He took down the receiver and got the connection.
"That you--dear?" David managed a casual voice with difficulty.
"Yes, David," came in a voice that fairly radiated across the city. "I
only wanted to ask how it goes."
"Fine--with a rip! But you never can tell--about anything. I'm a
Presbyterian and I'll die in doubt of my election. I'm learning not to
count on--things." His voice carried a mournful note that utterly belied
his radiant face. David was enjoying himself to almost the mortal limit!
"David," there was a perceptible pause--"you--there is one thing you can
always count on--isn't there--_me_?" The voice was very gallant but also
slightly palpitating. David almost lost his head but hung on tight and
came up right side.
"Some," he answered, which reply, in the light of an extremely modern use
of the word combined with the legitimate, was calculated to bring
conclusion. Then he hurried another offering on to the wire.
"How long are you going to be at home?" he asked--another dastardly
tantalization.
"I--I don't know exactly," she parried quickly. "Why?" and this from
Phoebe who had always granted interviews like a queen gives jewels! David
somewhere found the courage to lay a firm hand on himself. With just a
few more blows the citadel was his! His own heart writhed and the
uncertainty made him quake internally.
"I wish I could come over, but there are two committees waiting in the
other room for me. Do you--" a clash and buzz hummed over the wire into
the receiver. There was a jangle and tangle and a rough man's voice cut
in with, "Working on the wires, hang up, please," and David limply hung
up the receiver and collapsed in solitude, for his committees had been
evoked out of thin air.
His state of mind was positively abject. His years-old tenderness welled
up in his heart and flooded to his eyes--the dash and the pluck of her!
He reached for his hat, then hesitated; it was election eve and in two
hours he was due to address the congregation of griddle-cake discontents
on how to make men vote like ladies.
A call boy hurried in by way of a fortunate distraction and handed in a
budget of papers. David spread them out before him. They were from Susie
Carrie of the strong brush and the Civic Improvement League, containing
Sketches and specifications for the drinking fountains already pledged,
and a request for an early institution of legislation on the play-ground
proposition. Such a small thing as an uncertain election failed to
daunt the artistic fervor of Susie Carrie's fertile brain or to deter her
from making demands, however premature, on David the sympathetic.
And David Kildare dropped his head on the papers and groaned. The
Vision of a life-work rose up and menaced him and the words "sweat of his
brow" for the first time took on a concrete meaning. Such a good, old,
care-free existence he was losing, and--he seized his hat and fled
to the refreshment of bath, food and fresh raiment.