But Covington, with all his astuteness, was frankly surprised by a piece of information which one of the committee confided to him; and this was nothing less than that unquestionable evidence had been secured that Gorham himself had, at least in one instance, taken advantage of his position for personal gain.  What this instance was his informant could not at that moment say—­the facts were being carefully compiled, but the evidence was beyond dispute.  This autocrat, who talked of principle and honor, had been caught red-handed in the very act against which he pretended to stand; and, of course, this instance was but one of many.  Doctor Jekyll could take it upon himself to deliver platitudes upon moral rectitude, while Mr. Hyde gathered in the shekels on the side!

The members of the Executive Committee were hugely pleased, and Covington no less so.  All was playing into his hands with surprising directness, and he even began to feel that his approaching marriage into Mr. Gorham’s family was an act of supreme sacrifice on his part.  Still, it were better to safeguard both exits to the house, and Alice was an amusing little minx, after all.

XXIV

The elder Riley felt the tenseness in the atmosphere of the Gorham family, and his inability to discover the occasion for it proved trying to his soul.  The mysterious visits of his son James, and the apparent confidences between him and his employer, made the old man feel strongly that, if James were not a part of the new condition, at least he was acquainted with the cause.  Patience with Riley had ceased to be a virtue, and he so contrived it that he passed an evening with his son at the latter’s lodgings.

Much to his relief, he found James in an unusually agreeable mood; and, although the younger man made no effort to move from the comfortable position he had assumed with the assistance of an extra chair for his feet, the welcome extended was far more cordial than that to which the elder Riley was accustomed.

“Well, well, well,” the old man ejaculated, as he closed the door and stood for a moment contemplating the scene before him.  James smiled complacently at the look of mingled surprise and admiration his father so plainly showed, as his eye roved from the new pieces of gaudy furniture to the box of cigars upon the table, particularly noting the attitude which the son assumed as the nearest he could imagine to that of a gentleman in repose.

“Well, well, well,” Riley repeated, coming down to earth again, and seating himself upon a near-by chair not required for James’s feet, which the host had been too preoccupied to think of offering.  “Things is comin’ good f’r ye, ain’t they, Jimmie?”

The old man had discovered a fact which James had no desire to dispute, so he admitted it graciously, at the same time blowing clouds of smoke from his over-fragrant cigar.

“They is,” he replied, sententiously; “and soon they’ll be comin’ better still.”