"Ah," he cried, and would have folded her in his arms, but she evaded his onset and said with her dramatic intonation, "The knights of old won their lady-loves by brilliant deeds. If you are elected a member of Congress, you may come to claim me."
Reflection served only to convince Selma of the wisdom of her decision to try matrimony once more. She argued, that though a third marriage might theoretically seem repugnant if stated as a bald fact, the actual circumstances in her case not merely exonerated her from a lack of delicacy, but afforded an exhibition of progress—a gradual evolution in character. She felt light-hearted and triumphant at the thought of her impending new importance as the wife of a public man, and she interested herself exuberantly in the progress of the political campaign. She was pleased to think that her stipulation had given her lover a new spur to his ambition, and she was prepared to believe that his victory would be due to the exhaustive efforts to win which the cruel possibility of losing her obliged him to make.
This was a campaign era of torch-light processions. The rival factions expressed their confidence and enthusiasm by parading at night in a series of battalions armed with torches—some resplendently flaring, some glittering gayly through colored glass—and bearing transparencies inscribed with trenchant sentiments. The houses of their adherents along the route were illuminated from attic to cellar with rows of candles, and the atmosphere wore a dusky glow of red and green fire. To Selma all this was entrancing. She revelled in it as an introduction to the more conspicuous life which she was about to lead. She showed herself a zealous and enthusiastic partisan, shrouding the house in the darkness of Erebus on the occasion when the rival procession passed the door, and imparting to every window the effect of a blaze of light on the following evening—the night before election—when the Democratic party made its final appeal to the voters. Standing on a balcony in evening dress, in company with Mrs. Earle and Miss Luella Bailey, whom she had invited to view the procession from the River Drive, Selma looked down on the parade in an ecstatic mood. The torches, the music, the fireworks and the enthusiasm set her pulses astir and brought her heart into her mouth in melting appreciation of the sanctity of her party cause and her own enviable destiny as the wife of an American Congressman. She held in one hand a flag which she waved from time to time at the conspicuous features of the procession, and she stationed herself so that the Bengal lights and other fireworks set off by Mr. Parsons's hired man should throw her figure into conspicuous relief. The culminating interest of the, occasion for her was reached when the James O. Lyons Cadets, the special body of youthful torch-bearers devoted to advertising the merits of her lover, for whose uniforms and accoutrements he had paid, came in sight.
They proved to be the most flourishing looking organization in line. They were preceded by a large, nattily attired drum corps; their ranks were full, their torches lustrous, and they bore a number of transparencies setting forth the predominant qualifications of the candidate for Congress from the second district, the largest of which presented his portrait superscribed with the sentiment, "A vote for James O. Lyons is a vote in support of the liberties of the plain people." On the opposite end of the canvas was the picture of the king of beasts, with open jaws and bristling mane, with the motto, "Our Lyons's might will keep our institutions sacred." In the midst of this glittering escort the candidate himself rode in an open barouche on his way to the hall where he was to deliver a final speech. He was bowing to right and left, and constant cheers marked his progress along the avenue. Selma leaned forward from the balcony to obtain the earliest sight of her hero. The rolling applause was a new, intoxicating music in her ears, and filled her soul with transport. She clapped her hands vehemently; seized a roman-candle, and amid a blaze of fiery sparks exploded its colored stars in the direction of the approaching carriage. Then with the flag slanted across her bosom, she stood waiting for his recognition. It was made solemnly, but with the unequivocal demonstration of a cavalier or knight of old, for Lyons stood up, and doffing his hat toward her, made a conspicuous salute. A salvo of applause suggested to Selma that the multitude had understood that he was according to her the homage due a lady-love, and that their cheers were partly meant for her. She put her hand to her bosom with the gesture of a queen of melodrama, and culling one from a bunch of roses Lyons had sent her that afternoon threw it from the balcony at the carriage. The flower fell almost into the lap of her lover, who clutched it, pressed it to his lips, and doffed his hat again. The episode had been visible to many, and a hoarse murmur of interested approval crowned the performance. The glance of the crowds on the sidewalk was turned upward, and someone proposed three cheers for the lady in the balcony. They were given. Selma bowed to either side in delighted acknowledgment, while the torches of the cadets waved tumultuously, and there was a fresh outburst of colored fires.
"I can't keep the secret any longer," she exclaimed, turning to her two companions. "I'm engaged to be married to Mr. Lyons."
CHAPTER V.
Lyons was chosen to Congress by a liberal margin. The Congressional delegation from his State was almost evenly divided between the two parties as the result of the election, and the majorities in every case were small. Consequently the more complete victory of Lyons was a feather in his cap, and materially enhanced his political standing.
The sudden death of Mr. Parsons within a week of the election saved Selma's conscience from the strain of arranging a harmonious and equitable separation from him. She had felt that the enlargement of her sphere of life and the opportunity to serve her country which this marriage offered were paramount to any other considerations, but she was duly conscious that Mr. Parsons would miss her sorely, and she was considering the feasibility of substituting Miss Bailey as his companion in her place, when fate supplied a different solution. Selma had pledged her friends to secrecy, so that Mr. Parsons need know nothing until the plans for his happiness had been perfected, and he died in ignorance of the interesting matrimonial alliance which had been fostered under his roof. By the terms of his will Selma was bequeathed the twenty thousand dollars he had promised her. She and Mr. Lyons, with a third person, to be selected by them, were appointed trustees of the Free Hospital with which he had endowed Benham, and Mr. Lyons was nominated as the sole executor under the will.
Selma's conception that her third betrothal was coincident with spiritual development, and that she had fought her way through hampering circumstances to a higher plane of experience, had taken firm hold of her imagination. She presently confessed to Lyons that she had not hitherto appreciated the full meaning of the dogma that marriage was a sacrament. She evinced a disposition to show herself with him at church gatherings, and to cultivate the acquaintance of his pastor. She felt that she had finally secured the opportunity to live the sober, simple life appropriate to those who believed in maintaining American principles, and in eschewing luxurious and effete foreign innovations; the sort of life she had always meant to live, and from which she had been debarred. She had now not only opportunity, but a responsibility. As the bride of a Congressman, it behooved her both to pursue virtue for its own sake and for the sake of example. It was incumbent on her to preserve and promote democratic conditions in signal opposition to so-called fashionable society, and at the same time to assert her own proper dignity and the dignity of her constituents by a suitable outward show.
This last subtlety of reflection convinced Selma that they ought to occupy the house on the River Drive. Lyons himself expressed some doubts as to the advisability of this. He admitted that he could afford the expense, and that it was just such a residence as he desired, but he suggested that their motives might not be understood, and he questioned whether it were wise, with the State so close, to give his political enemies the chance to make unjust accusations.