Banker Daunt was calming himself by a patrol of the room.

"I can view matters like a statesman when I'm in the Senate Chamber,"

Corson a.s.serted, "but down here at home these days I can't see the forest on account of the trees! I don't know what tree to climb first, Daunt, I swear I don't! What with North getting the party into this sc.r.a.pe it's in, and playing his sharp politics, and this power question fight and--and--"

He gazed at the door again. It now suggested a definite course of procedure, apparently. He crumpled his gloves into a ball and threw them on the table. There was a hint in that action; the Senator was showing his determination to handle matters without gloves for the rest of the evening. "There's one thing about it, Daunt, a man can't do his best in public concerns till he has freed his mind of his private troubles. You wait here. I'll be right back."

"Where are you going, Senator?"

"I'm going to regain my self-respect! I'm going to a.s.sert myself as master of my own home. I'm going to tell Stewart Morrison that I have business with him, and that I'll attend to it in a strictly business office, later, where he can't insult my friends and abuse my hospitality!"

"Wait a minute! I've had an acute attack of it, too, this evening--the same ailment, but I'm getting over it. Don't lose your head and your temper, both at the same time. You're not in the right trim just now to go against that bullhead. Let's estimate him squarely. That's always my plan in business." Mr. Daunt plucked a cigar from a box on the table and lighted up leisurely, soothing himself into a matter-of-fact mood. Corson waited with impatience, but his politician's caution began to tug on the bits, moderating the rush of his pa.s.sion, and he took a cigar for himself.

"Outside of this petty mayor business, does Morrison cut any figure--have any special power in state politics?" the banker asked.

"Not a particle--not as a politician. He doesn't know the A B C's of the game."

"How much influence can he wield as an agitator, as he threatens to become?"

Corson's declaration was less emphatic. "We're conservative, the ma.s.s of us, in these parts. Starting trouble isn't wielding influence, Daunt.

He'll be going up against the political machine that has always handled this state safely and sanely--and we know what to do with trouble-makers."

"This communistic stand of his certainly discredits him with the corporations, also. Despeaux has been doing good work, and practically all of 'em have come over to the Consolidated camp. Of course, Morrison is antagonizing the banking interests, too. Is he a heavy borrower?"

"He doesn't borrow. He works on his own capital. St. Ronan's is free and clear," admitted the Senator, crossly.

"That's too bad! Calling loans is always effective in improving a radical's opinions. Then this friend, whom you have held up to me as so important in our plans----"

"I did consider him important, Daunt! I do now. I know him. I have seen him go after things, ever since he was a boy. That storage-commission scheme is his own device and, as the head of it, he occupies a strategic position."

"But it's only a scheme; he has no actual organization of the people behind it."

"Confound it! I'm afraid he will have!"

"It's an impractical dream--trying to establish such shadowy ownership of what vested capital under private control must naturally possess and develop. We have sound business on our side."

"It may not seem so much like a dream after he puts that report into the legislature," complained the Senator. "I tell you, I know Stewart Morrison. He indulges in visions, but he'll back this particular one up with so many facts and figures that it will make a treasury report look like a ghost-story by comparison. Talk about sound business! That's Morrison's other name!"

"What's going to be done with that report, Corson?"

The Senator hesitated a few moments.

"Understand that I'm no kin of old Captain Teach, the buccaneer, either in politics or business, Daunt. But I'm not fool enough to believe that the millennium has arrived in this world, even if the battle of Armageddon has been fought, as the parsons are preaching. We still must deal with human conditions. The tree is full of good ideas, I'll admit. But we've got to let 'em ripen. Eat 'em now--and it's a case of the gripes for business and politics, both. Therefore"--the Senator paused and squinted at the end of his cigar. "Well, Daunt, we'll have to apply a little common sense to conditions, even though the opposition may squeal. That ownership of the water-power by the people isn't ripe. The legislative committee will pocket Morrison's report, or will refer the thing to the public utilities commission."

"Both plans meaning the same thing?"

"I won't put it as coa.r.s.ely as that. It only means handling the situation with discretion. Discretion by those in power is going to save us a lot of trouble in times like these."

"You are sure of the right legislative committee, are you?"

"Certainly! North is on the job up at the State House. I'll admit that he isn't tactful. He's very old-fashioned in his political ideas. But he doesn't mind clamor and criticism, and he isn't afraid of the devil himself. Between you and me, I think," continued the Senator, judicially, "that North is skating pretty near the edge this time. I would not have allowed him to go so far if I had been in better touch with conditions down here. But it's too late to modify his plans much at this hour. He must bull the thing through as he's going. I can undo the mischief to the party by the selection of a smooth diplomat for the gubernatorial nomination next year. But jumping back to the main subject--Stewart Morrison! Seeing what he is, in the water-power matter, I hoped I could smooth things by your getting next to him. I'm sorry you have been so much annoyed, Daunt! He may make it uncomfortable by his mouth, but he cannot control anything by direct political influence. Absolutely not!" The Senator was recovering his confidence in himself as a leader; he started up from his chair and stamped down an emphatic foot. "He is a nonent.i.ty in that direction. Politics will handle the thing! The legislature will be all right! The situation on Capitol Hill is safe. However, I think I'll pa.s.s a word or two with North!"

He went to the wall of the study, slipped aside a small panel, and lifted out a telephone instrument. "A little precaution I've held over from the old days," Corson informed his guest, with a smile. "A private line to the Executive Chamber."

From where he sat Daunt could hear the Governor's voice. The tones rasped and rattled and jangled in the receiver, which, for the sake of his eardrum, Senator Corson held away from his head. The puckers on his countenance indicated that he was annoyed, both by the news and by the discordant violence of its delivery.

"But it's not as threatening as all that! It can't be!" the listener kept insisting.

"Well, I'll come up," he promised, at last. "I'll come, but I think you're over-anxious, North!"

There was a sound as if somebody were banging on a tin pan at the other end of the line; His Excellency had merely put more vigor into his voice.

"I think--I'm quite sure that he's still here--in my house," Corson replied. "Yes--yes--I certainly will!" He hung up.

"You seemed to think, Daunt, that I didn't have a good and a sufficient reason for saying a few words to Morrison when I started to hunt him up a few minutes ago. However, this time you'll have to excuse me. I'm going to him."

"But you're not intending to make him of any especial importance in affairs, are you? You said he could be ignored."

"Yes! But I don't propose to ignore his efforts to stir up the mob spirit in a city of which he happens to be mayor. He has been up to that mischief! I have heard straight reports from various sources this evening.

The Governor has been posted and he is very emphatic on the point." Corson rubbed the ear that was still reminding him of that emphasis.

"That's the trouble with men like Morrison, when they begin to talk people's rights these days, Senator! They go up in the air and jump all the way over into Bolshevism. I'm sorry now because I counseled you to smooth your temper. Go at him. I'll sit here and finish my smoke."

At the head of the broad staircase Senator Corson came upon Mrs. Stanton and Coventry Daunt.

They wore expressions of bewilderment that would have fitted the countenances of explorers who had missed their quest and had lost their reckoning.

Mrs. Stanton put out her fan, and the striding father halted at the polite barrier with a greeting, but evinced anxiety to be on the way.

"I'm so glad to see you, Senator Corson!" This with delight. "But isn't Lana with you?" this with anxiety. "I mean, hasn't she been with you?"

"My dance contracts with Miss Corson have been shot quite all to pieces,"

said Coventry.

"I have searched everywhere for her--I think I have," supplemented the sister. "But we guessed she must be with you, and we didn't venture to intrude."

"And you are sure she is not in the ballroom?"

"Absolutely!" Young Mr. Daunt plainly knew what he was talking about.

"Coventry, if you and Mrs. Stanton will go there and wait a few moments, I am positive that Lana will come to you very promptly!"

Senator Corson also seemed to know what he was talking about!

XI