I was silent.
"Be frank with me, Sayler," he exclaimed at last. "Be frank. Be my friend, your own old self."
"As frank and as friendly as you have been?" said I, rather to remind myself than to reproach him. For I was afraid of the reviving feeling of former years—the liking for his personal charms and virtues, the forbearance toward that weakness which he could no more change than he could change the color of his eyes. His moral descent had put no clear markings upon his pose. On the contrary, he had grown in dignity through the custom of deference. The people passing us looked admiration at him, had a new sense of the elevation of the presidential office. Often it takes the trained and searching eye to detect in the majestic façade the evidences that the palace has degenerated into a rookery for pariahs.
"I have done what I thought for the best," he answered, never more direct and manly in manner. "I have always been afraid, been on guard, lest my personal fondness for you should betray me into yielding to you when I ought not. Perhaps I have erred at times, have leaned backward in my anxiety to be fair. But I had and have no fear of your not understanding. Our friendship is too long established, too well-founded." And I do not doubt that he believed himself; the capacity for self-deception is rarely short of the demands upon it.
"It's unfortunate—" I began. I was going to say it was unfortunate that no such anxieties had ever restrained him from yielding to Goodrich. But I hadn't the heart. Instead, I finished my sentence with: "However, it's idle to hold a post-mortem on this case. The cause of death is unimportant. The fact of it is sufficient. No doubt you did the best you could, Mr. President."
My manner was that of finality. It forbade further discussion. He abandoned the finesse of negotiation.
"Harvey, I ask you, as a personal favor, to help me through this crisis," he said. "I ask you, my friend and my dead wife's friend."
No depth too low, no sentiment too sacred! Anger whirled up in me against this miserable, short-sighted self-seeker who had brought to a climax of spoliation my plans to guide the strong in developing the resources of the country. And I turned upon him, intending to overwhelm him with the truth about his treachery, about his attempts to destroy me. For I was now safe from his and Goodrich's vengeance—they had destroyed themselves with the people and with the party. But a glance at him and—how could I strike a man stretched in agony upon his deathbed? "If I could help you, I would," said I.
"You—you and I together can get a convention that will nominate me," he urged, hope and fear jostling each other to look pleadingly at me from his eyes.