George said nothing. At the moment he was unable to say anything. For weeks he had looked forward to his meeting with McHarg. He had leaped to his bidding when McHarg had summoned him to get out of bed instantly and come to lunch. But he had never dreamed of being abducted as a travelling and talking companion on an expedition that might last for days and even weeks, and end up almost anywhere. He had no desire or intention of going with McHarg if he could avoid it. And yet—his mind groped frantically for a way out—what was he to do? He did not want to offend him. He had too great an admiration and respect for McHarg to do anything that might, wittingly or unwittingly, hurt him or wound his feelings. And how could he reject the invitation of a man who, with the most generous and unselfish enthusiasm, had used the power and elevation of his high place to try to lift him out of the lower channel in which his own life ran?
In spite of the brevity of their acquaintance, George had already seen dearly and unmistakably what a good and noble human being McHarg really was. He knew how much integrity and courage and honesty was contained in that tormented tenement of fury and lacerated hurts. Regardless of all that was jangled, snarled, and twisted in his life, regardless of all that had become bitter, harsh, and acrid, McHarg was obviously one of the truly good, the truly high, the truly great people of the world. Anyone with an atom of feeling and intelligence, George thought, must have seen this at once. And as he continued to watch and study McHarg, and took in again the shock of his appearance—the inflamed face, the poached blue eyes, the emaciated figure and nervously shaking hands—an image flashed into his mind which seemed to represent the essential quality of the man, and this, curiously, was the image of Abraham Lincoln. Save for McHarg’s tallness and gauntness, there was no physical similarity to Lincoln. The resemblance came, George thought, from a certain homely identity, from a kind of astonishing ugliness which was so marked that it was hard to see how it escaped the grotesque, and yet it was not grotesque. It was an ugliness which somehow, no matter what extravagances of gesture, tone, and manner McHarg indulged in, never lost its quality of enormous, latent dignity. This strange and troubling resemblance became strikingly evident in repose.
For now, his decision having been arrived at with explosive violence, McHarg sat quietly in a chair, his bony legs crossed lankly, and with the fingers of one freckled and large-knuckled hand fumbled in the breast pocket of his coat for his chequebook and his wallet. He got them out at last, his hands still shaking as with palsy, but even that did not disturb the suggestion of quiet dignity and strength. He put wallet and chequebook on his knees, fumbled in a pocket of his vest, took out an old, worn spectacle-case, snapped it open, and deliberately extracted a pair of spectacles. They were the most extraordinary spectacles George had ever seen. They looked as if they might have belonged to Washington, or to Franklin, or to Lincoln himself. The rims, the nose clasp, and the handles were of plain old silver. McHarg opened them carefully, and then, using both hands, slowly adjusted them and settled the handles over his large and freckled ears. This done, he bent his head, took up the wallet, opened it, and very carefully began to count the contents. The transforming effect of this simple act was astonishing. The irritable, rasping, overwrought man of a few minutes before was gone completely. This lank and ugly figure in the chair, with its silver-rimmed spectacles, its wry and puckered face lowered in calculation, its big bony hands deliberately fingering each note inside the wallet, was an image of Yankee shrewdness, homely strength, plain dignity, and assured power. His very tone had changed. Still counting his money, without lifting his head, he spoke to George, saying quietly:
“Ring that bell over there, George. We’ll have to get some more money. I’ll send John out to the bank.”
George rang, and shortly the young man with buttons rapped at the door and entered. McHarg glanced up and, opening his chequebook and, taking out his fountain pen, said quietly:
“I need some money, John. Will you take this cheque round to the bank and cash it?”
“Very good, sir,” said John. “And ‘Enry is ‘ere, sir, with the car. ‘E wants to know if ‘e should wait.”
“Yes,” said McHarg, still writing out the cheque. “Tell him I’ll need him. Tell him we’ll be ready in twenty minutes.” He tore out the cheque and handed it to the man. “And by the way,” he said, “when you come back will you pack some things—shirts, underwear, socks, and so on—in a small bag? We’re going out of town.”
“Very good, sir,” John said quietly, and went out.
McHarg was silent and thoughtful for a moment. Then he capped his fountain pen, restored it to his pocket, put away his wallet and chequebook, took off his old spectacles with the same grave and patient movement, folded them and laid them in the case, snapped it to and put it in the pocket of his vest, and then, with a much quieter and more genial friendliness than he had yet displayed, brought one hand down smartly on the arm of his chair and said:
“Well, George, what are you doing now? Working on another book?”
Webber told him that he was.
“Going to be good?” he demanded.
Webber said he hoped so.
“A nice, big, fat one like the first? Lots of meat on it, is there? Lots of people?”