Pearl hung up the receiver listlessly. The ripple of laughter and waves of voices came from the drawing-room below. A company of people had come over from the theatre, some one was calling to her outside her door, asking her if she would come down.
Suddenly it had all become distasteful to her, hollow—useless—vain—what was there in it?—a heavy sense of disappointment was on her. After all, was life going to disappoint her, cheat her—giving her so much, and yet withholding the greatest joy of all?
She caught the roses in her arms, and kissed them fiercely. "I love you—red roses," she said, "but you are not enough. You do not say much either, but I wish you would tell me why he is so stingy with me!"
* * * * *
In a week, the election was over, and the Government defeated. The newspapers, in red headlines, gave the women the credit, and declared it to be the most sensational campaign the country had ever seen. "The barbed arrows of ridicule had pierced the strong man's armor," one editorial said, "and accomplished something that the heaviest blows of the Opposition had been powerless to achieve." Dr. Clay had defeated George Steadman by a large majority, and the Millford "Mercury" was free to express itself editorially, and did so with great vigor.
The Premier had fought valiantly to the last, but his power was gone—the spell broken—he could no longer rouse an audience with his old-time eloquence. His impassioned passages had lost their punch, for the bitterness, the rage which filled his heart, showed in his words and weakened them; and the audiences who before had been kindled with his phrases, showed a disposition now to laugh in the wrong place.
The week of the campaign had been to him a week of agony, for he knew he was failing as a leader, and only his stern pride kept him going. He would let no one say he was a "welsher." The machine worked night and day, and money was freely spent, and until the last, he hoped, his party would be returned, and then he could resign and retire honorably. He did not believe the machine could be defeated. They had too many ways of controlling the vote.
When the news of the Government's defeat began to come in from the country places—the city seats having all gone to the Opposition—the old man went quietly home, with a set face of ashy pallor. He walked slowly, with sagging shoulders, and the cane which he used, did not beat the pavement in rage, but gropingly felt its way, uncertainly, as if the hand which guided it was hesitant and weak.
In his house on Water Street, a big, square brick house, with plain verandahs, the ex-Premier sat alone that night. A few of his followers—the close-in favorites—had called to see him, but had been denied. His wife, flutteringly made excuses. He sat in his big black leather chair, looking into the fireplace, where no fire was kindled, and when one of the maids had come in to build the fire, he had gently told her he liked it better as it was, dull, bleak and dead, it suited the occasion—and she had gone out hurriedly, and in the kitchen burst into tears.
"It ain't natural for him to be mild like that," she sobbed to the cook. "I'd rather have him damn me up and down. The old man's heart is broken, that's what it is. He's sittin' there so calm and quiet—it would make any one cry that has known him in his good days. I don't believe we'll ever hear him rip and tear again—the blessed old dear."