"The motion is carried," announced the president.
Fenton rose to his feet again.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I cannot resist the temptation personally to
thank you. Mr. President, I have now the honor to tender you my
resignation from the St. Filipe Club."
He bowed and turned to walk from the room. He was full of a wild
exultation over his success, and he reasoned quickly with himself that
even if his resignation were accepted, he retired in good order. He
had, too, a half-defined feeling that in thus tempting fate still
further, he made a sort of expiatory offering for his actual guilt. He
said to himself, with that lightning-like quickness which thought
possesses in a crisis, that since the principle for which he contended
stood above the question of his individual transgression, it was but
just that the motion should have been carried, and that now he was
ready to take his punishment by losing his membership in the St.
Filipe.
But before he had gone half a dozen steps, two or three men had called
out impulsively,--
"Mr. President! I move this resignation be not accepted."
There were plenty of men there who would gladly have seen Fenton leave
the club; the members of the Executive Committee were smarting under
the rebuke he had brought upon them; but the excitement of the moment,
the admiration which courage and dash always excite, carried all before
them.
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