“Well, how about this?” demanded Garnett suddenly. “It is a lie, isn't it? That Commission was elected honestly, wasn't it?”
“How dare you, sir!” Magnus burst out. “How dare you question me—call me to account! Please understand, sir, that I tolerate——”
“Oh, quit it!” cried a voice from the group. “You can't scare us, Derrick. That sort of talk was well enough once, but it don't go any more. We want a yes or no answer.”
It was gone—that old-time power of mastery, that faculty of command. The ground crumbled beneath his feet. Long since it had been, by his own hand, undermined. Authority was gone. Why keep up this miserable sham any longer? Could they not read the lie in his face, in his voice? What a folly to maintain the wretched pretence! He had failed. He was ruined. Harran was gone. His ranch would soon go; his money was gone. Lyman was worse than dead. His own honour had been prostituted. Gone, gone, everything he held dear, gone, lost, and swept away in that fierce struggle. And suddenly and all in a moment the last remaining shells of the fabric of his being, the sham that had stood already wonderfully long, cracked and collapsed.
“Was the Commission honestly elected?” insisted Garnett. “Were the delegates—did you bribe the delegates?”
“We were obliged to shut our eyes to means,” faltered Magnus. “There was no other way to—” Then suddenly and with the last dregs of his resolution, he concluded with: “Yes, I gave them two thousand dollars each.”
“Oh, hell! Oh, my God!” exclaimed Keast, sitting swiftly down upon the ragged sofa.
There was a long silence. A sense of poignant embarrassment descended upon those present. No one knew what to say or where to look. Garnett, with a laboured attempt at nonchalance, murmured:
“I see. Well, that's what I was trying to get at. Yes, I see.”
“Well,” said Gethings at length, bestirring himself, “I guess I'LL go home.”