He buttoned up his coat slowly, glaring at Mr. Flint the while with a courage and a defiance that were superb.  And he had picked up his hat before Mr. Flint found his tongue.

“You don’t mean that, Vane,” he cried.  “My God, think what you’ve said!”

Hilary pointed at the desk with a shaking finger.

“If that were a scaffold, and a rope were around my neck, I’d say it over again.  And I thank God I’ve had a chance to say it to you.”  He paused, cleared his throat, and continued in a voice that all at once had become unemotional and natural.  “I’ve three tin boxes of the private papers you wanted.  I didn’t think of ’em to-day, but I’ll bring ’em up to you myself on Thursday.”

Mr. Flint reflected afterwards that what made him helpless must have been the sudden change in Hilary’s manner to the commonplace.  The president of the Northeastern stood where he was, holding the envelope in his hand, apparently without the power to move or speak.  He watched the tall form of his chief counsel go through the doorway, and something told him that that exit was coincident with the end of an era.

The end of an era of fraud, of self-deception, of conditions that violated every sacred principle of free government which men had shed blood to obtain.

CHAPTER XXIV

AN ADVENTURE OF VICTORIA’S

Mrs. Pomfret was a proud woman, for she had at last obtained the consent of the lion to attend a lunch party.  She would have liked a dinner much better, but beggars are not choosers, and she seized eagerly on the lunch.  The two days before the convention Mr. Crewe was to spend at Leith; having continual conferences, of course, receiving delegations, and discussing with prominent citizens certain offices which would be in his gift when he became governor.  Also, there was Mr. Watling’s nominating speech to be gone over carefully, and Mr. Crewe’s own speech of acceptance to be composed.  He had it in his mind, and he had decided that it should have two qualities:  it should be brief and forceful.

Gratitude, however, is one of the noblest qualities of man, and a statesman should not fail to reward his faithful workers and adherents.  As one of the chiefest of these, Mrs. Pomfret was entitled to high consideration.  Hence the candidate had consented to have a lunch given in his honour, naming the day and the hour; and Mrs. Pomfret, believing that a prospective governor should possess some of the perquisites of royalty, in a rash moment submitted for his approval a list of guests.  This included two distinguished foreigners who were staying at the Leith Inn, an Englishman and an Austrian, and an elderly lady of very considerable social importance who was on a visit to Mrs. Pomfret.

Mr. Crewe had graciously sanctioned the list, but took the liberty of suggesting as an addition to it the name of Miss Victoria Flint, explaining over the telephone to Mrs. Pomfret that he had scarcely seen Victoria all summer, and that he wanted particularly to see her.  Mrs. Pomfret declared that she had only left out Victoria because her presence might be awkward for both of them, but Mr. Crewe waved this aside as a trivial and feminine objection; so Victoria was invited, and another young man to balance the table.