" Then, becoming insistent, she exclaimed,
"Withdraw, Tom; please do, for my sake!"
She made a rudimentary movement as if to throw her arms around him, but it
came to nothing. Her voice, however, carried a mighty appeal to Tom's
heart. He looked at her, and thought how commonplace other young women were
when compared with her.
"You will withdraw, won't you, Tom?" she prayed. One of her hands touched
his arm. "Say yes, Tom."
For a moment his political ambition and his standing with men appeared to
dissolve into a mere mist, a finely comminuted sentiment of love; but he
kept a good hold upon himself.
"I cannot do it, Phyllis," he said, in a firm voice, which disclosed by
some indescribable inflection how much it pained him to refuse. "My whole
future depends upon success in this race. I am sorry it is your father I
must beat, but, Phyllis, I must be nominated. I can't afford to sit down in
your father's shadow. As sure as you live, I am going to beat him."
In her heart she was proud of him, and proud of this resolution that not
even she could break. From that moment she was between the millstones.
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