In the Arena by Booth Tarkington

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"Yes."

"What was said ex---actly? It is being repeated about town in various
forms. I want to know."

Like a fool I told him the whole thing. I didn't think, didn't dream,
of course, what was in that poor, drunken, devoted head, and I wanted
to blow off my own steam, I was so hot.

He sat very quietly until I had finished; then he took his head in
both hands and rocked himself gently to and fro upon the bed, and I
saw tears trickling down his cheeks. It was a wretched spectacle in a
way, he being drunk and crying like a child, but I don't think I
despised him.

"And she so true," he sobbed, "so good, so faithful to him! She's
given him her youth, her whole sweet youth--all of it for him!" He got
to his feet and went to the door.

"Hold on, Joe," I said, "where are you going?"

"'Nother drink!" he said, and closed the door behind him.

After supper I went to work with Henderson and three or four others in
a little back-room in our headquarters; and we were hard at it when
one of the boys held up his hand and said: "Listen!"

The sounds of a big disturbance came in through the open windows:
shouting and yelling, and crowds running in the streets below. The
town had been so noisy all evening that I thought nothing of it. "It's
only some delegation getting in," I said. "Go on with the lists."

But I'd no more than got the words out of my mouth than the noise
rolled into the outer rooms of our headquarters like a wave, and there
was a violent hammering on the door of our room, some one calling my
name in a loud frightened voice. I threw open the door and Hugo
Siffles fell in, his pig's eyes starting out of his pale, foolish
face.

"Come with me!" he shouted, all in one breath, and laying hold of me
by the lapel of my coat, tried to drag me after him. "There's hell to
pay! Joe Lane came into Trimmer's headquarters, drunk, twenty minutes
ago, and slapped Passley Trimmer's face for what he said to us this
afternoon. Link Trimmer came in, a minute later, drunk too, and heard
what had happened. He followed Joe to Hodge's saloon and shot
him. They've carried him to the drug-store and he's asked to speak to
you."

I had the satisfaction of kicking that little cuss through the door
ahead of me, though I knew it was myself I ought to have kicked.

It was true that Joe had asked to speak to me, but when I reached the
drug-store the doctor wouldn't let me come into the back-room where he
lay, so I sat on a stool in the store. They'd turned all the people
out, except four or five friends of Joe's; and the glass doors and the
windows were solid with flattened faces, some of them coloured by the
blue and green lights so that it sickened me, and all staring
horribly. After about four years the doctor's assistant came out to
get something from a shelf and I jumped at him, getting mighty little
satisfaction, you can be sure.

"It seems to be very serious indeed," was all he would say. I knew
that for myself, because one of the men in the store had told me that
it was in the left side.

Half-an-hour after this--by the clock--the young man came out again
and called us in to carry Joe home. It was not more than a hundred
yards to the old Lane place, and six of us, walking very slowly,
carried him on a cot through the crowd. He was conscious, for he
thanked us in a weakish whisper, when we lifted him carefully into his
own bed. Then the doctor sent us all out except the assistant, and we
went to the front porch and waited, hating the crowd that had lined up
against the fence and about the gate. They looked like a lot of
buzzards; I couldn't bear the sight of them, so I went back into the
little hall and sat down near Joe's door.

After a while the assistant opened the door, holding a glass pitcher
in his hand.

"Here," he said, when he saw me, "will you fill this with cold water
from the well?"

I took it and hurried out to the kitchen, where four or five people
were sitting and glumly whispering around an old coloured woman, Joe's
cook, who was crying and rocking herself in a chair. I hushed her up
and told her to show me the pump. It was in an orchard behind the
house, and was one of those old-fashioned things that sound like a
siren whistle with the hiccups.

It took me about five minutes to get the water up, and when I got back
to Joe's room, a woman was there with the doctors. It was Miss Rainey.
She had her hat off, her sleeves were rolled up and, though her face
was the whitest I ever saw, she was cool and steady. It was she who
took the water from me at the door.

I heard low voices in the parlour, where a lamp was lit, and I went in
there. Mary was sitting on a sofa, with a handkerchief hard against
her eyes, and Hector was standing in the middle of the room, saying
over and over, "My God!" and shaking. I went to the sofa and sat by
Mary with my hand on her shoulder.

"To think of it!" Hector moaned. "To think of its coming at such a
time! To think of what it means to me!"

His mother spoke to him from behind her handkerchief: "You mustn't do
it; you _can't_ Hector--oh, you can't, you _can't._"

For answer he struck himself desperately across the forehead with the
palm of his hand.

"What is it," I asked, "that your mother wants you not to do?"

"She wants me to give up Trimmer--to refuse to make the nominating
speech for him to-morrow."

"You've _got_ to give him up!" cried his mother; and then went on
with reiterations as passionate as they were weak and broken in
utterance. "You can't make the speech, you can't do it, you
_can't--"_

"Then I'm done for!" he said. "Don't you see what a frightful blow
this pitiful, drunken folly of poor Joe's has dealt Trimmer's
candidaoy? Don't you see that they rely on me more than ever,
_now_? Are you so blind you don't see that I am the only man who
can save Trimmer the nomination? If I go back on him now, he's done
for and I'm done for with him! It's my only chance!"

"No, no," she sobbed, "you'll have other chances; you'll have plenty
of chances, dear; you're young--"

"My only chance," he went on rapidly, ignoring her, "and if I can
carry it through, it will mean everything to me. The tide's running
strong against Trimmer to-night, and I am the only man in the world
who can turn it the other way. If I go into the convention for him,
faithful to him, and, out of the highest sense of justice, explain
that, even though Lane has been my closest friend, he was in the wrong
and that--"

Mary rose to her feet and went to her son and clung to him. "No, no!"
she cried; "no, _no_!"

"I've got to!" he said.

"What is that you must do, Hector?" It was Miss Rainey's voice, and
came from just behind me. She was standing in the doorway that led
from the hall, and her eyes were glowing with a brilliant, warm
light. We all started as she spoke, and I sprang up and turned toward
her.

"He's going to get well," she said, understanding me. "They say it is
surely so!"

At that Mary ran and threw her arms about her and kissed her--and I
came near it! Hector gave a sort of shout of relief and sank into a
chair.

"What is that you must do, Hector?" Miss Rainey said again in her
steady voice.

"Stick to Trimmer!" he explained. "Don't you see that I must? He needs
me now more than ever, and it's my only chance."

Miss Rainey looked at him over Mary's shoulder. She looked at him a
long while before she spoke. "You know why Mr. Lane struck that blow?"

"Oh, I suppose so," he answered uneasily. "At least Siffles--"

"Yes," she said. "You know. What are you going to do?"

"The right thing!" Hector rose and walked toward her. "I put right
before all. I shall be loyal and I shall be just. It might have been a
terribly hard thing to carry through, but, since dear old Joe will
recover, I know I can do it."

The girl's eyes widened suddenly, while the warm glow in them flashed
into a fiery and profound scrutiny.

"You are going to make the nominating speech," she said. It was not a
question but a declaration, in the tone of one to whom he stood wholly
revealed.

"Yes," he answered eagerly. "I knew you would see: it's my chance, my
whole career--"

But his mother, turning swiftly, put her hand over his mouth, though
it was to Miss Rainey that she cried:

"Oh, don't let him say it--he can't; you mustn't let him!"

The girl drew her gently away and put an arm about her, saying: "Do
you think _I_ could stop him?"

"But do you wish to stop me?" asked Hector sadly, as he stepped toward
her. "Do you set yourself not only in the way of my great chance, but
against justice and truth? Don't you see that I must do it?"

"It is your chance--yes. I see the truth, Hector." Her eyes had
fallen and she looked at him no more, but, with a little movement away
from him, offered her hand to him at arm's length. It was done in a
curious way, and he looked perplexed for a second, and then
frightened. He dropped her hand, and his lips twitched.

"Laura," he said, and could not go on.

"You must go now," she said to all three of us. "The house should be
very quiet. I shall be his nurse, and the doctor will stay all
night. Isn't it beautiful that Joe is going to get well!"

She went out quickly, before Hector could detain her, back to the room
where Lane was.

* * * * *

There's no need my telling you the details of that convention:
Henderson was beaten from the start, and Hector's speech was all that
happened. If he hadn't made it, there might have been a consolidation
on a dark horse, for feeling was high against Trimmer. It isn't an
easy thing to go into a convention with a brother locked up in jail on
a charge of attempted murder!

I'll never forget Hector's rising to make that speech. There wasn't
any cheering, there was a dead, cold hush. This wasn't because his
magnetism had deserted him; indeed, I don't think it had ever before
been felt so strongly. He was white as white paper, and his face had a
look of suffering; altogether I believe I couldn't give a better
notion of him than saying that he somehow made me think of Hamlet.

He began in a very low but very penetrating voice, and I don't think
anybody in the farthest corner missed a single clear-cut syllable from
the first. As I may have indicated, I had never been a warm admirer of
his, but with all my prejudice, I think I admired him when he stood up
to his task that day. For the effect he intended, his speech was a
masterpiece, no less. I saw it before he had finished three
sentences. And he delivered it, knowing that even while he did so he
was losing the woman he loved; for Hector did love Laura Rainey, next
to himself, and she had been part of his life and necessary to
him. But though the heavens fell, he stuck to what he had set out to
do, and did it masterfully.

Not that what he said could bear the analysis of a cool mind: nothing
that Hector ever did or said has been able to do that. But for the
purpose, it was perfect. For once he began at the beginning, without
rhetoric, and he made it all the more effective by beginning with
himself.

"Doubtless there are many among you who think it strange to see me
rise to fulfil the charge with which you know me to be intrusted. My
oldest and most intimate friend lies wounded on a bed of suffering,
stricken down by the hand of another friend whose heart is in the
cause for which I have risen. Therefore, you might well question me;
you might well say: 'To whom is your loyalty?' Well might I ask myself
that same question. And I will give you my answer: 'There are things
beyond the personal friendship of man and man, things greater than
individual differences and individual tragedies, things as far higher
and greater than these as the skies of God are higher than the roof of
a child's doll-house. These higher things are the good of the State
and the Law of Justice!'"

That brought the first applause; and Trimmer's people, seeing the
crowd had taken Hector's point, sprang to their feet and began to
cheer. At a tense moment, such as this, cheering is often hypnotic,
and good managers know how to make use of it on the floor. The noise
grew thunderous, and when it subsided Hector was master of the
convention. Then, for the first time, I saw how far he would go--and
why. I had laughed at him all my life, but now I believed there was
"something in him," as they say. The Lord knows what, but it was
there; and as I looked at him and listened it seemed to me that the
world was at his feet.

He was infinitely daring, yet he skirted the cause of the quarrel with
perfect tact: "The misinterpretation of a few careless and kindly
words, said in passing, and repeated, with garbling additions, to a
man who was not himself.... The brooding of a mind most unhappily
beset with alcohol.... A blow resented by a too devoted but too
violent kinsman...."

Then, with the greatest skill, and rather quietly, he passed to a
eulogium of Trimmer's public career, gradually increasing the warmth
of his praise but controlling it as perfectly as he controlled the
enthusiasm and excitement which followed each of his points. For
myself, I only looked away from him once, and caught a glimpse of
Henderson looking sick.

Hector finished with a great stroke. He went back to the original
theme. "You ask me where my duty lies!" His great voice rose and rang
through the hall magnificently: "I reply--'first to my State and her
needs'! Is that answer enough? If it be necessary that I should answer
for my personal loyalty to one man or another then I ask _you_:
Shall it go to the friend who, without cause, struck the first blow?
Shall it go to that other friend who went out hot-headed and struck
back to avenge a brother's wrongs? Is it only between these that
I--and many of you--are to choose to-day? Is there not a
_third_?' I tell you that I have chosen, and that my loyalty and
all my strength are devoted to that other, to that man who has
suffered most of all, to him who received a blow and did not avenge
it, because in his greatness he knew that his assailant knew not what
he did!"

That carried them off their feet. Hector had turned Trimmer's greatest
danger into the means of victory. The Trimmer people led one of those
extraordinary hysterical processions round the aisles that you see
sometimes in a convention (a thing I never get used to), and it was
all Trimmer, or rather, it was all Hector. Trimmer was nominated on
the first ballot.

There was a recess, and I hurried out, meaning to slip round to Joe
Lane's for a moment to find out how he was. I'd seen the doctor in the
morning and he said his patient had passed a good night and that Miss
Rainey was still there. "I think she's going to stay," he added, and
smiled and shook hands with me.

Joe's old darkey cook let me in, and, after a moment, came to say I
might go into Mr. Lane's room; Mr. Lane wanted to see me.

Joe was lying very flat on his back, but with his face turned toward
the door, and beside him sat Laura Rainey, their thin hands clasped
together. I stopped on the threshold with the door half opened.

"Come in," said Joe weakly. "Hector made it, I'm sure."

"Yes," I answered, and in earnest. "He's a great man."

Joe's face quivered with a pain that did not come from his hurt. "Oh,
it's knowing that, that makes me feel like such a scoundrel," he
said. "I suppose you've come to congratulate me."

"Yes," I said, "the doctor says it's a wonderful case, and that you're
one of the lucky ones with a charmed life, thank God!"

Joe smiled sadly at Miss Rainey. "He hasn't heard," he said. Then she
gave me her left hand, aot relinquishing Joe's with her right.

"We were married this morning," she said, "just after the convention
began."

The tears came into Joe's eyes as she spoke. "It's a shame, isn't
it?" he said to me. "You must see it so. And I the kind of man I am,
the town drunkard--"

Then his wife leaned over and kissed his forehead.

"Even so it was right--and so beautiful for me," she said.

PART II

MRS. PROTHEROE

When Alonzo Tawson took his seat as the Senator from Stackpole in the
upper branch of the General Assembly of the State, an expression of
pleasure and of greatness appeared to be permanently imprinted upon
his countenance. He felt that if he had not quite arrived at all
which he meant to make his own, at least he had emerged upon the arena
where he was to win it, and he looked about him for a few other strong
spirits with whom to construct a focus of power which should control
the senate. The young man had not long to look, for within a week
after the beginning of the session these others showed themselves to
his view, rising above the general level of mediocrity and timidity,
party-leaders and chiefs of faction, men who were on their feet
continually, speaking half-a-dozen times a day, freely and loudly. To
these, and that house at large, he felt it necessary to introduce
himself by a speech which must prove him one of the elect, and he
awaited impatiently an opening.

Alonzo had no timidity himself. He was not one of those who first try
their voices on motions to adjourn, written in form and handed out to
novices by presiding officers and leaders. He was too conscious of his
own gifts, and he had been "accustomed to speaking" ever since his
days in the Stackpole City Seminary. He was under the impression,
also, that his appearance alone would command attention from his
colleagues and the gallery. He was tall; his hair was long, with a
rich waviness, rippling over both brow and collar, and he had, by
years of endeavour, succeeded in moulding his features to present an
aspect of stern and thoughtful majesty whenever he "spoke."

The opportunity to show his fellows that new greatness was among them
delayed not over-long, and Senator Rawson arose, long and bony in his
best clothes, to address the senate with a huge voice in denunciation
of the "Sunday Baseball Bill," then upon second reading. The classical
references, which, as a born orator, he felt it necessary to
introduce, were received with acclamations which the gavel of the
Lieutenant-Governor had no power to still.

"What led to the De-cline and Fall of the Roman Empire?" he
exclaimed. "I await an answer from the advocates of this
_de_-generate measure! I _demand_ an answer from them! Let
me hear from them on _that_ subject! Why don't they speak up?
They can't give one. Not because they ain't familiar with history, no
sir! That's not the reason! It's because they _daren't,_ because
their answer would have to go on record _against_ 'em! Don't any
of you try to raise it against me that I ain't speakin' to the point,
for I tell you that when you encourage Sunday Baseball, or any kind of
Sabbath-breakin' on Sunday, you're tryin' to start this State on the
downward path that beset Rome! _I'll_ tell you what ruined
it. The Roman Empire started out to be the greatest nation on earth,
and they had a good start, too, just like the United States has got
to-day. _Then_ what happened to 'em? Why, them old ancient
fellers got more interested in athletic games and gladiatorial combats
and racing and all kinds of out-door sports, and bettin' on 'em, than
they were in oratory, or literature, or charitable institutions and
good works of all kinds! At first they were moderate and the country
was prosperous. But six days in the week wouldn't content 'em, and
they went at it all the time, so that at last they gave up the seventh
day to their sports, the way this bill wants _us_ to do, and from
that time on the result was _de_-generacy and _de_-gredation!
You better remember _that_ lesson, my friends, and don't try to
sink this State to the level of Rome!"

When Alonzo Rawson wiped his dampened brow, and dropped into his
chair, he was satisfied to the core of his heart with the effect of
his maiden effort. There was not one eye in the place that was not
fixed upon him and shining with surprise and delight, while the kindly
Lieutenant-Governor, his face very red, rapped for order. The young
senator across the aisle leaned over and shook Alonzo's hand
excitedly.

"That was beautiful, Senator Rawson!" he wispered. "I'm _for_ the
bill, but I can respect a masterly opponent."

"I thank you, Senator Truslow," Alonzo returned graciously. "I am
glad to have your good opinion, Senator."

"You have it, Senator," said Truslow enthusiastically. "I hope you
intend to speak often?"

"I do, Senator. I intend to make myself heard," the other answered
gravely, "upon all questions of moment."

"You will fill a great place among us, Senator!"

Then Alonzo Rawson wondered if he had not underestimated his neighbour
across the aisle; he had formed an opinion of Truslow as one of small
account and no power, for he had observed that, although this was
Truslow's second term, he had not once demanded recognition nor
attempted to take part in a debate. Instead, he seemed to spend most
of his time frittering over some desk work, though now and then he
walked up and down the aisles talking in a low voice to various
senators. How such a man could have been elected at all, Alonzo failed
to understand. Also, Truslow was physically inconsequent, in his
colleague's estimation--"a little insignificant, dudish kind of a
man," he had thought; one whom he would have darkly suspected of
cigarettes had he not been dumbfounded to behold Truslow smoking an
old black pipe in the lobby. The Senator from Stackpole had looked
over the other's clothes with a disapproval that amounted to
bitterness. Truslow's attire reminded him of pictures in New York
magazines, or the drees of boys newly home from college, he didn't
know which, but he did know that it was contemptible. Consequently,
after receiving the young man's congratulations, Alonzo was conscious
of the keenest surprise at his own feeling that there might be
something in him after all.

He decided to look him over again, more carefully to take the measure
of one who had shown himself so frankly an admirer. Waiting,
therefore, a few moments until he felt sure that Truslow's gaze had
ceased to rest upon himself, he turned to bend a surreptitious but
piercing scrutiny upon his neighbour. His glance, however, sweeping
across Truslow's shoulder toward the face, suddenly encountered
another pair of eyes beyond, so intently fixed upon himself that he
started. The clash was like two search-lights meeting--and the
glorious brown eyes that shot into Alonzo's were not the eyes of
Truslow.

Truslow's desk was upon the outer aisle, and along the wall were
placed comfortable leather chairs and settees, originally intended for
the use of members of the upper house, but nearly always occupied by
their wives and daughters, or "lady-lobbyists," or other women
spectators. Leaning back with extraordinary grace, in the chair
nearest Truslow, sat the handsomest woman Alonzo had ever seen in his
life. Her long coat of soft grey fur was unrecognizable to him in
connection with any familiar breed of squirrel; her broad flat hat of
the same fur was wound with a grey veil, underneath which her heavy
brown hair seemed to exhale a mysterious glow, and never, not even in
a lithograph, had he seen features so regular or a skin so clear! And
to look into her eyes seemed to Alonzo like diving deep into clear
water and turning to stare up at the light.

His own eyes fell first. In the breathless awkwardness that beset him
they seemed to stumble shamefully down to his desk, like a country-boy
getting back to his seat after a thrashing on the teacher's
platform. For the lady's gaze, profoundly liquid as it was, had not
been friendly.

Alonzo Rawson had neither the habit of petty analysis, nor the
inclination toward it; yet there arose within him a wonder at his own
emotion, at its strangeness and the violent reaction of it. A moment
ago his soul had been steeped in satisfaction over the figure he had
cut with his speech and the extreme enthusiasm which had been accorded
it--an extraordinarily pleasant feeling: suddenly this was gone, and
in its place he found himself almost choking with a dazed sense of
having been scathed, and at the same time understood in a way in which
he did not understand himself. And yet--he and this most unusual lady
had been so mutually conscious of each other in their mysterious
interchange that he felt almost acquainted with her. Why, then, should
his head be hot with resentment? Nobody had _said_ anything to
him!

He seized upon the fattest of the expensive books supplied to him by
the State, opened it with emphasis and began not to read it, with
abysmal abstraction, tinglingly alert to the circumstance that Truslow
was holding a low-toned but lively conversation with the unknown. Her
laugh came to him, at once musical, quiet and of a quality which
irritated him into saying bitterly to himself that he guessed there
was just as much refinement in Stackpole as there was in the Capital
City, and just as many old families! The clerk calling his vote upon
the "Baseball Bill" at that moment, he roared "No!" in a tone which
was profane. It seemed to him that he was avenging himself upon
somebody for something and it gave him a great deal of satisfaction.

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