I saw right there that I"d never really measured Gorgett for as tall as he really was. "Have a cigar?" I asked Knowles, and lit one myself. But he shook his head and went on:
"You remember my taking you to call on General Buskirk"s daughter?"
"Quite well," said I, puffing pretty hard.
"An angel! A white angel! And this beast, this _boodler_ has the mud in his hands to desecrate her white garments!"
"Oh," says I.
The angel"s knight began to pace the room as he talked, clinching and unclinching his hands, while the perspiration got his hair all scraggly on his forehead. You see Farwell was doing some suffering and he wasn"t used to it.
"When she came home from abroad, a year ago," he said, "it seemed to me that a light came into my life. I"ve got to tell you the whole thing," he groaned, "but it"s hard! Well, my wife is taken up with our little boy and housekeeping,--I don"t complain of her, mind that--but she really hasn"t entered into my ambitions, my inner life. She doesn"t often read my editorials, and when she does, she hasn"t been serious in her consideration of them and of my purposes. Sometimes she differed openly from me and sometimes greeted my work for truth and light with indifference! I had learned to bear this, and more; to save myself pain I had come to shrink from exposing my real self to her. Then, when this young girl came, for the first time in my life I found real sympathy and knew what I thought I never should know; a heart attuned to my own, a mind that sought my own ideals, a soul of the same aspirations--and a perfect faith in what I was and in what it was my right to attain. She met me with open hands, and lifted me to my best self. What, unhappily, I did not find at home, I found in her--encouragement. I went to her in every mood, always to be greeted by the most exquisite perception, always the same delicate receptiveness. She gave me a sister"s love!"
I nodded; I knew he thought so.
"Well, when I went into this campaign, what more natural than that I should seek her ready sympathy at every turn, than that I should consult with her at each crisis, and, when I became the fusion candidate, that I should go to her with the news that I had taken my first great step toward my goal and had achieved thus far in my struggle for the cause of our hearts--reform?"
"You went up to Buskirk"s after the convention?" I asked.
"No; the night before." He took his head in his hands and groaned, but without pausing in his march up and down the room. "You remember, it was known by ten o"clock, after the primaries, that I should receive the nomination. As soon as I was sure, I went to her; and I found her in the same state of exaltation and pride that I was experiencing myself. There was _always_ the answer in her, I tell you, always the response that such a nature as mine craves. She took both my hands and looked at me just as a proud sister would. "I _read_ your news," she said. "It is in your face!" Wasn"t that touching? Then we sat in silence for a while, each understanding the other"s joy and triumph in the great blow I had struck for the right. I left very soon, and she came with me to the door. We stood for a moment on the step--and--for the first time, the only time in my life--I received a--a sister"s caress."
"Oh," said I. I understood how Gorgett had managed to be so calm that afternoon.
"It was the purest kiss ever given!" Farwell groaned again.
"Who was it saw you?" I asked.
He dropped into a chair and I saw the tears of rage and humiliation welling up again in his eyes.
"We might as well have been standing by the footlights in a theatre!"
he burst out, brokenly. "Who saw it? Who _didn"t_ see it? Gorgett"s sleuth-hound, the man he sent to me this afternoon, for one; the policeman on the beat that he"d stopped for a chat in front of the house, for another; a maid in the hall behind us, the policeman"s sweetheart _she_ is, for another! Oh!" he cried, "the desecration!
That one caress, one that I"d thought a sacred secret between us forever--and in plain sight of those three hideous vulgarians, all belonging to my enemy, Gorgett! Ah, the horror of it--what _horror_!"
Farwell wrung his hands and sat, gulping as if he were sick, without speaking for several moments.
"What terms did the man he sent offer from Gorgett?" I asked.
"_No_ terms! He said to go ahead and print my story about the closet; it was a matter of perfect indifference to him; that he meant to print this about me in their d.a.m.nable party-organ tomorrow, in any event, and only warned me so that I should have time to prepare Miss Buskirk.
Of course he don"t care! _I"ll_ be ruined, that"s all. Oh, the hideous injustice of it, the unreason! Don"t you see the frightful irony of it? The best thing in my life, the widest and deepest; my friendship with a good woman becomes a joke and a horror! Don"t you see that the personal scandal about me absolutely undermines me and nullifies the political scandal of the closet affair? Gorgett will come in again and the Grand Jury would laugh at any attack on him. I"m ruined for good, for good and all, for good and all!"
"Have you told Miss Buskirk?"
He uttered a kind of a shriek. "_No!_ I can"t! How could I? What do you think I"m made of? And there"s her father--and all her relatives, and mine, and my wife--my wife! If she leaves me--"
A fit of nausea seemed to overcome him and he struggled with it, shivering. "My G.o.d! Do you think I can _face_ it? I"ve come to you for help in the most wretched hour of my life--all darkness, darkness!
Just on the eve of triumph to be stricken down--it"s so cruel, so devilish! And to think of the horrible comic-weekly misery of it, caught kissing a girl, by a policeman and his sweetheart, the chambermaid! Ugh! The vulgar ridicule--the hideous laughter!" He raised his hands to me, the most grovelling figure of a man I ever saw.
"Oh, for G.o.d"s sake, help me, help me...."
Well, sir, it was sickening enough, but after he had gone, and I tumbled into bed again, I thought of Gorgett and laughed myself to sleep with admiration.
When Farwell and I got to Gorgett"s office, fairly early the next morning, Lafe was sitting there alone, expecting us, of course, as I knew he would be, but in the same characteristic, lazy att.i.tude I"d found him in, the day before; feet up on the desk, hat-brim tilted "way forward, cigar in the right-hand corner of his mouth, his hands in his pockets, his double-chin mashing down his limp collar. He didn"t even turn to look at us as we came in and closed the door.
"Come in, gentlemen, come in," says he, not moving. "I kind of thought you"d be along, about this time."
"Looking for us, were you?" I asked.
"Yes," said he. "Sit down."
We did; Farwell looking pretty pale and red-eyed, and swallowing a good deal.
There was a long, long silence. We just sat and watched Gorgett. _I_ didn"t want to say anything; and I believe Farwell couldn"t. It lasted so long that it began to look as if the little blue haze at the end of Lafe"s cigar was all that was going to happen. But by and by he turned his head ever so little, and looked at Knowles.
"Got your story for the _Herald_ set up yet?" he asked.
Farwell swallowed some more and just shook his head.
"Haven"t begun to work up the case for the Grand Jury yet?"
"No," answered Farwell, in almost a whisper, his head hanging.
"Why," Lafe said, in a tone of quiet surprise; "you haven"t given all that up, have you?"
"Yes."
"Well, ain"t that strange?" said Lafe. "What"s the trouble?"
Knowles didn"t answer. In fact, I felt mighty sorry for him.
All at once, Gorgett"s manner changed; he threw away his cigar, the only time I ever saw him do it without lighting another at the end of it. His feet came down to the floor and he wheeled round on Farwell.
"I understand your wife"s a mighty nice lady, Mr. Knowles."
Farwell"s head sank lower till we couldn"t see his face, only his fingers working kind of pitifully.
"I guess you"ve had rather a bad night?" said Gorgett, inquiringly.
"Oh, my G.o.d!" The words came out in a whisper from under Knowles"s tilted hat-brim.
"I believe I"d advise you to stick to your wife," Gorgett went on, quietly, "and let politics alone. Somehow I don"t believe you"re the kind of man for it. I"ve taken considerable interest in you for some time back, Mr. Knowles, though I don"t suppose you"ve noticed it until lately; and I don"t believe you understand the game. You"ve said some pretty hard things in your paper about me; you"ve been more or less excitable in your statements; but that"s all right. What I don"t like altogether, though, is that it seems to me you"ve been really tooting your own horn all the time--calling everybody dishonest and scoundrels, to shove _yourself_ forward. That always ends in sort of a lonely position. I reckon you feel considerably lonely, just now?
Well, yesterday, I understand you were talking pretty free about the penitentiary. Now, that ain"t just the way to act, according to my notion. It"s a bad word. Here we are, he and I"--he pointed to me--"carrying on our little fight according to the rules, enjoying it and blocking each other, gaining a point here and losing one there, everything perfectly good-natured, when _you_ turn up and begin to talk about the penitentiary! That ain"t quite the thing. You see words like that are liable to stir up the pa.s.sions. It"s dangerous.
You were trusted, when they told you the closet story, to regard it as a confidence--though they didn"t go through the form of pledging you--because your people had given their word not to betray Genz. But you couldn"t see it and there you went, talking about the Grand Jury and stripes and so on, stirring up pa.s.sions and ugly feelings. And I want to tell you that the man who can afford to do that has to be mighty immaculate himself. The only way to play politics, whatever you"re _for_, is to learn the game first. Then you"ll know how far you can go and what your own record will stand. There ain"t a man alive whose record will stand too much, Mr. Knowles--and when you get to thinking about that and what your own is, it makes you feel more like treating your fellow-sinners a good deal gentler than you would otherwise. Now _I"ve_ got a wife and two little girls, and my old mother"s proud of me (though you wouldn"t think it) and they"d hate it a good deal to see me sent over the road for playing the game the best I could as I found it."
He paused for a moment, looking sad and almost embarra.s.sed. "It ain"t any great pleasure to me," he said, "to think that the people have let it get to be the game that it is. But I reckon it"s good for _you_. I reckon the best thing that ever happened to you is having to come here this morning to ask mercy of a man you looked down on."
Farwell shifted a little in his chair, but he didn"t speak, and Gorgett went on:
"I suppose you think it"s mighty hard that your private character should be used against you in a political question by a man you call a public corruptionist. But I"m in a position where I can"t take any chances against an antagonist that won"t play the game my way. I had to find your vulnerable point to defend myself, and, in finding it, I find that there"s no need to defend myself any longer, because it makes all your weapons ineffective. I believe the trouble with you, Mr. Knowles, is that you"ve never realized that politicians are human beings. But we are: we breathe and laugh and like to do right, like other folks. And, like most men, you"ve thought you were different from other men, and you aren"t. So, here you are. I believe you said you"d had a hard night?"