In the Arena | Page 9

exposing my real self to her. Then, when this young girl came, for the first time in my life I found real sympathy and knew what I thought I never should know; a heart attuned to my own, a mind that sought my own ideals, a soul of the same aspirations--and a perfect faith in what I was and in what it was my right to attain. She met me with open hands, and lifted me to my best self. What, unhappily, I did not find at home, I found in her--encouragement. I went to her in every mood, always to be greeted by the most exquisite perception, always the same delicate receptiveness. She gave me a sister's love!"
I nodded; I knew he thought so.
"Well, when I went into this campaign, what more natural than that I should seek her ready sympathy at every turn, than that I should consult with her at each crisis, and, when I became the fusion candidate, that I should go to her with the news that I had taken my first great step toward my goal and had achieved thus far in my struggle for the cause of our hearts--reform?"
"You went up to Buskirk's after the convention?" I asked.
"No; the night before." He took his head in his hands and groaned, but without pausing in his march up and down the room. "You remember, it was known by ten o'clock, after the primaries, that I should receive the nomination. As soon as I was sure, I went to her; and I found her in the same state of exaltation and pride that I was experiencing myself. There was always the answer in her, I tell you, always the response that such a nature as mine craves. She took both my hands and looked at me just as a proud sister would. 'I read your news,' she said. 'It is in your face!' Wasn't that touching? Then we sat in silence for a while, each understanding the other's joy and triumph in the great blow I had struck for the right. I left very soon, and she came with me to the door. We stood for a moment on the step--and--for the first time, the only time in my life--I received a--a sister's caress."
"Oh," said I. I understood how Gorgett had managed to be so calm that afternoon.
"It was the purest kiss ever given!" Farwell groaned again.
"Who was it saw you?" I asked.
He dropped into a chair and I saw the tears of rage and humiliation welling up again in his eyes.
"We might as well have been standing by the footlights in a theatre!" he burst out, brokenly. "Who saw it? Who _didn't_ see it? Gorgett's sleuth-hound, the man he sent to me this afternoon, for one; the policeman on the beat that he'd stopped for a chat in front of the house, for another; a maid in the hall behind us, the policeman's sweetheart she is, for another! Oh!" he cried, "the desecration! That one caress, one that I'd thought a sacred secret between us forever--and in plain sight of those three hideous vulgarians, all belonging to my enemy, Gorgett! Ah, the horror of it--what _horror_!"
Farwell wrung his hands and sat, gulping as if he were sick, without speaking for several moments.
"What terms did the man he sent offer from Gorgett?" I asked.
"No terms! He said to go ahead and print my story about the closet; it was a matter of perfect indifference to him; that he meant to print this about me in their damnable party-organ tomorrow, in any event, and only warned me so that I should have time to prepare Miss Buskirk. Of course he don't care! _I'll_ be ruined, that's all. Oh, the hideous injustice of it, the unreason! Don't you see the frightful irony of it? The best thing in my life, the widest and deepest; my friendship with a good woman becomes a joke and a horror! Don't you see that the personal scandal about me absolutely undermines me and nullifies the political scandal of the closet affair? Gorgett will come in again and the Grand Jury would laugh at any attack on him. I'm ruined for good, for good and all, for good and all!"
"Have you told Miss Buskirk?"
He uttered a kind of a shriek. "_No!_ I can't! How could I? What do you think I'm made of? And there's her father--and all her relatives, and mine, and my wife--my wife! If she leaves me--"
A fit of nausea seemed to overcome him and he struggled with it, shivering. "My God! Do you think I can face it? I've come to you for help in the most wretched hour of my life--all darkness, darkness! Just on the eve of triumph to be stricken down--it's so cruel, so devilish!