The Hermit and the Wild Woman, and Other Stories Part 26

"Why I wanted you to help him? Yes."

"Oh, G.o.d! ... He wouldn't take money?"

"No, he wouldn't take money."

He sat silent, looking at her, noting with a morbid minuteness the exquisite finish of her dress, that finish which seemed so much a part of herself that it had never before struck him as a merely purchasable accessory. He knew so little what a woman's dresses cost! For a moment he lost himself in vague calculations; finally, he said: "What did you do it for?"

"Do what?"

"Take money from Fleetwood."

She paused a moment and then said: "If you will let me explain--"

And then he saw that, all along, he had thought she would be able to disprove it! A smothering blackness closed in on him, and he had a physical struggle for breath. Then he forced himself to his feet and said: "He was your lover?"

"Oh, no, no, _no!_" she cried with conviction. He hardly knew whether the shadow lifted or deepened; the fact that he instantly believed her seemed only to increase his bewilderment. Presently he found that she was still speaking, and he began to listen to her, catching a phrase now and then through the deafening clamor of his thoughts.

It amounted to this--that just after her husband's first election, when Fleetwood's claims for the Attorney-Generals.h.i.+p were being vainly pressed by a group of his political backers, Mrs. Mornway had chanced to sit next to him once or twice at dinner. One day, on the strength of these meetings, he had called and asked her frankly if she would not help him with her husband. He had made a clean breast of his past, but had said that, under a man like Mornway, he felt he could wipe out his political sins and purify himself while he served the party. She knew the party needed his brains, and she believed in him--she was sure he would keep his word. She would have spoken in his favor in any case--she would have used all her influence to overcome her husband's prejudice--and it was by a mere accident that, in the course of one of their talks, he happened to give her a "tip" (his past connections were still useful for such purposes), a "tip" which, in the first invading pressure of debt after Mornway's election, she had not had the courage to refuse. Fleetwood had made some money for her--yes, about thirty thousand dollars. She had repaid what he had lent her, and there had been no further transactions of the kind between them. But it appeared that Gregg, before his dismissal, had got hold of an old check-book which gave a hint of the story, and had pieced the rest together with the help of a clerk in Fleetwood's office. The "Spy" was in possession of the facts, but did not mean to use them if Fleetwood was not reappointed, the Lead Trust having no personal grudge against Mornway.

Her story ended there, and she sat silent while he continued to look at her. So much had perished in the wreck of his faith that he did not attach much value to what remained. It scarcely mattered that he believed her when the truth was so sordid. There had been, after all, nothing to envy him for but what Mrs. Nimick had seen; the core of his life was as mean and miserable as his sister's....

His wife rose at length, pale but still calm. She had a kind of external dignity which she wore like one of her rich dresses. It seemed as little a part of her now as the finery of which his gaze contemptuously reckoned the cost.

"John--" she said, laying her hand on his shoulder.

He looked up wearily. "You had better go to bed," he interjected.

"Don't look at me in that way. I am prepared for your being angry with me--I made a dreadful mistake and must bear my punishment: any punishment you choose to inflict. But you must think of yourself first--you must spare yourself. Why should you be so horribly unhappy?

Don't you see that since Mr. Fleetwood has behaved so well we are quite safe? And I swear to you I have paid back every penny of the money."

VI

THREE days later Shackwell was summoned by telephone to the Governor's office in the Capitol. There had been, in the interval, no communication between the two men, and the papers had been silent or non-committal.

In the lobby Shackwell met Fleetwood leaving the building. For a moment the Attorney-General seemed about to speak; then he nodded and pa.s.sed on, leaving to Shackwell the impression of a face more than ever thrust forward like a weapon.

The Governor sat behind his desk in the clear autumn sunlight. In contrast to Fleetwood he seemed relaxed and unwieldy, and the face he turned to his friend had a gray look of convalescence. Shackwell wondered, with a start of apprehension, if he and Fleetwood had been together.

He relieved himself of his overcoat without speaking, and when he turned again toward Mornway he was surprised to find the latter watching him with a smile.

"It's good to see you, Hadley," the Governor said.

"I waited to be sent for; I knew you'd let me know when you wanted me,"

Shackwell replied.

"I didn't send for you on purpose. If I had, I might have asked your advice, and I didn't want to ask anybody's advice but my own." The Governor spoke steadily, but in a voice a trifle too well disciplined to be natural. "I've had a three days' conference with myself," he continued, "and now that everything is settled I want you to do me a favor."

"Yes?" Shackwell a.s.sented. The private issues of the affair were still wrapped in mystery to him, but he had never had a moment's doubt as to its public solution, and he had no difficulty in conjecturing the nature of the service he was to render. His heart ached for Mornway, but he was glad the inevitable step was to be taken without further delay.

"Everything is settled," the Governor repeated, "and I want you to notify the press that I have decided to reappoint Fleetwood."

Shackwell bounded from his seat. "Good heavens!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"To reappoint Fleetwood," the Governor repeated, "because at the present juncture of affairs he is the only man for the place. The work we began together is not finished, and I can't finish it without him.

Remember the vistas opened by the Lead Trust investigation--he knows where they lead and no one else does. We must put that inquiry through, no matter what it costs us, and that is why I have sent for you to take this letter to the 'Spy.'"

Shackwell's hand drew back from the proffered envelope.

"You say you don't want my advice, but you can't expect me to go on such an errand with my eyes shut. What on earth are you driving at? Of course Fleetwood will persist in refusing."

Mornway smiled. "He did persist--for three hours. But when he left here just now he had given me his word to accept."

Shackwell groaned. "Then I am dealing with two madmen instead of one."

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 ma.s.s 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-Generals.h.i.+p. 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 att.i.tude 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 G.o.d, Hadley, didn't you see that Fleetwood had to obey me?"