The Best Man

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Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/bestman00macg

Transcriber's note:

In addition to the title story ("The Best Man") the original book contained three other stories by the same author, and they are included in this e-book. They are

"Two Candidates," first published in the Everybody's Magazine, May, 1905.

"The Advent of Mr. 'Shifty' Sullivan," first published in the Ainslee Magazine, November, 1903.

"The Girl and the Poet," first published in the Ladies Home Journal, December, 1905.

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (italics).

Small capitals were replaced with ALL CAPITALS.

THE BEST MAN

[Illustration]

THE BEST MAN

by

HAROLD MACGRATH

Author of The Man on the Box, Hearts and Masks, Half a Rogue, Etc.

With Illustrations by Will Grefé.

Decorations by Franklin Booth.

[Illustration]

New York A. L. Burt Company Publishers

Copyright 1907 The Bobbs-Merrill Company

October

To the Ramsdells In Memory of Many Pleasant Florentine Days

Thanks are due Ainslee's Magazine for permission to republish The Advent of Mr. "Shifty" Sullivan.

The BEST MAN

THE BEST MAN

I

CARRINGTON folded the document and thoughtfully balanced it on his palm. What an ironical old world it was! There was a perpendicular wrinkle about his nose, and his lips had thinned into a mere line which drooped at the corners. The drone of a type-writer in the adjoining room sounded above the rattle-tattle of the street below. Through the opened windows came a vague breath of summer redolent of flowers and grasses; for it was but eleven o'clock of the morning, and the smell of sun-baked brick and asphalt had not yet risen through the air. Far beyond the smoking, ragged sky-line Carrington could see the shifting, glittering river and the great ships going down to the sea. Presently the ashes from his dead cigar fell in a gray cascade down his coat and tumbled across his knees, but he gave no heed.

Ironical old world indeed! Here, suddenly and unexpectedly, he found himself upon the battle-field of love and duty, where all honest men find themselves, sooner or later. To pit the heart against the conscience, impulse against calculation! Heigh-ho! Duty is an implacable goddess, and those who serve her most loyally are most ruthlessly driven. She buffets us into this corner and into that, digs pitfalls for the hesitant foot, and crushes the vacillating.

As all men will, Carrington set about to argue down his conscience; the heart is so insistent a counselor. Why should he give up the woman he loved, simply because duty demanded he should? After all, was not duty merely social obligation? What was it to him that the sheep were sheared? Was it right that he, of all men, should divide the house, throw the black pall of dishonesty over it, destroy his own happiness and hers, when so simple a thing as a match would crumble into nothingness this monument to one man's greed and selfishness? The survival of the fittest; if he put aside Self, who would thank him? Few, and many would call him a fool or a meddler. So many voices spoke that he seemed to hear none distinctly.