Once or twice I had been on the point of going to Ballard's office and making a clean breast of Jerry's plans, hoping that Clancy might be bought off and the match canceled. But I could not bring myself, even now, to the point of betraying the boy. I am not a fatalist by profession or philosophy, but Miss Gore had made me pause and I had resolved to see the thing through, trying to believe as she believed that Jerry could only be toughened to the usages of life by the rigor of circumstance. And so I was silent.
On the morning of the great event I found myself, instead of properly censorious, intensely eager for the night to come. Jerry had been brought secretly to town the day before in a closed machine and was resting under the care of Flynn at Jerry's own house uptown. It was at Jerry's request that Jack Ballard and I stayed away from him, and so the day passed slowly enough in speculations as to the possibility of overtraining and as to Jerry's ability to stand punishment. Of his pluck there was no question between us. Both of us had had too many proofs of it to doubt, but there was always the chance of the unlucky blow early in the battle which might mean defeat where victory seemed the only thing possible. I believed that Jerry would win. I think that I actually believed him to be invulnerable. I knew that Flynn was confident, and that Sagorski, Spatola and O'Halloran had put their money on him. Of course he would win. There was no man in the world who could stand up against Jerry when he meant to do a thing. No one knew better than I what victory meant to Jerry. Money, championship laurels--of course they were nothing. However much or little Marcia's theories as to the superman meant to Jerry, he was committed to her--and she, I suspected, to him. His laurels were in the touch of her rosy fingers, the flash of her dark eyes, the gleam of her small white teeth when she smiled. Those were his reward, all that he had worked for--all that he prized. She expected him to win. He couldn't lose.
The day passed slowly. I visited the gymnasium with Jack. Flynn was still with Jerry, but confidence reigned. There was a story going the rounds of the press that Clancy had gone stale, that he had strained a tendon, that he had broken a finger, that his mother had just died.