"We insist that it shall be put on in good shape," said he, assuming that the deal had of course been made. "Let me see the contract. Yes," he said, when he had looked at the top, the middle and the bottom, "that appears to be about the proper thing. Just let me put my name on it. But we must have witnesses, eh? Well, you just wait till I go out and bring in two of as fine gentlemen as you ever saw, from two of our oldest families, Sir. One of them can write as fine a hand as you can catch up with anywhere; he used to be Clerk of our House of Representatives. Wait till I go after them."
"Oh, anybody will do, Colonel," the manager replied. "I haven't time to wait on an old family."
"All right," said the Senator, with his hat in the air. "If you don't recognize the advantage of respectability, I shall not insist upon it. We'll get these two hotel clerks back here. They look like gentlemen, Sir."
Many a day had gone by since my longing heart had fluttered with lightness. And now it was beating high with an exultant hope; but its time of joy was short. The memory of a deep voice weighted it with sadness—a voice and the words: "Any man can make a promise, but sometimes it requires a gentleman to break one."
As we stood in the bow of the boat and gazed toward the lights on the wharf at Bolanyo, the Senator put his hand upon my arm and said: "My boy, that fellow Maffet is a shrewd fellow, from shrewd Yankee stock, and he would have cheated you out of your teeth if I hadn't come along. Yes, Sir, out of your teeth."
CHAPTER XIX.
BURN THE JUNIPER.
In the enthusiasm of my dramatic occupation the figures forming in my mind had draped, as with a merciful curtain, the picture in my heart—had hidden the eyes. But now that the figures were sent away the curtain, too, was gone, and the image was bold with a new vividness. I resorted to numerous devices, walking, rowing, reading, but the picture was always before me, thrown from within; and at night, alone in my room, I could see in its vibrations the beating of my pulse.
The day of the scramble for office passed by, and the Senator and his son-in-law were elected; but Estell's majority was so small that his opponent declared that a fraud had been practiced, and gave warning that he would take his case to the courts. I met the Senator nearly every day, and sometimes we parted in embarrassment, when it would have seemed so natural for him to say "Come out to see me." But he did not say it; and out of his silence there came the information that his daughter was at home.