Mr. Flint leaned forward aggressively.

“How long do you think a railroad would pay dividends if it did not adopt some means of defending itself from the blackmail politician of the State legislatures, Mr. Vane?  The railroads of which I have the honour to be president pay a heavy tag in this and other States.  We would pay a much heavier one if we didn’t take precautions to protect ourselves.  But I do not intend to quarrel with you, Mr. Vane,” he continued quickly, perceiving that Austen was about to answer him, “nor do I wish to leave you with the impression that the Northeastern Railroads meddle unduly in politics.”

Austen knew not how to answer.  He had not gone there to discuss this last and really great question with Mr. Flint, but he wondered whether the president actually thought him the fledgling he proclaimed.  Austen laid his pass on Mr. Flint’s desk, and rose.

“I assure you, Mr. Flint, that the spirit which prompted my visit was not a contentious one.  I cannot accept the pass, simply because I do not wish to be retained.”

Mr. Flint eyed him.  There was a mark of dignity, of silent power, on this tall scapegrace of a son of Hilary Vane that the railroad president had missed at first—­probably because he had looked only for the scapegrace.  Mr. Flint ardently desired to treat the matter in the trifling aspect in which he believed he saw it, to carry it off genially.  But an instinct not yet formulated told the president that he was face to face with an enemy whose potential powers were not to be despised, and he bristled in spite of himself.

“There is no statute I know of by which a lawyer can be compelled to accept a retainer against his will, Mr. Vane,” he replied, and overcame himself with an effort.  “But I hope that you will permit me,” he added in another tone, “as an old friend of your father’s and as a man of some little experience in the world, to remark that intolerance is a characteristic of youth.  I had it in the days of Mr. Isaac D. Worthington, whom you do not remember.  I am not addicted to flattery, but I hope and believe you have a career before you.  Talk to your father.  Study the question on both sides,—­from the point of view of men who are honestly trying, in the face of tremendous difficulties, to protect innocent stockholders as well as to conduct a corporation in the interests of the people at large, and for their general prosperity.  Be charitable, young man, and judge not hastily.”

Years before, when poor Sarah Austen had adorned the end of his table, Hilary Vane had raised his head after the pronouncement of grace to surprise a look in his wife’s eyes which strangely threw him into a white heat of anger.  That look (and he at intervals had beheld it afterwards) was the true presentment of the soul of the woman whose body was his.  It was not—­as Hilary Vane thought it—­a contempt for the practice of thanking one’s Maker for daily bread, but a contempt for cant of one who sees the humour in cant.  A masculine version of that look Mr. Flint now beheld in the eyes of Austen Vane, and the enraging effect on the president of the United Railroads was much the same as it had been on his chief counsel.  Who was this young man of three and thirty to agitate him so?  He trembled, though not visibly, yet took Austen’s hand mechanically.