And she was crying with happiness.
Sayler understood as soon as he saw her face. And he felt that he had won. George Helm, on his way to the triumphant class—was it not a fundamental law of human nature that a human being could not be in a class without becoming of it, of its ideas, feelings, attitude toward other classes? George Helm, marrying a girl of the triumphant class. Could he, however tenacious, resist the influences, the subtle influences, insistent, incessant, unconsciously exerted, unconsciously yielded to—the influences of a loved wife of the triumphant class from birth?
“He shall be the next governor of this state,” Sayler said to himself; and a smile more amiably generous than his never glorified human visage.
Helm saw “Ellen” only three times in the remainder of that week, and then for but a few minutes. He set to work with an energy that made his previous toiling seem a species of languor. He decided that Ellen had been right when she told him he did not appreciate the part of woman in the life of man. And when the legislature adjourned he went on a tour of the cities and towns and villages as a lecturer, and built for himself that only solid fame—a personal fame which future assaults from a subsidized hostile press could not destroy. The people would have seen him, heard him, looked into his eyes, touched his hand. Sayler, away from the scene, and kept informed of events by lieutenants with lieutenant-brains, did not get the true meaning of Helm’s tour, but assumed that making a living was his sole object. However, if Sayler had known—had even been able to read Helm’s thoughts, he would not have been disturbed. Circumstances of class-association had made George Helm what he was; circumstances of class-association would re-make him.
Nor was Hazelrigg moved to suspicion by the enthusiasm with which the boom of Helm for governor was received, as soon as launched—nor by Helm’s memorable campaign—nor by the overturn on election day that swept Helm into office by a majority such as the Democrats had never dreamed of. In Hazelrigg’s opinion it was all clever machine manipulation by Sayler’s men of the Republican machine and by himself and his lieutenants. Helm had shown himself sensible and manageable in everything pertaining to the practical side of the campaign work; Hazelrigg began to suspect there was a secret understanding between him and Sayler. “That man Sayler,” said Hazelrigg to himself, with a grin, “he’s a deep one. He’s the best in the country at the game.”
Helm was, of course, at home in Harrison for the election—was at Mrs. Beaver’s boarding-house, in the attic room still, though he had nearly thirty-five hundred dollars, the savings from the lecture tour. Mrs. Beaver had tried to induce him to take the best room in the house, at the attic price if that would be an inducement.
“No, thank you, ma’am,” said Helm. “I’m very comfortable. Why should I move?”
Many people thought this sticking to his attic was shrewd politics. It may be that a desire to show his class that he was still with them had something to do with his refusal to move. But the chief, the deciding reason was the one he gave. He had lived in that little room long. He had got used to it. He liked it, felt at home in it, would have felt strange without it to come home to and live in. Helm was one of those men—and Sayler, had he been entirely great, would have looked into this before completing his estimate of his character—Helm was of those men—and there are women of the same sort—who care nothing for luxury, even for the comforts that soon seem necessary to people who get the smallest chance to expand.
To him heat and cold were matters of indifference. He had ploughed and mowed in the broiling sun; he had slept under thin covers, with snow sifting through the roof, had brushed the snow off his skin when he got ready to rise. He had eaten all kinds of difficult, not to say impossible, fried food—and had not known what he was eating, or cared. He was so profoundly inured to hardship that he was unaware of it—and was unaware of comfort when he, by chance, got it. Hardened against hardship; hardened also against comfort and luxury. That last peculiarity was probably the most significant factor in his make-up. Yet no one had noted it; he himself not only had not noted it but never would. When one considers how powerful in effect upon human character is love of the softer side of life, and desire for it and clinging to it and respecting it and its possessors, one begins to comprehend how far-reaching was the importance of George Helm’s unique hardiness.