Crane’s better nature, however, rebelled against the deceit to be practised on Senator Bicknell. That he declared he could never bring himself to—and believed it at the moment.
“Then,” said Governor Sanders, rising, “we may conclude our conference. The entire success of the campaign I have mapped out depends upon Senator Bicknell not being taken into our confidence. We are not proposing anything against the party; we are simply proposing to do for ourselves what Senator Bicknell has done for himself; and if things go on as they have been going under his direction, I think we stand an excellent chance of losing the State at the Presidential election.”
Before Crane’s ardent mind loomed a vision. Six years in Washington as a Senator—and he was not yet forty-three years old; living in good style, and then, the chance, not a bad one by any means, of the Vice-presidential nomination in a little over four years. It was a glorious vista. Like the Arabian glass-seller, his imagination far outstripped itself. He saw himself, at forty-eight, Vice-president, at fifty-two, another term, at fifty-six, still in the Senate, with a great reputation—even the Presidency did not seem beyond him. He had the enormous advantage of youth over most of his rivals. A Vice-president stands one chance in three and a half of succeeding to the Presidency—altogether, it was a dazzling dream—so dazzling that Crane began to feel the old regret and longing that Fate had not given him a wife like Constance Maitland; he was afraid even, in thought, to wish that it might be Constance Maitland. How that woman would shine in an official position! And then, the other side—but there was no other side. Without Sanders’s help, he would have a desperate fight before the Legislature; and that outlook which had seemed so rosy when he described it to Constance Maitland in her drawing-room a few months before, grew dismal and gruesome when examined in parlour number 20 of the Grand Hotel. If defeated for the senatorship, and under the ban of Governor Sanders, his seat, a year hence, would be certainly doubtful, and if the machine ran over him it meant annihilation. So, tempted of the devil, Crane yielded, and promised everything the Governor required.
As the Governor had found him an uncertain quantity before, there were due precautions taken to keep him in the traces this time, by veiled threats of what would befall him if he kicked them over a second time. Crane understood perfectly well. He also realised that there were two men under his skin—one, honest and loving the truth, and the other, craving money and power and consideration, tormented with vanity, enslaved by self-love, a fierce and hideous object to contemplate. But he need not contemplate it; and with this determination he took a friendly cocktail with the Governor, and departed for Circleville. That hint about his wife opened Crane’s eyes to the necessity of the outward practice of virtue, and he then determined to compass, as far as in him lay, the whole comprehensive sin of hypocrisy. He would be very attentive to his wife and devoted to his children. He would go to church regularly. He would adopt a Cincinnatus-like mode of life, that out of his small means he might contribute to charity and have it known by the special correspondents. In short, he proposed to become that object of man’s hate and God’s wrath, a hypocrite.
Chapter Eleven
IN THE SWEET-DO-NOTHING OF THE SUMMER-TIME
Straightway, Crane began a hypocritical mode of life, and deceived everybody in the world except the two most necessary to deceive—himself and his wife.
He did not deceive himself. There was enough of honesty in him to make him loathe himself, while doggedly carrying out the devil’s programme, into which he had entered with Governor Sanders. As he went to church on summer Sundays, with Annette by his side and the two children trotting soberly in front of them, Crane felt as if a bolt from heaven ought to descend upon him for his treachery to the man who had befriended him. Sitting in the cool, dim church, his head devoutly bowed as if in prayer, he doubted that there was a personal God; for if so, how could He tolerate such blasphemy us a man praying, to be seen of men; giving, to be published in the newspapers, and saying to his brother, “How is it with thee, my brother?” and then stabbing him in the back?
At one thing, the evil spirit within him shuddered and turned away. This was when he had a very friendly letter from Senator Bicknell, saying he should be in the neighbourhood of Circleville in the next fortnight, and if convenient he would accept Crane’s often-urged invitation to stop and spend a day at his house.
The idea of receiving under his roof the man he had betrayed was too much for Crane. Enough moral sense remained in him to make him shrink from that. He wrote Senator Bicknell a very friendly and even affectionate letter explaining that important business would take him away from home for that week, and expressing the deepest regret that he could not have the long-promised visit. And forthwith, on the promised day, Crane made an excuse of business, and went speeding toward the nearest city. He said no word to Annette about his letter from Senator Bicknell, but some suspicion of the actual state of things had crept into her mind. She knew that Crane was under obligations to Senator Bicknell, and a close reading of the newspapers had shown her that Crane and Governor Sanders were supposed to be mortal enemies. Yet, she knew that the Governor and Crane were in the most friendly communication, while Crane had ceased to mention Senator Bicknell’s name. And some anxiety was weighing upon him—that she saw plainly. She saw that Crane was prosperous, that he was rising in importance every day, and yet was miserable. He had grown thin and pale in those few weeks since he had entered into his evil compact. It could not be want of money, because Annette had never known him to be so well supplied. She begun to suspect some moral lapse on his part, and the thought nearly broke her heart—for Julian Crane was the love of her life; and she loved him in his degradation as profoundly as in the time when she had believed him to be the soul of honour.
A singular complication came of Senator Bicknell’s letter. He did not get Crane’s in reply, and on the day he had proposed to be in Circleville he found himself at the little station. There was no one to meet him, but it was easy enough to find the way to Crane’s house—he was the local great man of Circleville.