"... it may be presented pure and without spot before thee."
Then the man on the bed died. He died silently, speedily, grimly. The stumpy fingers stopped their weaving motion; they shot into the palms of the hands, and the hands clenched until only their hairy backs were visible. The lips tightened for a moment until the pointed fangs seemed to have bitten through them; the beady eyes protruded still farther from their sockets; the crooked arms curved stiffly toward the belly; the crooked knees shot toward the chest; the whole figure seemed to curl up; the mouth fell open.
The clergyman looked, hesitated and continued:
"... teach us who survive, in this and other like daily spectacles of mortality, to see how frail and uncertain our own condition is; and so to number our days, that we may seriously apply our hearts to that holy and heavenly wisdom, whilst we live here, which may in the end bring us to life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, thine only Son our Lord. Amen."
Far down in the offices on the twentieth floor of a Wall Street skyscraper, everything was going on as usual. Only one room of the suite was empty, and even in it, under the solemn Washington, the stock-ticker was weaving out its yards and yards of tape by the windows that looked to the web of streets on which the people buzzed always like entangled flies.
CHAPTER XVI
§1. Public opinion had been unanimous concerning Luke's break with the Municipal Reform League. Only in the terms of their condemnation did the newspapers differ: they were all agreed that Luke was anathema. His letters to the press served him to small purpose; the Executive Committee issued a statement declaring that his withdrawal had been requested "because of inflammatory utterances and practical policies contrary to the spirit and purpose of the organization." The official statement was accepted and his individual version treated as a futile attempt to blacken a reputable, if mistaken, movement. It was everywhere believed that he had been forced to resign because of his Cooper Union speech, and it was in some quarters hinted that his former comrades held him responsible for the attempt to bribe the Heney lieutenant—a scandal made the most of during the subsequent period of the campaign and thereafter dropped before it reached the courts. In spite of the fact that the Committee had met in secret session, some of its members gave their own story of its turbulent dénouement to the reporters, and this was published in a form that made Luke appear as a cornered bully.
"Mr. Huber [said the most dignified editorial on the subject] was once doubtless a well-intentioned young man, but his first taste of popular applause seems to have intoxicated him, made him see visions of one real evil in every impossible quarter and caused a fit of that acute mania wherein one's best friends are mistaken for one's worst enemies. This is the only charitable explanation of the tragic end to a promising career, but on that end the Municipal Reform League is certainly to be congratulated."
Other editorials laughed at Luke's habit of hitting at vast conspiracies of which he never produced proof, and some charged him with flagrant dishonesty. He reverted for a time to his belief in publicity and bombarded the papers with letters of explanation; but the papers at first garbled and then forgot to print what he wrote. He sent for reporters to give them interviews, but, although the men still liked him, and politely took down his every word, they could never get their "copy" beyond the editorial desks. Within a few days, the former candidate was a newspaper joke.
He had, of course, written to his mother and sister about his engagement to Betty, since publicly announced, and they had replied with kindly letters, glad because of his planned marriage to the daughter of a man of good family supposed to be well-to-do, and hopeful for his continued happiness. Now, with the news of his political overthrow published broadcast, Jane wrote to ask him why he had been so foolish and to quote her husband the Congressman, to the effect that what Luke needed was an apprenticeship at practical politics; his mother's comment was one of love triumphant over the defects of the loved object and forgiveness for behavior inexplicable in his father's son.