The grand old party would go crashing down the precipice. Was
not that a criminal price to pay for getting a reformatory institution
two years before the people were ready to pay for it? There was the
whole question in a nutshell.
The one unpleasant aspect of this view was Sharlee Weyland, the dearest
girl in the world. She would be much disappointed, and, for the first
moment, would possibly be somewhat piqued with him personally. He knew
that women were extremely unreasonable about these things; they looked
at affairs from the emotional point of view, from the point of view of
the loose, large "effect." But Sharlee Weyland was highly intelligent
and sensible, and he had not the smallest doubt of his ability to make
her understand what the unfortunate situation was. He could not tell her
everything--Plonny had cautioned secrecy about the real gravity of the
crisis--but he would tell her enough to show her how he had acted, with
keen regrets, from his sternest sense of public duty. It was a cruel
stroke of fate's that his must be the hand to bring disappointment to
the girl he loved, but after all, would she not be the first to say that
he must never put his regard for her preferences above the larger good
of City and State? He could not love her, dear, so well, loved he not
honor more.
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