Bradley was dumb with the horror of it all. He had such an instinctive reverence for women that this scene produced in him a profound, almost despairing sorrow. He sat there after Cargill left him, and gazed upon it all with stern eyes. There was no more tragical thing to him than the woman who could willingly allure men for pay. It made him shudder to see those bright, pretty girls go down among those men, whose hard, peculiar, savage stare he knew almost as well as a woman.
They did not know that he was a legislator, and he escaped their importunities; but he overheard several of them, as they came up with some member--sometimes a married man--and took seats on the balcony near him.
"But you had no business to promise Miss Jones! How could you when I was living?"
"Well, then, now you've seen me, you can tell Miss Jones your contract don't go," laughed the girl.
"Let'er kick. She aint got any people who are constituents. My people are your constituents."
Bradley walked away sick at heart. As he passed a settee near the stairway, he saw another girl with a childish face looking up at a hard-featured young man, and saying with eager, wistful voice, her hands clasped, "Oh, I _hope_ you can help me. I need it so much."
Her sweet face haunted him because of its suggested helplessness and its danger. His heart swelled with an indefinable and bitter rebellion. Everywhere was a scramble for office--everywhere a pouring into the city from the farms and villages. Why was it? Was he not a part of the movement as well as these girls? Did it not all spring from the barrenness and vacuity of rural life?
Bradley went to church, for the reason that he had nothing better to do, and, in order to get as much out of it as possible, went to the largest sanctuary in the city. The hotels were thronged by men who took little thought of the day. The rotunda echoed with roaring laughter and the tramp of feet. Every new member was being introduced and manipulated, but Bradley shrank from declaring himself. His name, B. Talcott, conveyed no information to those who saw it on the register, and so he sat aside from the crowd all day, untouched by the male lobbyist or the girl office seekers.
He went next day, according to promise, to call at Cargill's office, which was on the fifth floor of a large six-story building on the main street. There were two ornamental ground-glass doors opening from the end of a narrow hall. One was marked, "Bergen & Cargill, Commission Merchants, Private," and Bradley entered. A man seated at a low table was operating a telegraphic machine. He was in his shirt sleeves, and wore blue checked over-sleeves, and carried a handkerchief under his chin to keep his collar from getting soiled. He sat near two desks which separated the private room from the larger room, in which were seated several men looking at one side of the wall, which was a blackboard checked off in small squares by red lines. Columns of figures in chalk were there displayed.