“Don’t mistake me,” he said.  “I am neither better nor worse than other men, I fancy.  My motives, such as they are, would probably turn out to be purely selfish in the last analysis.  I am proceeding on the theory that constraint breeds the desire for the thing it forbids; therefore I remove it.  Also, it is a part of that theory that the successful David Kent will not appeal to you as the unspoiled country lawyer did.  No, I’m not going to spoil him; if I were, I shouldn’t be telling you about it.  But—­may I be brutally frank?—­the David Kent who will come successfully out of this political prize-fight will not be the man you have idealized.”

There was a muttering of thunder in the air, and the cool precursory breeze of a shower was sweeping through the tree-tops.

“Shall we go into the house?” she asked; and he took it as his dismissal.

“You may; I have kept you up long enough.”  And then, taking her hand:  “Are we safely ashore on the new continent, Elinor?  May I come and go as heretofore?”

“You were always welcome, Brookes; you will be twice welcome, now.”

It was the first time she had ever called him by his Christian name and it went near to toppling down the carefully reared structure of self-restraint.  But he made shift to shore the tottering walls with a playful retort.

“If that is the case, I’ll have to think up some more self-abnegations.  Good night.”

XX

THE WINNING LOSER

Editor Hildreth’s prophecy concerning the probable attitude of the administration newspapers in the discussion of the oil field affair waited but a day for its fulfilment.  On the Friday morning there appeared in the Capital Tribune, the Midland City Chronicle, the Range County Maverick and the Agriculta Ruralist able editorials exonerating the People’s Party, its policy and the executive, and heaping mountains of obloquy on the name of Duvall.  These editorials were so similar in tone, tenor and texture, as pointedly to suggest a common model—­a coincidence which was not allowed to pass unremarked by Hildreth and other molders of public opinion on the opposite side of the political fence.

But Hildreth did not pause at generalities.  Two days after the Universal’s triumph in the Belmount field, the Argus began to “hit it up” boldly toward the capitol, and two things came of it.  The first was an attempt by some party or parties unknown to buy up a controlling interest in the Argus.  The second was the waylaying of David Kent in the lobby of the Clarendon Hotel by no less a personage than the Honorable Melton Meigs, attorney-general of the State.

In his first conversation with Ormsby, Kent had spoken of the three leading spirits of the junto as from personal knowledge; but of the three, Bucks, Hendricks and Meigs, the attorney-general was the least known to him.  Prior to his nomination on the State ticket Meigs had been best known as the most astute criminal lawyer in the State, his astuteness lying not so much in his ability as a pleader as in a certain oratorical gift by which he was able to convince not only a jury but the public of the entire innocence of his client.