In the Arena | Page 9

says I.
The angel's knight began to pace the room as he talked, clinching and
unclinching his hands, while the perspiration got his hair all scraggly
on his forehead. You see Farwell was doing some suffering and he
wasn't used to it.
"When she came home from abroad, a year ago," he said, "it seemed to
me that a light came into my life. I've got to tell you the whole thing,"
he groaned, "but it's hard! Well, my wife is taken up with our little boy
and housekeeping,--I don't complain of her, mind that--but she really
hasn't entered into my ambitions, my inner life. She doesn't often read
my editorials, and when she does, she hasn't been serious in her
consideration of them and of my purposes. Sometimes she differed

openly from me and sometimes greeted my work for truth and light
with indifference! I had learned to bear this, and more; to save myself
pain I had come to shrink from 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,