“No, David; I didn’t do that,” she said, speaking to his inmost thought.  “If there had been anything you could do—­the smallest shadow of a chance for you—­I should have sent you flying at the first word.  But there wasn’t; it was all too well arranged—­”

But he had snatched coat and hat from the waiting Thomas and was running like a madman for the nearest cab-stand.

VII

THE SENTIMENTALISTS

Kent’s time from Alameda Square to the capitol was the quickest a flogged cab-horse could make, but he might have spared the horse and saved the double fee.  On the broad steps of the south portico he, uprushing three at a bound, met the advance guard of the gallery contingent, down-coming.  The House had adjourned.

“One minute, Harnwicke!” he gasped, falling upon the first member of the corporations’ lobby he could identify in the throng.  “What’s been done?”

“They’ve taken a fall out of us,” was the brusk reply.  “House Bill Twenty-nine was reported by the committee on judiciary and rushed through after you left.  Somebody engineered it to the paring of a fingernail:  bare quorum to act; members who might have filibustered weeded out, on one pretext or another, to a man; pages all excused, and nobody here with the privilege of the floor.  It was as neat a piece of gag-work as I ever hope to see if I live to be a hundred.”

Kent faced about and joined the townward dispersal with his informant.

“Well, I suppose that settles it definitely; at least, until we can test its constitutionality in the courts,” he said.

Harnwicke thought not, being of the opinion that the vested interests would never say die until they were quite dead.  As assistant counsel for the Overland Short Line, he was in some sense the dean of the corps of observation, and could speak with authority.

“There is one chance left for us this side of the courts,” he went on; “and now I think of it, you are the man to say how much of a chance it is.  The bill still lacks the governor’s signature.”

Kent shook his head.

“It is his own measure.  I have proof positive that he and Meigs and Hendricks drafted it.  And all this fine-haired engineering to-night was his, or Meigs’.”

“Of course; we all know that.  But we don’t know the particular object yet.  Do they need the new law in their business as a source of revenue?  Or do they want to be hired to kill it?  In other words, does Bucks want a lump sum for a veto?  You know the man better than any of us.”

“By Jove!” said Kent.  “Do you mean to say you would buy the governor of a state?”

Harnwicke turned a cold eye on his companion as they strode along.  He was of the square-set, plain-spoken, aggressive type—­a finished product of the modern school of business lawyers.

“I don’t understand that you are raising the question of ethics at this stage of the game, do I?” he remarked.