“It got away from me before I knew it. I must have got to gambling with myself to see how far I could go.”
“Are you going to quit?”
A mist filled Morning’s mind. The question seemed an infringement. Then it occurred to him how he had fallen to lying to himself.
“He’ll make you quit, but don’t let him stop you too short. You’d be a wreck in a few hours. You see how you needed these two or three drinks?”
... Fallows entered with several of the committee. He had promised to speak to them again.
“It’s what I came for,” he was saying. “So long as I am wanted I’ll stay.... Yes, I’m a socialist.... Yes, I believe in fighting, but when our kind of men stand together, there won’t be anything big enough to give us a fight. When our kind of men look into one another’s eyes and find service instead of covetousness—there’s nothing in the world to stand against us.”
Fallows and Morning were in a steam-room together two hours afterward. Morning was limp and light-headed. He had told of some of the things that had happened since Baltimore—of men he had met—of the slummers—of harrowing nights and waiting for the bank to open.
“You had to have it, John?”
There was something in the way Fallows spoke the word, John, that made Morning weaker and filled his throat. He had to speak loudly for the hissing of the steam.
“Why, if you didn’t get humble and stay humble after such a training—you’d be the poorest human experiment ever undertaken by the Master. But you can’t fail. It isn’t in the cards to fail. You’ve ridden several monsters—Drink, Ambition, Literature—but they won’t get you down. Why, even the sorrel mare didn’t kill you, as I promised aforetime. I saw a lot in that story. You loved her to the last. You left her dead and hunched on an alien road. You’ve loved these others long enough. You’ll leave them dead—even that big fame stuff. I think you’ve ridden that pompous fool to death already. They are all passages on the way to Initiation. Your training for service is a veritable inspiration—and you’ll write to men—down among men. I love that idea—you’ll write the story of Compassion—down among men——”