The motion was voted with noise enough to make it at least seem
hearty, and with no outspoken negatives to prevent its appearing
unanimous. His friends dragged him back and insisted upon drinking with
him, the formalities of adjournment being swallowed up in the uproar.
His triumph could not have been more complete, and its celebration,
with much discussion, much congratulation and not a little wine, lasted
until midnight.
And all the while, as he talked and jested and argued and laughed and
drank, his brain was playing with the question of right and wrong as a
child with a shuttlecock. Without a hearty conviction of the absolute
justice of the principle for which he contended, it is doubtful if
Fenton could have acted the lie of assumed innocence. He had entangled
the question of his guilt with that of the propriety of the action of
the committee so inextricably that one could scarcely be taken up
without the other. He admired himself as an actor, he approved of
himself as a logician, and he despised himself--without any heart-
burning bitterness--as a liar. He was too clear-headed to be able to
bejuggle himself with the reasoning that he had not been guilty of
falsehood because he had never specifically and in word denied the
charge of the committee. Yet with all his pride in his self-
comprehension, he really deceived himself.
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