“What is the matter with it?” he demanded, when he had given her five full minutes for reflection.

“I don’t know, David,” she said gravely.  “Have I ever thrown cold water on any of your schemes thus far?”

“No, indeed.  You have been the loyalest partizan a man ever had, I think; the only one I have to whom I can talk freely.  And I have told you more than I have all the others put together.”

“I know you have.  And it hurts me to pull back now when you want me to push.  But I can’t help it.  Do you believe in a woman’s intuition?”

“I suppose I do:  all men do, don’t they?”

She was tying little knots in the fringe of the table scarf, but the prophetess-eyes, as Penelope called them, were not following the deft intertwinings of the slender fingers.

“You mean to set about ‘obliterating’ Judge MacFarlane forthwith?” she asked.

“Assuredly.  I have been whipping the thing into shape all afternoon:  that is what kept me from dining with you.”

“It involves some kind of legal procedure?”

“Yes; a rather complicated one.”

“Could you explain it so that I could understand it?”

“I think so.  In the first place the question is raised by means of an information or inquiry called a quo warranto.  This is directed to the receiver, and is a demand to know by what authority he holds.  Is it clear thus far?”

“Pellucidly,” she said.

“In reply the receiver cites his authority, which is the order from Judge MacFarlane; and in our turn we proceed to show that the authority does not exist—­that the judge’s election was illegal and that therefore his acts are void.  Do I make it plain?”

“You make it seem as though it were impossible to fail.  And yet I know you will fail.”

“How do you know it?”

“Don’t ask me; I couldn’t begin to tell you that.  But in some spiritual or mental looking-glass I can see you coming to me with the story of that failure—­coming to ask my help.”

He smiled.

“You don’t need to be the prophetess Penelope says you are to foresee part of that.  I always come to you with my woes.”

“Do you?—­oftener than you go to Miss Brentwood?”

This time his smile was a mere tightening of the lips.

“You do love to grind me on that side, don’t you?” he said.  “I and my affairs are less than nothing to Miss Brentwood, and no one knows it any better than you do.”

“But you want to go to her,” she persisted.  “I am only the alternative.”

He looked her full in the eyes.

“Miss Van Brock, what is it you want me to say?  What can I say more than I said a moment ago—­that you are the truest friend a man ever had?”

The answering look out of the brown eyes was age-old in its infinite wisdom.

“How little you men know when you think you know the most,” she said half-musingly; then she broke off abruptly.  “Let us talk about something else.  If Major Guilford is wrecking the railroad, why is he spending so much money on improvements?  Have you thought to ask yourself that question?”