“And granting this noble patriotism—this alarmingly noble patriotism, I might say—” sneered Turner “why such sudden interest in the welfare of our fair Dominion?”
“By God!” breathed Howarth. “I believe in my soul that that little baby-faced simpleton has put one over on you, Rufus! She’s got you halter-broke and working for her husband!”
“Mrs. Dilling?” echoed Turner, incredulously.
“No fool like an old fool,” quoted his friend. “I’ve become accustomed to seeing him lose his heart over a fine pair of shoulders and a well-turned ankle, but I’m damned if I ever thought he would lose his head!”
Sullivan paused with his hand on the door.
“It strikes me, Billy,” he said, “that disappointment makes you rather coarse. Forgive my seeming inhospitality, gentlemen, but I dare not keep a lady waiting.”
As he turned from the bright thoroughfare into a shadowy street, Mr. Sullivan was not free from disturbing reflections. This was a big game he played, and one that admitted of miscalculations. He tried to keep before him its analogy to Chess, when a man sees ultimate gain developing out of a temporary triumph won by his opponent. He tried to assure himself that he had been wise in helping Dilling to victory as a means whereby to accomplish his swifter defeat. Only the short-sighted player tries to vanquish his foe at every turn.
There was nothing small about Rufus Sullivan. Even his defamers granted him a largeness that extended to his very vices. He sinned, but he sinned grandly, with a joie de vivre that was lacking in the righteous deeds of confessed Christians. He loved readily and hated magnificently, but he did not begrudge the object of his hatred a modicum of pleasure. So, in this matter, he could look with equanimity upon Dilling’s attainment of the Ministership and feel no envy at his brief success.
For it must be brief . . . and yet . . .