At the start of his political career Norton had higher ideas of honor than guided his actions now that he had become a part of the political machine that controlled his native State of Mississippi, and of the bipartisan combination that dominated both houses of Congress in the interest of the great railway and industrial corporations.  Senator Stevens and other powers had so distorted Norton’s view of the difference between public and private interests and their respective rights that he had come to believe captial to be the sacred heritage of the nation which must be protected at any cost.  The acceptance of a retainer from the C. St. and P. Railroad Company for wholly unnecessary services in Washington—­only another way of buying a man—­a transaction arranged by Senator Stevens, was but another stage in the disintegration of the young Congressman’s character, but it brought him just that much closer to the point where he could claim Carolina Langdon as his own.  And opportunity does not knock twice at a man’s door—­unless he is at the head of the machine.

Norton, the persevering young law student who loved the girl who had been his boyhood playmate, was now Norton who coveted her father’s lands, who boasted that he was on the “inside” in Washington, who was on the way to fortune—­if the new Senator from Mississippi would or could be forced to stand in favor of the Altacoola naval base.

His conversation with Randolph Langdon, as Haines and Cullen saw them pass through the hotel lobby, illustrated the nature of the Norton of the present and his interest in the Altacoola scheme.

“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t come in on the ground floor in this proposition, Randolph,” he was urging in continuance of the conversation begun over a table in the cafe.  “No reason why you shouldn’t do it, my boy.  Why, are you still a child, or are you really a man?  You have now drafts for $50,000, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” agreed Langdon, chagrined at Norton’s insinuation of youthfulness and anxious to prove that he was really a man of affairs, “I’ve got the fifty thousand, Charlie, but—­but, you see, that’s the money for improvements on the plantation.  As father has put me in as manager I want to make a showing.”

“You can’t make it until spring,” urged Norton.  “The money’s got to lie in the bank all winter.  Now, why don’t you make a hundred thousand with it instead of letting it lie idle?  Isn’t that simple?”

The younger man’s eyes opened wide, and his imagination, stimulated by the special brand of Bourbon whisky Norton had ordered for him, took rapid bounds.

“One hundred thousand!  You mean I could make a hundred thousand with my fifty between now and spring?”

“Sure as a nigger likes gin,” replied Norton, confidently.

“How?” asked Langdon.

The young Congressman leaned over confidentially.

“This is under your hat, Randolph.  You can keep quiet?”