"I'm a liar and a hypocrite," he said bitterly. "I don't wish him well. I said what was not so when I said I hoped to see her married to some one else—I don't—I want her myself. I can't give her up! I won't give her up!"
The next morning, before the doctor started to make his calls, Robert
Gilchrist, President of the Political Club, came to see him, again.
"I am not satisfied with that interview we had with you, doctor," he said, "the day the organizer was here. That fellow made a mess of everything, and I don't blame you for turning it down. But I tell you, there's more in it than this fellow thinks. There is a real moral issue to be decided, and I am here to admit I've had a new look at things in the last few days. I am going into the city to see our leader, and I want to see how he feels. But, doctor, some of our laws are simply disgraceful; they've got to be changed."
He went on to tell the doctor of the day he went to buy Sylvester
Paine's farm.
"I never felt any meaner than when Pearl told me what it meant, and what I was doing. Doctor, if you had seen the look in Mrs. Paine's face when Pearl was putting it up to me; Lord, it was tragic. It was as if her hope of Heaven was in dispute, and didn't Pearl put it to me? Say, doctor, that girl can swing an election. No one can resist her arguments—she's so fair about everything—no one can get away from her arguments. The reason these laws have been left the way they are, is that no one knows about them. Did you know that a man can sell everything, and do what he likes with the money, no matter what his wife says—and did you know a man can take his children away from the mother—Did you know about these?"
"I did," said the doctor, "in a vague way. Fortunately they do not often come up—men are better than the laws—and they would need to be."
"Well, doctor, I'll tell you what I want to say. I believe it is your duty to run. The women need a few members there to stick up for them. Pearl thinks our party is all right too—she says they'll grant the vote—if they get in—and she was at the big meeting where the women asked them to make it a plank in their platform. She says some of the old hide-bound politicians gagged a little, but they swallowed it—they had to." "I wish you could hear Pearl talk, doctor. She seemed disappointed when I told her you weren't going to run."
"You haven't thought of any one else, Bob?" the doctor asked, after a pause. "You wouldn't consider it yourself?"
"Any one else but you will surely lose his deposit. The bridge at Purple Springs will hold them over there, and they have taken off a slice on the east of the riding and put it in Victoria—where it is sure to go against the Government anyway. No, this will go to Steadman by acclamation, unless you let us nominate you."
"Well, I'll reconsider," said the doctor, "and phone you inside of twenty-four hours."