Halleck lifted his brooding eyes, and fixed them half pleadingly, half defiantly upon his friend"s face. "I did it for his wife"s sake."
"Yes, I know," returned Atherton. "I remember how you felt. I couldn"t share your feeling, but I respected it. However, I doubt if your loan was a benefit to either of them. It probably tempted him to count upon money that he hadn"t earned, and that"s always corrupting."
"Yes," Halleck replied. "But I can"t say that, so far as he"s concerned, I"m very sorry. I don"t suppose it would do her any good if I forced him to disgorge any balance he may have left from his wagers?"
"No, hardly."
"Then I shall let him alone."
The subject was dismissed, and Atherton waited for Halleck to speak of the business on which he had come. But Halleck only played with the paper cutter which his left hand had found on the table near him, and, with his chin sunk on his breast, seemed lost in an unhappy reverie.
"I hope you won"t accuse yourself of doing him an injury," said Atherton, at last, with a smile.
"Injury?" demanded Halleck, quickly. "What injury? How?"
"By lending him that money."
"Oh! I had forgotten that; I wasn"t thinking of it," returned Halleck impatiently. "I was thinking of something different. I"m aware of disliking the man so much, that I should be willing to have greater harm than that happen to him,--the greatest, for what I know. Though I don"t know, after all, that it would be harm. In another life, if there is one, he might start in a new direction; but that isn"t imaginable of him here; he can only go from bad to worse; he can only make more and more sorrow and shame.
Why shouldn"t one wish him dead, when his death could do nothing but good?"
"I suppose you don"t expect me to answer such a question seriously."
"But suppose I did?"
"Then I should say that no man ever wished any such good as that, except from the worst motive; and the less one has to do with such questions, even as abstractions, the better."
"You"re right," said Halleck. "But why do you call it an abstraction?"
"Because, in your case, nothing else is conceivable."
"I told you I was willing the worst should happen to him."
"And I didn"t believe you."
Halleck lay back in his chair, and laughed wearily. "I wish I could convince somebody of my wickedness. But it seems to be useless to try. I say things that ought to raise the roof, both to you here and to Olive at home, and you tell me you don"t believe me, and she tells me that Mrs.
Hubbard thinks me a saint. I suppose now, that if I took you by the b.u.t.ton-hole and informed you confidentially that I had stopped long enough at 129 Clover Street to put Bartley Hubbard quietly out of the way, you wouldn"t send for a policeman."
"I should send for a doctor," said Atherton.
"Such is the effect of character! And yet out of the fulness of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Out of the heart proceed all those unpleasant things enumerated in Scripture; but if you bottle them up there, and keep your label fresh, it"s all that"s required of you, by your fellow-beings, at least. What an amusing thing morality would be if it were not--otherwise.
Atherton, do you believe that such a man as Christ ever lived?"
"I know you do, Halleck," said Atherton.
"Well, that depends upon what you call _me_. It what I was--if my well Sunday-schooled youth--is I, I do. But if I, poising dubiously on the momentary present, between the past and future, am I, I"m afraid I don"t.
And yet it seems to me that I have a fairish sort of faith. I know that, if Christ never lived on earth, some One lived who imagined him, and that One must have been a G.o.d. The historical fact oughtn"t to matter. Christ being imagined, can"t you see what a comfort, what a rapture, it must have been to all these poor souls to come into such a presence and be looked through and through? The relief, the rest, the complete exposure of Judgment Day--"
"Every day is Judgment Day," said Atherton.
"Yes, I know your doctrine. But I mean the Last Day. We ought to have something in antic.i.p.ation of it, here, in our social system. Character is a superst.i.tion, a wretched fetish. Once a year wouldn"t be too often to seize upon sinners whose blameless life has placed them above suspicion, and turn them inside out before the community, so as to show people how the smoke of the Pit had been quietly blackening their interior. That would destroy character as a cult." He laughed again. "Well, this isn"t business,--though it isn"t pleasure, either, exactly. What I came for was to ask you something. I"ve finished at the Law School, and I"m just ready to begin here in the office with you. Don"t you think it would be a good time for me to give up the law? Wait a moment!" he said, arresting in Atherton an impulse to speak. "We will take the decent surprise, the friendly demur, the conscientious scruple, for granted. Now, honestly, do you believe I"ve got the making of a lawyer in me?"
"I don"t think you"re very well, Halleck," Atherton began.
"Ah, _you"re_ a lawyer! You won"t give me a direct answer!"
"I will if you wish," retorted Atherton.
"Well."
"Do you want to give it up?"
"Yes."
"Then do it. No man ever prospered in it yet who wanted to leave it. And now, since it"s come to this, I"ll tell you what I really _have_ thought, all along. I"ve thought that, if your heart was really set on the law, you would overcome your natural disadvantages for it; but if the time ever came when you were tired of it, your chance was lost: you never would make a lawyer. The question is, whether that time has come."
"It has," said Halleck.
"Then stop, here and now. You"ve wasted two years" time, but you can"t get it back by throwing more after it. I shouldn"t be your friend, I shouldn"t be an honest man, if I let you go on with me, after this. A bad lawyer is such a very bad thing. This isn"t altogether a surprise to me, but it will be a blow to your father," he added, with a questioning look at Halleck, after a moment.
"It might have been, if I hadn"t taken the precaution to deaden the place by a heavier blow first."
"Ah! you"ve spoken to him already?"
"Yes, I"ve had it out in a sneaking, hypothetical way. But I could see that, so far as the law was concerned it was enough; it served. Not that he"s consented to the other thing; there"s where I shall need your help, Atherton. I"ll tell you what my plan is." He stated it bluntly at first; and then went over the ground and explained it fully, as he had done at home. Atherton listened without permitting any sign of surprise to escape him; but he listened with increasing gravity, as if he heard something not expressed in Halleck"s slow, somewhat nasal monotone, and at the end he said, "I approve of any plan that will take you away for a while. Yes, I"ll speak to your father about it."
"If you think you need any conviction, I could use arguments to bring it about in you," said Halleck, in recognition of his friend"s ready concurrence.
"No, I don"t need any arguments to convince me, I believe," returned Atherton.
"Then I wish you"d say something to bring me round! Unless argument is used by somebody, the plan always produces a cold chill in me." Halleck smiled, but Atherton kept a sober face. "I wish my Spanish American was here! What makes you think it"s a good plan? Why should I disappoint my father"s hopes again, and wring my mother"s heart by proposing to leave them for any such uncertain good as this scheme promises?" He still challenged his friend with a jesting air, but a deeper and stronger feeling of some sort trembled in his voice.
Atherton would not reply to his emotion; he answered, with obvious evasion: "It"s a good cause; in some sort--the best sort--it"s a missionary work."
"That"s what my mother said to me."
"And the change will be good for your health."
"That"s what I said to my mother!"
Atherton remained silent, waiting apparently for Halleck to continue, or to end the matter there, as he chose.
It was some moments before Halleck went on; "You would say, wouldn"t you, that my first duty was to my own undertakings, and to those who had a right to expect their fulfilment from me? You would say that it was an enormity to tear myself away from the affection that clings to me in that home of mine, yonder, and that nothing but some supreme motive, could justify me?
And yet you pretend to be satisfied with the reasons I"ve given you. You"re not dealing honestly with me, Atherton!"
"No," said Atherton, keeping the same scrutiny of Halleck"s face which he had bent upon him throughout, but seeming now to hear his thoughts rather than his words. "I knew that you would have some supreme motive; and if I have pretended to approve your scheme on the reasons you have given me, I haven"t dealt honestly with you. But perhaps a little dishonesty is the best thing under the circ.u.mstances. You haven"t told me your real motive, and I can"t ask it."
"But you imagine it?"
"Yes."