him forego the chief object of his existence: power over other men. Thorndyke really liked and pitied Letty Standiford, living her young life without guidance, in a manner possible only in America and not desirable anywhere for a young girl. He had not suspected the delicacy of her constitution, and after Senator Standiford ceased speaking said:
“I wish, Senator, you could persuade Miss Standiford to be a little more prudent about her health. The night I dined out with her, when it came time to go home she was about to pick up her skirts and run two blocks to your hotel, in her satin slippers, with sleet coming down, and the streets like glass—this, for a lark. I took her by the arm and shoved her in a cab, got in myself, and took her home. I thought she would box my ears before I got there, but I carried my point.”
“She told me about it—she tells me everything; and I thank you for taking care of the child. You may imagine what I suffer on her account.”
Senator Standiford rose then, and, resting both hands on his old-fashioned gold-headed stick, he looked full into Thorndyke’s face, and said, slowly:
“I hope we understand each other, Mr. Thorndyke. We think you a very strong man, and strong men are liable to become dangerous. The State organisation wishes you to remain where you are. But in the event that I should be re-elected and should be forced to resign, I have no hesitation in saying that unless something unforeseen happens you would certainly have my personal good wishes toward getting you the party nomination for Senator.”
“I understand you perfectly, Senator,” replied Thorndyke, with equal coolness, “and though I admit I think it a shameful state of affairs that any organisation or any man should have the power to dispose of any man’s political future, yet it is a fixed fact in our State and can’t be helped for the present. So far as your personal kindness to me goes I have the deepest sense of it, and the chances are, on the strength of what you have just said, that I may one day be senator.”
“And when you are you won’t be as much down on the State organisation as you are now,” remarked Senator Standiford, beginning to climb the marble steps. “You will probably be called a boss yourself.”
“No, I shall not,” answered Thorndyke. “I shouldn’t have the heart to put men through the mill as I have seen you and Senator Bicknell and a few others do.”
Senator Standiford professed to regard this as a pleasantry, and so they entered the Capitol together.
The day was the regular one for the meeting of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and there was a full attendance, every member being prompt except the chairman. Ten minutes after the hour struck, Crane entered. It was almost impossible for a man to have had the personal triumph he had enjoyed the day before, without showing some consciousness of it. Thorndyke had expected to see Crane crowing like chanticleer. Instead, he was remarkably quiet and subdued. He was greeted with the chaff which senators and representatives indulge in after the manner of collegians. Several members addressed him as the “Wondrous Boy,” and others, displaying copies of the Indianapolis editorial, presented their claims to him for cabinet places and embassies. One member—the Honourable Mark Antony Hudgins, a colleague of Crane’s, who posed as a greenhorn and was really a wit—solemnly engaged Thorndyke to write him a speech to deliver at the first seasonable opportunity, but warned him not to make it too much like the speech of the “Wondrous Boy.” Thorndyke laughed. He had taken no part in the joking and chaffing. Crane’s face flushed. He did not like to be reminded of Thorndyke’s share in his success, but he was too considerable a man to deny it.