retain the conservatism of the Vanes—­the traditional conservatism of the State.  The Northeastern Railroads will continue to be a very large factor in the life of the people after you and I are gone, Mr. Vane.  You will have to live, as it were, with that corporation, and help to preserve it.  We shall have to work together, perhaps, to that end—­who can say?  I repeat, I am glad that your good sense led you to refrain from coming as a candidate before that Convention.  There is time enough in the future, and you could not have been nominated.”

“On the contrary,” answered Austen, quietly, “I could have been nominated.”

Mr. Flint smiled knowingly—­but with an effort.  What a relief it would have been to him to charge horse and foot, to forget that he was a railroad president dealing with a potential power.

“Do you honestly believe that?” he asked.

“I am not accustomed to dissemble my beliefs,” said Austen, gravely.  “The fact that my father had faith enough in me to count with certainty on my refusal to go before the convention enabled him to win the nomination for the candidate of your railroads.”

Mr. Flint continued to smile, but into his eyes had crept a gleam of anger.

“It is easy to say such things—­after the convention,” he remarked.

“And it would have been impossible to say their before,” Austen responded instantly, with a light in his own eyes.  “My nomination was the only disturbing factor in the situation for you and the politicians who had your interests in hand, and it was as inevitable as night and day that the forces of the candidates who represented the two wings of the machine of the Northeastern Railroads should have united against Mr. Crewe.  I want to say to you frankly that if my father had not been the counsel for your corporation, and responsible for its political success, or if he could have resigned with honour before the convention, I should not have refused to let my name go in.  After all,” he added, in a lower tone, and with a slight gesture characteristic of him when a subject was distasteful, “it doesn’t matter who is elected governor this autumn.”

“What?” cried Mr. Flint, surprised out of his attitude as much by Austen’s manner as by Austen’s words.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Austen, “whether the Northeastern Railroads have succeeded this time in nominating and electing a governor to whom they can dictate, and who will reappoint railroad commissioners and other State officials in their interests.  The practices by which you have controlled this State, Mr. Flint, and elected governors and councillors and State and national senators are doomed.  However necessary these practices may have been from your point of view, they violated every principle of free government, and were they to continue, the nation to which we belong would inevitably decay and become the scorn of the world.  Those practices depended for their success on one condition,—­which