After Stewart had closed the door behind himself Senator Corson rose
hastily. For a few moments he surveyed the panels of the oaken portal with
the intentness of one who was studying a problem on a printed page. Then,
plainly, his thoughts went traveling beyond the closed door. But he
appeared to be receiving no satisfaction from his scrutiny or from his
thoughts. He scowled and muttered.
He stared into the palms of his soiled gloves; the suggestion they offered
did not improve his temper. He ripped them from his hands. "What the
mischief ails 'em, down here? They're all more or less slippery, Daunt!
I've been sensing it all the evening! I feel as if I'd been handling
eels."
Banker Daunt was calming himself by a patrol of the room.
"I can view matters like a statesman when I'm in the Senate Chamber,"
Corson asserted, "but down here at home these days I can't see the forest
on account of the trees! I don't know what tree to climb first, Daunt, I
swear I don't! What with North getting the party into this scrape it's in,
and playing his sharp politics, and this power question fight and--and--"
He gazed at the door again. It now suggested a definite course of
procedure, apparently. He crumpled his gloves into a ball and threw them
on the table. There was a hint in that action; the Senator was showing his
determination to handle matters without gloves for the rest of the
evening. "There's one thing about it, Daunt, a man can't do his best in
public concerns till he has freed his mind of his private troubles. You
wait here. I'll be right back."
"Where are you going, Senator?"
"I'm going to regain my self-respect! I'm going to assert myself as master
of my own home. I'm going to tell Stewart Morrison that I have business
with him, and that I'll attend to it in a strictly business office, later,
where he can't insult my friends and abuse my hospitality!"
"Wait a minute! I've had an acute attack of it, too, this evening--the
same ailment, but I'm getting over it. Don't lose your head and your
temper, both at the same time. You're not in the right trim just now to go
against that bullhead. Let's estimate him squarely. That's always my plan
in business." Mr. Daunt plucked a cigar from a box on the table and
lighted up leisurely, soothing himself into a matter-of-fact mood. Corson
waited with impatience, but his politician's caution began to tug on the
bits, moderating the rush of his passion, and he took a cigar for himself.
"Outside of this petty mayor business, does Morrison cut any figure--have
any special power in state politics?" the banker asked.
"Not a particle--not as a politician. He doesn't know the A B C's of the
game."
"How much influence can he wield as an agitator, as he threatens to
become?"
Corson's declaration was less emphatic. "We're conservative, the mass of
us, in these parts. Starting trouble isn't wielding influence, Daunt.
He'll be going up against the political machine that has always handled
this state safely and sanely--and we know what to do with trouble-makers."
"This communistic stand of his certainly discredits him with the
corporations, also. Despeaux has been doing good work, and practically all
of 'em have come over to the Consolidated camp. Of course, Morrison is
antagonizing the banking interests, too. Is he a heavy borrower?"
"He doesn't borrow. He works on his own capital. St. Ronan's is free and
clear," admitted the Senator, crossly.
"That's too bad! Calling loans is always effective in improving a
radical's opinions. Then this friend, whom you have held up to me as so
important in our plans----"
"I did consider him important, Daunt! I do now. I know him. I have seen
him go after things, ever since he was a boy. That storage-commission
scheme is his own device and, as the head of it, he occupies a strategic
position."
"But it's only a scheme; he has no actual organization of the people
behind it."
"Confound it! I'm afraid he will have!"
"It's an impractical dream--trying to establish such shadowy ownership of
what vested capital under private control must naturally possess and
develop. We have sound business on our side."
"It may not seem so much like a dream after he puts that report into the
legislature," complained the Senator. "I tell you, I know Stewart
Morrison. He indulges in visions, but he'll back this particular one up
with so many facts and figures that it will make a treasury report look
like a ghost-story by comparison. Talk about sound business! That's
Morrison's other name!"
"What's going to be done with that report, Corson?"
The Senator hesitated a few moments.
"Understand that I'm no kin of old Captain Teach, the buccaneer, either in
politics or business, Daunt. But I'm not fool enough to believe that the
millennium has arrived in this world, even if the battle of Armageddon has
been fought, as the parsons are preaching. We still must deal with human
conditions. The tree is full of good ideas, I'll admit. But we've got to
let 'em ripen. Eat 'em now--and it's a case of the gripes for business and
politics, both. Therefore"--the Senator paused and squinted at the end of
his cigar. "Well, Daunt, we'll have to apply a little common sense to
conditions, even though the opposition may squeal. That ownership of the
water-power by the people isn't ripe. The legislative committee will
pocket Morrison's report, or will refer the thing to the public utilities
commission."
"Both plans meaning the same thing?"
"I won't put it as coarsely as that. It only means handling the situation
with discretion. Discretion by those in power is going to save us a lot of
trouble in times like these."
"You are sure of the right legislative committee, are you?"
"Certainly! North is on the job up at the State House. I'll admit that he
isn't tactful. He's very old-fashioned in his political ideas. But he
doesn't mind clamor and criticism, and he isn't afraid of the devil
himself. Between you and me, I think," continued the Senator, judicially,
"that North is skating pretty near the edge this time. I would not have
allowed him to go so far if I had been in better touch with conditions
down here. But it's too late to modify his plans much at this hour. He
must bull the thing through as he's going. I can undo the mischief to the
party by the selection of a smooth diplomat for the gubernatorial
nomination next year. But jumping back to the main subject--Stewart
Morrison! Seeing what he is, in the water-power matter, I hoped I could
smooth things by your getting next to him. I'm sorry you have been so much
annoyed, Daunt! He may make it uncomfortable by his mouth, but he cannot
control anything by direct political influence. Absolutely not!" The
Senator was recovering his confidence in himself as a leader; he started
up from his chair and stamped down an emphatic foot. "He is a nonentity in
that direction. Politics will handle the thing! The legislature will be
all right! The situation on Capitol Hill is safe. However, I think I'll
pass a word or two with North!"
He went to the wall of the study, slipped aside a small panel, and lifted
out a telephone instrument. "A little precaution I've held over from the
old days," Corson informed his guest, with a smile. "A private line to the
Executive Chamber."
From where he sat Daunt could hear the Governor's voice. The tones rasped
and rattled and jangled in the receiver, which, for the sake of his
eardrum, Senator Corson held away from his head. The puckers on his
countenance indicated that he was annoyed, both by the news and by the
discordant violence of its delivery.
"But it's not as threatening as all that! It can't be!" the listener kept
insisting.
"Well, I'll come up," he promised, at last. "I'll come, but I think you're
over-anxious, North!"
There was a sound as if somebody were banging on a tin pan at the other
end of the line; His Excellency had merely put more vigor into his voice.
"I think--I'm quite sure that he's still here--in my house," Corson
replied. "Yes--yes--I certainly will!" He hung up.
"You seemed to think, Daunt, that I didn't have a good and a sufficient
reason for saying a few words to Morrison when I started to hunt him up a
few minutes ago. However, this time you'll have to excuse me. I'm going to
him."
"But you're not intending to make him of any especial importance in
affairs, are you? You said he could be ignored."
"Yes! But I don't propose to ignore his efforts to stir up the mob spirit
in a city of which he happens to be mayor. He has been up to that
mischief! I have heard straight reports from various sources this evening.
The Governor has been posted and he is very emphatic on the point." Corson
rubbed the ear that was still reminding him of that emphasis.
"That's the trouble with men like Morrison, when they begin to talk
people's rights these days, Senator! They go up in the air and jump all
the way over into Bolshevism. I'm sorry now because I counseled you to
smooth your temper. Go at him. I'll sit here and finish my smoke."
At the head of the broad staircase Senator Corson came upon Mrs. Stanton
and Coventry Daunt.
They wore expressions of bewilderment that would have fitted the
countenances of explorers who had missed their quest and had lost their
reckoning.
Mrs. Stanton put out her fan, and the striding father halted at the polite
barrier with a greeting, but evinced anxiety to be on the way.
"I'm so glad to see you, Senator Corson!" This with delight. "But isn't
Lana with you?" this with anxiety. "I mean, hasn't she been with you?"
"My dance contracts with Miss Corson have been shot quite all to pieces,"
said Coventry.
"I have searched everywhere for her--I think I have," supplemented the
sister. "But we guessed she must be with you, and we didn't venture to
intrude."
"And you are sure she is not in the ballroom?"
"Absolutely!" Young Mr. Daunt plainly knew what he was talking about.
"Coventry, if you and Mrs. Stanton will go there and wait a few moments, I
am positive that Lana will come to you very promptly!"
Senator Corson also seemed to know what he was talking about!