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Yet he, too, regarded himself distinctly as an idealist, and he had lent a greedy ear to Selma's suggestion that mature mutual sympathy and comradeship in establishing convictions and religious aims were the source of a nobler type of love than that associated with early matrimony.
Henrik sat down by his mother, and the two continued to converse in low, quiet tones. The mother's hair was white, the face pinched from much suffering, the hands shrunken. Selma's talk disturbed her, as did that of a score or more of interested relatives; but when she talked with Henrik alone she was at peace, and she listened quietly to what he told her.
"I am glad that you were pleased," he said. "I think I covered the ground, and no one's feelings have been hurt." As though he divined what was passing through Selma's mind, he added in an aside intended only for their ears, "It was not necessary to use all our powder, for I could tell from the way the committee acted that they were with us." "I felt sure they would be," exclaimed Mrs. Earle.
Selma's remark seemed at first blush an irritating attempt to shift a favor asked into a favor given. But it was impossible for her to fail to see Selma's sensible statement of the actual truth. So, she said honestly: "Thank you for coming, Miss Gordon. I am glad of the chance." They shook hands. Selma, holding her hand, looked up at her, suddenly kissed her. Jane returned the kiss.
But she was also disconcerted by the look in Selma's eyes a look which, at first startled into momentary friendliness by the suddenness of the onslaught, had become more and more lowering until it was unpleasantly suggestive of scornful dislike. While she thus faltered, Selma drily rounded out the sentence with the words, "Because it showed that you are somebodies now."
It did her good to behold the tribute his appetite paid to the buckwheat cakes with cream and other tempting viands she set before him a pleasing contrast to Selma's starveling diet and the hearty smack with which he enforced his demands upon her own cheeks as his mother-in-law apparent, argued an affectionate disposition.
"Still I am what I am, and I've got to make the best of it." As she thought of Selma's declaration of war she became less and less disturbed about it. Selma neither would nor could do anything sly. Whatever she attempted in the open would only turn Victor Dorn more strongly toward herself.
Lyons ran ahead of his ticket, receiving more votes than the presidential electors. The campaign was full of incidents grateful to Selma's self esteem. Chief among these was the conspicuous allusions accorded her by the newspapers. The campaign itself was a fervid repetition of the stirring scenes of two years previous.
They suggested a subtle appreciation of the reasonableness of his behavior, notwithstanding its apparent failure to tally with his outward professions. Selma's reply interrupted this rhapsody. "I ought to tell you, I suppose, that I quarrelled with Mrs. Williams before I left New York. Or, rather, she quarrelled with me. She insulted me in my own house, and I was obliged to order her to leave it."
I'd have told you at once that he was in Indianapolis and wouldn't be back for two or three days." Jane straightway felt still better. The disgusting mystery of the books that did not come was now cleared up. Secure in the certainty of Selma's indifference to Davy she proceeded to punish him. "What a stupid you are, Davy!" she cried mockingly.
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