In the Arena by Booth Tarkington

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He returned immediately to his imitation of Archimedes, only relaxing
the intensity of his attention to the text (which blurred into jargon
before his fixed gaze) when he heard that light laugh again. He pursed
his lips, looked up at the ceiling as if slightly puzzled by some
profound question beyond the reach of womankind; solved it almost
immediately, and, setting his hand to pen and paper, wrote the capital
letter "O" several hundred times on note-paper furnished by the
State. So oblivious was he, apparently, to everything but the question
of statecraft which occupied him, that he did not even look up when
the morning's session was adjourned and the lawmakers began to pass
noisily out, until Truslow stretched an arm across the aisle and
touched him upon the shoulder.

"In a moment, Senator!" answered Alonzo in his deepest chest tones. He
made it a very short moment, indeed, for he had a wild, breath-taking
suspicion of what was coming.

"I want you to meet Mrs. Protheroe, Senator," said Truslow, rising, as
Rawson, after folding his writings with infinite care, placed them in
his breast pocket.

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am," Alonzo said in a
loud, firm voice, as he got to his feet, though the place grew vague
about him when the lady stretched a charming, slender, gloved hand to
him across Truslow's desk. He gave it several solemn shakes.

"We shouldn't have disturbed you, perhaps?" she asked, smiling
radiantly upon him. "You were at some important work, I'm afraid."

He met her eyes again, and their beauty and the thoughtful kindliness
of them fairly took his breath. "I am the chairman, ma'am," he
replied, swallowing, "of the committee on drains and dikes."

"I knew it was something of great moment," she said gravely, "but I
was anxious to tell you that I was interested in your speech."

A few minutes later, without knowing how he had got his hat and coat
from the cloak-room, Alonzo Rawson found himself walking slowly
through the marble vistas of the State house to the great outer doors
with the lady and Truslow. They were talking inconsequently of the
weather, and of various legislators, but Alonzo did not know it. He
vaguely formed replies to her questions and he hardly realized what
the questions were; he was too stirringly conscious of the rich quiet
of her voice and of the caress of the grey fur of her cloak when the
back of his hand touched it--rather accidentally--now and then, as
they moved on together.

It was a cold, quick air to which they emerged and Alonzo, daring to
look at her, found that she had pulled the veil down over her face,
the colour of which, in the keen wind, was like that of June roses
seen through morning mists. At the curb a long, low, rakish black
motor-car was in waiting, the driver a mere swaddled cylinder of fur.

Truslow, opening the little door of the tonneau, offered his hand to
the lady. "Come over to the club, Senator, and lunch with me," he
said. "Mrs. Protheroe won't mind dropping us there on her way."

That was an eerie ride for Alonzo, whose feet were falling upon
strange places. His pulses jumped and his eyes swam with the tears of
unlawful speed, but his big ungloved hand tingled not with the cold so
much as with the touch of that divine grey fur upon his little finger.

"You intend to make many speeches, Mr. Truslow tells me," he heard
the rich voice saying.

"Yes ma'am," he summoned himself to answer. "I expect I will. Yes
ma'am." He paused, and then repeated, "Yes ma'am."

She looked at him for a moment. "But you will do some work, too, won't
you?" she asked slowly.

Her intention in this passed by Alonzo at the time. "Yes ma'am," he
answered. "The committee work interests me greatly, especially drains
and dikes."

"I have heard," she said, as if searching his opinion, "that almost as
much is accomplished in the committee-rooms as on the floor?
There--and in the lobby and in the hotels and clubs?"

"I don't have much to do with that!" he returned quickly. "I guess
none of them lobbyists will get much out of me! I even sent back all
their railroad tickets. They needn't come near me!"

After a pause which she may have filled with unexpressed admiration,
she ventured, almost timidly: "Do you remember that it was said that
Napoleon once attributed the secret of his power over other men to one
quality?"

"I am an admirer of Napoleon," returned the Senator from Stackpole. "I
admire all great men."

"He said that he held men by his reserve."

"It can be done," observed Alonzo, and stopped, feeling that it was
more reserved to add nothing to the sentence.

"But I suppose that such a policy," she smiled upon him inquiringly,
"wouldn't have helped him much with women?"

"No," he agreed immediately. "My opinion is that a man ought to tell a
_good_ woman everything. What is more sacred than--"

The car, turning a corner much too quickly, performed a gymnastic
squirm about an unexpected street-car and the speech ended in a gasp,
as Alonzo, not of his own volition, half rose and pressed his cheek
closely against hers. Instantaneous as it was, his heart leaped
violently, but not with fear. Could all the things of his life that
had seemed beautiful have been compressed into one instant, it would
not have brought him even the suggestion of the wild shock of joy of
that one, wherein he knew the glamorous perfume of Mrs. Protheroe's
brown hair and felt her cold cheek firm against his, with only the
grey veil between.

"I'm afraid this driver of mine will kill me some day," she said,
laughing and composedly straightening her hat. "Do you care for big
machines?"

"Yes ma'am," he answered huskily. "I haven't been in many."

"Then I'll take you again," said Mrs. Protheroe. "If you like I'll
come down to the State house and take you out for a run in the
country."

"When?" said the lost young man, staring at her with his mouth
open. "When?"

"Saturday afternoon if you like. I'll be there at two."

They were in front of the club and Truslow had already jumped
out. Mrs. Protheroe gave him her hand and they exchanged a glance
significant of something more than a friendly goodbye. Indeed, one
might have hazarded that there was something almost businesslike about
it. The confused Senator from Stackpole, climbing out reluctantly,
observed it not, nor could he have understood, even if he had seen,
that delicate signal which passed between his two companions.

When he was upon the ground Mrs. Protheroe extended her hand without
speaking, but her lips formed the word, "Saturday." Then she was
carried away quickly, while Alonzo, his heart hammering, stood looking
after her, born into a strange world, the touch of the grey fur upon
his little finger, the odour of her hair faintly about him, one side
of his face red, the other pale.

"To-day is Wednesday," he said, half aloud.

"Come on, Senator." Truslow took his arm and turned him toward the
club doors.

The other looked upon his new friend vaguely. "Why, I forgot to thank
her for the ride," he exclaimed.

"You'll have other chances, Senator," Truslow assured
him. "Mrs. Protheroe has a hobby for studying politics and she expects
to come down often. She has plenty of time--she's a widow, you know."

"I hope you didn't think," responded Alonzo indignantly, "that I
thought she was a married woman!"

After lunch they walked back to the State house together, Truslow
regarding his thoughtful companion with sidelong whimsicalness. Mrs.
Protheroe's question, suggestive of a difference between work and
speechmaking, had recurred to Alonzo, and he had determined to make
himself felt, off the floor as well as upon it. He set to this with a
fine energy, that afternoon, in his committee-room, and the Senator
from Stackpole knew his subject. On drains and dikes he had no
equal. He spoke convincingly to his colleagues of the committee upon
every bill that was before them, and he compelled their humblest
respect. He went earnestly at it, indeed, and sat very late that
night, in his room at a nearby boarding house, studying bills, trying
to keep his mind upon them and not to think of his strange morning and
of Saturday. Finally his neighbour in the next room, Senator Ezra
Trumbull, long abed, was awakened by his praying and groaned
slightly. Trumbull meant to speak to Rawson about his prayers, for
Trumbull was an early one to bed and they woke him every night. The
partition was flimsy and Alonzo addressed his Maker in the loud voice
of one accustomed to talking across wide out-of-door spaces. Trumbull
considered it especially unnecessary in the city; though, as a citizen
of a county which loved but little his neighbour's district, he felt
that in Stackpole there was good reason for a person to shout his
prayers at the top of his voice and even then have small chance to
carry through the distance. Still, it was a delicate matter to
mention and he put it off from day to day.

Thursday passed slowly for Alonzo Rawson, nor was his voice lifted in
debate. There was little but routine; and the main interest of the
chamber was in the lobbying that was being done upon the "Sunday
Baseball Bill" which had passed to its third reading and would come up
for final disposition within a fortnight. This was the measure which
Alonzo had set his heart upon defeating. It was a simple enough bill:
it provided, in substance, that baseball might be played on Sunday by
professionals in the State capital, which was proud of its league
team. Naturally, it was denounced by clergymen, and deputations of
ministers and committees from women's religious societies were
constantly arriving at the State house to protest against its
passage. The Senator from Stackpole reassured all of these with whom
he talked, and was one of their staunchest allies and supporters. He
was active in leading the wavering among his colleagues, or even the
inimical, out to meet and face the deputations. It was in this
occupation that he was engaged, on Friday afternoon, when he received
a shock.

A committee of women from a church society was waiting in the
corridor, and he had rounded-up a reluctant half-dozen senators and
led them forth to be interrogated as to their intentions regarding the
bill. The committee and the lawmakers soon distributed themselves into
little argumentative clumps, and Alonzo found himself in the centre of
these, with one of the ladies who had unfortunately--but, in her
enthusiasm, without misgivings--begun a reproachful appeal to an
advocate of the bill whose name was Goldstein.

"Senator Goldstein," she exclaimed, "I could not believe it when I
heard that you were in favour of this measure! I have heard my husband
speak in the highest terms of your old father. May I ask you what
_he_ thinks of it? If you voted for the desecration of Sunday by
a low baseball game, could you dare go home and face that good old
man?"

"Yes, madam," said Goldstein mildly; "we are _both_ Jews."

A low laugh rippled out from near-by, and Alonzo, turning almost
violently, beheld his lady of the furs. She was leaning back against a
broad pilaster, her hands sweeping the same big coat behind her, her
face turned toward him, but her eyes, sparklingly delighted, resting
upon Goldstein. Under the broad fur hat she made a picture as
enraging, to Alonzo Rawson, as it was bewitching. She appeared not to
see him, to be quite unconscious of him--and he believed it. Truslow
and five or six members of both houses were about her, and they all
seemed to be bending eagerly toward her. Alonzo was furious with her.

Her laugh lingered upon the air for a moment, then her glance swept
round the other way, omitting the Senator from Stackpole, who,
immediately putting into practice a reserve which would have
astonished Napoleon, swung about and quitted the deputation without a
word of farewell or explanation. He turned into the cloakroom and
paced the floor for three minutes with a malevolence which awed the
coloured attendants into not brushing his coat; but, when he returned
to the corridor, cautious inquiries addressed to the tobacconist,
elicited the information that the handsome lady with Senator Truslow
had departed.

Truslow himself had not gone. He was lounging in his seat when Alonzo
returned and was genially talkative. The latter refrained from
replying in kind, not altogether out of reserve, but more because of a
dim suspicion (which rose within him, the third time Truslow called
him "Senator" in one sentence) that his first opinion of the young man
as a light-minded person might have been correct.

There was no session the following afternoon, but Alonzo watched the
street from the windows of his committee-room, which overlooked the
splendid breadth of stone steps leading down from the great doors to
the pavement. There were some big bookcases in the room, whose glass
doors served as mirrors in which he more and more sternly regarded the
soft image of an entirely new grey satin tie, while the conviction
grew within him that (arguing from her behaviour of the previous day)
she would not come, and that the Stackpole girls were nobler by far at
heart than many who might wear a king's-ransom's-worth of jewels round
their throats at the opera-house in a large city. This sentiment was
heartily confirmed by the clock when it marked half-past two. He faced
the bookcase doors and struck his breast, his open hand falling across
the grey tie with tragic violence; after which, turning for the last
time to the windows, he uttered a loud exclamation and, laying hands
upon an ulster and a grey felt hat, each as new as the satin tie, ran
hurriedly from the room. The black automobile was waiting.

"I thought it possible you might see me from a window," said
Mrs. Protheroe as he opened the little door.

"I was just coming out," he returned, gasping for breath. "I
thought--from yesterday--you'd probably forgotten."

"Why 'from yesterday'?" she asked.

"I thought--I thought--" He faltered to a stop as the full, glorious
sense of her presence overcame him. She wore the same veil.

"You thought I did not see you yesterday in the corridor?"

"I thought you might have acted more--more--"

"More cordially?"

"Well," he said, looking down at his hands, "more like you knew we'd
been introduced."

At that she sat silent, looking away from him, and he, daring a quick
glance at her, found that he might let his eyes remain upon her face.
That was a dangerous place for eyes to rest, yet Alonzo Rawson was
anxious for the risk. The car flew along the even asphalt on its way
to the country like a wild goose on a long slant of wind, and, with
his foolish fury melted inexplicably into honey, Alonzo looked at
her--and looked at her--till he would have given an arm for another
quick corner and a street-car to send his cheek against that veiled,
cold cheek of hers again. It was not until they reached the alternate
vacant lots and bleak Queen Anne cottages of the city's ragged edge
that she broke the silence.

"You were talking to some one else," she said almost inaudibly.

"Yes ma'am, Goldstein, but--"

"Oh, no!" She turned toward him, lifting her hand. "You were quite the
lion among ladies."

"I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Protheroe," he said, truthfully.

"What were you talking to all those women about?"

"It was about the 'Sunday Baseball Bill.'"

"Ah! The bill you attacked in your speech, last Wednesday?"

"Yes ma'am."

"I hear you haven't made any speeches since then," she said
indifferently.

"No ma'am," he answered gently. "I kind of got the idea that I'd
better lay low for a while at first, and get in some quiet hard work."

"I understand. You are a man of intensely reserved nature."

"With men," said Alonzo, "I am. With ladies I am not so much so. I
think a good woman ought to be told--"

"But you are interested," she interrupted, "in defeating that bill?"

"Yes ma'am," he returned. "It is an iniquitous measure."

"Why?"

"Mrs. Protheroe!" he exclaimed, taken aback. "I thought all the
ladies were against it. My own mother wrote to me from Stackpole that
she'd rather see me in my grave than votin' for such a bill, and I'd
rather see myself there!"

"But are you sure that you understand it?"

"I only know it desecrates the Sabbath. That's enough for me!"

She leaned toward him and his breath came quickly.

"No. You're wrong," she said, and rested the tips of her fingers upon
his sleeve.

"I don't understand why--why you say that," he faltered. "It sounds
kind of--surprising to me--"

"Listen," she said. "Perhaps Mr. Truslow told you that I am studying
such things. I do not want to be an idle woman; I want to be of use to
the world, even if it must be only in small ways."

"I think that is a noble ambition!" he exclaimed. "I think all good
women ought--"

"Wait," she interrupted gently. "Now, that bill is a worthy one,
though it astonishes you to hear me say so. Perhaps you don't
understand the conditions. Sunday is the labouring-man's only day of
recreation--and what recreation is he offered?"

"He ought to go to church," said Alonzo promptly.

"But the fact is that he doesn't--not often--not at _all_ in the
afternoon. Wouldn't it be well to give him some wholesome way of
employing his Sunday afternoons? This bill provides for just that, and
it keeps him away from drinking too, for it forbids the sale of liquor
on the grounds."

"Yes, I know," said Alonzo plaintively. "But it ain't _right_! I
was raised to respect the Sabbath and--"

"Ah, that's what you should do! You think _I_ could believe in
anything that wouldn't make it better and more sacred?"

"Oh, no, ma'am!" he cried reproachfully. "It's only that I don't
see--"

"I am telling you." She lifted her veil and let him have the full
dazzle of her beauty. "Do you know that many thousands of labouring
people spend their Sundays drinking and carousing about the low
country road-houses because the game is played at such places on
Sunday? They go there because they never get a chance to see it played
in the city. And don't you understand that there would be no Sunday
liquor trade, no working-men poisoning themselves every seventh day in
the low groggeries, as hundreds of them do now, if they had something
to see that would interest them?--something as wholesome and fine as
this sport would be, under the conditions of this bill; something to
keep them in the open air, something to bring a little gaiety into
their dull lives!" Her voice had grown louder and it shook a little,
with a rising emotion, though its sweetness was only the more
poignant. "Oh, my dear Senator," she cried, "don't you _see_ how
wrong you are? Don't you want to _help_ these poor people?"

Her fingers, which had tightened upon his sleeve, relaxed and she
leaned back, pulling the veil down over her face as if wishing to
conceal from him that her lips trembled slightly; then resting her arm
upon the leather cushions, she turned her head away from him, staring
fixedly into the gaunt beech woods, lining the country road along
which they were now coursing. For a time she heard nothing from him,
and the only sound was the monotonous chug of the machine.

"I suppose you think it rather shocking to hear a woman talking
practically of such common-place things," she said at last, in a cold
voice, just loud enough to be heard.

"No ma'am," he said huskily.

"Then what _do_ you think?" she cried, turning toward him again
with a quick imperious gesture.

"I think I'd better go back to Stackpole," he answered very slowly,
"and resign my job. I don't see as I've got any business in the
Legislature."

"I don't understand you."

He shook his head mournfully. "It's a simple enough matter. I've
studied out a good many bills and talked 'em over and I've picked up
some influence and--"

"I know you have." she interrupted eagerly. "Mr. Truslow says that
the members of your drains and dikes committee follow your vote on
every bill."

"Yes ma'am," said Alonzo Rawson meekly, "but I expect they oughtn't
to. I've had a lesson this afternoon."

"You mean to say--"

"I mean that I didn't know what I was doing about that baseball
bill. I was just pig-headedly goin' ahead against it, not knowing
nothing about the conditions, and it took a lady to show me what they
were. I would have done a wrong thing if you hadn't stopped me."

"You mean," she cried, her splendid eyes widening with excitement and
delight; "you mean that you---that you--"

"I mean that I will vote for the bill!" He struck his clenched fist
upon his knee. "I come to the Legislature to do _right_!"

"You will, ah, you _will_ do right in this!" Mrs. Protheroe
thrust up her veil again and her face was flushed and radiant with
triumph. "And you'll work, and you'll make a speech for the bill?"

At this the righteous exaltation began rather abruptly to simmer down
in the soul of Alonzo Rawson. He saw the consequences of too violently
reversing, and knew how difficult they might be to face.

"Well, not--not exactly," he said weakly. "I expect our best plan
would be for me to lay kind of low and not say any more about the bill
at all. Of course, I'll quit workin' against it; and on the roll-call
I'll edge up close to the clerk and say 'Aye' so that only him'll hear
me. That's done every day--and I--well, I don't just exactly like to
come out too publicly for it, after my speech and all I've done
against it."

She looked at him sharply for a short second, and then offered him her
hand and said: "Let's shake hands _now_, on the vote. Think what
a triumph it is for me to know that I helped to show you the right."

"Yes ma'am," he answered confusedly, too much occupied with shaking
her hand to know what he said. She spoke one word in an undertone to
the driver and the machine took the very shortest way back to the
city.

After this excursion, several days passed, before Mrs. Protheroe came
to the State house again. Rawson was bending over the desk of Senator
Josephus Battle, the white-bearded leader of the opposition to the
"Sunday Baseball Bill," and was explaining to him the intricacies of a
certain drainage measure, when Battle, whose attention had wandered,
plucked his sleeve and whispered:

"If you want to see a mighty pretty woman that's doin' no good here,
look behind you, over there in the chair by the big fireplace at the
back of the room."

Alonzo looked.

It was she whose counterpart had been in his dream's eye every moment
of the dragging days which had been vacant of her living presence. A
number of his colleagues were hanging over her almost idiotically; her
face was gay and her voice came to his ears, as he turned, with the
accent of her cadenced laughter running through her talk like a chime
of tiny bells flitting through a strain of music.

"This is the third time she's been here," said Battle, rubbing his
beard the wrong way. "She's lobbyin' for that infernal Sabbath-
Desecration bill, but we'll beat her, my son."

"Have you made her acquaintance, Senator?" asked Alonzo stiffly.

"No, sir, and I don't want to. But I knew her father--the slickest old
beat and the smoothest talker that ever waltzed up the pike. She
married rich; her husband left her a lot of real estate around here,
but she spends most of her time away. Whatever struck her to come down
and lobby for that bill I don't know _yet_--but I will! Truslow's
helping her to help himself; he's got stock in the company that runs
the baseball team, but what she's up to--well, I'll bet there's a
nigger in the woodpile _some_where!"

"I expect there's a lot of talk like that!" said Alonzo, red with
anger, and taking up his papers abruptly.

"Yes, _sir_!" said Battle emphatically, utterly misunderstanding
the other's tone and manner. "Don't you worry, my son. We'll kill
that venomous bill right here in this chamber! We'll kill it so dead
that it won't make one flop after the axe hits it. You and me and some
others'll tend to _that_! Let her work that pretty face and those
eyes of hers all she wants to! I'm keepin' a little lookout, too--and
I'll--"

He broke off, for the angry and perturbed Alonzo had left him and gone
to his own desk. Battle, slightly surprised, rubbed his beard the
wrong way and sauntered out to the lobby to muse over a cigar. Alonzo,
loathing Battle with a great loathing, formed bitter phrases
concerning that vicious-minded old gentleman, while for a moment he
affected to be setting his desk in order. Then he walked slowly up the
aisle, conscious of a roaring in his ears (though not aware how red
they were) as he approached the semicircle about her.

He paused within three feet of her in a sudden panic of timidity, and
then, to his consternation, she looked him squarely in the face, over
the shoulders of two of the group, and the only sign of recognition
that she exhibited was a slight frown of unmistakable repulsion, which
appeared between her handsome eyebrows.

It was very swift; only Alonzo saw it; the others had no eyes for
anything but her, and were not aware of his presence behind them, for
she did not even pause in what she was saying.

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