m I can therefore serve," I said. "And that is the
sentimentalism of the wise. I wish us to remain friends--therefore, I
must be able to be as useful to you as you can be useful to me."

"Goodrich shall go," was the upshot of his thinking. "I'll telephone him
this afternoon. Is my old friend satisfied?"

"You have done what was best for yourself," said I, with wholly
good-humored raillery. And we shook hands, and I went.

I was glad to be alone where I could give way to my weariness and
disgust; for I had lost all the joy of the combat. The arena of ambition
had now become to me a ring where men are devoured by the beast-in-man
after hideous battles. I turned from it, heart-sick. "If only I had less
intelligence, less insight," I thought, "so that I could cheat myself as
Burbank cheats himself. Or, if I had the relentlessness or the supreme
egotism, or whatever it is, that enables great men to trample without a
qualm, to destroy without pity, to enjoy without remorse."

XXI

AN INTERLUDE

My nerves began to feel as if some one were gently sliding his fingers
along their bared length--not a pain, but as fear-inspiring as the sound
of the stealthy creep of the assassin moving up behind to strike a
sudden and mortal blow. I dismissed business and politics and went
cruising on the lakes with restful, non-political Fred Sandys.

After we had been knocking about perhaps a week, we landed one noon at
the private pier of the Liscombes to lunch with them. As Sandys and I
strolled toward the front of the house, several people, also guests for
lunch, were just descending from a long buckboard. At sight of one of
them I stopped short inside, though I mechanically continued to walk
toward her. I recognized her instantly--the curve of her shoulders, the
poise of her head, and her waving jet-black hair to confirm. And without
the slightest warning there came tumbling and roaring up in me a
torrent of longings, regrets; and I suddenly had a clear understanding
of my absorption in this wretched game I had been playing year in and
year out with hardly a glance up from the table. That wretched game with
its counterfeit stakes; and the more a man wins, the poorer he is.

She seemed calm enough as she faced me. Indeed, I was not sure when she
had first caught sight of me, or whether she had recognized me, until
Mrs. Liscombe began to introduce us. "Oh, yes," she then interrupted, "I
remember Senator Sayler very well. We used