The convention was ripe for revolution against dominant conditions, without exactly understanding how to rebel wisely and well.
Suddenly a clarion voice raised itself from the convention floor. They in the little room could hear every word.
"That's Linton," said the General, calmly. "He balked under my pat, but he's plunging into the traces handsomely under the whip!"
"Linton! After refusing? Is he presenting your name?"
"Oh, he's a politician, and one must allow a politician to weigh out his stock of goods on his own scales, and hope that he will give good measure. I'll be grateful in this instance, Mr. Thornton. They've picked out an able young speaker!"
In spite of his resentful opinion of Linton, an opinion into which he would not admit to himself that jealousy entered, Harlan, as he listened, had to acknowledge the ability of the young lawyer.
First he caught the attention of his auditors, then he skilfully suggested that he was preparing a surprise. With appealing frankness that won the interest and sympathy of the Spinney adherents, he agreed with them that the times demanded changes and reforms. He urged that these should be undertaken within the party, and then, earnestly but delicately, he hinted that the reformers had not picked the right leader. As delicately he suggested, next, that an extreme partisan, bound far in advance of nomination by factional pledges and trades that he must carry out, was not the right man to extricate the party, either. Lastly, he came to the crux of his speech, plunging into the theme with passionate eloquence that brought moisture to the eyes of Harlan. That young man was not thinking of the orator, then. His thoughts were on the old man at whose side he sat--the old man who listened in dignified patience.
Now the delegates sniffed the truth. A word had put them on the trail. They were not sure. But they suspected. And mere suspicion sent them upon their settees, cheering wildly. Distrust of Spinney, sullen disloyalty to the machine-created Everett, furnished a soil in which hope for another solution of the tangle sprang with miraculous growth.
Linton waited until the roar of voices died away. They again listened breathlessly, wondering whether their own hopes had beguiled them.