She and Sammy were having a conference on the matter and awaiting Matthew. Sara sensed his opposition; it must be overcome, Sammy was talking.
“Don’t understand their game,” said Sammy, “but they’re lousy with money.”
“I understand it,” said Sara quietly, “and I’ve promised Matthew’s vote for their bills.”
Sammy’s eyes narrowed.
Just then, Matthew came in.
“What have you promised?” he asked, looking from one to the other.
Sara quietly gathered up her papers.
“Come home to lunch,” she said, “and I’ll tell you.”
She knew that she had to have this thing out with Matthew, and she had planned for it carefully. Sammy whistled softly to himself and did a little jig after his guests had left. He thought he saw light.
“I didn’t think that combination could last long,” he said to his new cigar. “Too perfect.”
Sara steered her Studebaker deftly through the traffic, bowing to deferential policemen at the traffic signals and recognizing well-dressed acquaintances here and shabby idlers there, who raised their hats elaborately. Matthew sat silent, mechanically lifting his hat, but glancing neither right nor left. They glided up to the curb at home, at exactly the right distance from it, and stopped before the stepping-stone. Sara flooded the carburetor, turned off the switch, and carefully locked it. Matthew handed her down, and with a smile at the staring children, they entered the lofty porch of their house. They opened the dark oaken door with a latchkey and slowly mounted the carpeted stairs. Sara remarked that the carpet was a little worn. She feared it was not as good as Carson-Pirie had represented. She would have to see about it soon.
A brown maid in a white apron smilingly let them into the apartment and said that lunch was “just ready—yes’m, I found some fine sweet potatoes after you phoned, and fried them.” Matthew loved fried sweet potatoes. They had a very excellent but rather silent lunch, although Sara talked steadily about various rather inconsequential things. Then they went to the “library,” which Matthew never used because its well-bound and carefully arranged books had scarcely a volume in which he had the slightest interest. Sara closed the door and turned on the electric log.
“I promised the superpower crowd,” she said, “that you would vote for their bills.”
It was then that Matthew went pale with wrath.
“How dared you?”
“Dared? I thought you expected me to conduct your campaign? I promised them your vote, and they paid a lot for it. Of course, it was cloaked in a real-estate transaction, but I gave them a receipt in your name and mine and deposited the money.”
Matthew felt for the flashing of a moment that he could kill this pale, hard woman before him. She felt this and inwardly quailed, but outwardly kept her grip.
“I don’t see,” she said, “any great difference between voting for these bills and against municipal ownership. It is all part of one scheme. I hope,” she added, “you’re not going to develop a conscience suddenly. As a politician with a future, you can’t afford to.”
The trouble was that Matthew himself suddenly knew that there was no real difference. It was three steps in the same direction instead of one. But the first was negative and tentative, while the three together were tremendous. They gave a monopoly of transportation and public service in Chicago to a great corporation which aimed at unlimited permission to exploit the water power of a nation forever at any price “the traffic would bear.” Of course it was no question of right and wrong. It was possible to buy privilege, as one bought votes; he himself bought votes, but—well, this was different. This privilege could be bought, of course—but not of him. It was cheating mental babies whom he did not represent—whom he did not want to represent.
He was a grafting politician. He knew it and felt no qualms about it. But he had always secretly prided himself that his exchanges were fair. The gamblers who paid him got protection; prostitutes who were straight and open need not fear the police; workers in his district could not be “shaken down” by thieves. Even in the bigger legislative deals, it was square, upstanding give and take between men with their eyes open. But this—there was no use explaining to Sara. She knew the difference as well as he. Or did she? That rankling shaft about “conscience.” He was a politician who was directly and indirectly for sale. He had no business with a conscience. He had no conscience. But he had limitations. By God! everybody had some limitations. He must have them. He would sell himself if he wished, but he wouldn’t be sold. He was not a bag of inert produce. He refused to be compelled to sell. He was no slave. He must and would be free. He wanted money for freedom. Well, he’d been sold. Where was the money? He wanted money. He must have it. There and there alone lay freedom, and his chains were becoming more than he could bear.
“Where is the money you got?” he said abruptly.
“I’ve invested it.”
“I want it.”
“You can’t get it—it’s tied up in a deal, and to disturb it would be to risk most of our fortune.”
“I’ve put some money in our joint account.”
“That’s invested too. What’s the use of money idle in a savings bank at four percent when we can make forty?”
“How much are we worth?”
“Oh, not so much,” said Sara cautiously. “Put the house minus the first mortgage at, say, fifty thousand—we may have another ten or fifteen thousand more.” Thus she figured up.
“Matthew,” she added quickly, “be sensible. In a couple of years you’ll be in Congress—the greatest market in the land, and we’ll be worth at least a hundred thousand. Oppose these bills, and you go to the political ashpile. Sammy won’t dare to use you. My mortgagees will squeeze me. The city will come down on us for violations and assessments, and first thing we know we’ll be penniless and saddled
