Briggs looked at him as if examining a curiosity. “That was why you helped me?”
“Certainly,” West acknowledged, with a resumption of his large smile.
“You knew that some time I’d be useful to you?”
“You’re brutal now, Briggs.”
“Perhaps I am.”
“One doesn’t refer in that way to any service, however slight,” West remarked, in the soft voice of conscious politeness.
“True,” Briggs replied, bitterly. “But you must admit the payment has been rather hard.”
“Most people wouldn’t think so. When you came to me, five years ago, you were on the verge of bankruptcy, and you hadn’t even begun to make your reputation.” West looked at Briggs to observe the effect of his words. Then he continued, with a wave of his hand: “And now see what you are! You’ve made a big name. You’re a power. You have all the swells in Washington at your parties. If you had gone under, five years ago, you never could have retrieved yourself. You know that as well as I do.”
“And how much satisfaction do you suppose my success has given me?” Briggs exclaimed. “Since I began to prosper here I’ve not had one really happy moment.”
West laughed.