“How have I changed?” asked Benson curiously.
“Well, I should say you were less frank for one thing, Jake; and you have accumulated dignity along with your dollars; but it's a combination that's hard to beat; I wonder you ain't ever married.”
There was another silence, in which Gibbs applied himself to his glass.
In a quiet easy going way, without haste and with an economy of effort that seemed to argue entire indifference to worldly success, Benson had yet thriven exceedingly in his various enterprises. He stood at the head of his profession; men much older than himself, and of much wider actual experience, yielded him precedence. Hardly any venture was embarked upon in the town but his advice or help was asked; for it was known that he could always command money. In part this had fallen to his character and ability, in part it was because of the thousands Southerland had paid him for that wild land in Belmont County. It was because of the good use he had made of those thousands, that people were now able to speak of him as a millionaire. His riches seemed to have detached him from those traditional intimacies that belong to life in a small town; only a very few of the older men in the place ventured to call him Jake; this while it amused him, yet had a certain subtle influence on his character. He was fundamentally much too frank and simple for any external show; but he was also too sensible to despise the solid advantages that flowed to him from this attitude of his townsmen, and in a way he was remotely flattered by it. It was only Virginia whose manner conceded nothing, and who paid no deference to his worldly success and growing position as the great man of the town. It was nothing to her that he was adding house to house and farm to farm; these things did not impress her; and he saw that to her at least, his position had remained exactly what it had been in her husband's lifetime. If anything, her manner toward him had grown more formal, more as if she were defining his place for him, since he was in danger of forgetting it.
There were times, days of depression and suffering, when his loathing of himself was the more bitter because of the very respect men so readily gave him. What if they could know, what if he were suddenly and relentlessly held up for the scorn and contempt he merited, his hypocrisy made known! The hypocrisy of his charities, the hypocrisy of every decent untterance that fell from his lips, placed side by side with the black record of his hidden act. Gibbs had spoken of a change; and the change was there deeper than he knew; a rotten spot in his conscience that was spreading—spreading.
A moment before and he had hardly been able to hide his contempt for Gibbs; now he was ready to abase himself before him; for at his worst, Gibbs was a blatant easy-going scamp with a kindly generous streak in him that had probably held him back from much rascality.
“I expect you were a good friend to Landray, Gibbs; and doubtless helped him through the worst of his troubles,” he was moved to say.
“Who told you that, Jake?” asked the general quickly.
“I don't have to be told it, I know you,” said Benson.
“I don't deserve any praise; we were poor together at the last, and as long as you ain't got anything you can afford to be generous.” He took from his pocket a letter and handed it to Benson.