The Governor laughed. "My poor Hadley, you're worse than I expected. I
thought you would understand me."
"Understand you? How can I, in heaven's name, when I don't understand
the situation?
"The situation--the situation?" Mornway repeated slowly. "Whose? His or
mine? I don't either--I haven't had time to think of them."
"What on earth have you been thinking of then?"
The Governor rose, with a gesture toward the window, through which,
below the slope of the Capitol grounds, the roofs and steeples of the
city spread their smoky mass to the mild air.
"Of all that is left," he said. "Of everything except Fleetwood and
myself."
"Ah--" Shackwell murmured.
Mornway turned back and sank into his seat. "Don't you see that was all
I had to turn to? The State--the country--it's big enough, in all
conscience, to fill a good deal of a void! My own walls had grown too
cramped for me, so I just stepped outside. You have no idea how it
simplified matters at once. All I had to do was to say to myself: 'Go
ahead, and do the best you can for the country.' The personal issue
simply didn't exist."
"Yes--and then?"
"Then I turned over for three days this question of the
Attorney-Generalship. I couldn't see that it was changed--how should
_my_ feelings have affected it? Fleetwood hasn't betrayed the State.
There isn't a scar on his public record--he is still the best man for
the place. My business is to appoint the best man I can find, and I
can't find any one as good as Fleetwood."
"But--but--your wife?" Shackwell stammered.
The Governor looked up with surprise. Shackwell could almost have sworn
that he had indeed forgotten the private issue.
"My wife is ready to face the consequences," he said.
Shackwell returned to his former attitude of incredulity.
"But Fleetwood? Fleetwood has no right to sacrifice--"
"To sacrifice my wife to the State? Oh, let us beware of big words.
Fleetwood was inclined to use them at first, but I managed to restore
his sense of proportion. I showed him that our private lives are only a
few feet square anyhow, and that really, to breathe freely, one must
get out of them into the open." He paused and broke out with sudden
violence, "My God, Hadley, didn't you see that Fleetwood had to obey
me?"
"Yes--I see that," said Shackwell, with reviving obstinacy. "But if
you've reached such a height and pulled him up to your side it seems to
me that from that standpoint you ought to get an even clearer view of
the madness of your position. You say you have decided to sacrifice
your own feelings and your wife's--though I'm not so sure of your right
to dispose of _her_ voice in the matter; but what if you sacrifice the
party and the State as well, in this transcendental attempt to
distinguish between private and public honor? You'll have to answer
that before you can get me to carry this letter."
The Governor did not blanch under the attack.
"I think the letter will answer you," he said calmly.
"The letter?"
"Yes. It's something more than a notification of Fleetwood's
reappointment." Mornway paused and looked steadily at his friend.
"You're afraid of an investigation--an impeachment? Well, the letter
anticipates that."
"How, in heaven's name?"
"By a plain statement of the facts. My wife has told me that she did
borrow of Fleetwood. He speculated for her and made a considerable sum,
out of which she repaid his loan. The 'Spy's' accusation is true. If it
can be proved that my wife induced me to appoint Fleetwood, it may be
argued that she sold him the appointment. But it can't be proved, and
the 'Spy' won't waste its breath in trying to, because my statement
will take the sting out of its innuendoes. I propose to anticipate its
attack by setting forth the facts in its columns, and asking the public
to decide between us. On one side is the private fact that my wife,
without my knowledge, borrowed money from Fleetwood just before I
appointed him to an important post; on the other side is his public
record and mine. I want people to see both sides and judge between
them, not in the red glare of a newspaper denunciation, but in the
plain daylight of common-sense. Charges against the private morality of
a public man are usually made in such a blare of headlines and cloud of
mud-throwing that the voice he lifts up in his defence can not make
itself heard. In this case I want the public to hear what I have to say
before the yelping begins. My letter will take the wind out of the
'Spy's' sails, and if the verdict goes against me, the case will have
been decided on its own merits, and not at the dictation of the writers
of scare heads. Even if I don't gain my end, it will be a good thing,
for once, for the public to consider dispassionately how far a private
calamity should be allowed to affect a career of public usefulness, and
the next man who goes through what I am undergoing may have cause to
thank me if no one else does."
Shackwell sat silent for a moment, with the ring of the last words in
his ears.
Suddenly he rose and held out his hand. "Give me the letter," he said.
The Governor caught him up with a kindling eye. "It's all right, then?
You see, and you'll take it?"
Shackwell met his glance with one of melancholy interrogation. "I think
I see a magnificent suicide, but it's the kind of way I shouldn't mind
dying myself."
He pulled himself silently into his coat and put the letter into one of
its pockets, but as he was turning to the door the Governor called
after him cheerfully: "By the way, Hadley, aren't you and Mrs.
Shackwell giving a big dinner to-morrow?"