THE Executive stopped for a moment and scrutinized his visitors
quizzically; then he laughed. “May I inquire, gentlemen, whence arises
this gloom?”
The Auditor bowed low. “Good sir,” he said, “your Excellency fails to
distinguish between gloom and the gravity of sages.”
“If the funereal,” replied the Governor, “be a _sine qua non_ of the
converse of the wise, then there has been here this night great cause
for envy on the part of Solomon, the Son of David, King of Israel; for
such gloom I have not met with in a world of evil days.”
“And, sir,” responded the Auditor, waving his hand like a barbaric
king, “if absence of respect for the dignity of the thoughtful be a
symptom of organic mental defect, then there is now here, in truth,
great cause for envy upon the part of Wamba, the Son of Witless, the
Son of Weatherbrain. For such amiable impudence is marvellous to
contemplate.”
“Boys,” said the gambler rising, “if you will kindly come down out
of the clouds, I will be much obliged to you both, because I have got
something to say, and this is just as good a time to say it as any.”
The Auditor resumed his seat at the table. The Governor took up a chair,
moved it back deliberately into the shadow of the room and sat down.
“It is like this,” continued the gambler, “we three have stood in for a
long time, and I guess we know each other pretty well. We did n't take
no oath to stand by each other when we started, but I reckon that is
what we calculated to do. Anyway that is what we did do. If we had n't a
done it, we would n't have been deuce high in this Southwest. I did n't
have no faith in Al's machine when it started; I thought it was a wild
goose chase, but I did n't say nothing, because I had nothing to lose.
I was broke, and anything coming my way was pure velvet, so I joined in
and come out here.
“Since that time we have had our ups and downs, if God's creatures ever
had 'em. We have lied a lot, and we've stole some, and we've starved
most of the time, and we have been poor and miserable and broke, but we
have played fair with each other, and we have never stacked the pack
nor dealt from the bottom. Then, one day, the luck turned and we won out
through the roof, just like it always does if you stay long enough and
keep doubling the bet. You two were elected, and Al appointed me.
“I reckon none of us are going to forget the hell that appointment
raised. They said I was an ignorant understrapper, a short card gambler,
and a leary element; and it was true, every blooming word of it Then the
newspapers pitched into Al; they said that it was to be hoped that the
new Governor would now have 'the moral courage to at least suppress
the shady member of his machine'--them are the very words; I'll never
forget 'em, and they meant me.
“I guess I went to you boys, and told you I had better keep out, but I
reckon I did n't put up a very stiff case, because I was hot at the row.
I would n't have cared if the howlers had been better men than I was,
but I knew they were all just the same kind of cattle--unbranded,
straggling steers, gathered up from anywhere but a good place. As for
being shady, there was n't a man between the Gila and the Pecos white
enough to pass an Eastern grand jury, and as for being a gambler, there
was n't a mother's son of the batch that would n't have coppered his
soul on a black jack if the bank would have cashed it for a dollar.”
Hergan paused for a moment and looked at the Auditor. Then he added,
“Exceptin' of course, you and Al.”
“Then,” the gambler went on: “I guess Al got mad. He made a little
speech; we was all there, and it was mighty good talk to hear. He
said there had n't been no 'invidious distinctions'--them were his
words,--during all the years when nothing had come our way but just one
dose of bad luck after another until we reckoned there was n't no God at
all,--least ways, if there was any, that He did n't operate south of
the Central Pacific Railroad, and now when we had finally landed on our
feet, there was n't going to be no 'invidious distinctions.' I am bound
to say that it seemed mighty good to hear Al talk like he did, and I
went ahead and let him appoint me.”
The Secretary of State moved a little nearer to the table, and an
almost imperceptible shadow flitted across his face. “All the time,” he
continued, “I knowed it was wrong. I knowed that what the mudslingers
were sayin' was gospel. I knowed that I was n't fit for the job no more
than a Chinaman is fit for a pope. I knowed that the gambler in me was
ground in, and the other was just only rubbed on the outside, and that
the gambler part was going to run things,--and it did.”
The man paused for a moment and turned to the Governor. “Now,” he said,
“I have come to the point, and it's this: I got into this hole and I am
going to get out of it; it's my game now; I am not going to stand any
side bets. You have both got to promise me right here that you will keep
your hands off this matter,--clear off--unless I say it goes.”
The gambler stopped, rested his arms heavily on the table and looked at
his companions. The Virginian and the Executive were silent; both men
realized fully the true import of Hergan's demand. He was seeking to
prevent any sacrifice on their part; that was all, and if he had been
the most skilful diplomat in the world, he could not have moved more
adroitly.
The Governor looked up at the massive face of the gambler, marred by
evil circumstance and the riot of dissipation, and wondered--as he had
wondered many a time before,--at the splendid unselfishness of this
man. From whence could have come this flower of nobility? The life of
Ambercrombie Hergan had been sterile soil indeed for such a plant as
this. How could it be in the economy of men that such princely fidelity
obtained alone even without trace of the common attendant virtues?
For the obligations of the law Ambercrombie Hergan had no regard. For
the obligations of the citizen he had no regard. Even for the common
obligations of morality he maintained the most stolid unconcern. Honesty
was a name to him, and right and duty and honor were merely names to
him. Yet blooming in the barren garden of this gambler's heart was
something fairer than them all.
“Well,” asked Hergan, with a trace of anxiety in his voice, “are you
going to promise?”
The Governor arose. “This is a very serious matter,” he said slowly; “we
must be given a few minutes in which to decide.”
“That 's fair enough,” replied the gambler. “You two can go into the
other room. I'll wait.”
The Auditor and the Executive retired, and the Secretary of State
resumed his seat beside the table, the suggestion of a smile on his
face, he knew perfectly that if he could secure the promise of his
companions it would be maintained inviolate.
Presently the door opened and the two men entered. “Bill,” said the
Governor, “we promise.”
The gambler arose, and stretched his long limbs like one relieved from
the weight of a crushing burden. Then he turned to his companions.
“Boys,” he said almost gaily, “I may as well tell you now that I am
going to New York Saturday night.”
“And I may add,” responded the Governor, “that I am going Friday night.”
V
YOU see,” the Governor was saying,” the failure of this bank in San
Francisco has wiped out every penny I had in the world. On the fourth
day of next March I will be poorer than the ordinary drayman. So poor
that I must begin all over again, and I have no heart to do it.”
Miss Marion Lanmar was silent. Her bands rested upon the great aims of
the chair in which she was seated. Her face might have been a cast; it
was so very motionless.
“I should not mind if it were not for you,” the young man went on. “I
mean,”--he hesitated for a moment,--“if I had never seen you; if I had
never known you. But now the effort would seem so miserably inadequate,
if it were not made for you. I have loved you and lived for you too
long. I have grown accustomed to you as the mighty incentive. Every path
that I have travelled has had you waiting at the end. Every battle I
have fought has seemed to hold your happiness in its balance. Even the
meagre gains of all the weary commonplace days have been to me so much
or so little added to the kingdom of the queen. So I could have gone on
to the end, but now, without you I have no heart at all.”
The man leaned over and rested his arm on the mantel-shelf. “I have read
somewhere,” he continued, “how the evil fiend strove to destroy a man
whom he hated; how he robbed him of his wealth, of his friends, of his
fair fame, and how the man worked on, laughing in the demon's face, and
how it all failed, until one morning the evil fiend reached down into
the man's heart and plucked the motive out of his life, and then the
man threw away his tools and came and sat in the doorway of his shop. I
suppose it is all very cowardly, to talk as I am talking, but it would
be very much worse, I should think, to deceive myself and you.” The
woman did not answer. She was looking into the fire. The little blue
flames in the wide fireplace danced up and down upon their bed of coal
in impish merriment at all the trouble of men's lives.
Presently the man began again. “Yet a woman cannot wait always,” he
said, “and I have no right to ask it of you. I must step aside out of
your life and beg to be forgotten. It is a terrible ordeal for one who
has gone down into the _melée_ with his lady's colors on his helm to
return beaten and overthrown and say, 'This quest is not for me.' It is
hard to have the hope of one's life battered out and to live on in the
world, and yet men do, and I shall, I presume.
“We are taught in youth that the world is a happy place, and I judge
that it is a bit of illusion, like the black goblin and the fairies, and
yet we all try very hard to believe the old housewife tales, and cling
to them, and give them up grudgingly and with regret. I shall always
remember how very sorry I was when I first realized that there really
were no fairies. I was only a child, but it made me unhappy for days.
It seemed to put all my reckoning out of joint. And so I have always
believed that happiness existed in the world, and that it came to men
somewhere in their lives about as the beautiful princess comes in the
fairy stories. It never occurred to me to doubt its coming. True, it
never came, but everything that did come seemed only to prepare a way
for its coming at some day farther on. Now I see that this is just an
illusion like the others, and I confess that the discovery has jarred me
frightfully.”
The man's voice wavered for a moment; then it grew stronger. “I don't
quite see how the world can ever seem a beautiful place after to-night.
The sky may be very blue indeed, but the man whose eyes ache will not
look up to see it. The birds may sing gloriously in the trees, but the
man whose heart is an empty house will not care at all.”
Randal stopped and looked down at the woman. He noticed how very soft
and heavy her brown hair was, and how delicate and slender her hands
were. He noted vaguely, too, the artistic effect of the folds of her
gown and the shadows on her face.
“Marion,” he said, “If I did not love you better than any other thing in
the world, I would not be urging these bitter arguments against my own
happiness. I would not be so desperately anxious about your welfare. I
should not be so fearful of the future. I should take the chance without
the hesitation of a moment. But the very depth of my love makes me a
coward. I could not bear to see you subject to all the evil things that
come with poverty. I know what a frightful plight it is--how it crushes
out the sweetness and the nobility of one's life, how it squeezes the
heart, day after day, until it finally becomes a dry husk in one's
breast.”
Randal's voice was now thick with emotion. “Marion,” he said, “do you
hear me? Do you believe me?”
The woman's hands tightened on the great arms of the chair, and for a
moment she was silent; then she began to speak, slowly and distinctly.
“I do not know.” she said. “I must have time to think. Yet I have
believed you all these years. I must believe you now. Yes, I do believe
you now. But you are wrong, frightfully wrong. You forget that a woman
is a human being with a heart. You think I am afraid of the world,
afraid of poverty, afraid of life as God makes it, as God wills it; that
I am a fragile something that the rain and the sunlight would ruin if it
touched; that I am a something more or less than you, a something that
requires ease and luxury and all the gilded stage-setting of wealth--and
you are wrong. If I love you, of what value to me are all those other
things without you? If I love you, it is not all these things I want--it
is you. I ask you to answer this, and by what is true in your heart,
know what is true in mine: Would you be happy with all that wealth can
give you and without me?”
“No,” said the man, “not after to-night. No.”
“No more would I,” added the woman.
The heart, as it is said, speaks clearer to the heart when tongues are
silent, and it is said that grief and happiness when riding high in
their meridian have no need for the cumbrous medium of language.
After a long silence, Miss Lanmar began again. “Men cannot understand,”
she said; “a woman's heart is so miserably strange. Things either slip
around it, leaving no mark at all, or they sink in and become a very
part of the woman's heart itself. There is no middle ground; no half
joy; no middle hurt. So it comes about that if one's image creeps into
her heart, it must remain. True, the world may never know; the world is
very stupid. But for all that, the woman's heart will hold its tenant,
and when she is alone or in the dark, she will know and feel its
presence. It may be that the woman will pray to be rid of the evil
thing, or it may be that she will pray to hold it always as a gift of
good, but be that as it happens, the woman's heart will remain forever
helpless to evict its tenant.
“Is it strange, then, if I love you, that I should want to go with you
and live with you, and be with you always, and make your joys and your
burdens my joys and my burdens, and have a share and an interest in
everything that comes to you? Is it strange that I should hold wealth or
place or even honor as nothing against you? Is it strange that I should
be miserable, thoroughly, utterly miserable with every other thing in
the world, and you denied?”
The woman's voice faltered and broke; her hands relaxed, and began to
slip from the great arms of the chair. The man came over, and knelt down
beside her and put his arms around her.
“Marion, dear heart,” he said, “you do love me. You will trust me a
little while,--just a little while?”
The woman's head slipped down on his shoulder. “Love you!” she murmured,
“I have always loved you. Surely I shall always love you. But when you
are gone, the world is so empty, so miserably empty!”