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No, Gantry; you've got only one man to fight; but you mustn't forget that his name, also, is Blount. Go to it and send me word, and let the first word be that you have scotched the head of this lumber-company snake. That's all for to-day. Good-by." Notwithstanding the fact that his day's work was still ahead of him, the traffic manager did not attack it when he was left alone.
It was after the club luncheon, and while the two young men were on their way to the smoking-room, that some one on business bent stopped Gantry in the corridor. Blount strolled on by himself, and, finding the smoking-room unoccupied, went to lounge in a lazy-chair standing in a little alcove lined with bookcases and half screened by the racks of the newspaper files.
The summer night was at its perfect best, and Blount was still wakeful enough to refill his pipe and well-balanced enough to be thankful for a little solitude in which to set in order his plans for the newly struck-out future. In the later talk with Gantry he had learned many things about the political situation in his native State, things which were enlightening if not particularly encouraging.
And when Blount had dropped into the opposite chair: "We used to be pretty good friends in the old days, Ebee," Gantry went on, falling easily into the use of the college nickname. "I haven't forgotten the time when I would have had to break and go home if you hadn't stood by me like a brother and lent me money.
There isn't a big interest in this State ore-shippers, power people, irrigation companies, or any of 'em that ain't getting a rake-off. I guess you are stringing me; I guess you know all this a good deal better than I do. If you don't, I can tell you that it's a fact; not a 'has-been', but an 'is'! Ask Gantry; he'll tell you, if he tells the truth.
You've been bluffing me from the start, and you're going to try it again. It won't go this time; you've got to show me!" If Blount hesitated it was only because he was trying to determine whether or not the traffic manager was business-fit. Gantry comprehended perfectly, and his laugh was derisive and a trifle bitter.
Gantry was in the midst of his morning mail-opening, but he pushed the desk-load of papers aside when the door swung inward to admit the early visitor. "Hello, old man! Come back to jar me some more about that telegram?" was his greeting. Blount shook his head. "No; if you've sent it, well and good. If you haven't, you may pitch it into the waste-basket. I came to talk about something else."
Gantry took the chair on the other side of the table from Blake, and explained in a confidential tone: "It is about this unfortunate situation." Blake stared at her, with a puzzled frown. "Unfortunate what?" "Unfortunate situation," she replied, making an effort to moderate her superciliousness to mere condescension. "I assure you, I too have learned that first impressions may err.
This thought made him instantly self-reproachful; regretful for having shown a sort of disloyalty by opening the door of the precious and sacred things, even to so good a friend as Dick Gantry; and from regretting to amending was never more than a step for Evan Blount.
Gantry turned to Ashton with a sudden unbending from hauteur. "My dear Lafayette, I observed your manner yesterday towards that towards Mr. Blake. Am I right in surmising that you know something with regard to his past?" "About Blake?" replied Ashton, his usually wide and ardent eyes shifting their glance uneasily from his questioner to Genevieve and towards the outer door. "About my friend Mr.
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