AS HOLMAN loitered along the pavement that June morning, glad once more to be back in Springfield after so many years, he recalled with a sigh another morning, far gone, when first he had come up to the capital of his state. “A morning just like this,” he was thinking, “all green and sunny and hopeful and—pure. My God!” But he put aside regret; it was enough just then to be back after so many years of absence—years of dingy poverty which had kept him down in stupid Jasper, never once able to get back during the session, if only for a day to see the boys!—even as a man of fifty, with gray hair straggling beneath his broad, slouch hat, with his long, dusty coat, and worn, old shoes, that fell softly on the hot sidewalk, far other than the young representative who had come up to the capital so long before. In Capitol Avenue he had the state house in full view, the gray, swelling dome still patiently brooding over the stupidities and trivialities which the bickering human beings, running about like insects below, were proudly and solemnly achieving. The little flags were at their staffs on either wing. Once, at the sight he might have hurried, knowing his presence to be required beneath that flag on the house wing. No need now to hasten any more; he was not needed there, nor anywhere in the world.
The sidewalk was filled with men striding like the statesmen they felt themselves to be, and none among them now to remember him; but he walked with them under the railroad’s ugly trestle, past the old white house on the little hill, still with its lightning-rod to keep alive one of the best of Lincoln stories, and up the broad walk to the state house. Inside, the cool shades of the big pile were grateful as they used to be. Through the open doors of offices he could see clerks at work, or at least at desks, somehow coming off victorious, it seemed, in their desperate business of holding on to their slippery, eel-like, political jobs; then the crowded elevator—and the inevitable old soldier to operate it. All as it used to be; and he, like some risen ghost long since laid in its political grave, stalking among earthly presences that had forgotten him.
The doorkeepers at the house regarded him with the official misanthropy and distrust, but Holman quelled their glance, pronounced the word “Ex-member,” and so passed in to the one barren prerogative left him out of the years of former power and prestige.
The house, on the order of senate bills on first reading, was inattentive; members lolled in their seats, read newspapers, talked, gossiped, wrote letters, now and then threw paper wads at one another—incipiencies of that horseplay which would mark the session’s close. The clerk mumbled the said senate bills on first reading, the speaker turned in his chair to talk with some one on the divan behind him, swinging about now and then to say, “First reading of the bill!” and to tap the sounding-board with his gavel. And, of them all, not one he knew, not one to recognize him! But, yes, there was one, after all; just one. Down the center aisle, reclining in his chair nonchalantly, was a young fellow, almost a boy to Holman’s disadvantage point of years, whose head, turned at that instant, showed a profile which, when age and authority should visit it, would cause one to remark it; a fair brow, strong nose and good-humored lips parting now in a smile at some remark a member across the aisle had made. As Holman looked at young McCray his mind went back to another morning in another June, when the air came in through the tall, open windows with the breath of young summer in Illinois, the very odor of the prairie flowers themselves, the morning that Baldwin had come to him. And now McCray sat there, representing his old district, with all the opportunities, dreams, ambitions, illusions he himself had had—and lost.
But Holman was not much given to introspection—his eye was not long turned inward; and now, turned outward, it lighted on a white head far down toward the front of the house.
“Why, if there isn’t, after all, one o’ the old-timers! Say, young fellow,” he said, speaking to an assistant sergeant-at-arms who had been standing near and, unable to identify Holman as a representative of any railroad or other interest entitled to respect on that floor, had been eying him with some suspicion. “Say,” said Holman, pointing with a long forefinger, “ain’t that old Ike Bemis down there—Bemis, of Tazewell? Yes? Well, now, just call a page boy, won’t you? And have him tell Bemis an old friend wants to see him.”
Bemis was, in his way, a phenomenon unparalleled in politics; he had been in the house before Holman and had held on, minority member from his district, the Republican and Democratic machines working harmoniously together, for a quarter of a century. And as he came up the aisle in response to Holman’s message he seemed to Holman to have changed little; only his hair from iron gray had grown white, and his face was not so clear or ruddy or healthy as he had known it. He was dressed as he used to be in the gray clothes that made him look so like a prosperous farmer, and the hand he held out to Holman was, by some mystery, rough and horny, as if it had worked indeed.
“Why, bless the Lord!” he cried, “if it ain’t Jim Holman!”
He shook Holman’s hand with genuine pleasure and, putting his arm across Holman’s shoulders, led him away to a divan under the gallery.
They sat down there and for half an hour chatted and gossiped, recalled old friends and associates of legislatures that were gone, discussed them, accounted for them, pursued their subsequent histories in politics or out of politics, their triumphs, their failures and their fates—in short, they reconstructed their own little world and caught up with the times.
“’Tain’t what it used to be, Jim,” said Bemis with an old man’s deploration of change. “You did right to get out of it. I don’t want any more of it. When this session closes I’m through; I won’t run again.”
Holman was not greatly impressed; politicians, he knew, were always making their last campaign, as sailors were always making their last voyage.
“Sine die adjournment next week, and then good-by to politics for me,” Bemis went on. “I’ll be glad to be shut of it all. Nothing in it, nothing in it.” He wagged his sage head sadly.
“Anything—ah—doing this session?” asked Holman, glancing sidewise at his old colleague.
“No, nothing except this Chicago street-car bill. We passed it, you know, and the governor vetoed it. The reformers raised an awful howl. Comes up—let’s see—to-night, I reckon. Going to try to pass it over the governor’s veto.”
“Will they make it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Looks dubious. The senate’s all right, of course; it’s all fixed there, but the house ain’t certain. A two-thirds vote’s hard to get these days. Baldwin’s been working day and night—but I don’t know; you can’t tell yet.”
Then the house broke into new confusion. Holman knew the signs well; a roll-call was on. Bemis pricked his ears and hurried back to his seat.
Holman was glad just then to have him go, for almost at the mention of the name of Baldwin he had happened to glance toward the speaker’s chair; the speaker had risen, his gavel poised, and in that instant Holman saw the man on the speaker’s lounge, lolling back to await the passing of the interruption, and recognized Baldwin, George R. Baldwin, carefully dressed as of old, suave, elegant, dignified, all unchanged save that his hair had grown a bit more gray, though only, it seemed, to lend to his aspect new dignity, new authority, almost refinement. Baldwin, the same as ever! It had not changed him, evidently; he was still correct, irreproachable, respected, received everywhere—while he, Holman, had come to this. Sarah, back there at home, amid the dingy poverty and drudgery of her life; and Baldwin’s wife, doubtless, welcome in all society and reigning there! Holman, sick of the scene, got up, plunged his hands into his pockets and started out. Near the door he turned to have another glance. Baldwin had slid to the end of the lounge and was talking to some young fellow—to McCray.
Holman went to the cigar stand, lighted a cigar, sauntered out into the rotunda and leaned against the brass rail. He blew out streams of smoke and through squinting little eyes watched them float away; he smoked and squinted and thought, and what he saw was Baldwin, the lobbyist, and young McCray.
Two men passed on their way over to the senate chamber, and he heard one of them pronounce his name.
“——leaning on the rail there, smoking.
“Oh—I forgot; his face was familiar, too. The old Has-been has come back for a day!”
It was Baldwin who spoke; his companion was young McCray.
“Ah, yes! An old Has-been,” thought Holman. Baldwin said that, and McCray! They said that even down in Jasper. But Baldwin, he was no Has-been; it had not affected him at all.
When Holman entered the house that afternoon he was sensible of a change in the atmosphere. The new element was one he recognized—skilled as of old in legislative aëroscepsy—one that strangely excited him, both by what it recalled and by what it portended; there were tension, alertness, irritability and suspense, the knowledge of an evil, sinister Presence, known, silent, unrevealed, but apprehended—a Presence expected, even desired, yet dreaded; in short, the psychic condition that exists in a legislative chamber when something is about to come off. Holman, standing well back by the cloak-room, examining the house with expert eye, knew that the thing was imminent, though not immediate. There were certain signs wanting. The speaker sat calm, but he was twirling his gavel nervously; the leaders were restless and furtive, but they had not as yet got every man in his seat. McCray, for instance, was absent.
Holman sauntered carelessly around to the side on which Bemis sat, caught the old man’s eye and beckoned.
“I thought they’d get that bill up,” said Holman, “and I’d see a little fun; but there seems to be no chance of that. Reckon I’ll go.”
“There’s been a hitch,” said Bemis in a low tone.
“Has, heh?”
“Yes,” said Bemis; “the boys thought they had it fixed, but Wimbleton switched; told O’Leary so at noon. Either the governor got around him or he got scared.”
“Need only one vote?” surmised Holman. Then Bemis, as if a thought had struck him, drew close and put his lips to Holman’s ear:
“You know that young McCray from your district?”
“Sure.”
“Well, now, Jim, if you could fix him—you might get in on this thing. He won’t do business with any of us. I don’t know exactly, but I should think there’d be for you and him at least—” He put his lips quite into Holman’s ear, and Holman bent lower; and Bemis whispered again. Holman did not move a muscle. Bemis withdrew a little and looked at him.
“I don’t know McCray very well,” said Holman presently. “He’s a youngster, and I’ve been out of politics a long time. But I might have a little talk with him. I can’t promise, though—an old Has-been like me, you know.” He laughed a small bitter laugh.
“Oh, you!” said Bemis striking him softly on the shoulder. “You a Has-been! Why, Jim, you’re the slickest man in southern Illinois—when you want to be!”
Holman found McCray in the Leland bar-room. The young man was plainly in some mental stress, his hair matted to his brow, his face moist with perspiration, and drawn, and in his eyes an utter weariness.
“Just the man I was looking for,” said Holman. “I came to see you about a little matter down in Jasper; some interests I represent—constits of yours—and I’ve got to hurry back. So, just give me a minute; I’ll not keep you long.”
McCray looked at his watch. “I”—he hesitated—“I must get over to the house; I’m late, anyway. I was detained—”
“Yes, I know,” said Holman, “but I’ve got to see you. It’s something you’re interested in, anyway. If you’ll just walk along a little way with me.”
Once outside, Holman kept on out Sixth Street, and McCray, wondering somewhat, did not demur.
“McCray, you don’t know me well,” Holman began; “I’m an old-timer—a Has-been, as I overheard a man say this morning. You’re a young man; you come from my district—or, perhaps, I’d better say I come from yours. I came here one session, just as you have done, from old Jasper, and I served, in all, four sessions. During that time I saw a lot of life and of men; I learned a lot, too, and then I gave it up—and quit. This morning I came back for a little holiday, and I strolled over to the house to see how the old place looked once more, just as all the Has-beens do; they always manage to get back, some way or another, every session; it’s a habit, a fever, a disease—get it once, a fellow never gets over it. Well, this morning, as I stood there looking around I saw you; and that and one thing and another reminded me of something. I saw you sitting there—young, ambitious, bright, with the world before you,—and, well, my boy, I took a kind of liking for you all of a sudden; but that’s neither here nor there. What I was reminded of, curiously enough, was another young fellow I used to know years ago—a fellow that didn’t look so much like you, perhaps, and yet who was like you in many ways.
“It must have been, let’s see, back in the—well, no matter, I don’t exactly recall just now, and it isn’t material. But this young fellow came up from down our way to take his seat for the first time in the legislature. He was a young lawyer, smart, good-looking, a fellow every one liked. He had the gift of the gab; he could make a rattling speech, was strong on the stump and good before a jury. Everybody wanted to see him succeed. He was ambitious—ambitious as Lincoln, ambitious as the devil. His ambitions were not selfish—that is, not so damned selfish. He was no reformer, nothing like that; but he really wanted to help his people, wanted to do something to make life a little easier, a little better for the average fellow—like those he knew back home. He didn’t have, perhaps, any very clear idea how he was going to do this, but he wanted to do it somehow, and, vaguely enough, I reckon, he felt that the chance would turn up. Back home, too, there was a girl—you got a girl, McCray?”
The young man, startled by the abrupt question, turned up to Holman, who shambled along a head taller than he, a face that went red; a smile came to it, then, suddenly, it went gray and he turned away.
“Beg your pardon,” said Holman, “that’s none of my business, of course. But this fellow of mine, he had a girl back there. I knew about it; we were young members, first term, and he used to tell me things. And he wanted to marry this girl and make her happy. He thought, you see, that by being something, doing something in the world, he could do that.”
They were by this time far out Sixth Street, at the edge of town; a little farther on lay the open country. They came to a pasture with a broken fence and a tree.
“Let’s sit down here,” Holman said, “and rest, and I’ll get on with my story.”
They sat side by side on the bank at the roots of the elm, and Holman, having finished his cigar and being a man who seemed to require tobacco in some form every moment of the day, drew out a long plug and a knife and cut a piece and put it comfortably into his mouth.
“Chew?” he said, proffering tobacco and knife. McCray shook his head, but lighted a cigarette. And the old and the new generation sat there side by side on the bank.
“Interested?” asked Holman.
“Yes; go on.”
“Well, this young fellow I’m telling you of—the legislature was just a stepping-stone to him; that’s what he thought and that’s what everybody thought; beyond that were congress, governor, senator, everything. He went right ahead, was popular and influential, got good committees, and when he got up to speak the house grew quiet—you’ve seen it that way yourself—and he worked and studied, and back home there was the girl—and they wanted to get married. But he was poor—mighty poor.”
Holman leaned over, stretched out his long, thin arm—McCray noted the frayed cuffbands—and plucked a spear of young grass, pulled the thin, transparent, whitish-green blade out of its delicate sheath and, squinting his eyes, examined it minutely, as if it were the most engrossing object of study in the world.
“A legislature, McCray,” he went on, “is the damnedest thing in the world, the rottenest, most demoralizing, hell-fire sort of institution there is. All politics is that way, no matter where you find it. Sometimes I think you can’t get within forty rows o’ apple trees of it without being polluted. A man, to go to a legislature and stay there any time and come out whole and safe and sound, has to be made of pure gold. Now, this young friend of mine, he was, as I’ve said, all right at heart, and pretty strong, too, most ways; good family, good blood and all that; and back home there, in safe surroundings, he’d ’ave got along all right till the end. But in the legislature a fellow’s away from home, away from all his customary moorings, and most of the members get it into their heads that at the capital all the rules are suspended, and I reckon they are—that’s about what government, as we administer it, amounts to.
“No one from home ever shows up there. The only ones that come around come to get something for themselves, and it’s always something they have no right to and oughtn’t to have. They come with all kinds of plausible reasons and lies and temptations—damned sneaking, hypocritical, white-washed sepulchers! Eminent and respectable citizens, best people and all that! And unless a fellow has his eyes wide open all the time, has his principles clear and fixed and knows enough to apply ’em every minute, knows what a bunco game it all is, and is of pure gold besides—as I said—why, he gets all tangled up and lost—yes, lost. It pretty much all comes from the cities. We poor jays from the country districts don’t know anything about the cities; we take what they tell us, or did in my time. We think if we just pass a few laws to make our fellow-citizens in the cities good, regulate their beer for ’em and all that, that nothing else is required of us; so these fellows come down from the city and get us to do their dirty work for them. In those days there was a fellow here, a lobbyist, a good-looking man, about the size and favor of—well, Baldwin back there—saw him talking to you this morning—same kind of a man exactly, smooth, genial, polished, well-dressed, polite, good fellow, and all that.
“Now, Baldwin—I mean the fellow—well, damn it!” Holman suddenly exploded in his exasperation, “it was Baldwin! He had a bill he was trying to pass, a crooked bill, of course, one of those bills like this street-car bill I heard of to-day, to take something that by rights belonged to the people of the city, a street, or the ground under a street, or the air over a street, or the room in the middle of a street, and give it to half a dozen eminently respectable and pious citizens to use for themselves and exploit and get rich on. Baldwin was trying to pass that bill, and the session was nearly done, and he needed just one vote. And he looked around and he settled on this young friend of mine; he knew his hopes, his wants, his necessities—knew all about him, for that’s Baldwin’s business and his way. I needn’t go into the details; he worked with him a whole day and nearly a whole night; explained that it was really a good thing for the city, that this young fellow’s constits were not interested in the city, anyway, didn’t know anything about it, nor care anything about it. ‘It can’t hurt you,’ Baldwin would say. ‘Your people won’t know or care; of course, if it was something they were interested in it might be different’—and all that. And then, finally, ’way in the night, when the young fellow was worn down in will, and tired and weak and dazed anyway, Baldwin began to count the money down on the table, among the stinking whisky glasses and cigar butts, thousand-dollar bills, green as that grass there, one—two—three—like that.” McCray, with a kind of fascination, watched Holman as with slow gesture of his long hands he turned over, as it were, and laid down one after another those thousand-dollar bills. “And the young man fell,” said Holman at last. And then he was silent, his gaze fixed afar on some light across the fields.
“Well,” Holman resumed, “Baldwin was right in one way, at any rate; the people, the young fellow’s people down home, didn’t care. They never do care; they don’t take the trouble. They never knew, anyway, and they elected him again and re-elected him. And he got married and things seemed to go along all right with him; you would have said he was to be envied. But, while nothing seemed to change outside, something did change inside the young man; and the worst of it was, it was a change that he didn’t know or realize. It was like some disease, working away, working away there inside of him, without any pain or any symptoms even; he had no idea of it. But there it was, working away, working away. He found, at first, that it was easy enough to get money, and he got it and he spent it and it never did him any good, never a bit, neither him nor his family. Easy money, they call it; but there’s no such thing. All money, even easy money, is hard; you got to pay somehow, you got to pay!
“He changed by slow degrees; first he got careless and slovenly in his thoughts, and, after a while, didn’t think much anyway, and couldn’t; he just talked and talked and talked and made loud speeches—became a windbag, a blatherskite, a bore and a nuisance in the land, to himself and everybody. There’s a lot of them in this land; all they need to make a speech is room enough to work their jaws in. His old wishes and longings to be of some use in the world died out of him; he had no aims, no mark to head for, no place to go. He became ineffectual; after while all there was to him was that one vote of his in the house, and by and by that wasn’t worth much; it kept declining in value, he got cheaper and cheaper, and finally—just naturally petered out.
“Then, when he was slouchy in morals and mind and character, he got slouchy in person; his habits weren’t bad, perhaps; he was no drunkard or anything like that, but just—oh, sloppy, every way. And his wife, his little wife—she was a fine, pretty girl, McCray, when he married her—she, of course, had to pay, too, along with him; he dragged her down. She was patient and kind and always hopeful, but they were poor, and under the stress of their necessities he would get peevish and cross, and sometimes when, say, a Saturday night would come and there wasn’t anything in the house to eat—well, he’d look at the children and get mad—mad at himself, primarily, though he didn’t say so or admit it even to himself—and he’d take it out in nasty, mean ways with her and the children. Finally, she gave up; she didn’t know why, she never knew what had happened, or, if she did, she never even hinted it—and the whole family was just going down to hell and the devil. There wasn’t any outward tragedy to make it striking or dramatic or even interesting.
“And then, after everybody half knew or half guessed, and had ceased to respect him, he came back here to Springfield once, as we all do, and happened to see Baldwin, and found him the same, scarcely a day older, though he himself was gray and withered. It hadn’t hurt Baldwin; he was well-dressed, respectable, popular, received everywhere—clubs, society, church and all, just as the men were whose dirty money Baldwin handled. And Baldwin’s wife, she wasn’t old and sad and hopeless; she was going out in society, president of a big woman’s club, talked about safe little reforms, charities and philanthropies. And Baldwin’s daughters were over in Europe getting the last finish on their education.”
Holman had a feeling that McCray was no longer listening and, glancing aside, saw that McCray’s face was buried in his hands. And with pity in his long, gray face he looked at him a little while, then laid a hand on McCray’s shoulder.
“Do you know,” he said, “why I told you this story? You see, I didn’t want to make you feel bad; I only wanted to show you. Because there’s a lot in you—a big, beautiful future.”
“Oh, don’t say that,” cried McCray. “All but that last—all but that last.”
“Why not that?”
“Because it’s too late. Oh, Holman, it’s too late—too late! If it were only yesterday! But now—it’s too late!”
And McCray bent forward, bowed in pain, and wept.
Holman waited until the boy’s grief subsided, and then, by degrees, he got the story. To McCray it was an irreclaimable and tragic wreck of life. But to Holman, in the broader vision his own sins had made possible, and in some of his judgments of men, perhaps too broad—if, indeed, that may be—the case was not at all hopeless. He had not, it is true, been prepared for a revelation so complete and damaging, but it presented to him no irrevocable aspect. McCray, with the proclivity of youth to fixed and fated facts, saw the thing consummated and complete, the contract wholly executed; but Holman did not regard it as even executory, and he cited for McCray the old adage about the bad bargain.
“We’ll just give the stuff back to Baldwin.”
“Before?”
“No,” said Holman stoutly, “afterward. After the vote; we’ll have that satisfaction. Keep him on the hooks.”
“Well,” said McCray. “But here, you take it. It—burns—” He gave to Holman a roll of bills, and sighed in relief. “You have saved me,” he said; “you have saved my soul.”
“Oh, to hell with your soul!” Holman said, with more orthodoxy than he was accustomed to evince. He was not sufficiently accustomed to the highly moral to relish its too bald expression; perhaps his experience had been of one other as yet unrecognized benefit—it had made him wholesomely afraid of cant, and whatever good his spiritual adventure of that day had done, or was to do him, he was in little danger of becoming a Pharisee.
Greggerson, the clerk of the house, in shirt-sleeves, a handkerchief stuffed into his collar, had himself taken the reading-desk that night. Above him the speaker, bent forward, watched the proceedings like some bird of prey, smiting his desk sharply with his gavel now and then, or pointing it fiercely at some one. Above the speaker, in placid folds, was the flag, and from their large canvases on either side of the house, Lincoln and Douglas surveyed the scene from the calm altitude of their secure place in American statesmanship.
When the bill had come over from the senate half an hour before, the crowd had rushed over with it, burst into the house and pushed down the aisle, choking the passage. Holman saw several senators come over to see the end; he saw the governor’s private secretary, and old Benson, the governor’s political manager, and—Baldwin, suave and bland as usual, yet, as Holman could see on a second closer look, intensely anxious and concerned. He was paler than Holman had ever seen him. The air of the chamber was hot and fetid; there was a low, ominous grumbling. Dalby was on his feet on the Republican side, Quinn on the Democratic—the program under Baldwin’s eye and the speaker’s would be hurried through. In the curious way in which secrets cease to be secrets and permeate the mind of the mass, it was generally known how every man would vote, and it was understood that the climax, somehow, would come with the calling of the name of McCray, of Jasper. The roll-call moved slowly on down the alphabet; Greggerson’s voice resounded; its boom could have been heard through open windows three blocks away:
“Lyendorf!”
“Aye.”
“Lynn, of Sangamon!”
“No.”
“Lynn, of Vermilion!”
“No.”
“McBroom!”
“No.”
“McCoy!”
“Aye.”
“McCray!”
Holman strained forward with the crowd. McCray hesitated, looked up, then shouted:
“No!”
There was a sharp volley of applause, a clapping of hands which had in it perhaps, a certain too self-righteous quality; and there were human groans and hoots, and at his elbow Holman heard an oath and turned to face Baldwin. The face of the lobbyist was white with rage and moist with fine globules of perspiration, and there were revealed to Holman in the brilliant, new illuminations of that moment certain lines that once had not been there, lines not drawn by age, and Holman saw them with a fierce, vindictive joy.
But McCray was coming, battling his way down the aisle, escaping the congratulations, curses, praises, objurgations of the men who crowded about him. He got away from them and came back, and, as he took Holman’s hand, his tired, drawn face was touched with a smile. Baldwin, there beside them, saw it, stared at Holman incredulously and said:
“Well, I’ll be damned!”
But Holman had no attention for Baldwin then.
“Let’s get out of this,” he said to McCray.
And when, out of that weltering chaos, they found themselves in the rotunda, in the mysterious semi-gloom that filled its great, inverted bowl, the gloom which all the electric lights could not wholly dissipate, Holman quickly drew his hand from his pocket, pressed it into McCray’s, and said:
“Here, this belongs to—” Holman hesitated, as at a new point in ethics.
“To Baldwin,” said McCray. “Yes,” he went on wearily, “I’ll give it back to him.”
“To think of an old Has-been like me,” said Holman, “that hasn’t seen so much easy money in a coon’s age—and to go toting it around all day in his pocket! McCray, I’m afraid I’m getting too damned civic! I’ll be a reformer next, and back in politics!” He laughed again. “We’ll wait here a little. Baldwin’ll be along, and I’ll stay and see you safely through it.”
Baldwin was coming even then, and in a moment espied them there by the rail. He had recovered himself; the mask of years could not be lowered long; he came on leisurely, even pausing to light a cigarette. Holman hailed him:
“Lost out, didn’t you, George?”
“So it seems,” Baldwin replied. “When you do business on honor you must expect to be betrayed once in a while. It’s all in the game. But where do you come in, Jim—an old back number like you?”
“Does seem funny, doesn’t it? An old Has-been like me! Well, I saw a good thing coming off and I declared myself in. But McCray has a little business with you, and when you’re through with him, maybe I can make it plain to you.”
“Oh, I have no further business with Mr. McCray. I’m quite through with him.” And he turned his back deliberately on the young man.
McCray bit his lip, then remembered and became humble, and, putting forth his hand, said:
“Here—here’s your—money.”
Baldwin turned, took the money, thrust it carelessly into his pocket, and said:
“I can’t count it here, of course. I presume it’s all there.”
“Yes,” said Holman, “it’s all there. Such work is done on honor, you know.”
“Thank you.” Baldwin delicately drew on his cigarette, blew the smoke upward. “But—that question, Jim, that one unanswered question. Where do you come in? What is there in this for you?”
Holman looked at him from top to toe with a long, cold, steady gaze.
“Well, George,” he began slowly, “for me there’s nothing in it, in the way you think—in the only terms you can think in, I mean. There is, however, in another way, a lot in it; a lot I haven’t dreamed of for years. All day, while arranging and planning this—the idea came to me suddenly this morning—I’ve been looking forward to this moment, thinking of what I’d say and what satisfaction I’d have in saying it. I thought that that satisfaction would pay me for all you’ve done—for all you’ve tried to do to this boy here—for all—no, damn it! not for all!—all hell and eternity couldn’t pay you for all you’ve done—to other boys like him. But now, as I look at your face and study it, I see that you just couldn’t understand, that’s all; you have lost the ability to understand—and—well, George, that mere fact will pay you, so I won’t try to say it. I’ll say only good-by, and when you get home to that wife and those daughters of yours—just remember that Jim Holman asked you how you could look them in the eyes. Do that and maybe—you’ll understand.”
Baldwin stared at him; the mask shifted an instant, then, instantly restored, he turned away.
“He looks old, after all,” said Holman. “It has changed him, too....” He drew out his watch. “I can catch that midnight train on the Alton. I’m going to get out of here now; I’m going home to old Jasper. There’s a little woman there I want to see, a little woman and some children, and I’m going home—now, at last, to look them in the eyes.”