COMPENSATION
The next day the Premier kept to his room, and refused to look at the papers. The cabinet ministers telephoned in vain; he was out, the maid said. He hated them, every one—for their insane laughter their idiotic applause—this disloyal attendance at such a place! He could not speak to them or see them.
When his wife spoke to him, he snapped back at her like an angry rattlesnake, and asked her why she had never tried to develop a mind of her own. Her patience, submissiveness, the abject way she deferred to him and tried to please him—the very qualities he had demanded of her, now infuriated him beyond words. He began to despise her for her spiritless submission.
Fortunately for her, the days that followed took him away from home, and the household breathed easier each time he departed.
"This settles it," said Rosie, the housemaid, when he went out angrily slamming the front door. "I will never marry a member of Parliament, no, not though he goes on his bended knee to ask me. I may not have wealth or fame—but I'll have peace."
"Don't be too sure," said the cook, who was Scotch, and a
Presbyterian. "You can't be sure of any of them—they are all queer.
You never know what a man will do till he's dead."
The Woman's Parliament held sessions for three nights in the city before it began its tour of the country with every night an audience that packed the theatre to the roof. Each night the woman "Premier" took her curtain calls and received the bouquets which came showering in, but not a word could the public find out about her. The papers said her identity would remain a mystery until all the engagements were filled.
On the last night, when Pearl went to her room—she was staying with the President of the Woman's Club—a box of flowers was on her table. When she opened it, she found an armful of American Beauty roses, and a letter. Pearl's face went suddenly aflame like the roses, and a jagged flash of lightning tore her heart. He had not forgotten her!
Hastily locking her door, for no one must interrupt her, Pearl read her letter. She had faced three thousand people two hours before, but her hand trembled now as she read:
"I have been in your audience, Pearl, drinking in every word you say, rejoicing over you, loving you—but glad every minute that I played the game fair. You have won the election—of that I am sure—for you have set the whole Province laughing at the old-style politician. It is easy going for the rest of us now. Our old friend George Steadman has had the ground torn from under his feet. They all think you left Purple Springs to take some gentle and safe job in the Department of Education, and are breathing curses on this mysterious stranger who has upset the foundations of the Government. Driggs suspected as soon as he heard about the play, and he and I came into the city to see for ourselves—we held hands to keep from disgracing ourselves last night when you got up to speak.