The Greatest Works of Melville Davisson Post: 40+ Titles in One Edition. Melville Davisson Post
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!"
VI
I thoroughly appreciate everything I you have mentioned, Mr. Hergan," said the clerk Parks, "but it is quite impossible. Mr. Mason is entirely inaccessible. I should not dare interrupt him."
"Look here, my friend," responded the gambler. "I have heard this same talk every day for the last week, and it don't go any longer. I have got to see this lawyer, and I have got to see him now. Do you understand me?"
"Oh, yes," replied the clerk, with a faint smile, "I understand you perfectly, but it is entirely useless to urge the matter any farther. The business with which Mr. Mason is at present engaged is of great magnitude. He would not permit an interview at all. I am very sorry, but, of course, I can do nothing for you."
The gambler did not respond. For a few moments he was silent. Then he put his hands into the inside pocket of his coat and drew forth a rather battered leather pocket-book. He held the pocket-book under the table, opened it slowly, and selecting a fifty-dollar bill from among a number of others, laid it gently on the table.
"There," he said, "is my ante. I want in the game."
The eyes of the clerk began to contract slowly at the corners.
"My dear man," he said, "I should like to do this for you, but I don't see how I can. I don't believe Mr. Mason would even listen to me just now. I don't——"
"Wait," responded the gambler; "I sweeten it."
Thereupon he selected another bill from the pocket-book and spread it out carefully beside the other upon the table.
The little bald clerk began to drum on the chair with his fingers. His eyes wandered from the money to the door of Mason's private office, and back again. Presently he turned to the gambler.
The Hon. Ambercrombie Herman held up two fingers. "Don't call," he said, "I tilt it to one hundred and fifty." And he added another bill to the two, and pushed the money across the table to the clerk. Then he closed the pocket-book deliberately and replaced it in his coat.
Parks arose, picked up the money without a word, and passed into Randolph Mason's private office, closing the door carefully behind him. In a very few moments the clerk returned. He came up dose to the gambler and put his hand confidentially on his shoulder.
"My friend," he said, in a low tone, "you are not a fool. I have told some lies to get you this interview. Look sharp, and say as little as possible."
"What lies?" asked the gambler, arising.
"Such as were useful," responded the clerk. "Quite too tedious to enumerate. Please walk into Mr. Mason's office, sir, and remember that you are my brother-in-law. Answer the questions which are put to you, and don't volunteer talk. It is n't wise."
The gambler opened the door to Randolph Mason's private office and entered.
VII
He Secretary of State came slowly down the steps from Randolph Mason's office. At the entrance to the great building he stopped and looked up and down the busy, jostling thoroughfare. It had been but a few years since he was a grain in this vortex, and now that past seemed ages removed. He was not conscious of anything of interest in the very familiar scene. Just why he had stopped to look, this man would not have been quite able to explain. In truth, he was striving to obtain his mental bearings. He had been flung violently upon another view point, and he was endeavoring to comprehend the loom of this new land. His sensations were not unlike those of one who but an hour before had gone into the operating room of a surgeon, walking as he believed to his death, and now returned with the tumor dissected out, and the hope of life big in his bosom. The world was an entirely different place from what it had been some hours before, and the gambler's steps were firmer, and his ancient careless spirit had returned.
At this moment, as it pleased Fate, a cab stopped before a broker's office on the opposite-side of the street, and the Governor stepped out. The gambler darted across and caught his companion by the shoulder. The Governor turned suddenly.
"Well," he said, in astonishment, "is this an assault vi et armis?"
"No," said the gambler. "It's worse than that, Al. It's a mandamus. You are not to go in that broker's office."
"Not to go in?" echoed the Executive. "Why not?"
"Al," said the gambler, grinning like a Hindoo idol, "I said this here was a mandamus. I guess the judge don't ever explain 'why not' in a mandamus."
"Good chancellor," replied the Governor, with mock gravity, "I resist the order."
"On what ground?" said the lion. Ambercrombie Hergan, with such a sage judicial air as might obtain with a truck horse.
"First," replied the Governor, "that the mandamus was improvidently awarded. Second, that the Court issuing the writ was without jurisdiction. And, third, that the act sought to be restrained is not entirely ministerial, but one largely within the discretion of the officer."
"All them objections," said the gambler, "this Court overrules."
"But," continued the Executive, "in this case the mandamus cannot lie. I move to quash the writ."
"But it does lie," asserted the powerful devotee of fortune, hooking his arm through that of the Executive and turning him down the street, "and she can't be squashed."
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