As he sat silently listening to the luscious thrill of the “Spanish Fandango” he determined to do one thing: he would resign from the legislature. Then if he failed in the nomination to Congress, he would be left on the road to freedom. If he gained the nomination, he would gain it with that much less deception and double-crossing. Of course Sara would be furious, Well, what of that?
At daybreak he went back to his rooms and started cleaning up. He swept and dusted, cleaned windows, polished furniture. He sweated and toiled, then stopped and marveled about Dirt. Its accumulation, its persistence was astonishing. How could one attack it? Was it a world symptom? Could machines abolish it, or only human weariness and nausea?
Late in the afternoon he went out and bought a new big bed with springs and a soft mattress, a bath robe, pajamas, and sheets and some crimson hangings. He hid in the wall some of his money which remained. He knew what he was doing; he was surrendering to Sara and the Devil and soothing his bruised soul by physical work and the preparation of a retreat where he would spend more and more of his time. He would save and hide and hoard and some day walk away and leave everything. But he wrote and mailed his resignation as member of the legislature. That at least was a symbolic step.
From her interview with Matthew, Sara emerged shaken but grim. She had no idea what Matthew was going to do. She had put the screws upon him more ruthlessly than she had ever dared before. She had cut off his money, his guiding dream of a comfortable little fortune. She had told him definitely what he had to think and promise, and he had silently got up and gone his way. Suppose he never came back, or suppose he came back and eventually went to this final conference and “spilled the beans”; threw everything up and over and left her shamed and prostrate before black and white Chicago? No, she couldn’t risk a mass meeting.
“No,” she said in answer to Sammy’s query, and looked at him with a frankness that Sammy half suspected was too frank. “I don’t know what Matthew is going to say or do. And I am afraid we can’t risk a mass meeting.”
Sammy was silent. Then he said:
“That resignation was a damn shrewd move.”
Sara glanced up.
“What—” She started to ask “What resignation?” but she paused. “What—do you think will be its effect?” She would not let Sammy dream she did not know what he was talking about.
“Well—it’ll mollify the boys. Give me a chance to run Corruthers in at a special election—convince the bosses that Towns is playing square.”
Sara was angry but silent. So that fool had resigned from the legislature! Surrendered a sure thing for a chance. Did the idiot think he was already elected to Congress, or was he going to quit entirely?
She took up the morning Tribune to hide her agitation and saw the editorial—“a wise move on the part of Towns and shows his independence of the machine.”
Sara laid down the paper carefully and thought—tapping her teeth with her pencil. Was it possible that after all—Then she came back to the matter in hand. Sammy would have liked to suggest a real political conference: a secret room with guarded door; cigars and liquor; a dozen men with power and decision, and then, give and take, keen-eyed sparring, measuring of men, and—careful compromise. Out of a conference like that anything might emerge, and Sammy couldn’t lose entirely.
But he saw that Sara had the social bee in her head. She wanted a reception, a luncheon, or a dinner. Something that would celebrate a conclusion rather than come to it. He was not averse to this, because he was convinced it would be disastrous to Sara. No social affair of whites and Negroes could come to any real conclusion. It could only celebrate deals already made. Sammy meant to block such deals. But he didn’t suggest anything; he let Sara do that, and Sara did. After profound thought, and still clicking her pencil on her teeth, she said:
“A meeting at my home would be the best. A small and intimate thing. A luncheon. No, a dinner, and a good dinner. Let’s see, we’ll have—”
And then Sara and Sammy selected the personnel. On this they quite agreed. If all went well, Sara suggested that the mass meeting might follow. Sammy cheerfully agreed—if all went well.
Immediately Sara began to prepare for this conference. First she made a number of personal visits, just frank little informal talks with Mr. Graham, with Mr. Cadwalader, with Mrs. Beech and others. Mr. Cadwalader and Mrs. Beech both began by congratulating Sara on Matthew’s resignation from the legislature.
“Statesmanlike!” said Cadwalader. “It proves to our people that the reported understanding between him and Scott is untrue.”
“Very shrewd,” said Mrs. Beech, “to make this open declaration of independence.”
“He often takes my advice,” said Sara with a cryptic smile, and she explained that when Sammy had approached her, offering codperation after Doolittle’s death, they had, of course, to accept—“to a degree and within limits.”
“Of course, of course!” it was agreed.
By her visits she got acquainted with these leaders, measured their wishes, and succeeded fairly well in making them interested in her. She let them do as much talking as possible but also talked herself, clearly and with as much frankness as she dared. She was trying to find out just what the Republicans wanted and just what the reformers demanded.
From time to time she wrote these
