He propelled his man toward the door, and Mr. Spinney went.  It is likely that he concluded that no very serious damage could come to him in the presence of Thelismer Thornton’s grandson.  But when they arrived near the door of General Waymouth’s parlor, Spinney recognized what it meant and resisted.

“It’s a trap!” he gasped.  “I thought your grandfather—­”

The State Committeemen were following along the corridor, growling threats.  Now they understood that this was practically an abduction.  They hastened up to the scene of the struggle.  But the young man was not deterred.  He was obeying orders without question.  With him it was not a matter of politics; he did not pause to wonder how the affair would be looked upon.  The man to whom all his loyalty had gone out had commanded; he was obeying.  But the others were resolute too.  They were about to interfere.  At that moment Thelismer Thornton appeared in the corridor.

“Let the boy alone,” he commanded, thrusting himself among them.

The diversion gave Harlan his opportunity.  Clutching Spinney with one hand, he threw open the door and pushed him in, followed him, and closed the door.  He locked it, and stood with his back against it.

In that moment he did not reflect that in obeying General Waymouth so implicitly he might be playing traitor to his own flesh and blood.  But the Duke, in his cynicism, had never attracted his grandson’s political loyalty.  That had seemed a matter apart from the family ties between them.  His grandfather had set him on the trail of decency in politics, and had given him a leader to follow.

The frankness with which his grandfather had exposed the code by which he and his ilk operated in politics, making tricks, subterfuge, and downright dishonesty an integral part of the game and entitled to absolution, had divorced Harlan’s straightforward sympathies when the question came to issue between his own relative, complacently unscrupulous, and General Waymouth, heroically casting off bonds of friendship and political affiliations, and standing for what was obviously the right.  It was chivalrous.  It appealed to the youth in Harlan.  His manhandling of the amazed Spinney was an unheard-of event among gentlemen at a political convention, but there was more than impulse behind it.  Harlan Thornton was a woodsman.  Social conventions make the muscles subservient, but in the more primitive conditions the muscles leap ahead of the mind.

Therefore, he came with Mr. Spinney and tossed him into the presence of the chief, who had sent for him.

Then he set his broad shoulders against the door, for fists had begun to hammer at it.

It was evident at once that Spinney recognized the nature of the conference that had assembled in General Waymouth’s room, and knew what the personnel of the group signified.

He looked around him and started toward the door.

“I’ve got witnesses to that assault, and you’re going to suffer for it,” he blustered.  Harlan did not give way.