“I certainly do refuse to fall into any such clumsy trap as you have been trying to bait for me, Mr. Meigs,” said David Kent, dropping back into his former curtness.

The door opened slowly under the impulse of the slender womanish hand.

“You have a task of some magnitude before you, Mr. Kent.  You can scarcely hope to accomplish it alone.”

“Meaning that you would like to know if the fight will go on if I should chance to meet another drunken cow-boy with a better aim?  It will.”

The door closed softly behind the retreating figure of the attorney-general, and Kent released the spring of the night-latch.  Then he went to the dropped portiere at the farther end of the room, drew it aside and looked in on a man who was writing at a table pushed out between the windows.

“You heard him, Loring?” he asked.

The ex-manager nodded.

“They are hard pressed,” he said.  Then, looking up quickly:  “You could name your price if you wanted to close out the stock of goods in hand, David.”

“I shall name it when the time comes.  Are you ready to go over to the Argus office with me?  I want to have a three-cornered talk with Hildreth.”

“In a minute.  I’ll join you in the lobby if you don’t want to wait.”

* * * * *

It was in the afternoon of the same day that Kent found a note in his key-box at the Clarendon asking him to call up 124 Tejon Avenue by telephone.  He did it at once, and Penelope answered.  The key-box note had been placed at Elinor’s request, and she, Miss Penelope, could not say what was wanted; neither could she say definitely when her sister would be in.  Elinor had gone out an hour earlier with Mr. Ormsby and Miss Van Brock in Mr. Ormsby’s motor-car.  When was he, David Kent, coming up?  Did he know they were talking of spending the remainder of the summer at Breezeland Inn?  And where was Mr. Loring all this time?

Kent made fitting answers to all these queries, hung up the ear-piece and went away moodily reflective.  He was due at a meeting of the executive committee of the Civic League, but he let the public business wait while he speculated upon the probable object of Elinor’s telephoning him.

Now there is no field in which the inconsistency of human nature is so persistent as in that which is bounded by the sentimentally narrowed horizon of a man in love.  With Ormsby at the nodus of his point of view, David Kent made no secret of his open rivalry of the millionaire, declaring his intention boldly and taking no shame therefor.  But when he faced about toward Elinor he found himself growing hotly jealous for her good faith; careful and fearful lest she should say or do something not strictly in accordance with the letter and spirit of her obligations as Ormsby’s fiancee.

For example:  at the “conspiracy dinner,” as Loring dubbed it, Ormsby being present to fight for his own hand, Kent, as we have seen, had boldly monopolized Miss Brentwood, and would have committed himself still more pointedly had the occasion favored him.  None the less, when Elinor had begged him privately to see her before moving in the attack on the junto, he had almost resented the implied establishing of confidential relations with her lover’s open rival.