"Know? I know too much. I'm unlearning things now. That's the key to happiness—forgetting. And here come you, as you used to come, an untamed, masterful force—that's what you are, a force!—and instead of forgetting you ask me to remember. What is it you're really seeking in this probing of my happiness? What must you be told?"
"Nothing." With the revelation of the flaw in her armor he conquered self. "I know—God help me!—I know."
CHAPTER VI
The Boss questioned the wisdom of the Tuscarora speech, and the fall widened the unacknowledged breach between him and the governor. The September primaries had assured the leader a firmer control of the state convention than he had ever exercised, and it was well understood to be his, and his alone, made to his order, and the docile register of his will. That this victory clinched his ownership of the delegation to the national convention of next year was self-evident; and that a presidential candidate with New York's backing would attract allies from several eastern and at least two southern boss-ruled states, was well warranted by the tale of the great politician's excursions into national affairs in the recent past. By implication of the April banquet the leader's personal choice, Shelby, had therefore no trivial chance of capturing the nomination; and in the Boss's opinion the favored pawn owed a decent deference to the master chess-player. So Shelby thought, too; but they split over definition of terms in the same old way.
"You juggled millions like a Napoleon of Finance," complained the Boss at a breakfast for two shortly after the state convention. "Is that the kind of talk for people just recovering from hard times?"
His tone chafed the governor.
"It's the kind of talk for a proper handling of the canal problem," he retorted crisply. "The canal has been the prey of peanut politics too long."
"The speech was ill-advised—ill-advised," persisted the Boss, irritably. "You should have consulted somebody."
Shelby provoked him with a smile.
"That was my idea, precisely," he returned. "I thought I'd consult the people."