“And government is a mere game of politics?” she said.  “And politics resolves itself into brute force; and a murder more or less doesn’t matter?  Fordie, I suppose, would be classed as one of the scrubs sacrificed for this perfection of party?”

His hand dropped hers as if she had struck him.

“You did not know that you were overheard?  ’See that no harm comes to the boy.’  You did not mean Fordie to be murdered; but they were to crowd the sheep over ‘to beat Hell,’ ’the sheep were to go it blind’—­my father’s and Mr. Williams’ property was to be sacrificed to build up the fortune of the cattle barons:  they too, I suppose, are scrubs sacrificed among the many for the wealth of the one, who happens to be yourself.  You broke the law; but because you did not order Fordie’s murder, you think the blood guiltiness from that broken law does not rest upon you.  You say it must all be fought out.  You force the fight—­”

He raised his hand to stop her.  She remembered afterwards how ashy white and aged his face became.  He walked to the door and opened it.  She passed out.  So that was to what her womanish mining for the vein of the ideal heroism had led.  She had been politely shown out.  It was as Wayland had said:  there was no middle course; and it was also as the Senator had said, it must be fought out, and the bullets were to be ballots.

The Senator slammed his door shut and snapped the yale lock.  Then he noticed the rose she had left, and tossed it in the spittoon.

“Thank God,” he ejaculated fervently as he sank back in the swing chair, “Thank God women are not in politics.  There is always something to be thankful for.”

Then, an idea seemed to strike him.  He rang the telephone with fury, and it didn’t improve his temper to hear the saucy little central informing her elbow mate that “that ol’ fellah wuz burnin’ the wire up alive.”

“Is that ‘The Herald’?  Brydges there?  That you, Brydges?  Listen, the night you were up on the Ridge, have you any perfect proof that Wayland didn’t go down when you were asleep?  Eh?  You turned in at ten; and you found him still stamping about at twelve?  Is that it?  What?  No?  Don’t be a damphool, cut that out.  Of course, he didn’t go down to the Ranch House.  Cut that whole scandal thing out.  There’s nothing in it; but I think we can locate our missing knight errant.  Understand?  He’s got to be smashed?  What? You had printed the scandal story before you ever came in to me at all?  Dictated it right in to the typo machines?  In the ‘Independent’?  Oh, well, I’m glad it didn’t go in the ‘City Herald’?  But it did go in; one evening paper?” Then the wrath of the strong man broke bounds.  If he had been a stage villain the curtain drop would have fallen on a red faced gentleman pounding the desk, tearing at the telephone, hurling his chair about the office and generally, as the saucy little central remarked, “eating the wire up alive.”