Poor Man's Rock

by Bertrand W. Sinclair

Young Gower did not alter his position during the few minutes they sat there. He sat staring straight ahead of him, unseeingly. MacRae suddenly felt sorry for him. If he had told the truth he was suffering a peculiarly distressing form of injustice, of misconception. MacRae recalled the passionate undertone in Gower's voice when he said, "I did the only thing I could do in the way I was told to do it." Yes, he was sorry for Norman. The poor devil was not getting a square deal.

But MacRae's pity was swiftly blotted out. He had a sudden uncomfortable vision of old Donald MacRae rowing around Poor Man's Rock, back and forth in sun and rain, in frosty dawns and stormy twilights, coming home to a lonely house, dying at last a lonely death, the sordid culmination of an embittered life.

Let him sweat,—the whole Gower tribe. MacRae was the ancient Roman, for the moment, wishing all his enemies had but a single head that he might draw his sword and strike it off. Something in him hardened against that first generous impulse to repeat to Stubby Abbott what Norman had told him on the cliff at Squitty. Let the beggar make his own defense. Yet that stubborn silence, the proud refusal to make words take the place of valiant deeds expected, wrung a gleam of reluctant admiration from MacRae. He would have done just that himself.

"Let's get back," Stubby suggested. "I've got the next dance with Betty Gower. I don't want to miss it."

"Is she here to-night? I haven't noticed her."

"Eyesight affected?" Stubby bantered. "Sure she's here. Looking like a dream."

MacRae felt a pang of envy. There was nothing to hold Stubby back,—no old scores, no deep, abiding resentment. MacRae had the conviction that Stubby would never take anything like that so seriously as he, Jack MacRae, did. He was aware that Stubby had the curious dual code common in the business world,—one set of inhibitions and principles for business and another for personal and social uses. A man might be Stubby's opponent in the market and his friend when they met on a common social ground. MacRae could never be quite like that. Stubby could fight Horace Gower, for instance, tooth and toenail, for an advantage in the salmon trade, and stretch his legs under Gower's dining table with no sense of incongruity, no matter what shifts the competitive struggle had taken or what weapons either had used. That was business; and a man left his business at the office. A curious thing, MacRae thought. A phenomenon in ethics which he found hard to understand, harder still to endorse.

He stood watching Stubby, knowing that Stubby would go straight to Betty Gower. Presently he saw her, marked the cut and color of her gown, watched them swing into the gyrating wave of couples that took the floor when the orchestra began. Indeed, MacRae stood watching them until he recalled with a start that he had this dance with Etta Robbin-Steele, who would, in her own much-used phrase, be "simply furious" at anything that might be construed as neglect; only Etta's fury would consist of showing her white, even teeth in a pert smile with a challenging twinkle in her very black eyes.

He went to Betty as soon as he found opportunity. He did not quite know why. He did not stop to ask himself why. It was a purely instinctive propulsion. He followed his impulse as the needle swings to the pole; as an object released from the hand at a great height obeys the force of gravity; as water flows downhill.