“Do you want me?” he asked, quick but quiet.
“Not yet,” replied his friend; “perhaps not at all. I don’t like to talk of shooting until the time comes to do it. Aiming too long makes the hand tremble. You can understand, Granby, that the world becomes a small and narrow place to walk in when we meet an enemy deadly and damnable. Now, without nourishing any ill-feeling, I begin to half perceive that there may be a person whose life and mine are inconsistent. You said I looked like an executioner—it may be that I shall be appointed executioner of such a person.”
“I know you too well,” said Granby, “to suppose you capable of any petty revenge—this is grave, of course.”
“It is grave. Personal revenge is necessary for the protection of society. There is crime that laws take no notice of. Public opinion—public scorn—is never quite reliable. Nor does public opinion protect the innocent ignorant. There may be such an absolutely dastard villain that, for the safety and decency and habitableness of the globe, he must die—and it is fortunate for society when he outrages anyone to the point of deadly vengeance.”
“Do you begin to see any light on the part of your life that we have talked over by so many campfires? Fifteen years is long to wait.”
“No years are lost while a man is learning patience. I remember that it took thirty years of my life to teach me to regard my moral and mental tremors and stumbles and falls with the same unconcern that in my fifteenth year I did my childish physical weaknesses. I suppose that one hour of actual happiness now, which I am certainly not likely to have, would explain my dark fifteen years. Patience!”
“You expect to win happiness by killing your man, eh?” questioned Granby.
“No; if I kill him, it will merely be from a quickened sense of duty. Don’t think I’m going to lie in ambush like a Thug. I wait information and entertain a purpose.”
Here, Sir Comeguys knocked at the door. They had an appointment for a sailing party.
As they passed the parlour, Belden was sitting with Mrs. Budlong. It was as much contact as was possible in public, and some women allow liberal possibilities.