Yet when Benson found work for him in his office, where Gibbs made himself useful in the collecting of rents, the overlooking of repairs, and the drawing up of leases, this meekness of his changed somewhat. While Benson was able for the most part to keep him within reasonable bounds, there were periods when he relapsed; when he swiftly sounded the depths of his degradation; and from these periods he emerged with much contrition and a multitude of promises as to his future behaviour. He accepted Benson's severity, which was often bitter and unsparing, with wonderful gentleness, acquiescing in all the hard things Benson found to say of him.
“I don't defend myself, Jake,” in a tone of miserable despondency. “Ain't it just hell, the beast a man will make of himself; and an old man like me who ought to have some pride to keep him up! It ain't as if I'd been bred to the gutter. If I do say it, I been something of a man in my day. I've worn Uncle Sam's uniform and I've carried his commission, but here I am making a spectacle of myself for people to point at. You can't trust me, and I can't trust myself—I wonder I don't end it; but it's harder on Julia, Jake—I pity myself, but I pity her more;” and his bloodshot eyes would fill with ready tears.
He was not an agreeable sight at such times, but the next day he would be himself again; the man of the world; the man who had mingled in large affairs, and to whom other men had deferred and conceded, paying court; and he was ready to criticise his patron's business methods, his exactness in matters of detail; inferring plainly that his own methods had been suited to bigger things, bigger stakes, and a wider outlook.
Benson's attitude was one of mingled tyranny and kindness. For days together he limited his intercourse with the general to sharp commands, indicating unmistakably that he preferred to see just as little of him as possible; but Gibbs always met his severity with an air of large and genial tolerance. Again Benson's mood would be one of studied consideration and friendship, when he would seem to invite the intimacy Gibbs was always anxious to thrust upon him. To Gibbs's expansive temperament, affection was as much a part of his life as the air he breathed; and since he could no longer glorify himself, he ended by glorifying the friend who had shouldered his burdens for him. He showed a tactful consideration for Benson's habits and prejudices, he was tirelessly useful, he dealt in pleasant flatteries, and he boasted privately to his Julia that he could wind Jake Benson around his little finger.
In the very first stages of their relation Benson had merely tolerated the shabby old man; he rebelled against the anxiety he always felt when Gibbs was not promptly at the office each morning, and there were times when he would have been glad to be rid of him on any terms; but in the end he succumbed to Gibbs. There was no resisting him. He had lived alone all his life, and the general's willingness to fit into his rather empty existence, to be silent or talkative as his mood was, to share his feelings and adopt his point of view, made him more dependent than he realized; but above all he felt the glow of Gibbs's affection, and understood that it was as sincere as any emotion he had ever known, as sincere in its way as his love for himself.
From seeing him only at the office, and limiting their intercourse largely to matters of business, he came by degrees to depend more and more upon him for society. Day after day he took him home to dine with him; and this intimacy, as it strengthened, was the very breath of life to Gibbs. The luxury of Benson's well-appointed house and table, the rich wines he was allowed to use in moderation, these, to his pagan soul were the very end and aim of existence. At the office, where only petty concerns were entrusted to him, he was on the whole unobtrusive enough; but in Benson's house, the great man's chosen guest and boon companion, he relaxed and was at home, too. .
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
STEPHEN had not been able to believe in the reality of his home going until he was settled in the cab that bore him swiftly across the city. He had made so many trips into New York, that his journey of the night before had not been at all convincing; but the squat ferry-house which he now approached from a tangle of crowded streets was new to him, and with the salt breeze blowing full in his face, and the Jersey river-front brilliant in the sunlight beyond, he could feel that he was really going home, that his college days were over, and belonged to a phase of his experience that he had definitely put behind him.