Nearly all the founders of the republic had been plastered with scandal. Many of them were infidels and Dr. Chirnside was always bewailing the decay of religion under the republic.
So RoBards reasoned that if there were scandal in his home, it was only what every other home had. The good thing was that his shame was hidden. His house was looked upon as a place of honor. It was unsullied. It must be kept of good repute. There was a certain kind of hypocrisy that was wholesome and decent and necessary to good citizenship.
CHAPTER XVII
Time was spreading its rust and its vines over everything, eating away the edges of his passions and fastening the hinges of his will so that it could not turn.
The hate he felt for Chalender was slowly paralyzed. Having forborne the killing of him lest the public be apprised of what he had killed him for, it followed that Chalender must be treated politely before the public for the same reason. Thus justice and etiquette were both suborned to keep people from wondering and saying, Why?
Being unable to avoid Chalender, he had to greet him casually, to pass the time of day, even to smile at Chalender’s flippancies. Under such custom the grudge itself decayed, or retreated at least to the place where old heartbreaks and horrors make their lair.
There was much talk of Chalender’s splendid engineering work. His section of the aqueduct prospered exceedingly. He had a way with his men and though there was an occasional outburst, he kept them happier and busier than they were in most of the other sections.
He had a joke or a picturesque sarcasm for everyone, and the men were aware that his lightness was not a disguise for cowardice. They remembered that when two of them had fought with picks, he had jumped into the ditch between them. He could now walk up to drunken brutes of far superior bulk and take away their weapons, and often their tempers. He composed quarrels with a laugh or leaped in with a quick slash of his fist on the nearest nose.
People said to RoBards: “Fine lad, Harry Chalender, great friend of yours, isn’t he? Plucky devil, too.”
That was hard to deny without an ugly explanation. It would have been peculiarly crass to sneer or snarl at a man held in favor for courage.