“Are the bhoys to have nothin' for their throuble? Half a day they'll lose, so they will--a dollar each now would be no more than fair--”
The Professor shook his head; he was not rich, he said, and had already spent more money in the contest than he could afford.
“Be gob, it's poor worruk this talkin' an' votin' for us that gets nothin' by it”--the phrase stuck in his memory as illustrating the paltry baseness of the whole affair. It was with a sense of relief that he threw himself again into the turmoil that served to deaden thought. As the day wore towards evening he became conscious of fatigue, a weariness that was not of the body alone, but of the head and heart. After the closing of the polls he returned to the Central Rooms. They were filled with an enthusiastic crowd, most of whom professed to believe that the Democratic party had won all along the line. Roberts found it hard to bear their self-gratulation and the exuberance of their triumph, but when Simpson began to take the liberties of comradeship with him, the cup ran over. He cut the man short with a formally polite phrase, and betook himself to his house. He would not think even of May; her image brought him face to face with her father; and he wanted rest.
In the morning the Professor awoke with a feeling of utter depression. Before he opened the paper he was sure that his hopelessness had been justified. He was right--Gulmore had carried his whole ticket, and Simpson had been beaten by a majority of more than a thousand. The Democratic organ did not scruple to ascribe the defeat to the fact that Lawyer Hutchings had sold his party. The simulated indignation of the journalist found expression in phrases which caricatured the simplicity of sincere condemnation. “Never did shameless corruption....” Roberts could not read the stuff. Yet the feigned passion and tawdry rhetoric in some way stirred up his bile; he would see Hutchings and--but if he unpacked his heart's bitterness upon her father, he would hurt May. He must restrain himself; Hutchings would understand from his manner, and May would be sympathetic--as she always was.
Another thought exasperated him afresh. His idealism had made him ridiculous in the eyes of the townsfolk. He had spent money he could ill spare in a hopeless cause, which was not even a worthy one. And now everybody was laughing at him or sneering--he grew hot with shame. That his motives were honourable only heightened the ludicrousness of his action: it seemed as if he had made a fool of himself. He almost wished that he had left the Democrats to their own devices. But no! he had done the right, and that was the main point. The sense of failure, however, robbed him of confidence in regard to the future. How should he act? Since high motives were ineffectual, Quixotic, ought he to discard them and come down to the ordinary level? 'Twould be better not to live at all. The half-life of a student, a teacher, dwelling apart from the world, would be preferable to such degradation; but----