He did not wholly trust these two, and he could not exactly admire them and their methods, which were the roughest of all, but they were useful.
“I’m glad to learn,” he said, at parting, “that things are looking all right with you, Pat, and you, Mike,” nodding to each in turn.
“We’re going to need the most we can get out of everybody. I depend on you two to make a fine showing—the best of any.
The rest of us will not forget it when the plums are being handed around afterward.”
“Oh, you can depend on me to do the best I can always,” commented Mr. Kerrigan, sympathetically.
“It’s a tough year, but we haven’t failed yet.”
“And me, Chief!
That goes for me,” observed Mr. Tiernan, raucously.
“I guess I can do as well as I have.”
“Good for you, Mike!” soothed McKenty, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“And you, too, Kerrigan.
Yours are the key wards, and we understand that.
I’ve always been sorry that the leaders couldn’t agree on you two for something better than councilmen; but next time there won’t be any doubt of it, if I have any influence then.”
He went in and closed the door.
Outside a cool October wind was whipping dead leaves and weed stalks along the pavements.
Neither Tiernan nor Kerrigan spoke, though they had come away together, until they were two hundred feet down the avenue toward Van Buren.
“Some talk, that, eh?” commented Mr. Tiernan, eying Mr. Kerrigan in the flare of a passing gas-lamp.
“Sure.
That’s the stuff they always hand out when they’re up against it.
Pretty kind words, eh?”
“And after ten years of about the roughest work that’s done, eh?
It’s about time, what?
Say, it’s a wonder he didn’t think of that last June when the convention was in session.
“Tush! Mikey,” smiled Mr. Kerrigan, grimly.
“You’re a bad little boy.
You want your pie too soon.
Wait another two or four or six years, like Paddy Kerrigan and the others.”
“Yes, I will—not,” growled Mr. Tiernan.
“Wait’ll the sixth.”
“No more, will I,” replied Mr. Kerrigan.
“Say, we know a trick that beats that next-year business to a pulp.
What?”
“You’re dead right,” commented Mr. Tiernan.
And so they went peacefully home.
Chapter XXXVII. Aileen’s Revenge
The interesting Polk Lynde, rising one morning, decided that his affair with Aileen, sympathetic as it was, must culminate in the one fashion satisfactory to him here and now—this day, if possible, or the next.
Since the luncheon some considerable time had elapsed, and although he had tried to seek her out in various ways, Aileen, owing to a certain feeling that she must think and not jeopardize her future, had evaded him.
She realized well enough that she was at the turning of the balance, now that opportunity was knocking so loudly at her door, and she was exceedingly coy and distrait.
In spite of herself the old grip of Cowperwood was over her—the conviction that he was such a tremendous figure in the world—and this made her strangely disturbed, nebulous, and meditative.
Another type of woman, having troubled as much as she had done, would have made short work of it, particularly since the details in regard to Mrs. Hand had been added.
Not so Aileen.
She could not quite forget the early vows and promises exchanged between them, nor conquer the often-fractured illusions that he might still behave himself.
On the other hand, Polk Lynde, marauder, social adventurer, a bucaneer of the affections, was not so easily to be put aside, delayed, and gainsaid.
Not unlike Cowperwood, he was a man of real force, and his methods, in so far as women were concerned, were even more daring.
Long trifling with the sex had taught him that they were coy, uncertain, foolishly inconsistent in their moods, even with regard to what they most desired.
If one contemplated victory, it had frequently to be taken with an iron hand.
From this attitude on his part had sprung his rather dark fame.
Aileen felt it on the day that she took lunch with him.
His solemn, dark eyes were treacherously sweet.
She felt as if she might be paving the way for some situation in which she would find herself helpless before his sudden mood—and yet she had come.