But they will not be believed by men of ambition, pushing resolutely for
power and wealth. So Frederick Norman knew precisely what he was facing
when Galloway's tall gaunt figure and face of the bird of prey appeared
before him. Galloway had triumphed and was triumphing not through
obedience to the Sunday sermons and the silly novels, poems, plays, and
the nonsense chattered by the obscure multitudes whom the mighty few
exploit, but through obedience to the conditions imposed by our social
system. If he raised wages a little, it was in order that he might have
excuse for raising prices a great deal. If he gave away millions, it was
for his fame, and usually to quiet the scandal over some particularly
wicked wholesale robbery. No, Galloway was not a witness to the might of
altruistic virtue as a means to triumph. Charity and all the other forms
of chicanery by which the many are defrauded and fooled by the few--those
"virtues" he understood and practiced. But justice--humanity's ages-long
dream that at last seems to glitter as a hope in the horizon of the
future--justice--not legal justice, nor moral justice, but human
justice--that idea would have seemed to him ridiculous, Utopian,
something for the women and the children and the socialists.
Norman understood Galloway, and Galloway understood Norman. Galloway,
with an old man's garrulity and a confirmed moral poseur's eagerness
about appearances, began to unfold his virtuous reasons for the
impending break with Burroughs--the industrial and financial war out of
which he expected to come doubly rich and all but supreme. Midway he
stopped.
"You are not listening," said he sharply to the young man.
Their eyes met. Norman's eyes were twinkling. "No," said he, "I am
waiting."
There was the suggestion of an answering gleam of sardonic humor in
Galloway's cold gray eyes. "Waiting for what?"
"For you to finish with me as father confessor, to begin with me as
lawyer. Pray don't hurry. My time is yours." This with a fine air of
utmost suavity and respect.
In fact, while Galloway was doddering on and on with his fake
moralities, Norman was thinking of his own affairs, was wondering at his
indifference about Dorothy. The night before--the few hours before--when
he had dealt with her so calmly, he, even as he talked and listened and
acted, had assumed that the enormous amount of liquor he had been
consuming was in some way responsible. He had said to himself, "When I
am over this, when I have had sleep and return to the normal, I shall
again be the foolish slave of all these months." But here he was, sober,
having taken only enough whisky to prevent an abrupt let-down--here he
was viewing her in the same tranquil light. No longer all his life; no
longer even dominant; only a part of life--and he was by no means
certain that she was an important part.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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