"There was one mean scoundrel in the bunch—a hypocrite to the marrow. He really was to blame for the worst outbreaks, but he pulled the long face when among respectable people. I wanted to get the best of that lad. If you're going to lead drinking men and gamblers, you've got to be the best drinker and the best card player in the bunch. The rest were empty-headed boys, who'd have taken up religion as quickly as faro bank, if some one led 'em to it. Well, I think I'd won out, if my friend the hypocrite, who was foxy enough in his way, hadn't back-capped me, by telling the town the evil of my ways. The first break was with my father. The news came to him carefully prepared. When I tried to explain my side, the disgusted incredulity of his face stopped me almost before I began. Father gave me my choice: to leave his house or to leave the company I kept. I cannot bear to be doubted. I made a choice. I left both the house and the company I kept. Father had been good to me; knowing how he felt, I would not disgrace him. Then I made my living with my fiddle.
"Mary at first believed in me, but they talked her out of it. If she'd doubted of her own mind, I wouldn't have cared so much, but to know me as she did, and then prefer the word of outsiders—well, I roared at her like a maniac; it was much like now, as sweetly reasonable and all. No wonder the girl was frightened. I haven't a doubt she felt that entertaining an interest for me was little better than criminal. At the same time the interest was there, and, like myself, she took a middle course by plunging with what heart she could into a dreary and hide-bound church. I drove her to it, and I paid the bill. If I could bring one half the sense into my own affairs that I can into some outside thing, I suppose I should sometime succeed. A little coaxing, an appeal for sympathy,—any show of gentleness on my part might have brought her round.—As we are, we are. I demanded, and here am I.
"I made it up with father afterwards; he didn't understand, but he believed. You see I wouldn't take a cent from him. He offered me money, but I said flat that as I didn't please him, I wouldn't take it. Father had been a business man all his days, and money had become his measure. If I refused money I meant business. That's no sneer—a good old man was my father. But Mary stood me off. When I'm not despairing, I know she cares. I have learned how much conventions mean to a woman—well, I don't blame 'em. I wish I had a few conventions against which I could lean and rest this minute. Then comes a man named Belknap—"
"Why, I have just met him, Saxton," said I.
"Did you, Bill? I am thankful for it. I have gotten so my heart aches for facts to back me. What is your judgment on the gentleman?"
"Smooth as a sausage skin," says I.
"All of that," says Saxton; "he is one subtle scoundrel."
"But he isn't so hard to get on to, neither!"
"For a man, no," says Saxton; "but Belknap has information that you, nor Perez, nor I, nor any man who is a man has, and that is the difference between a woman's thinking and a man's thinking. We know a man will swallow all manner of guff in politics; he'll buy a gold brick from a cheap blatherskite. That sort of thing is man's folly. I don't pretend to understand women's follies, but Belknap does. He can talk such nonsense to a seemingly sensible woman that you fancy she's laughing at him, and behold! when you look to see the smile, you find the lady in tears.
"When he came into the game he was young. He took an instant interest in Mary, and at once used his smooth tongue, and his perfect knowledge of a woman's character, to win her. He worked through her vanity, through her virtues, and through all the avenues his peculiar intelligence opened to him. He gained her attention from the first, and now his power over her is something horrible to me. Again, had it not been my own affair, how easily I could have beaten him! If only my head and not my heart were in it—yet, I do not care for the game when my heart isn't in it, so where I don't care, I don't even try. This makes a jolly life.