Part 15 (1/2)
”Arthur,” said Perez, ”to me you need never justify, need never explain; if you say so, that is all, the rest is wasted time.”
”Here, too,” says I.
It would stagger anybody to see how poor Saxton wanted us to believe him. I began to see how he had poisoned his life. He looked at us very thankfully, but tears came into his eyes. He tried to go on in the calm way, but his throat was husky. Then he swore out free and felt better.
”To save time, I believe you in turn,” he said. ”Another of my tricks is to wish to be believed in myself, and yet always doubt other people.
Well, I lost my grip; I cannot remember all I said to Mary, but I can easily remember that it was all unpleasant. I simply improved on the Almighty's handiwork by making a longer-eared jacka.s.s of myself than I was intended to be, winding up as a masterstroke by attacking Belknap.
It was only two days before, Perez, that Orinez had told me the other side of Belknap's Great Work; of how he was undoing all that you and Orinez had done for the salvation of this unlucky country, by starting up a revolution in order that a lot of poor devils might be killed for his private benefit. I laid it on hard in my fury, and Mary told me to leave. She said she didn't want to be a witness of my descending so low as to attack an honorable man behind his back,--and then I came away.
The Lord knows I have no memory of that walk home; everything that was bad in my blood came out. Honest, I fought--that is to say, I had lucid intervals of an hour or so, but every day my sense wore blunt under the grind of despair. It was a disease; it would come on me in waves like an ague fit. I really suffered physically; I lost every bit of decency that ever was in me; I became a G.o.d-forsaken, devil-ridden brute; a quart of French brandy a day did me no especial good, and yet I loved the stuff for the time. Well, the disease, like any disease, had to reach its climax. It came when I started to strike you, Henry--that was the limit of meanness for any living man. Then old Bill here took hold of me, and squeezed what was left of the obsession out of me with the first hug of his arms. For the expulsion of devils, I recommend your long flippers, Bill, my boy....
”I am not going to apologize to you, Henry, nor to Bill. If I didn't feel something more than any apology could make good, I wouldn't be worth your trouble. But right here I s.h.i.+ft.”
We sat still. Seldom you see a man take out his soul: when that happens, it is usually a kind of indecent exposure. A man must shake every glimmer of vanity out.
Old Saxton stood out naked and unashamed like a statue. n.o.body felt embarra.s.sed. I was too young to appreciate it fully, although I did in a measure. I saw that all he wanted was to be honest. Not a word altered to win either sympathy or approval for himself. I suppose that is the way the woman he spoke of attracted him.
Perez spoke very gently and cautiously.
”This is all strange to me, Arthur,” he said; ”I am trying to understand. You seem so strong, of the head so remarkably clear and capable, that it is a difficulty to understand this trouble. I ask now, if you put a restraint upon yourself, will not--pardon, you know I only ask for good--”
Sax threw both arms in the air. ”For G.o.d's sake, and for both our sakes, Henry, don't quiddle with courtesy--slam out with it! I've lost all right to consideration--you can only give me self-respect by showing you believe me man enough to hear what you have to say.”
That slow smile lit up Perez's eyes. ”Quite right, Arthur,” he said.
”'_Me he equivocado_'--this, then: If you restrain yourself, like the volcano, will you not break out somewhere new?”
”Not so long as I keep my grip on facts: I'm safe when I can say, 'I'm getting crazy again.' The saying restores my sanity. Having no one to say it to, I run amuck.”
”You have that friend,” said Perez. He stopped a minute. ”I would not have you hold yourself, if that would do you harm, Arthur; but now I say, take yourself in the hand strong, for of my life the bitterest time was when you raised your arm at me.”
Saxton's face jerked and then grew still. ”Come, boys!” he said, rolling a handful of cigars on the table. ”Smoke.”
I never saw any one who could get himself and friends in and out of trouble like Saxton. In five minutes we were laughing and talking as though nothing unusual had occurred. That's what I call strength of mind. It wasn't that Sax couldn't feel if he let himself, Heaven knows.
It was that he could shut down so tight, when roused to it, that he _wouldn't_ feel, nor you, neither.
At the same time there was a pity for him aching at the bottom of my heart, and when Perez and I left him to walk home together a remark Perez made started the Great Scheme into operation.
”The girl _must_ care for him,” said Perez. ”His erraticality! Bah! What woman cares for that, so long that the strangeness is in the way of feeling, and not in the way of non-feeling? Women desire that their admirer shall be of some romance. And with that beautiful poet face; the fine manner; the grace of body and of mind--that unusual beautiful which is he and no other--you tell me that any woman shall see that lay at her feet and not be moved? _Tonteria!_ I believe it not. When the story of that other woman arrived to Senorita Maria's ear what is it she feel?
The religious abhorrence? The violation of taste? Perhaps, but much more a thing she does not know herself, that monster of the green eye, called Jealousy--believe me, Senor Saunders, the man who look sees more of the play. It is so. Mees Mary may feel bad in many way, but when she will listen to the explanation not at all, her worst feel bad is jealousy.”
I don't want to lay claim for myself as a great student of mankind, yet ideas to that effect had begun to peek around the corner of my skull. It seemed to me that Mary felt altogether too _hot_ sorry and not enough resigned sorry for it to be a case of friendly interest.
”I guess you're right, Mr. Perez,” said I, ”and if we could only get Sax to bust through her ideas, as I busted through his to-day--”
”_Perfectamente!_” cried Perez, slapping me on the back. ”It is the same; obsession, Arthur called it. It is that and no other. This Belknap has so played upon her mind that it is not her mind; it is a meexture of some ideas she has, and what he wishes her to be. If she could have an arm of that rude strength like your own--but,” he shrugged his shoulders, ”it is a lady, and there is nothing.”
”I'm not so darned sure about that,” says I, little particles of a plan slowly settling in the mud-puddle I call my mind. ”I'm not so hunky-dory positive.... If I could get holt of something against that cussed Belknap,--something that would look bad to a woman,--I'd risk it.”