“If you'll excuse me,” began Crane, rising, “I think Mr. Wortimer is getting tired. I believe I'll jog back to Brookfield.”
Reluctantly the Reverend Dolman rose, too. He felt, somehow, that the atmosphere of racing had smothered his expostulation—that he had made little headway. The intense honesty that was John Porter's shielded him about almost as perfectly as, a higher form of belief might have done.
But with almost a worldly cunning it occurred to the clergyman that he could turn the drawn battle into a victory for the church; and as they stood for a minute in the gentle bustle of leave-taking, he said: “The ever-continuing fight that I carry on against the various forms of gambling must necessarily take on at times almost a personal aspect—” he was addressing Mr. Porter, ostensibly—“but in reality it is not quite so. I think I understand your position, Mr. Porter, and—and—what shall I say—personally I feel that the wickedness of racing doesn't appeal to you as a great contamination; you withstand it, but you will forgive me saying so, thousands have not the same strength of character.”
Porter made a deprecatory gesture, but Dolman proceeded. “What I was going to say is, that you possibly realize this yourself. You have acted so wisely, with what I would call Christian forethought, in placing your son, Alan, in a different walk in life, and—” he turned with a grave bow in Crane's direction—“and in good hands, too.”
“His mother wished it,” Porter said, simply.
“Yes, John was very good about Alan's future,” the mother concurred. “But, husband, you quite agreed that it was much better for Alan to be in the bank than possibly drifting into association with—well, such dishonorable men as this Mr. Langdon and his friends. He is so much better off,” she continued, “with young men such as Mr. Crane would have about him.”
The Reverend Dolman smiled meekly, but it was in triumph. He had called attention to an act which spoke far louder than Mr. Porter's disclaiming words.
Porter was not at all deceived by the minister; in fact, he rather admired the other's cleverness in beating him on the post. He gave a little laugh as he said: “I should not have succeeded very well in a bank. I am more at home with the horses than I am with figures; but I expect I would have gone fairly straight, and hope the boy will do the same. I fancy one of the great troubles about banking is to keep the men honest, the temptation of handling so much money being great. They seem to have more chances to steal than men on the race course.”
As usual, Porter seemed to be speaking out of his thoughts and without malice; no one took offense. It was simply a straightforward answer to Dolman's charge.
Porter had simply summed up the whole business in a very small nutshell. That there was temptation everywhere, and that honest men and thieves were to be found on race courses, in banks, in every business, but that, like the horses, a fair share of them were honest.