Will unb.u.t.toned his coat and reached for his inner pocket. From it he hauled out a bulky newspaper, which he handed me. It was a copy of the Sunday _Texas World_, and a front page article was heavily pencilled.
"That"s too much, Van," he protested solemnly, handing me the paper.
"Read it."
"Yes, read it all!" May added. The three were silent while I ran through the article. It was the usual exaggerated sort of newspaper stuff purporting to describe the means used to secure a piece of railroad legislation, in which I and some New York men were interested. The sting lay in the last paragraph:--
"It is commonly understood that the lobby which has been working for the past winter in the interest of this rotten bill is maintained by a group of powerful capitalists, dominated by the head of a large Chicago packing company. This gentleman, who suddenly shot into publicity the past winter as the result of an unusually brazen attempt to corrupt a Chicago judge, has opened his office not three blocks from the state Capitol, and has put his brother in charge of the corruptionist forces.... The deserving legislators of our state may soon expect to reap a rich harvest!"
A few more generalities wound up the article. I folded the paper and handed it back to Will. No one said a word for a few moments, and then Will observed:--
"That isn"t pleasant reading for an honorable man!"
"I don"t see how it should trouble you, Will. You are down there to look after our interests in a legitimate way enough. If you don"t like the job, though, I can get another man to take your place."
"Van," May interrupted, "don"t try to squirm! You know that"s true--what"s written there! You didn"t ask Will to use the bribe money, because you knew he wouldn"t do anything dishonorable. But you let him take the blame, and sent some one else with the money, no doubt. What was that partner of Mr. Sloc.u.m"s sent down there for?"
"Will,"--I turned to my brother,--"let us settle this by ourselves. It"s a man"s business, and the women won"t help us."
"No, Van," May replied. "I guess we women are as much concerned as anybody. Where there"s a question of my husband"s honor, it"s my business, too. I stay."
"Well, then, stay! And try to understand. This bill the paper rips up is all right. We must have it to put our road through to the Gulf, and if it were not for the money the Pacific Western road, which owns the state, is putting up against us we shouldn"t have any trouble. They want to keep us out, and Strauss and his crowd want to keep us out, too, so that they can have all the pie to themselves. I have been working at this thing for years in order that we can get an outlet to the seaboard, untouched by our rivals. They think to block us just at the end, but I guess they find out they are mistaken when the line comes next month.
That"s all!"
"Do you think that explanation is satisfactory? Of course, Van, you want the bill pa.s.sed!" May said ironically.
"What does it mean--what has Van been doing?" Sarah asked for the first time, sitting up and looking from one to another in a puzzled way.
None of us answered, and finally Will said:--
"I guess, Van, you and I don"t see things quite the same way. I know you wouldn"t ask me to do what you thought was bad, but all the same there"s too much that"s true in that piece in the paper, and I don"t want to have it said--there"s things going on down there that aren"t right--and May feels--I feel myself, that it ain"t right. We don"t think the same way, you and I. So we had better part now, before we have any bad feeling."
"All right! Did you come over here to-night to tell me that?"
"No, Van," May put in hastily, her voice trembling with feeling. "That wasn"t all. Will and I came to ask you to give up the sort of business you are doing down there. We want you to turn back into the right road before it is too late. If you don"t land in the penitentiary, Van Harrington, your money will do you no good. It will taste bad all your life!"
We were all pretty well stirred up by this time. I was weary of meeting these charges of dishonesty on all sides. This last was too much--to have my family accuse me of a crime, when I did not feel guilty, not for a minute!
"I don"t see why you should say that, May!" Sarah suddenly bridled.
"After all, it"s only the newspapers, and no one believes them to-day."
This unexpected defence from Sarah aroused May afresh.
"Oh, he don"t deny it! He can"t. First it was a judge--he bought a judge and paid for him, and he never came out and denied it! Now it"s worse even than that. It"s the people of a whole state he"s trying to buy through their representatives."
"Who are there for sale," I laughed.
"Does that make it any better?" she turned on me. "Seems to me, Van, you don"t know any longer the difference between black and white!"
"We"ve got a perfect right to build that road, and build it we will--that"s all there is to that matter!"
And so we argued for hours, May and I doing most of the talking. For I wanted her to understand just how the matter lay. No business in this large, modern world could be done on her plan of life. That beautiful scheme of things which the fathers of our country drew up in the stage-coach days had proved itself inadequate in a short century. We had to get along with it the best we could. But we men who did the work of the world, who developed the country, who were the life and force of the times, could not be held back by the swaddling-clothes of any political or moral theory. Results we must have: good results; and we worked with the tools we found at hand.
"It"s no use your saying any more!" May exclaimed at last. "I understand just what you mean, Van Harrington. It"s the same way it was with the judge"s peaches. You wanted "em, and you took "em! What you want you think is good for every one, especially for Van Harrington. And you are so wise and strong you think you can breakthrough all laws because laws are made for small people, like Will and me, and you and your kind are Napoleons. You talk as if you were a part of G.o.d"s destiny. And I say"--here her voice broke for a moment--"I say, Van, you are the devil"s instrument! You and those like you--and there a good many of them--are just plain big rascals, only the laws can"t get hold of you."
Her lips trembled and at the end broke into that little ironical smile which I knew so well, the smile she had when I used to get into some boyish sc.r.a.pe, and she was looking through me for the truth. But for all her hot words, I knew she had kindly feeling for me somewhere in her heart. Nevertheless, Sarah, who had been following our talk as well as she could, fired up at her accusations.
"I think, May," she remonstrated with all her dignity, "that you cannot say any more such things in my husband"s house."
"Yes," I added, "we have had too much talk all around. You can"t change my character any more than you can make wheat grow in Arizona or sugar-cane in Dakota. And I don"t want to change your views, either, May."
For though she made me pretty angry, I admired the way she stood to her guns. She was a fighter! And Will must act as she decided. Whoever travelled with her would have to travel by her star.
"Yes," my brother replied, "it"s gone too far now to change. Words don"t do any good. Come, wife, let us go."
"I am sorry for Sarah!" May said, taking Sarah"s hands in hers. "She suffers for you, Van, and she will suffer for this all her life. But I am sorrier for you, Van, for you have gone too far to suffer!"
Thereupon she swept out of the room, her little figure swelling with dignity; and Will followed her, as the needle swings to its magnet, pausing only long enough to reach for my hand and press it. When the front door shut upon them the house seemed suddenly cold and empty.
Sarah had slipped back to the lounge, and was staring up at the ceiling, a tear trickling across her face.
"I suppose May won"t ever come back again. And we were planning to take that cottage this summer so that the children could be together."
That detail didn"t seem to me very important, but it was the one that showed to Sarah the gulf which had opened between us. Sarah"s little world, by that token, had suffered an earthquake.
"Oh," I said, trying to comfort her, "like as not this will blow over!
May has disapproved of me before this."
But in my heart I felt there wasn"t much likelihood that this breach would be healed. Knowing May as I did, I had no idea that she would let Will continue with me, even in another position. No compromise for her!
To-morrow or next day Will would come into the office to take his leave....
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Somehow years had gone by in that evening._]
"I guess, Van, I"ll go to bed."
It was the first word Sarah had spoken for half an hour. The tears had dried on her face. She gave me a light kiss, and left me....
The house seemed cold and desolate, as if the pleasant kindliness of life had gone out of it when my brother and his wife had left. I made up the fire, lighted a fresh cigar, and sat down to think. Somehow years had gone by in that evening; I was heavy with the heaviness of middle life.
To take the other road, her road--that was what May demanded of me. How little she knew the situation! That would mean immediate ruin for me and mine, and for those men who had trusted me with their money. The world that I had been building all these years would crumble and vanish like smoke into the void out of which I had made it! Not that May"s talk had meaning or sense to it, either. Nor do men made as I am alter at the sound of words. We are as we are, and we grow with the power to do that which we must do. May was merely an unreasonable and narrow woman, who saw but one kind of good.
In all the forty years of my life there had been no evil as I know evil.
No man could say that he had harm from me--unless it might be poor Ed Hostetter--and for thousands of such workers as live from day to day, depending on men like me to give them their chance to earn bread for their wives and children, I had made the world better rather than worse.
Unthinking thousands lived and had children and got what good there was in life because of me and my will.
But to the others, the good ones, to Farson and Dround and May, I was but a common thief, a criminal, who fattened on the evil of the world.