He told the simple truth, as who could help, with Portia’s eyes demanding it.

“It was that at first; I’ll admit it.  But latterly—­”

“Latterly you have begun to think larger things?” She looked away from him, and her next word seemed to be part of an unspoken thought.  “I have been wondering if you are great enough, David.”

He shook his head despondently.

“Haven’t I just been showing you that I am not?”

“You have been showing me that you can not always out-plan, the other person.  That is a lack, but it is not fatal.  Are you great enough to run fast and far when it is a straight-away race depending only upon mere man-strength and indomitable determination?”

Her words fired him curiously.  He recalled the little thrill of inspiration which a somewhat similar appeal from Elinor had once given him, and tried to compare the two sensations.  There was no comparison.  The one was a call to moral victory; the other to material success.  None the less, he decided that the present was the more potent spell, perhaps only because it was the present.

“Try me,” he said impulsively.

“If I do ...  David, no man can serve two masters—­or two mistresses.  If I do, will you agree to put the sentimental affair resolutely in the background?”

He took his head in his hands and was a long minute making up his mind.  But his refusal was blunt enough when it came.

“No; at least, not until they are married.”

It would have taken a keener discernment than Kent’s or any man’s to have fathomed the prompting of her laugh.

“I was only trying you,” she said.  “Perhaps, if you had said yes I should have deserted you and gone over to the other side.”

He got up and went to sit beside her on the pillowed divan.

“Don’t try me again, please—­not that way.  I am only a man.”

“I make no promises—­not even good ones,” she retorted.  And then:  “Would you like to have your quo warranto blind alley turned into a thoroughfare?”

“I believe you can do it if you try,” he admitted, brightening a little.

“Maybe I can; or rather maybe I can put you in the way of doing it.  You say Mr. Meigs is obstinate, and the governor is likely to prove still more obstinate.  Have you thought of any way of softening them?”

“You know I haven’t.  It’s a stark impossibility from my point of view.”

“Nothing is impossible; it is always a question of ways and means.”  Then, suddenly:  “Have you been paying any attention to the development of the Belmount oil field?”

“Enough to know that it is a big thing; the biggest since the Pennsylvania discoveries, according to all accounts.”

“And the people of the State are enthusiastic about it, thinking that now the long tyranny of the oil monopoly will be broken?”

“That is the way most of the newspapers talk, and there seems to be some little ground for it, granting the powers of the new law.”