“I see,” said Ormsby.  “Then you would counsel delay?”

“I should; and I’ll go a step farther.  I am on the inside, in a way, and any hint I can give you for Miss—­for Mrs. Brentwood’s benefit shall be promptly forthcoming.”

“By Jove! that’s decent,” said Ormsby, heartily.  “You are a friend worth having, Mr. Kent.  But which ‘inside’ do you mean—­the railroad or the political?”

“Oh, the railroad, of course.  And while I think of it, my office will be in the Quintard Building; and you—­I suppose you will put up at the Wellington?”

“For the present, we all shall.  It is Mrs. Brentwood’s notion to take a furnished house later on for herself and daughters, if she can find one.  I’ll keep in touch with you.”

“Do.  It may come to a bit of quick wiring when our chance arrives.  You know Loring—­Grantham Loring?”

“Passably well.  I came across him one summer in the mountains of Peru, where he was managing a railroad.  He is a mighty good sort.  I had mountain fever, and he took me in and did for me.”

“He is with us now,” said David Kent; “the newly appointed general manager of the Western Pacific.”

“Good!” said the club-man “I think a lot of him; he is an all-around dependable fellow, and plenty capable.  I’m glad to know he has caught on higher up.”

The locomotive whistle was droning again, and a dodging procession of red-eyed switch-lights flicked past the windows.  Kent stood up and flung away the stump of his cigar.

“The capital,” he announced.  “I’ll go back with you and help out with the shawl-strap things.”  And in the vestibule he added:  “I spoke of Loring because he will be with us in anything we have to do in Mrs. Brentwood’s behalf.  Look him up when you have time—­fourth floor of the Quintard.”

VI

OF THE MAKING OF LAWS

The session, the shortest in the history of the State, and thus far the least eventful, was nearing its close; and the alarmists who had prophesied evil and evil only of the “Populist” victory were fast losing credit with the men of their own camp and with the country at large.

After the orthodox strife over the speakership of the House, and the equally orthodox wrangle over contested seats, the State Assembly had settled down to routine business, despatching it with such unheard-of celerity as to win columns of approval from the State press as a whole; though there were not wanting a few radical editors to raise the ante-election cry of reform, and to ask pointedly when it was to begin.

Notwithstanding the lack of alarms, however, the six weeks had been a period of unceasing vigilance on the part of the interests which were supposed to be in jeopardy.  Every alien corporation owning property and doing business in the State had its quota of watchful defenders on the ground; men who came and went, in the lobbies of the capitol, in the visitors’ galleries, at the receptions; men who said little, but who saw and heard all things down to the small talk of the corridors and the clubs, and the gossip of the hotel rotundas.