"For the sake of the cause," he went on when he saw he was to get no help from me, "any and all personal sacrifices must be made. If you insist on having Goodrich's head, I will break my promise, and—"
"Pardon me again," I interrupted. My mood would not tolerate twaddle about "the cause" and "promises" from Burbank—Burbank, whose "cause," as he had just shown afresh, was himself alone, and who promised everything to everybody and kept only the most advantageous promises after he had made absolutely sure how his advantage lay. "It's all a matter of indifference to me. If you wish to retain Goodrich, do so. He must not be dismissed as a personal favor to me. The favor is to you. I do not permit any man to thimblerig his debts to me into my debts to him."
Burbank seemed deeply moved. He came up to me and took my hand. "It is not like my friend Sayler to use the word indifference in connection with me," he said. And then I realized how completely the nomination had turned his head. For his tone was that of the great man addressing his henchman.
I did not keep my amusement out of my eyes. "James," said I, "indifference is precisely the word. I should welcome a chance to withdraw from this campaign. I have been ambitious for power, you want place. If you think the time has come to dissolve partnership, say so—and trade yourself off to Goodrich."
He was angry through and through, not so much at my bluntness as at my having seen into his plot to help himself at my expense—for, not even when I showed it to him, could he see that it was to his interest to destroy Goodrich. Moral coward that he was, the course of conciliation always appealed to him, whether it was wise or not, and the course of courage always frightened him. He bit his lip and dissembled his anger. Presently he began to pace up and down the room, his head bent, his hands clasped behind him. After perhaps five minutes he paused to say: "You insist on taking the place yourself, Harvey?"
I stood before him and looked down at him. "Your suspicion that I have also a personal reason is well-founded, James," said I. "I wouldn't put myself in a position where I should have to ask as a favor what I now get as a right. If I help you to the presidency, I must be master of the national machine of the party, able to use it with all its power and against any one—" here I looked him straight in the eye—"who shall try to build himself up at my expense. Personally, we are friends, and it has been a pleasure to me to help elevate a man I liked. But there is no friendship in affairs, except where friendship and interest point the same way. It is strange that a man of your experience should expect friendship from me at a time when you are showing that you haven't for me even the friendship of enlightened self-interest."
"Your practice is better than your theory, Harvey," said he, putting on an injured, forgiving look and using his chest tones. "A better friend never lived than you, and I know no other man who gets the absolute loyalty you get." He looked at me earnestly. "What has changed you?" he asked. "Why are you so bitter and so—so unlike your even-tempered self?"
I waved his question aside,—I had no mind to show him my uncovered coffin with its tenant who only slept, or to expose to him the feelings which the erect and fearless figure of Scarborough had set to stirring in me. "I'm careful to choose my friends from among those who can serve me and whom I can therefore serve," I said. "And that is the sentimentalism of the wise. I wish us to remain friends—therefore, I must be able to be as useful to you as you can be useful to me."
"Goodrich shall go," was the upshot of his thinking. "I'll telephone him this afternoon. Is my old friend satisfied?"
"You have done what was best for yourself," said I, with wholly good-humored raillery. And we shook hands, and I went.