It was chiefly due to Portia's urgings that Kent took Ormsby into his
confidence when the campaign was fairly opened. She put it diplomatically
on the ground of charity to an exiled millionaire, temporarily out of a
job; but her real reason went deeper. From its inception as a one-man
fight against political chicanery in high places, the criticism of the
Bucks formula was beginning to shape itself in a readjustment of party
lines in the field of State politics; and Miss Van Brock, whose designs
upon Kent's future ran far in advance of her admissions to him, was
anxiously casting about for a managerial promoter.
A little practice-play in municipal politics made the need apparent. It
came in the midst of things, basing itself upon the year-gone triumph of
agrarianism in the State. In the upheaval, the capital city had
participated to the extent of electing a majority of the aldermen on the
People's Party ticket; and before long it developed that a majority of
this aldermanic majority could be counted among the spoilsmen--was in fact
a creature of the larger ring.
[Illustration: HE JAMMED THE FIRE END OF HIS CIGAR AMONG THE FINGERS OF
THE GRASPING HAND.]
Late in the summer an ordinance was proposed by the terms of which a
single corporation was to be given a franchise granting a complete
monopoly of the streets for gas and water mains and transit rights of way.
Thereupon a bitter struggle ensued. Party lines were obliterated, and men
who shunned the primaries and otherwise shirked their political duties
raised the cry of corruption, and a Civic League was formed to fight the
ring.
Into this struggle, as giving him the chance to front the enemy in a fair
field, David Kent flung himself with all the ardor of a born fighter. Mass
meetings were held, with Kent as spokesman for the League, and the outcome
was a decency triumph which brought Kent's name into grateful public
prominence. Hildreth played an able second, and by the time the obnoxious
ordinance had been safely tabled, Kent had a semi-political following
which was all his own. Men who had hitherto known him only as a
corporation lawyer began to prophesy large things of the fiery young
advocate, whose arguments were as sound and convincing as his invective
was keen and merciless.
Figuratively speaking, Portia stood in the wings and applauded. Also, she
saw that her protégé had reached the point where he needed grooming for
whatever race lay before him. Hence her urgings, which made a triumvirate
out of the council of two, with Brookes Ormsby as the third member.
"You understand, I'm not interested a little bit in the merits of the
case," said the newly elected chairman, in his first official interview
with Miss Van Brock. "So far as the internal politics of this particularly
wild and woolly State are concerned, I'm neither in them nor of them. But
I am willing to do what I can for Kent."
"Owing him a good turn?" said Portia, with malice aforethought.
Ormsby's laugh was an Englishman's deep-chested haw-haw.
"So he has been making you his confidante in that, too, has he?"
"There was no confidence needed," she retorted. "I have eyes; and, to use
one of your own pet phrases, I was not born yesterday. But let that go:
you are willing to help us?"
"I said I was willing to help Kent. If you bracket yourself with him, I am
more than willing. But I am rather new to the game. You will have to tell
me the moves."
"We are only in the opening," she said, continuing the figure. "You will
learn as you go along. By and by you will have to spend money; but just
now the need is for a cool head to keep our young firebrand out of the
personalities. Where is he to-night?"
Ormsby's smile was a grin.
"I left him at 124 Tejon Avenue half an hour ago. Do you think he is
likely to get into trouble there?"
On the porch of the Brentwood apartment house David Kent was answering
that question measurably well for himself. With the striking of the City
Hall clock at nine Mrs. Brentwood had complained of the glare of the
electric crossing-lamp and had gone in, leaving the caller with Penelope
in the hammock on one side of him and Elinor in a basket chair on the
other.
Their talk had been of the late municipal struggle, and of Kent's part in
it; and, like Miss Van Brock, Penelope was applausive. But Elinor's
congratulations were tempered with deprecation.
"I am glad you won for the League, of course; everybody must be glad of
that," she said. "But I hope the _Argus_ didn't report your speeches
correctly. If it did, you have made a host of bitter enemies."
"What does a man--a real man--care for that?" This from the depths of the
hammock.
"I, at least, can afford to be careless," said Kent. "I am not running for
office, and I have nothing to lose, politically or otherwise."
"Can any man say that truthfully?" Elinor queried.
"I think I can. I have given no hostages to fortune."
Penelope lifted the challenge promptly.
"Lord Bacon said that, didn't he?--about men marrying. If he were alive
now he wouldn't need to say it. Men don't have to be discouraged."
"Don't they?" said Kent.
"No, indeed; they are too utterly selfish for any matrimonial use, as it
is. No, don't argue with me, please. I'm fixed--irrevocably fixed."
Elinor overtook the runaway conversation and drove it back into the path
of her own choosing.
"But I do think you owe it to yourself to be more careful in your public
utterances," she insisted. "If these men on the other side are only half
as unprincipled as your accusations make them out to be, they would not
stop short of personal violence."
"I am not hunting clemency or personal immunity just now," laughed Kent.
"On the contrary, I am only anxious to make the score as heavy as
possible. And so far from keeping prudently in the background, I'll
confess that I went into this franchise fight chiefly to let the capitol
gang know who I am and where I stand."
A sudden light came into Elinor's eyes and burned there steadily. She was
of those who lay votive offerings upon the shrine of manly courage.
"One part of me approves as much as another part disapproves," she said
after a time. "I suppose it isn't possible to avoid making political
enemies; but is it needful to turn them into personal enemies?"
He looked at her curiously.
"I am afraid I don't know any middle path, not being a politician," he
objected. "And as for the enmity of these men, I shall count it an honor
to win it. If I do not win it, I shall know I am not succeeding."
Silence for another little space, which Miss Brentwood broke by saying:
"Don't you want to smoke? You may."
Kent felt in his pocket.
"I have no cigar."
She looked past him to the hammock. "Penelope!" she called softly; and
when there was no response she went to spread the hammock rug over her
sister.
"You may smoke your pipe," she said; and when she had passed behind him to
her chair she made another concession: "Let me fill it for you--you used
to."
He gave her the pipe and tobacco, and by a curious contradiction of terms
began to wonder if he ought not to go. Notwithstanding his frank defiance
of Brookes Ormsby, and his declaration of intention in the sentimental
affair, he had his own notions about the sanctity of a betrothal. Mrs.
Brentwood had vanished, and Penelope was asleep in the hammock. Could he
trust himself to be decently loyal to Ormsby if he should stay? Nice
questions of conscience had not been troubling him much of late; but this
was new ground--or if not new, so old that it had the effect of being new.
He let the question go unanswered--and stayed. But he was minded to fling
the biggest barrier he could lay hands on in the way of possible
disloyalty by saying good things of Ormsby.
"I owe you much for my acquaintance with him," he said, when the subject
was fairly introduced. "He has been all kinds of a good friend to me, and
he promises to be more."
"Isn't your debt to Penelope, rather than to me?" she returned.
"No, I think not. You are responsible, in the broader sense, at all
events. He did not come West for Penelope's sake." Then he took the
plunge: "May I know when it is to be--or am I to wait for my bidding with
the other and more formally invited guests?"
She laughed, a low little laugh that somehow grated upon his nerves.
"You shall know--when I know."
"Forgive me," he said quickly. "But from something Ormsby said----"
"He should not have spoken of it; I have given him no right," she said
coldly.
"You make me twice sorry: once if I am a trespasser, and again if I have
unwittingly broken a confidence. But as a friend--a very old friend--I
ventured----"
She interrupted him again, but this time her laugh did not hurt him.
"Yes; our friendship antedates Mr. Ormsby; it is old enough to excuse
anything you said--or were going to say."
"Thank you," he rejoined, and he meant it. "What I was going to say
touches a matter which I believe you haven't confided to any one. May I
talk business for a few minutes?"
"If you will light your pipe and go on smoking. It makes me nervous to
have people hang on the brink of things."
He lighted the pipe, wondering what other thing he might do to allay her
nervousness. None the less, he would not go back from his purpose, which
was barrier-building.
"I have thought, wholly without warrant, perhaps, that your loss in this
railroad steal has had something to do with the postponement of your
happiness--and Ormsby's. Has it?"
"And if it should have?"
"I merely wanted to say that we still have a fighting chance. But one of
the hard and fast conditions is that every individual stockholder shall
hang on to his or her holdings like grim death."
She caught her breath with a little gasp.
"The encouragement comes too late for us. We have parted with our stock."
Kent turned cold and hot and cold again while she was saying it. Then the
lawyer in him came uppermost.
"Is it gone beyond recall? How much too late am I?" he demanded.
"My mother wrote the letter to-day. She had an offer from some one in New
York."
Kent was on his feet instantly.
"Has that letter been mailed? Because if it has, it must be stopped by
wire!"
Miss Brentwood rose.
"It was on the hall table this afternoon; I'll go and see," and in a
moment she returned with the letter in her hand.
Kent took it from her as if it had been an edged weapon or a can of high
explosives.
"Heavens! what a turn you gave me!" he said, sitting down again. "Can I
see your mother?"
"I think she has gone to bed. What do you want to do?"
"I want to tell her that she mustn't do any such suicidal thing as this."
"You don't know my mother," was the calm reply. "Mr. Ormsby said
everything he could think of."
"Then we must take matters into our own hands. Will you help me?"
"How?" she asked.
"By keeping your own counsel and trusting me. Your mother supposes this
letter has gone: it has gone--this way." He tore the sealed envelope
across and across and dropped the pieces into his pocket. "Now we are
safe--at least until the man at the other end writes again."
It shocked her a little, and she did not promise to be a party to the
subterfuge. But neither did she say she would not.
"I am willing to believe that you have strong reasons for taking such
strong measures," she said. "May I know them?"
Kent's gift of reticence came to his rescue in time to prevent the
introduction of another and rather uncertain factor into his complicated
problem.
"I can explain it more intelligibly a little later on; or if I don't,
Ormsby will. In the mean time, you must take my word for it that we shall
have our railroad back in due season."
It is a question for the psychologists to answer if there be or be not
crises in a man's life when the event, weighty or trivial, turns upon that
thing which, for the want of a better name, is called a premonition.
In the silence that followed his dismissal of the subject, Kent became
aware of a vague prompting which was urging him to cut his visit short.
There was no definable reason for his going. He had finally brought
himself to the point of speaking openly to Elinor of her engagement, and
they were, as he fondly believed, safely beyond the danger point in that
field. Moreover, Penelope was stirring in her hammock and the perilous
privacy was at an end. Nevertheless, he rose and said good-night, and was
half-way to the next corner before he realized how inexcusably abrupt his
leave-taking had been.
When he did realize it, he was of two minds whether to go back or to let
the apology excuse another call the following evening. Then the insistent
prompting seized him again; and when next he came to a competent sense of
things present he was standing opposite the capitol building, staring
fixedly up at a pair of lighted windows in the second story.
They were the windows of the governor's room; and David Kent's brain
cleared suddenly. In the earliest beginnings of the determinate plan to
wrest the Trans-Western out of the grasp of the junto he had known that it
must come finally to some desperate duel with the master-spirit of the
ringsters. Was Jasper Bucks behind those lighted windows--alone?
Kent had not meant to make the open attack until he should have a weapon
in his hands which would arm him to win. But now as he stood looking up at
the heckoning windows a mad desire to have it out once for all with the
robber-in-chief sent the blood tingling to his finger-tips. True, he had
nothing as yet in the oil-field conspiracy that the newspapers or the
public would accept as evidence of fraud and corruption. But on the other
hand, Bucks was only a man, after all; a man with a bucaneer's record, and
by consequence vulnerable beneath the brazen armor of assurance. If the
attack were bold enough----
Kent did not stop to argue it out. When a man's blood is up the odds
against him shrink and become as naught. Two minutes later he was in the
upper corridor of the capitol, striding swiftly to the door of the lighted
room.
Recalling it afterward he wondered if the occult prompting which had
dragged him out of his chair on the Brentwcod porch saw to it that he
walked upon the strip of matting in the tile-paved corridor and so made
his approach noiseless. Also, if the same silent monitor bade him stop
short of the governor's office: at the door, namely, of the public
anteroom, which stood ajar?
A low murmur of voices came from beyond, and for a moment he paused
listening. Then he went boldly within, crossing the anteroom and standing
fairly in the broad beam of light pouring through the open door of
communication with the private office.
Four men sat in low-toned conference around the governor's writing-table,
and if any one of them had looked up the silent witness must have been
discovered. Kent marked them down one by one: the governor; Hendricks, the
secretary of State; Rumford, the oil man; and Senator Duvall. For five
pregnant minutes he stood looking on, almost within arm's reach of the
four; hearing distinctly what was said; seeing the papers which changed
hands across the table. Then he turned and went away, noiselessly as he
had come, the thick-piled carpet of the anteroom muffling his footfalls.
It was midnight when he reached his quarters in the Clarendon and flung
himself full length upon the bed, sodden with weariness. For two hours he
had tramped the deserted streets, striving in sharp travail of soul to fit
the invincible, chance-given weapon to his hand. When he came in the thing
was done, and he slept the sleep of an outworn laborer.