"I certainly am!" Lana called from the corridor, running toward her apartments.

"Well," Mrs. Stanton informed her brother, "this gown has served me all evening during the political rally that somebody tried to pa.s.s off as a reception. Probably it will do very well for the mob-affair. I'll go for my furs."

"That's a brick!" was her brother's indors.e.m.e.nt. "She needs us both. But don't be frightened, sis! It's only a political flurry, and such fusses are usually more fizz than fight. I'll have the car around to the door in a jab of a jiffy!"

By the time the limousine swung under the _porte-cochere_ Lana was down and waiting; Mrs. Stanton came hurrying after, ready to defy a January midnight in a coc.o.o.n of kolinsky.

Coventry had ridden from the garage with the chauffeur. "I have been talking with Wallace. He thinks he'd better drive to the State House by detour through the parkway."

"Go straight down through the city," commanded the mistress. "I'm not afraid of my hometown folks. Besides, I have an errand. Stop at the Marion _Monitor_ office, Wallace!"

The city certainly offered no cause for alarm when they traversed the streets of the business district. n.o.body was in sight; they did not see even a patrolman.

"The bees seem to have hived all of a sudden," remarked young Daunt. "All fizz, as I told you, and now the fizz has fizzled."

When the car stopped in front of the newspaper office Lana asked her guests to wait in the automobile. "That is, if you don't mind!" Then Miss Corson revealed a bit of nerve strain; she allowed herself to copy some of the sarcasm that was characteristic of Doris Stanton. "One of those old friends whom we have been discussing so pleasantly this evening, Doris, is the city editor of the _Monitor_. Gossipy, of course, from the nature of his business. But I'm sure that he'll gossip more at his ease if there are no strangers present."

Coventry had opened the door of the car. Lana hastened past him and disappeared in the building.

"Dorrie, I'm afraid you are overtraining Lana," the brother complained. "I have never heard her speak like that before."

"I'm giving her special training for a special occasion which will present itself very soon, I hope. When she talks to a certain man I want to feel that my efforts haven't been thrown away."

"Oh, Morrison has botched everything for himself--all around!"

"Thank you! I'm glad to hear you admit that a caveman can be too much of a good thing with his stone hatchet or club or whatever he uses to bang and whack all heads with!"

Mrs. Stanton impatiently invited Coventry to step in and shut the door and make sure that the electric heater was doing business.

City Editor Tasper had a pompadour like a penwiper, round eyes, and a wide smile. He trotted out to Lana in the reception-room and gave her comradely greeting. "Any other night but this, Lana Corson, and I'd have been up to your house to pat Juba on the side-lines even if I couldn't squeeze in one a.s.signment on your dance order. But as a Marionite you know what we're up against in this office the night before an inauguration. Afraid the reception-spread will be squeezed? Don't worry. It's a big night, but I'm giving you a first-page send-off just the same."

"Billy, I'm not here to talk about that reception. I don't care if there isn't a word about it."

"Oh, I get you! Don't worry about that fracas, either! I'm killing all mention of it. We're not advertising that Marion has Bolshevists. Hurts!"

"But I'm not trying to tell you your business about the paper!" the girl protested. "I'm here after news. What is the trouble at the State House?"

"I don't know," he confessed. "That is to say, I'm not on to the real inside of the proposition. We can't get our boys in and we can't get any news out! Those soldiers won't even admit the telephone crew to restore connection with the Executive Chamber."

"My father is there! He's there with the Governor."

"Well, I should say for a guess that the Senator is in the safest place in the city, judging from the way Danny Sweetsir and his warriors are on their jobs at those doors."

"Billy, who else is there with the Governor?" she questioned, anxiously, harrowed by that memory of her father's tone when he shouted the word "lunatic!"

"No know! No can tell!" returned Tasper. "But why all the excitement?

There's a crowd outside the State House, but all my reports say that it's still orderly. It's only the old 'state steal' stuff warmed over by the sore-heads. But we're printing a statement from Governor North in the morning. The whole matter is going up to the full bench in the usual way.

If the opposition starts any rough-stuff to-night, the gang hasn't got a Pekingese's chance in a bulldog convention. There are three machine-guns in that State House!"

A young chap who was trying hard to be professionally _blase_ bolted into the reception-room in search of his chief. "Excuse me! But four truck-loads of men from the Agawam quarries just went through toward the State House. They had crowbars and sledge-hammers!"

"So? Warson is making a demonstration, is he? I'll be back there in a minute, Jack!" Tasper turned to Lana again. "Warson was turned down by North on the state-prison-wing stone contract. If Warson is setting up stone-cutters to be shot as rowdies, Warson and his party will be the ones who'll get hurt."

"But our state will be hurt most of all, Billy," the girl declared, with pa.s.sionate earnestness. "We'll be ashamed and disgraced from one end of the country to the other. Just think of our own good state making a hideous exhibition when we're all trying so hard to get back to peace!"

"Must have law and order," Tasper insisted.

"Will Governor North tell those soldiers to shoot and kill?"

"Sure thing! His oath of office obliges him to protect state property.

I've just been reading proof of an interview he gave us this afternoon."

Lana walked up and down the room, beating her hands together.

"I'll explain to you, Lana. There's quite a story goes with it. You haven't been in touch with conditions here at home. The election statutes provide that the Governor and his Council--"

"I haven't any time to listen to explanations! My father is in that State House! In the name of Heaven, Billy Tasper, isn't there some man in this state big enough, broad enough, honest enough to get between the fools who are threatening this thing?"

"He doesn't seem to be in sight--at any rate, just now."

She paused in her walk, hesitated, and then blurted, "What part is Stewart Morrison playing in all this?"

"I see you have some news about him, too!" Mr. Tasper fenced, eying her with some curiosity.

"Dealing in news is your business, not mine," she said, tartly. "But I did hear him declare in public to-night that he would give the people a square deal--or that he would see to it that it is done--or--or something!" She showed the embarra.s.sment of a person who was dealing with affairs in the details of which she was not well informed.

"All right, I'll give you news as we get it in the office, here. Morrison has gone nuts over this People thing. He is bucking the corporations in this water-power dream of his. Playing to the people! I think it's bosh.

Holds capital out of the state! But I see you're in a hurry! He made a speech to a hit-or-miss gang down-town to-night. It was snapped as a surprise and we didn't have our men there. But from what we gather he incited feeling against the State House crowd. Told his merry men he'd grab in and fix it for 'em. Bad foozle, Lana! Bad! When a mayor of a city talks like that he's putting a fool notion into the heads of unthinking irresponsibles, making 'em believe that there is really something to be fixed. He ought to have told 'em that everything was all right and to go home and go to bed. Your father would have told 'em that. That's good politics. But you and I know Stewart from the ground up! He is about as much a politician as I am parson--and I'd wreck a well-established parish in less than five minutes by the clock. He's taking a little more time as a wrecker in his line--but he's making a thorough job of it!"

When Tasper mentioned "job" he suggested a natural question to Miss Corson. "Where is he right now?"

This time the stare that the city editor gave the girl was distinctly peculiar. "According to what we can get in the way of reports, Lana, the last time Morrison was seen in public he was talking with you. If he has talked with anybody since then the folks he has talked with are keeping mighty mum about it. Perhaps he has told you where he was going."

Miss Corson exhibited an emotion that was more profound than mere embarra.s.sment.

"Pardon me! But I'd like to know, Lana! It's mighty important to me in the line of my business right now."

"What? Can't you find the mayor of the city in a time like this?"

"He's not at home! He's not at City Hall. The chief of police won't say a word. And he's not in the crowd outside the State House."

Lana did not disclose the fact that she had suggested to the mayor, in a way, the rabble as Morrison's probable destination, and that he had agreed with her.

"And a fine chance he has of being let inside the State House," Tasper went on, with conviction, "after the att.i.tude he has taken in regard to the administration!"

"He may be there, nevertheless!" Whether hope that he was there or fear that he might be there prompted Lana's suggestion was not clear from her manner.

"You'll sooner find a rat down the back of my neck than find Stewart Morrison inside that State House after the brags he has been making around this city in the past few hours," declared Tasper, with the breezy freedom of long friendship with the caller. "He is A Number One in the list of those who can't get in!"