"Thomas, fetch Mr. Kent's coat and hat from the dressing-room." And then to Kent, in the tone she might have used in telling him of the latest breeziness of the member from the Rio Blanco: "I remember now what it was that I wanted to tell you. While you have been trying to find Mr. Ormsby, the committee on judiciary has been reporting the long-lost House Bill Twenty-nine. If you hurry you may be in time to see it pa.s.sed--it will doubtless go through without any tiresome debate. But you will hardly have time to obstruct it by arousing public sentiment through the newspapers."

David Kent shook the light touch of her hand from his arm and set his teeth hard upon a word hot from the furnace of righteous indignation. For a moment he fully believed she was in league with the junto; that she had been purposely holding him in talk while the very seconds were priceless.

She saw the scornful wrath in his eyes and turned it aside with a swift denial.

"No, David; I didn't do that," she said, speaking to his inmost thought.

"If there had been anything you could do--the smallest shadow of a chance for you--I should have sent you flying at the first word. But there wasn't; it was all too well arranged--"

But he had s.n.a.t.c.hed coat and hat from the waiting Thomas and was running like a madman for the nearest cab-stand.

VII

THE SENTIMENTALISTS

Kent's time from Alameda Square to the capitol was the quickest a flogged cab-horse could make, but he might have spared the horse and saved the double fee. On the broad steps of the south portico he, uprushing three at a bound, met the advance guard of the gallery contingent, down-coming. The House had adjourned.

"One minute, Harnwicke!" he gasped, falling upon the first member of the corporations' lobby he could identify in the throng. "What's been done?"

"They've taken a fall out of us," was the brusk reply. "House Bill Twenty-nine was reported by the committee on judiciary and rushed through after you left. Somebody engineered it to the paring of a fingernail: bare quorum to act; members who might have filibustered weeded out, on one pretext or another, to a man; pages all excused, and n.o.body here with the privilege of the floor. It was as neat a piece of gag-work as I ever hope to see if I live to be a hundred."

Kent faced about and joined the townward dispersal with his informant.

"Well, I suppose that settles it definitely; at least, until we can test its const.i.tutionality in the courts," he said.

Harnwicke thought not, being of the opinion that the vested interests would never say die until they were quite dead. As a.s.sistant counsel for the Overland Short Line, he was in some sense the dean of the corps of observation, and could speak with authority.

"There is one chance left for us this side of the courts," he went on; "and now I think of it, you are the man to say how much of a chance it is.

The bill still lacks the governor's signature."

Kent shook his head.

"It is his own measure. I have proof positive that he and Meigs and Hendricks drafted it. And all this fine-haired engineering to-night was his, or Meigs'."

"Of course; we all know that. But we don't know the particular object yet.

Do they need the new law in their business as a source of revenue? Or do they want to be hired to kill it? In other words, does Bucks want a lump sum for a veto? You know the man better than any of us."

"By Jove!" said Kent. "Do you mean to say you would buy the governor of a state?"

Harnwicke turned a cold eye on his companion as they strode along. He was of the square-set, plain-spoken, aggressive type--a finished product of the modern school of business lawyers.

"I don't understand that you are raising the question of ethics at this stage of the game, do I?" he remarked.

Kent fired up a little.

"And if I am?" he retorted.

"I should say you had missed your calling. It is baldly a question of business--or rather of self-preservation. We needn't mince matters among ourselves. If Bucks is for sale, we buy him."

Kent shrugged.

"There isn't any doubt about his purchasability. But I confess I don't quite see how you will go about it."

"Never mind that part of it; just leave the ways and means with those of us who have riper experience--and fewer hamperings, perhaps--than you have. Your share in it is to tell us how big a bid we must make. As I say, you know the man."

David Kent was silent for the striding of half a square. The New England conscience dies hard, and while it lives it is given to drawing sharp lines on all the boundaries of culpability. Kent ended by taking the matter in debate violently out of the domain of ethics and standing it upon the ground of expediency.

"It will cost too much. You would have to bid high--not to overcome his scruples, for he has none; but to satisfy his greed--which is abnormal.

And, besides, he has his pose to defend. If he can see his way clear to a harvest of extortions under the law, he will probably turn you down--and will make it hot for you later on in the name of outraged virtue."

Harnwicke's laugh was cynical.

"He and his little clique don't own the earth in fee simple. Perhaps we shall be able to make them grasp that idea before we are through with them. We have had this fight on in other states. Would ten thousand be likely to satisfy him?"

"No," said Kent. "If you add another cipher, it might."

"A hundred thousand is a pot of money. I take it for granted the Western Pacific will stand its pro-rate?"

The New England conscience bucked again, and Kent made his first open protest against the methods of the demoralizers.

"I am not in a position to say: I should advise against it. Unofficially, I think I can speak for Loring and the Boston people. We are not more saintly than other folk, perhaps; and we are not in the railroad business for health or pleasure. But I fancy the Advisory Board would draw the line at bribing a governor--at any rate, I hope it would."

"Rot!" said Harnwicke. And then: "You'll reap the benefits with other interstate interests; you'll have to come in."

Kent hesitated, but not now on the ground of the principle to be defended.

"That brings in a question which I am not competent to decide. Loring is your man. You will call a conference of the 'powers,' I take it?"

"It is already called. I sent Atherton out to notify everybody as soon as the trap was sprung in the House. We meet in the ordinary at the Camelot.

You'll be there?"

"A little later--if Loring wants me. I have some telephoning to do before this thing gets on the wires."

They parted at the entrance to the Camelot Club, and Kent went two squares farther on to the Wellington. Ormsby had not yet returned, and Kent went to the telephone and called up the Brentwood apartments. It was Penelope that answered.

"Well, I think you owe it," she began, as soon as he had given his name.

"What did I do at Miss Van Brock's to make you cut me dead?"

"Why, nothing at all, I'm sure. I--I was looking for Mr. Ormsby, and----"

"Not when I saw you," she broke in flippantly. "You were handing Miss Portia an ice. Are you still looking for Mr. Ormsby?"

"I am--just that. Is he with you?"

"No; he left here about twenty minutes ago. Is it anything serious?"

"Serious enough to make me want to find him as soon as I can. Did he say he was coming down to the Wellington?"