Mr. Flint had to control himself.  In spite of his feelings, he saw that he must do so.  And yet he could not resist saying:  “I get a good many rumours here.  They tell me that there may be another candidate in the field—­a dark horse.”

“Who?” asked Hilary.

“There was a meeting in the room of a man named Redbrook during the Legislature to push this candidate,” said Mr. Flint, eyeing his counsel significantly, “and now young Gaylord has been going quietly around the State in his interest.”

Suddenly the listless figure of Hilary Vane straightened, and the old look which had commanded the respect and obedience of men returned to his eye.

“You mean my son?” he demanded.

“Yes,” said Mr. Flint; “they tell me that when the time comes, your, son will be a candidate on a platform opposed to our interests.”

“Then,” said Hilary, “they tell you a damned lie.”

Hilary Vane had not sworn for a quarter of a century, and yet it is to be doubted if he ever spoke more nobly.  He put his hands on the arms of his chair and lifted himself to his feet, where he stood for a moment, a tell figure to be remembered.  Mr. Flint remembered it for many years.  Hilary Vane’s long coat was open, and seemed in itself to express this strange and new-found vigour in its flowing lines; his head was thrown back, and a look on his face which Mr. Flint had never seen there.  He drew from an inner pocket a long envelope, and his hand trembled, though with seeming eagerness, as he held it out to Mr. Flint.

“Here!” he said.

“What’s this?” asked Mr. Flint.  He evinced no desire to take it, but Hilary pressed it on him.

“My resignation as counsel for your road.”

The president of the Northeastern, bewildered by this sudden transformation, stared at the envelope.

“What?  Now—­to-day?” he said.

“No,” answered Hilary; “read it.  You’ll see it takes effect the day after the State convention.  I’m not much use any more you’ve done your best to bring that home to me, and you’ll need a new man to do—­the kind of work I’ve been doing for you for twenty-five years.  But you can’t get a new man in a day, and I said I’d stay with you, and I keep my word.  I’ll go to the convention; I’ll do my best for you, as I always have.  But I don’t like it, and after that I’m through.  After that I become a lawyer—­lawyer, do you understand?”

“A lawyer?” Mr. Flint repeated.

“Yes, a lawyer.  Ever since last June, when I came up here, I’ve realized what I was.  A Brush Bascom, with a better education and more brains, but a Brush Bascom—­with the brains prostituted.  While things were going along smoothly I didn’t know—­you never attempted to talk to me this way before.  Do you remember how you took hold of me that day, and begged me to stay?  I do, and I stayed.  Why?  Because I was a friend of yours.  Association with you for twenty-five years had got under my skin, and I thought it had got under yours.”  Hilary let his hand fall.  “To-day you’ve given me a notion of what friendship is.  You’ve given me a chance to estimate myself on a new basis, and I’m much obliged to you for that.  I haven’t got many years left, but I’m glad to have found out what my life has been worth before I die.”