In an indefinite kind of way, he was conscious of being less attracted by the wit and sparkling smalltalk of Horace than he had been at first. Somehow, the young man seemed to have exhausted his store; he began to repeat himself, as if he had already made the circuit of the small ring around which his mind travelled. Reuben confronted a suspicion that the Boyce soil was shallow.
This might not be necessarily an evil thing, he said to himself. Lawyers quite often achieved notable successes before juries, who were not deep or well-grounded men. Horace was versatile, and versatility was a quality which Reuben distinctly lacked. From that point of view the combination ought, therefore, to be of value.
But, then, Horace told lies. Versatility of that variety was not so admirable. There could be no doubt on this point. Reuben could count on his fingers now six separate falsehoods that his partner had already told him. They happened not to be upon vital or even important subjects, but that did not render them the more palatable.
And then there was the Minster business. He knew from other sources that Horace had been intrusted with the papers left to Mr. Clarke’s executors. The young man had taken them to his father’s house, and had never mentioned so much as a syllable about them to his partner. No doubt, Horace felt that he ought to have this as his personal business, and upon the precedent Reuben himself had set with the railroad work, this was fair enough. But there was something underhanded in his secrecy about the matter. He should have spoken of it.
Reuben’s thoughts from this drifted to the Minsters themselves, and centred reverently upon the luminous figure of that elder daughter whom he had met an hour before. He did not dwell much upon her beauty—perhaps he was a trifle dull about such things—but her graciousness, her sweet interest in the charity, her womanly commingling of softness and enthusiasm, seemed to shine about him as he mused. Thessaly unconsciously assumed a brighter and more wholesome aspect, with much less need of reform than before, in his mind’s eye, now that he thought of it as her home.
Her home! The prosperous and respected lawyer was still a country boy in his unformed speculations as to what that home might be like. The Minster house was the most splendid mansion in Dearborn County, it was said, but his experience with mansions was small. A hundred times it had been said to him that he could go anywhere if he liked, and he gave the statement credence enough. But somehow it happened that he had not gone. To “be in society,” as the phrase went, had not seemed important to him. Now, almost for the first time, he found himself regretting this. Then he smiled somewhat scowlingly at his plate as the vagrant reflection came up that his partner contributed social status as well as versatility and mendacity to the outfit of the firm. Horace Boyce had a swallowtail coat, and visited at the Minsters’. The reflection was not altogether grateful to him.
Reuben rose from the table, and stood for a few moments by the window overlooking the veranda and the side street. The sunny warmth of the thawing noon-day had made it possible to have the window open, and the sound of voices close at hand showed that there were people already anticipating pneumonia and the springtime by sitting on the porch outside.
These voices conveyed no distinct impression at first to Reuben’s mind, busy as he was with his own reflections. But all at once there was a scraping of feet and chair-legs on the floor, signifying that the party had risen, and then he heard two remarks which made a sharp appeal to his attention and interest.
The first voice said: “Mind, I’m not going to let you put me into a hole. What I do, I do only when it has been proved to me to be to my own interest, and not at all because I’m afraid of you. Understand that clearly!”
The other voice replied: “All that you need be afraid of is that you will kick over your own bucket of milk. You’ve got the whole game in your hands, if you only listen to me and don’t play it like a fool. What do you say? Shall we go up to your house and put the thing into shape? We can be alone there.”