76The street noises below filled the pause. Henry rose, looked eagerly into the sky and wistfully at the moon as he spoke, “Hold me? Hold me?” he cried. “Why, Tom, though I’d fall into hell myself a thousand times–she couldn’t lose me! I’d still–still,” he faltered, “I’d still–” He did not finish, but sat down and putting his hand on the arm of his friend’s chair, he bent forward, smiled into the handsome young face in the moonlight and said: “Well–you know the kind of a fool I am, Tom–now!”
“That’s what you say, Henry–that’s what you say now.” Van Dorn turned and looked at his friend. “You’re sticking it out all right, Henry–against the rum fiend–I presume? When does your sentence expire?”
“Next October,” answered Fenn.
“Going to make it then?”
“That’s the understanding,” returned Fenn.
“And you say you’ve got it bad,” laughed Van Dorn. “And yet–say, Henry–why didn’t you do better with the jury this afternoon in the Yengst case? Doesn’t it–I mean that tremendous case you have on with the Duchess of Müller–doesn’t it put an edge on you? What was the matter with you to-day?”
Fenn shook his head slowly and said: “It’s different with me. I just couldn’t help feeling that if I was worth any woman’s giving herself–was worth anything as a man, I’d want to be dead square with that Yengst creature–and I got to thinking, maybe in his place, drunk and hungry–well, I just couldn’t, Tom–because–because of–well, I wanted her to marry a human being first–not a county attorney!”
“You’re a damn fool!” retorted Van Dorn. “Do you think you’ll succeed in this world on that basis! I tell you if I was in love with a woman I’d want to take that Yengst case and lay it before her as a trophy I’d won–lay it before her like a dog!”
Fenn hesitated. He disliked to give pain. But finally he said, “I suppose, Tom, I’d like to lay it before her–like a man!”
“Hell’s delight!” sneered Van Dorn, and they turned off the subject of the tender passion, and went to considering 77certain stipulations that Van Dorn was asking of the county attorney in another matter before the court.