The small person in the fetching party-gown reached up and pinched a leaf from a fragrant shrub fronting the settee.

“Mr. Gantry has gone to fetch me an ice, and he will be back in a very few minutes,” she suggested mildly.  “Consider your peace made, Mr. Hathaway, and tell me what I can do for you.”

“You can put me next,” said the lumber lord, going back to the only phrase that seemed to fit the exigencies of the case.  “Why the—­why can’t we get our contract renewed?”

The little lady was opening and shutting her fan slowly.  “What was your contract?” she inquired innocently.

“If I thought you didn’t know, I’d go a long time without telling you,” he said bluntly.  “But you do know.  It’s the rebate lumber rate from our mills at Twin Buttes and elsewhere, and it was given us two years ago, a few days before election.”

“And the consideration?” she asked, looking up quickly.

“You know that, too, Mrs. Blount.  It was the swinging of the solid employees’ vote of the Twin Buttes Lumber Company over to the railroad ticket.”

“And you wish to make the same arrangement again?”

“Exactly.  We’ve got to have that preferential rate or go out of business.”

“With whom did you make the contract two years ago?”

“With Mr. McVickar, verbally.  Of course, there wasn’t anything put down in black and white, but the railroad folks did their part and we did ours.”

“I see—­a gentleman’s agreement,” she murmured; and then:  “You have tried Mr. McVickar again?”

“Yes, and he referred me to Gantry.”

“And what did Mr. Gantry say?”

“I couldn’t get him to say anything with any sense in it,” said the lumber magnate grittingly.  “The most I could get out of him was that I would have to see the boss.”

“And instead of doing that you went to see the senator?” she asked.

“Of course I did.  Who else would Gantry mean by ’the boss’?” demanded the befogged one.

“Possibly he meant the senator’s son,” she ventured, tapping a pretty cheek with the folded fan.  “Have you been leaving Evan Blount out in all of this?”

“I didn’t know where to put him in.  That’s what brings me here to-night.  The senator, or McVickar, or both of them together, have set the whole State to running around in circles with this appointment of young Blount.  Some say it’s a deal between the senator and McVickar, and some say it’s a fight.  Half of the professional spellbinders are walking in their sleep over it right now.  I thought maybe you could tell me, Mrs. Blount.”

“I can’t tell you anything that would help the people who are walking in their sleep,” she returned, “but I might offer a suggestion in your personal affair.  Mr. Evan Blount is your man.”

Hathaway pursed his thin lips and frowned.  “I’m in bad there—­right at the jump,” he objected.

“I know,” she shot back quickly.  “For some reason best known to yourself, you saw fit to have Mr. Evan waylaid and man-handled on the first night of his return to his native State.  But you needn’t worry about that.  He won’t hold it against you.  I’m sure you’ll find him entirely amenable to reason.”