Books: Lifted Masks

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He sat there looking at it, knowing full well that it would not
contribute to his peace of mind. It did not make for placidity of
spirit to be told at the end of things that he had, as a matter of
fact, never been anybody at all. And the bitterest part of it was
that, looking back on it now, getting it from the viewpoint of one
stepping from it, he could see just how true was the statement:
"Harvey Francis has been the real Governor of the State; John
Morrison his mouthpiece and figurehead."

He walked to the window and looked out over the January landscape.
It may have been the snowy hills, as well as the thoughts weighing
him down, that carried him back across the years to one snowy
afternoon when he stood up in a little red schoolhouse and delivered
an oration on "The Responsibilities of Statesmanship." He smiled as
the title came back to him, and yet--what had become of the spirit
of that seventeen-year-old boy? He had meant it all then; he could
remember the thrill with which he stood there that afternoon long
before and poured out his sentiments regarding the sacredness of
public trusts. What was it had kept him, when his chance came, from
working out in his life the things he had so fervently poured into
his schoolboy oration?

Someone was tapping at the door. It was an easy, confident tap, and
there was a good deal of reflex action in the Governor's "Come in."

"Indulging in a little meditation?"

The Governor frowned at the way Francis said it, and the latter went
on, easily: "Just came from a row with Dorman. Everybody is holding
him up for tickets, and he--poor young fool--looks as though he
wanted to jump in the river. Takes things tremendously to
heart--Dorman does."

He lighted a cigar, smiling quietly over that youthful quality of
Dorman's. "Well," he went on, leaning back in his chair and looking
about the room, "I thought I'd look in on you for a minute. You see
I'll not have the _entree_ to the Governor's office by afternoon."
He laughed, the easy, good-humoured laugh of one too sophisticated
to spend emotion uselessly.

It was he who fell into meditation then, and the Governor sat
looking at him; a paragraph from the newspaper came back to him:
"Harvey Francis is the most dangerous type of boss politician. His
is not the crude and vulgar method that asks a man what his vote is
worth. He deals gently and tenderly with consciences. He knows how
to get a man without fatally injuring that man's self-respect."

The Governor's own experience bore out the summary. When elected to
office as State Senator he had cherished old-fashioned ideas of
serving his constituents and doing his duty. But the very first week
Francis had asked one of those little favours of him, and, wishing
to show his appreciation of support given him in his election, he
had granted it. Then various courtesies were shown him; he was let
in on a "deal," and almost before he realised it, it seemed
definitely understood that he was a "Francis man."

Francis roused himself and murmured: "Fools!--amateurs."

"Leyman?" ventured the Governor.

"Leyman and all of his crowd!"

"And yet," the Governor could not resist, "in another hour this same
fool will be Governor of the State. The fool seems to have won."

Francis rose, impatiently. "For the moment. It won't be lasting. In
any profession, fools and amateurs may win single victories. They
can't keep it up. They don't know _how_. Oh, no," he insisted,
cheerfully, "Leyman will never be re-elected. Fact is, I'm counting
on this contract business we've saved up for him getting in good
work." He was moving toward the door. "Well," he concluded, with a
curious little laugh, "see you upstairs."

The Governor looked at the clock. It pointed now to twenty-five
minutes past eleven. The last hour was going fast. In a very short
time he must join the party in the anteroom of the House. But
weariness had come over him. He leaned back in his chair and closed
his eyes.

He was close upon seventy, and to-day looked even older than his
years. It was not a vicious face, but it was not a strong one.
People who wanted to say nice things of the Governor called him
pleasant or genial or kindly. Even the men in the appointive offices
did not venture to say he had much force.

He felt it to-day as he never had before. He had left no mark; he
had done nothing, stood for nothing. Never once had his personality
made itself felt. He had signed the documents; Harvey Francis had
always "suggested"--the term was that man's own--the course to be
pursued. And the "suggestions" had ever dictated the policy that
would throw the most of influence or money to that splendidly
organised machine that Francis controlled.

With an effort he shook himself free from his cheerless retrospect.
There was a thing or two he wanted to get from his desk, and his
time was growing very short. He found what he wanted, and then, just
as he was about to close the drawer, his eye fell on a large yellow
envelope.

He closed the drawer; but only to reopen it, take out the envelope
and remove the documents it contained; and then one by one he spread
them out before him on the desk.

He sat there looking down at them, wondering whether a man had ever
stepped into office with as many pitfalls laid for him. During the
last month they had been busy about the old State-house setting
traps for the new Governor. The "machine" was especially jubilant
over those contracts the Governor now had spread out before him. The
convict labour question was being fought out in the State just
then--organised labour demanding its repeal; country taxpayers
insisting that it be maintained. Under the system the penitentiary
had become self-supporting. In November the contracts had come up
for renewal; but on the request of Harvey Francis the matter had
been put off from time to time, and still remained open. Just the
week before, Francis had put it to the Governor something like this:

"Don't sign those contracts. We can give some reason for holding
them off, and save them up for Leyman. Then we can see that the
question is agitated, and whatever he does about it is going to
prove a bad thing for him. If he doesn't sign, he's in bad with the
country fellows, the men who elected him. Don't you see? At the end
of his administration the penitentiary, under you self-sustaining,
will have cost them a pretty penny. We've got him right square!"

The clock was close to twenty minutes of twelve, and he concluded
that he would go out and join some of his friends he could hear in
the other room. It would never do for him to go upstairs with a
long, serious face. He had had his day, and now Leyman was to have
his, and if the new Governor did better than the old one, then so
much the better for the State. As for the contracts, Leyman surely
must understand that there was a good deal of rough sailing on
political waters.

But it was not easy to leave the room. Walking to the window he
again stood there looking out across the snow, and once more he went
back now at the end of things to that day in the little red
schoolhouse which stood out as the beginning.

He was called back from that dreaming by the sight of three men
coming up the hill. He smiled faintly in anticipation of the things
Francis and the rest of them would say about the new Governor's
arriving on foot. Leyman had requested that the inaugural parade be
done away with--but one would suppose he would at least dignify the
occasion by arriving in a carriage. Francis would see that the
opposing papers handled it as a grand-stand play to the country
constituents.

And then, forgetful of Francis, and of the approaching ceremony, the
old man stood there by the window watching the young man who was
coming up to take his place. How firmly the new Governor walked!
With what confidence he looked ahead at the State-house. The
Governor--not considering the inconsistency therein--felt a thrill
of real pride in thought of the State's possessing a man like that.

Standing though he did for the things pitted against him, down in
his heart John Morrison had all along cherished a strong admiration
for that young man who, as District Attorney of the State's
metropolis, had aroused the whole country by his fearlessness and
unquestionable sincerity. Many a day he had sat in that same office
reading what the young District Attorney was doing in the city close
by--the fight he was making almost single-handed against corruption,
how he was striking in the high places fast and hard as in the low,
the opposition, threats, and time after time there had been that
same secret thrill at thought of there being a man like that. And
when the people of the State, convinced that here was one man who
would serve _them_, began urging the District Attorney for
chief executive, Governor Morrison, linked with the opposing forces,
doing all he could to bring about Leyman's defeat, never lost that
secret feeling for the young man, who, unbacked by any organisation,
struck blow after blow at the machine that had so long dominated the
State, winning in the end that almost incomprehensible victory.

The new Governor had passed from sight, and a moment later his voice
came to the ear of the lonely man in the executive office. Some
friends had stopped him just outside the Governor's door with a
laughing "Here's hoping you'll do as much for us in the new office
as you did in the old," and the new Governor replied, buoyantly:
"Oh, but I'm going to do a great deal more!"

The man within the office smiled a little wistfully and with a sigh
sat down before his desk. The clock now pointed to thirteen minutes
of twelve; they would be asking for him upstairs. There were some
scraps of paper on his desk and he threw them into the waste-basket,
murmuring: "I can at least give him a clean desk."

He pushed his chair back sharply. A clean desk! The phrase opened to
deeper meanings.... Why not clean it up in earnest? Why not give him
a square deal--a real chance? Why not _sign the contracts_?

Again he looked at the clock--not yet ten minutes of twelve. For ten
minutes more he was Governor of the State! Ten minutes of real
governorship! Might it not make up a little, both to his own soul
and to the world, for the years he had weakly served as another
man's puppet? The consciousness that he could do it, that it was not
within the power of any man to stop him, was intoxicating. Why not
break the chains now at the last, and just before the end taste the
joy of freedom?

He took up his pen and reached for the inkwell. With trembling,
excited fingers he unfolded the contracts. He dipped his pen into
the ink; he even brought it down on the paper; and then the tension
broke. He sank back in his chair, a frightened, broken old man.

"Oh, no," he whispered; "no, not now. It's--" his head went lower
and lower until at last it rested on the desk--"too late."

When he raised his head and grew more steady, it was only to see the
soundness of his conclusion. He had not the right now in the final
hour to buy for himself a little of glory. It would only be a form
of self-indulgence. They would call it, and perhaps rightly, hush
money to his conscience. They would say he went back on them only
when he was through with them. Oh, no, there would be no more
strength in it than in the average deathbed repentance. He would
at least step out with consistency.

He folded the contracts and put them back into the envelope. The
minute hand now pointed to seven minutes to twelve. Some one was
tapping at the door, and the secretary appeared to say they were
waiting for him upstairs. He replied that he would be there in a
minute, hoping that his voice did not sound as strange to the other
man as it had to himself.

Slowly he walked to the door leading into the corridor. This, then,
was indeed the end; this the final stepping down from office! After
years of what they called public service, he was leaving it all now
with a sense of defeat and humiliation. A lump was in the old man's
throat; his eyes were blurred. "But you, Frank Leyman," he whispered
passionately, turning as if for comfort to the other man, "it will
be different with you! They'll not get you--not you!"

It lifted him then as a great wave--this passionate exultation that
here was one man whom corruption could not claim as her own. Here
was one human soul not to be had for a price! There flitted before
him again a picture of that seventeen-year-old boy in the little red
schoolhouse, and close upon it came the picture of this other young
man against whom all powers of corruption had been turned in vain.
With the one it had been the emotional luxury of a sentiment, a
thing from life's actualities apart; with the other it was a force
that dominated all things else, a force over which circumstances and
design could not prevail. "I know all about it," he was saying. "I
know about it all! I know how easy it is to fall! I know how fine it
is to stand!"

His sense of disappointment in his own empty, besmirched career was
almost submerged then as he projected himself on into the career of
this other man who within the hour would come there in his stead.
How glorious was his opportunity, how limitless his possibilities,
and how great to his own soul the satisfaction the years would bring
of having done his best!

It had all changed now. That passionate longing to vindicate
himself, add one thing honourable and fine to his own record, had
altogether left him, and with the new mood came new insight and what
had been an impulse centred to a purpose.

It pointed to three minutes to twelve as he walked over to his desk,
unfolded the contracts, and one by one affixed his signature. In a
dim way he was conscious of how the interpretation of his first
motive would be put upon it, how they would call him traitor and
coward; but that mattered little. The very fact that the man for
whom he was doing it would never see it as it was brought him no
pang. And when he had carefully blotted the papers, affixed the seal
and put them away, there was in his heart the clean, sweet joy of a
child because he had been able to do this for a man in whom he
believed.

The band was playing the opening strains as he closed the door
behind him and started upstairs.

IX

"OUT THERE"

The old man held the picture up before him and surveyed it with
admiring but disapproving eye. "No one that comes along this way'll
have the price for it," he grumbled. "It'll just set here 'till
doomsday."

It did seem that the picture failed to fit in with the rest of the
shop. A persuasive young fellow who claimed he was closing out his
stock let the old man have it for what he called a song. It was only
a little out-of-the-way store which subsisted chiefly on the framing
of pictures. The old man looked around at his views of the city, his
pictures of cats and dogs and gorgeous young women, his flaming bits
of landscape. "Don't belong in here," he fumed, "any more 'an I
belong in Congress."

And yet the old man was secretly proud of his acquisition. He seemed
all at once to be lifted from his realm of petty tradesman to that
of patron of art. There was a hidden dignity in his scowling as he
shuffled about pondering the least ridiculous place for the picture.

It is not fair to the picture to try repainting it in words, for
words reduce it to a lithograph. It was a bit of a pine forest,
through which there exuberantly rushed an unspoiled little mountain
stream. Chromos and works of art may deal with kindred subjects.
There is just that one difference of dealing with them differently.
"It ain't what you _see_, so much as what you can guess is
there," was the thought it brought to the old man who was dusting
it. "Now this frame ain't three feet long, but it wouldn't surprise
me a bit if that timber kept right on for a hundred miles. I kind of
suspect it's on a mountain--looks cool enough in there to be on a
mountain. Wish I was there. Bet they never see no such days as we do
in Chicago. Looks as though a man might call his soul his own--out
there."

He began removing some views of Lincoln Park and some corpulent
Cupids in order to make room in the window for the new picture. When
he went outside to look at it he shook his head severely and
hastened in to take away some ardent young men and women, some fruit
and flowers and fish which he had left thinking they might "set it
off." It was evident that the new picture did not need to be "set
off." "And anyway," he told himself, in vindication of entrusting
all his goods to one bottom, "I might as well take them out, for the
new one makes them look so kind of sick that no one would have them,
anyhow." Then he went back to mounting views with the serenity of
one who stands for the finer things.

His clamorous little clock pointed to a quarter of six when he
finally came back to the front of the store. It was time to begin
closing up for the night, but for the minute he stood there watching
the crowd of workers coming from the business district not far away
over to the boarding-house region, a little to the west. He watched
them as they came by in twos and threes and fours: noisy people and
worn-out people, people hilarious and people sullen, the gaiety and
the weariness, the acceptance and the rebellion of humanity--he saw
it pass. "As if any of _them_ could buy it," he pronounced
severely, adding, contemptuously, "or wanted to."

The girl was coming along by herself. He watched her as she crossed
to his side of the street, thinking it was too bad for a poor girl
to be as tired as that. She was dressed like many of the rest of
them, and yet she looked different--like the picture and the chromo.
She turned an indifferent glance toward the window, and then
suddenly she stood there very still, and everything about her seemed
to change. "For all the world," he told himself afterward, "as if
she'd found a long-lost friend, and was 'fraid to speak for fear it
was too good to be true."

She did seem afraid to speak--afraid to believe. For a minute she
stood there right in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the
picture. And when she came toward the window it was less as if
coming than as if drawn. What she really seemed to want to do was to
edge away; yet she came closer, as close as she could, her eyes
never leaving the picture, and then fear, or awe, or whatever it was
made her look so queer gave way to wonder--that wondering which is
ready to open the door to delight. She looked up and down the street
as one rubbing one's eyes to make sure of a thing, and then it all
gave way to a joy which lighted her pale little face like--"Well,
like nothing I ever saw before," was all the old man could say of
it. "Why, she'd never know if the whole fire department was to run
right up here on the sidewalk," he gloated. Just then she drew
herself up for a long breath. "See?" he chuckled, delightedly. "She
knows it has a smell!" She looked toward the door, but shook her
head. "Knows she can't pay the price," he interpreted her. Then, she
stepped back and looked at the number above the door. "Coming
again," he made of that; "ain't going to run no chances of losing
the place." And then for a long time she stood there before the
picture, so deeply and so strangely quiet that he could not
translate her. "I can't just get the run of it," was his bewildered
conclusion. "I don't see why it should make anybody act like that."
And yet he must have understood more than he knew, for suddenly he
was seeing her through a blur of tears.

As he began shutting up for the night he was so excited about the
way she looked when she finally turned away that it never occurred
to him to be depressed about her inability to pay the price.

He kept thinking of her, wondering about her, during the next day.
At a little before six he took up his station near the front window.
Once more the current of workers flowed by. "I'm an old fool," he
told himself, irritated at the wait; "as if it makes any difference
whether she comes or not--when she can't buy it, anyhow. She's just
as big a fool as I am--liking it when she can't have it, only I'm
the biggest fool of all--caring whether she likes it or not." But
just then the girl passed quickly by a crowd of girls who were ahead
of her and came hurrying across the street. She was walking fast,
and looked excited and anxious. "Afraid it might be gone," he
said--adding, grimly: "Needn't worry much about that."

She came up to the picture as some people would enter a church. And
yet the joy which flooded her face is not well known to churches.
"I'll tell you what it's like"--the old man's thoughts stumbling
right into the heart of it--"it's like someone that's been wandering
round in a desert country all of a sudden coming on a spring. She's
_thirsty_--she's drinking it in--she can't get enough of it.
It's--it's the water of life to her!" And then, ashamed of saying a
thing that sounded as if it were out of a poem, he shook his
shoulders roughly as if to shake off a piece of sentiment unbecoming
his age and sex.

He went to the door and watched her as she passed away. "I'll bet
she'd never tip the scale to one hundred pounds," he decided. "Looks
like a good wind could blow her away." She stooped a little and just
as she passed from sight he saw that she was coughing.

Then the old man made what he prided himself was a great deduction.
"She's been there, and she wants to go back. This kind of takes her
back for a minute, and when she gets the breath of it she ain't so
homesick."

All through those July days he watched each night for the
frail-looking little girl who liked the picture of the pines. She
would always come hurrying across the street in the same eager way,
an eagerness close to the feverish. But the tenseness would always
relax as she saw the picture. "She never looks quite so wilted down
when she goes away as she does when she comes," the old man saw.
"Upon my soul, I believe she really _goes_ there. It's--oh,
Lord"--irritated at getting beyond his depth--"_I_ don't know!"

He never called it anything now but "Her Picture." One day at just
ten minutes of six he took it out of the window. "Seems kind of
mean," he admitted, "but I just want to find out how much she does
think of it."

And when he found out he told himself that of all the mean men God
had ever let live, he was the meanest. The girl came along in the
usual hurried, anxious fashion. And when she saw the empty window he
thought for a minute she was going to sink right down there on the
sidewalk. Everything about her seemed to give way--as if something
from which she had been drawing had been taken from her. The
luminousness gone from her face, there were cruel revelations.
"Blast my _soul!_" the old man muttered angrily, not far from
tearfully. She looked up and down the noisy, dirty, parched street,
then back to the empty window. For a minute she just stood
there--that was the worst minute of all. And then--accepting--she
turned and walked slowly away, walked as the too-weary and the
too-often disappointed walk.

It was with not wholly steady hand that the old man hastened to
replace the picture, all the while telling himself what he thought
of himself: more low-down than the cat who plays with the mouse,
meaner than the man who'd take the bone from the dog, less to be
loved than the man who would kick over the child's play-house, only
to be compared with the brute who would snatch the cup of water from
the dying--such were the verdicts he pronounced. He thought perhaps
she would come back, and stayed there until almost seven, waiting
for her, though pretending it was necessary that he take down and
then put up again the front curtains. All the next day he was
restless and irritable. As if to make up to the girl for the
contemptible trick he had played he spent a whole hour that
afternoon arranging a tapestry background for the picture. "She'll
think," he told himself, "that this was why it was out, and won't be
worried about its being gone again. This will just be a little sign
to her that it's here to stay."

He began his watch that night at half-past five. After fifteen
minutes the thought came to him that she might be so disheartened
she would go home by another street. He became so gloomily certain
she would do this that he was jubilant when he finally saw her
coming along on the other side--coming purposelessly, shorn of that
eagerness which had always been able, for the moment, to vanquish
the tiredness. But when she came to the place where she always
crossed the street she only stood there an instant and then, a
little more slowly, a little more droopingly, walked on. She had
given up! She was not coming over!

But she did come. After she had gone a few steps she hesitated again
and this time started across the street. "That's right," approved
the old man, "never give up the ship!"

She passed the store as if she were not going to look in; she seemed
trying not to look, but her head turned--and she saw the picture.
First her body seemed to stiffen, and then something--he couldn't
make out whether or not it was a sob--shook her, and as she came
toward the picture on her white, tired face were the tears.

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