IN the silence and solitude of his home, by his winter fireside, Benson diagnosed his own case. His, he knew, was a moral malady. The years had given him everything save happiness; and because he had not happiness he was sick. Life had been worse than wasted.

It was in the final analysis that he reduced his case to this. He was aware that it was not alone in his relation to Virginia that he had changed; he knew that he had grown hard, and none too scrupulous; that while his outward manner remained one of consideration and kindness even, he had developed a secret passion for accumulation. This had been of steady growth. He desired wealth and power, not in any very wide sense perhaps, since he was content to be the great man of his own little community.

He compared himself with what he could recall of his father, and knew that he was reverting to the strongly marked family type. He was becoming more and more the shrewd New Englander. The receding sap of pioneer times was leaving him dry and externally emotionless. Men seemed to understand the change. They came to him less often now than formally with generous projects, more often with money-making schemes. In these he was always interested.

Yet throughout he had preserved a cynical contempt for himself, with a latent feeling of pity, too; for he knew just the sort of man he had been, just the sort of man he had become; and he blamed Virginia. Indeed he had come to blame her for each corrupting influence to which he had yielded, and since he blamed her, he wanted her to feel the force of his resentment. The boy had given him this opportunity in the fullest measure. He had removed him from her home, he had sent him from Benson, and he was determined that she should not see him again until it suited his whim to be generous. This might be a year hence, or it might be ten years hence; he only knew that it would not be until his mood changed, until he was ready to show kindness to her.

Thus it was that Stephen's first summer was passed entirely in the East. Benson told Virginia it was better that he should become thoroughly accustomed to his surroundings; that to bring him home would only be to unsettle him. But he himself went East and Stephen spent two weeks with him.

The second year passed much as the first had done, and now Virginia understood that Benson wished to wholly separate her from the boy.

The lawyer had arranged that she should receive periodic reports as to his health and progress. As these were always satisfactory, she had no grounds for demanding that he should be brought back. She had Stephen's own letters, too, which after he had outgrown his first feeling of homesickness, showed that he was quite happy and contented. But with the passing of time his letters became more and more perfunctory.

Benson he saw once or twice each year, and his affection steadily strengthened toward him. His Uncle Jacob was able and generally quite willing to confer most tangible benefits, he could not have been more generous, nor have shown a greater readiness to do for him in all reasonable ways; and Stephen early learned that an appeal to him was certain of results. These benefits might be accompanied by admonitory hints as to the folly of extravagance, but he could always skip these hints, and the lawyer's check was an asset that gave him great prestige among his fellows.

He was fortunate in his teachers perhaps, and it was all in his favour that he was constitutionally predisposed to good influences, and that they made a lasting impression on him; since his development was largely a matter of chance, he might easily have gone very far wrong and no one been the wiser.

After the first two or three years at school, he gave up all idea, as he lost all desire, to return to Benson. His summers were passed agreeably enough just where he was. He could safely count on his Uncle Jacob coming East during his vacation, and then there were pleasant trips to the mountains or seashore.

Benson rarely spoke of his aunt to him. He early sensed it that they were not friends, and he adapted himself to what he considered the lawyer's prejudices. He gradually ceased to inquire about Reddy or Benjamin Wade or Spike, for here the lawyer's information was meagre and uncertain; and after a few years his Aunt Virginia, the boys, Peter the gardener, and Mrs. Pope the housekeeper, fitted into the background of those hazy memories that now made up the substance of his life in the Ohio town. He came more and more to think of the lawyer as a solitary man without friendships or associations, and save in his own case, as both lonely and unapproachable. It would have surprised him not a little had he been told that in his own circle Benson was a powerful and dominating figure, even sinister at times, with concerns and interests whose magnitude exceeded anything he could have imagined possible.

His feeling of mingled tenderness and pity increased as he grew toward manhood. He wished his Uncle Jacob could be made fully aware of his affection, but he was always conscious that there was something in the lawyer's manner that repelled any emotional display; that beneath his kindly dignity, the fibre of his nature was cold and hard. The utter barrenness of his life, as the boy imagined it, explained this. It was the awkwardness of one who had lived much in solitude, with few intimates and fewer friends.

He had been away at school ten years, when something occurred which took him back to the very limits at which his memory was active, and which showed him that Benson might have intimacies of which he did not know. He had written for money, and instead of the usual letter from Benson, there came one in a strange hand. Mr. Benson was absorbed in important litigation, the writer said, and had requested him to see to the mailing of the enclosed draft; the writer also ventured the hope that his young friend had not altogether forgotten him, in spite of the years that had intervened since their last meeting. The letter was signed with a flourish, Nathan Gibbs.

Stephen remembered vaguely that there was such a man, but whether he really remembered him, or only remembered having been told of him, he could not have said. He wondered though how long Gibbs had been in Benson, and why his Uncle Jacob had never mentioned him.

Gibbs, once started on the down grade, had gone from bad to worse. There had been ten doleful years during which he had sunk lower and lower. Now and again he had made a manful rally to recover his lost estate, but it was no use. Finally such a point was reached that his Julia took matters into her own hands. She had written Benson, and her letter had been an urgent appeal for assistance. The lawyer had heeded it, but he had no intention of helping Gibbs at arm's length. If he was to make himself responsible for the general's future, he would have to be close at hand where he could keep him under some sort of surveillance.

He had made his arrangement with Julia—the general appeared quiescent and was not considered—and Julia, with the memory of those ten hard years eating into her soul, was now only too glad to return to Ohio.

As Benson had desired it, the pair came direct to him. He was rather dubious as to what the outcome would be, and when he met them at the station one cold November afternoon, he owned sadly to himself that the general's appearance was not calculated to inspire one with confidence.

After dinner Mrs. Pope and Julia retired to the drawing-room, leaving the two men to their cigars. It was then that Gibbs grew confidential, he had been merely garrulous before.

“This was right handsome of you, Jake,” he said feelingly. “But that letter of Julia's was her own inspiration. I didn't know about it until she had yours in reply; I guess she wanted to spare me if you said no. Now how are you going to use me? I want to be useful. Put me to work, Jake; no matter what it is, I'm your man!” He stepped jauntily to the fireplace, and spreading his legs far apart, entrenched himself on the hearth rug.

The lawyer watched him over the tip of his cigar. He saw that in spite of the gay show of spirit, his hands twitched, that his puffy face was scarlet, while what hair time had left him was snow white. He had aged, too, in those years, so that Benson would scarce have known him. Yet Julia had done what she could for him. His clothes were new, his linen fresh, and the lawyer correctly surmised that he had himself met the cost of this excellent outfit. It was a long glance back to Gibbs of the True Whig; florid, good-looking, good-natured, aggressive Nathan Gibbs, who had made love to Levi Tucker's wife, under Levi Tucker's very nose, in Levi Tucker's own Red Brick Tavern on the square. He had not withheld his hand; he had taken ruthlessly what he had desired—Tucker's wife, Tucker's life, and he had spent Tucker's fortune.

Benson's lips parted in a slight smile. If ever a man had gone swiftly to his desires, Gibbs was that man. Chance had been more than generous—as generous as it had been to him—the smile left his lips. He frowned; surely he had nothing in common with Gibbs—no analogy was possible!

“What are you going to do for me, Jake?” insisted Gibbs. An inner sense of things told him that he must have at least a semblance of occupation, that idleness would be his ruin. “Make a place for me somewhere, Jake, I don't care what it is,” he pleaded. “Give me something that will keep me busy.” He was silent for a minute and puffed greedily at his cigar, with coarse protruding lips. “I been brought down to hell, Jake, I've seen the sides of the pit.” He said at last. “I never could do anything after Grant City busted. You can't see where it was now. I been away from there for seven or eight years, in Kansas City and back in St. Louis, but I never got a grip on things; and when I began to hear people talking about old Gibbs, I got the notion that I was counted past my prime. Well, I couldn't pull up; a man's luck and a man's habits generally travel in company when he's sixty odd. But you've put stiffening in my backbone. My Julia will have no cause to complain from now on. A woman of remarkable force of character, Jake—you'll recognize that when you come to know her better. Now how are you going to use me? We ain't settled that yet.”

“I don't know yet; I can't tell,” said Benson slowly.

Gibbs's face clouded.

“Look here, Jake, don't you take up with any snap judgment that I'm past my usefulness; just give me a chance. Because a man's no longer of much account to himself, it don't necessarily follow that he's no good to any one else.”

Yet when Benson found work for him in his office, where Gibbs made himself useful in the collecting of rents, the overlooking of repairs, and the drawing up of leases, this meekness of his changed somewhat. While Benson was able for the most part to keep him within reasonable bounds, there were periods when he relapsed; when he swiftly sounded the depths of his degradation; and from these periods he emerged with much contrition and a multitude of promises as to his future behaviour. He accepted Benson's severity, which was often bitter and unsparing, with wonderful gentleness, acquiescing in all the hard things Benson found to say of him.

“I don't defend myself, Jake,” in a tone of miserable despondency. “Ain't it just hell, the beast a man will make of himself; and an old man like me who ought to have some pride to keep him up! It ain't as if I'd been bred to the gutter. If I do say it, I been something of a man in my day. I've worn Uncle Sam's uniform and I've carried his commission, but here I am making a spectacle of myself for people to point at. You can't trust me, and I can't trust myself—I wonder I don't end it; but it's harder on Julia, Jake—I pity myself, but I pity her more;” and his bloodshot eyes would fill with ready tears.

He was not an agreeable sight at such times, but the next day he would be himself again; the man of the world; the man who had mingled in large affairs, and to whom other men had deferred and conceded, paying court; and he was ready to criticise his patron's business methods, his exactness in matters of detail; inferring plainly that his own methods had been suited to bigger things, bigger stakes, and a wider outlook.

Benson's attitude was one of mingled tyranny and kindness. For days together he limited his intercourse with the general to sharp commands, indicating unmistakably that he preferred to see just as little of him as possible; but Gibbs always met his severity with an air of large and genial tolerance. Again Benson's mood would be one of studied consideration and friendship, when he would seem to invite the intimacy Gibbs was always anxious to thrust upon him. To Gibbs's expansive temperament, affection was as much a part of his life as the air he breathed; and since he could no longer glorify himself, he ended by glorifying the friend who had shouldered his burdens for him. He showed a tactful consideration for Benson's habits and prejudices, he was tirelessly useful, he dealt in pleasant flatteries, and he boasted privately to his Julia that he could wind Jake Benson around his little finger.

In the very first stages of their relation Benson had merely tolerated the shabby old man; he rebelled against the anxiety he always felt when Gibbs was not promptly at the office each morning, and there were times when he would have been glad to be rid of him on any terms; but in the end he succumbed to Gibbs. There was no resisting him. He had lived alone all his life, and the general's willingness to fit into his rather empty existence, to be silent or talkative as his mood was, to share his feelings and adopt his point of view, made him more dependent than he realized; but above all he felt the glow of Gibbs's affection, and understood that it was as sincere as any emotion he had ever known, as sincere in its way as his love for himself.

From seeing him only at the office, and limiting their intercourse largely to matters of business, he came by degrees to depend more and more upon him for society. Day after day he took him home to dine with him; and this intimacy, as it strengthened, was the very breath of life to Gibbs. The luxury of Benson's well-appointed house and table, the rich wines he was allowed to use in moderation, these, to his pagan soul were the very end and aim of existence. At the office, where only petty concerns were entrusted to him, he was on the whole unobtrusive enough; but in Benson's house, the great man's chosen guest and boon companion, he relaxed and was at home, too. .