Having a hospitable thing to do, Blount shoved his problem into a still more remote background and bestirred himself generously.  Though the Inter-Mountain was only three squares distant, he chartered the best-looking auto he could find in the rank of waiting vehicles, put his charges into it, and went with them to do the honors at the hotel.  By this postponement of the visit to Gantry he missed a meeting which would have done something toward solving a part of his problem.  But for the hospitable turning aside he might have reached the railroad office in time to see a round-bodied man halting at the open door of Gantry’s private room for a parting word with the traffic manager.

“Oh, yes; he fell for it, all right,” was the form the parting word took.  “If you had seen his face when Lackner and I came away, you’d have said there was battle, murder, and sudden death in it for somebody.”

“But, see here, Bradbury,” Gantry held his visitor to say, “it wasn’t in the game that you were to fill him up with a lot of lies.  I won’t stand for that, you know.  He is too good a fellow, and too good a friend of mine.”

It was at this conjuncture that Blount, if he had been present and invisible, would have seen a sour smile wrinkling upon the face of the club gossip.

“I owe the senator one or two on my own account, Gantry.  But it wasn’t necessary to go out of the beaten path.  If young Blount or his daddy would like to sue us for libel, we could prove every word that was said—­or prove that it was common report; too common to be doubted.  And it got the young fellow; got him right in the solar plexus.  If you don’t see some fireworks within the next few days, I miss my guess and lose my ante.”

This is what Evan Blount, carrying out his intention of going to Gantry, might have seen and heard.  On the other hand, if he had lingered a few minutes longer on the station platform he could scarcely have failed to mark the side-tracking of private car “008,” and he might have seen the herculean figure of the vice-president crossing to the carriage-stand to climb heavily into a waiting automobile.

Mr. McVickar’s order to the chauffeur was curtly brief, and a little later the vice-president entered the lobby of the Inter-Mountain and shot a brisk question at the room-clerk.

“Is Senator Blount in his rooms?”

“I think not.  He was here a few minutes ago.  I’ll send a boy to hunt him up for you.  You want your usual suite, I suppose, Mr. McVickar?”

“No; I’m not stopping overnight.  Is young Blount here in the hotel?”

“He has just gone up to the fifth floor with some friends of his—­Mr. Anners and his daughter, from Boston.  Shall I hold him for you when he comes down?”

“No; I want to see the senator.  Hustle out another boy or two.  I can’t wait all night.”

It was at this moment that Evan Blount, bearing luggage-checks and going in search of the house baggageman, missed another incident which might have drawn him back suddenly to his problem and its unsettled condition.  The incident was the meeting between his father and the railroad vice-president at the room-clerk’s counter.  It was neither hostile nor friendly; on McVickar’s part it was gruffly business-like.