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Updated: May 31, 2025
"To-morrow morning I shall put ten thousand dollars into General Waymouth's campaign fund my own money." "You see, Luke," drawled the Duke, "it really looks as though Vard would be elected anyway. I might subscribe a little myself if only I had a rich grandfather, the same as Harlan has." The unhappy chairman sat down in his chair again and struggled with his anger.
The old man stopped for a moment, hat off, under a dewy maple. "Bub, do you think Vard Waymouth, lawyer that he is, didn't know just about how much that act would amount to after it got to operating? About all it did was to proclaim the rum business contraband. No teeth, no claws, not much machinery for enforcement and public sentiment cussing it, after it began to hit men individually.
Even the big public, which had gaped and shuddered at Vard, revelling in his genial villany, and enjoying in his death that succumbing to divine wrath which, as a spectacle, is next best to its successful defiance even the public felt itself defrauded. What had the painter done with their hero?
They had admired the man for looking his part so boldly; for showing the undisguised blackguard in every line of his coarse body and cruel face; the pseudo-gentleman of Lillo's picture was a poor thing compared to the real Vard.
This was even more staggering; but one couldn't question her divine sincerity. I'm afraid my one thought was to take advantage of it; and I let her go on, perceiving that if I wanted to paint Vard all I had to do was to listen. She poured out her heart. It was a glorious thing for a girl, she said, wasn't it, to be associated with such a life as that?
Never had I found my formula with such ease, such assurance; there were no hesitations, no obstructions the face was there, waiting for me; at times it almost shaped itself on the canvas. Unfortunately Miss Vard was there too ... All this time the papers were busy with the viaduct scandal. The outcry was getting louder. You remember the circumstances?
"Old Pinkney up our way is always careful to keep an eye out for the drovers," said the Duke. "When he sees one coming he hustles out into the pasture and shifts the poker off'n the breachy critter onto the best one in the bunch. And that's the way he unloads the breachy one. Vard has been wearing the poker the last few weeks, but I don't believe he intends to hook down any fences."
As for Miss Vard, her serenity was undiminished; but I half-detected a defiance in her unruffled sweetness, and during the last sittings I had the factitious vivacity of a hostess who hears her best china crashing.
He always reminded me of that... But how was I to get at him? One day it occurred to me to try talking to Miss Vard. She was a monosyllabic person, who didn't seem to see an inch beyond the last remark one had made; but suddenly I found myself blurting out, "I wonder if you know how extraordinarily paintable your father is?" and you should have seen the change that came over her.
She held it out to me almost gaily, and I was just pretending to compare it with mine, when there was a smart rap on the door and Vard stalked in. There was always a civic majesty in his gait, an air of having just stepped off his pedestal and of dissembling an oration in his umbrella; and that day he surpassed himself.
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