In his heart of hearts Richard Gantry knew that Blount was right; knew that the forlorn-hope fight into which his friend and college classmate had plunged was a struggle to call out all that was best and finest in friendly loyalty.  But when he sprang from his chair and began to walk the floor of his private office with his head down and his hands deeply buried in his pockets, he was once more the true corporation liegeman, loyal to his salt, and anxious only to contrive means to an end.

“Confound his picture!” he muttered, “why the devil can’t he see that he’s got everything to lose and nothing to gain?  It’s a thousand pities that such a royal good fellow has to turn himself into a wild-eyed, impossible crank!  The Lord knows, I’d do anything in reason for him; but I can’t let him turn anarchist and blow us all to kingdom come.  He’s got to be muzzled in some way, and I’ll be hanged if I know how it’s going to be done.”

The pacing monologue paused when the traffic manager stopped at the window and stood looking with unseeing eyes upon the morning bustle of Sierra Avenue.  Then he broke out again.

“It’s a beautiful tangle—­damn’ beautiful!  Evan says I know that we’ve got the machine with us; I wish to heaven I did know it, and could be sure of it.  That would simplify matters a whole lot.  But the vice-president won’t say, and he’s the one who has been doing all the dickering with the Honorable David.  They quarrelled at first; I’d bet every dollar I’ve got on that.  But I more than half-believe they’ve patched it up now, and I believe it was Mr. McVickar’s quick swiping of Evan—­jerking him out from under his father’s thumb the way he did—­that brought on the peace negotiations.”

He turned away from the window and resumed the floor-pacing, still wrestling with the deductions.

“By George!  I believe I’ve got hold of the end of the thread at last!  The senator is with us, working in the dark, as he always does.  And that Hathaway business:  that was one of his smooth little side-moves—­his or Mrs. Honoria’s.  He didn’t want Evan to get in too deep in the righteousness puddle, and he took that way of letting him get a peek at the real thing.  It was overdone, though; horribly overdone.  Confound it all!  I wish Mr. McVickar would loosen up a little more with me!  If he’d tell me a few of the things I ought to know—­”

The interruption was the entrance of the boy from the train-despatcher’s office with a verbal message.  The vice-president, moving westward, had changed his plans and cut out some of his stop-overs.  Car “008” would be in on the noon train and would proceed westward, running special, at one o’clock.  The despatcher had thought that Mr. Gantry might want to know.

The traffic manager did want to know, and when the boy had ducked out, the knowledge was promptly utilized.  A touch of a desk-button brought the stenographer, and Gantry dictated a message. “’Important that I should have conference with you on arrival.  Will meet you at train at twelve-three.’  Send that to Mr. McVickar over the despatcher’s wire, and ask Gilkey to rush it,” he directed, and the shorthand man went to do it.