I saw a good deal of Dorothy at Reverdy’s; she came to my house on occasions when I entertained.  She was as lovely as ever, but she did not have Abigail’s mind.  She was luxurious in her temperament, aristocratic in her outlook and tastes.  She did not stimulate me as Abigail did, but she involved my emotional nature more powerfully.  Something of resentment fortified my present neutral attitude toward her.  Why, after all, need Zoe have affected her so profoundly?  Perhaps my own thinking was toughened by my experiences.  I had killed a man for Zoe; I had been through a trial with Fortescue.  Surely if there had been any bloom on me it had been rubbed off.  Why had not Dorothy seen in me a practical, courageous heart, who took his fate and made the best of it?  Was there something lacking of depth, of genuineness, in Dorothy’s nature?

There was much stirring now in the country due to the campaign.  The log cabin was apotheosized; hard cider was the toast to America’s greatness.  The hero of Tippecanoe, the pioneer soldier, Indian fighter, the plain man, the Whig, was pitted against the well-groomed and resourceful Van Buren.  Reverdy, because of his admiration for Douglas, was for Van Buren; and Dorothy had no thought of any other allegiance.  We made up parties to attend the rallies, to see the marching men, to hear the speeches.  Douglas, who was campaigning with tireless energy, came to Jacksonville to address the people.  He was now twenty-seven and a master.  He controlled the party’s organization in Illinois.  Practice had given solidity and balance to his oratory.  He moulded the materials of all questions favorably to his side.  Audiences rose up to him as if hypnotized.  He swept Illinois for Van Buren.  But Harrison and Tyler were elected.  The vote of Illinois was a personal triumph for Douglas.

CHAPTER XXVII

A few days before Dorothy returned to Nashville we spent an evening together, first at Reverdy’s home, later in a walk through the country.  It was moonlight of middle November, and the air was mild with a late accession of Indian summer.  I sensed in Dorothy a complete erasure of everything in my life that had stayed her coming to me as my bride.  It was not so much what she said as it was her attitude, her tone of voice, her whole manner.  But my own troubles had formed a nuclear hardness of thinking in me, which like a lodestar attracted what was for me, and left quiet and at a distance what was not mine.

I was delighted to be with Dorothy, but I did not stand with her on the basis of my former emotional interest.  In a way she symbolized the false standards, the languorous aristocracy of the South.  She was a presence of romantic music, a warmth that produces dreams.  She was not the intense light that shone around Abigail.  I had a letter from Abigail in my pocket.  Parts of it wedged themselves through Dorothy’s words as she rattled on more and more.  I might as well have been thinking of my troubles; but in point of fact it was of Abigail.