Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/46

34 "That I was quitting politics."

She put down her dishes. "Fer the love o' Heaven, why?"

"Well," he said, "I been thinking it over. It 's all right—but it ain't straight. They 're a nice lot o' fellahs, but they 're in wrong." He was a big, dark-faced Irish boy, deep-eyed, with a gaze that was calmly direct. "I want to keep clear of it. That 's why I want to get uptown out of this."

"They 've been good frien's to us, Larry. Many 's the dollar Senator Dan—"

"I know all about that. I 've tried to make it up to him. I 've done things for him I would n't 've done for anybody else—around the polls. I won't do it any more."

"Are yuh sore 'cause yuh did n't get Flanagan's place?"

"Sore? No, I 'm darned glad I did n't get it."

"What's come over yuh, then?"

"Well," he said vaguely, "I 've been meetin' people—another sort of people. I 've been seein' things diff'rent."

She realized, then, that she was facing a crisis in his life greater than any she had had to deal with since the day when he had wished to leave school so that she might not have to work so hard for him. He was wanting to take his life into his own hands again, to turn against his politics, his class and all his old associations. So much she understood with a mother's jealous instinct, instantly, though she did not accuse him