Something he owed to the unsatisfied love; more, perhaps, to the good blood in his veins; but most of all to the battle itself. For out of the soul-harrowings of endeavor was emerging a better man, a stronger man, than any his friends had known. Brutal as their blind gropings were, the Flagellants of the Dark Ages plied their whips to some dim purpose.

Natures there be that rise only to the occasion; and if there be no occasion, no floggings of adversity or bone-wrenchings upon the rack of things denied, there will be no awakening--no victory.

David Kent was suffering in both kinds, and was the better man for it.

From looking forward to success in the narrow field of professional advancement, or in the scarcely broader one of the righting of one woman's financial wrongs, he was coming now to crave it in the name of manhood; to burn with an eager desire to see justice done for its own sake.

So, when he had come to Portia with the scheme of effacing Judge MacFarlane and his receiver at one shrewd blow, the first of the many plans which held out a fair promise of success as a reward for daring, he was disappointed at her lack of enthusiasm.

"What is the matter with it?" he demanded, when he had given her five full minutes for reflection.

"I don't know, David," she said gravely. "Have I ever thrown cold water on any of your schemes thus far?"

"No, indeed. You have been the loyalest partizan a man ever had, I think; the only one I have to whom I can talk freely. And I have told you more than I have all the others put together."

"I know you have. And it hurts me to pull back now when you want me to push. But I can't help it. Do you believe in a woman's intuition?"

"I suppose I do: all men do, don't they?"

She was tying little knots in the fringe of the table scarf, but the prophetess-eyes, as Penelope called them, were not following the deft intertwinings of the slender fingers.

"You mean to set about 'obliterating' Judge MacFarlane forthwith?" she asked.

"a.s.suredly. I have been whipping the thing into shape all afternoon: that is what kept me from dining with you."

"It involves some kind of legal procedure?"

"Yes; a rather complicated one."

"Could you explain it so that I could understand it?"

"I think so. In the first place the question is raised by means of an information or inquiry called a _quo warranto_. This is directed to the receiver, and is a demand to know by what authority he holds. Is it clear thus far?"

"Pellucidly," she said.

"In reply the receiver cites his authority, which is the order from Judge MacFarlane; and in our turn we proceed to show that the authority does not exist--that the judge's election was illegal and that therefore his acts are void. Do I make it plain?"

"You make it seem as though it were impossible to fail. And yet I know you will fail."

"How do you know it?"

"Don't ask me; I couldn't begin to tell you that. But in some spiritual or mental looking-gla.s.s I can see you coming to me with the story of that failure--coming to ask my help."

He smiled.

"You don't need to be the prophetess Penelope says you are to foresee part of that. I always come to you with my woes."

"Do you?--oftener than you go to Miss Brentwood?"

This time his smile was a mere tightening of the lips.

"You do love to grind me on that side, don't you?" he said. "I and my affairs are less than nothing to Miss Brentwood, and no one knows it any better than you do."

"But you want to go to her," she persisted. "I am only the alternative."

He looked her full in the eyes.

"Miss Van Brock, what is it you want me to say? What can I say more than I said a moment ago--that you are the truest friend a man ever had?"

The answering look out of the brown eyes was age-old in its infinite wisdom.

"How little you men know when you think you know the most," she said half-musingly; then she broke off abruptly. "Let us talk about something else. If Major Guilford is wrecking the railroad, why is he spending so much money on improvements? Have you thought to ask yourself that question?"

"A good many times," he admitted, following her promptly back to first principles.

"And you have not found the answer?"

"Not one that fully satisfies me--no."

"I've found one."

"Intuitively?" he smiled.

"No; it's pure logic, this time. Do you remember showing me a letter that Mr. Hunnicott wrote you just before the explosion--a letter in which he repeated a bit of gossip about Mr. Semple Falkland and his mysterious visit to Gaston?"

"Yes, I remember it."

"Do you know who Mr. Falkland is?"

"Who doesn't?" he queried. "He has half of Wall Street in his clientele."

"Yes; but particularly he is the advisory counsel of the Plantagould System. Ever since you showed me that letter I have been trying to account for his presence in Gaston on the day before Judge MacFarlane's spring term of court. I should never have found out but for Mrs. Brentwood."

"Mrs. Brentwood!"

Miss Van Brock nodded.

"Yes; the mother of my--of the young person for whom I am the alternative, is in a peck of trouble; I quote her _verbatim_. She and her two daughters hold some three thousand shares of Western Pacific stock. It was purchased at fifty-seven, and it is now down to twenty-one."

"Twenty and a quarter to-day," Kent corrected.

"Never mind the fractions. The mother of the incomparable--Penelope, has heard that I am a famous business woman; a worthy understudy for Mrs.

Hetty Green; so she came to me for advice. She had a letter from a New York broker offering her a fraction more than the market price for her three thousand shares of Western Pacific."

"Well?" said Kent.

"Meaning what did I do? I did what you did not do--what you are not doing even now; I put two and two together in the twinkling of a bedstaff. Why should a New York broker be picking up outlying Western Pacific at a fraction more than the market when the stock is sinking every day? I was curious enough to pa.s.s the 'why' along to a friend of mine in Wall Street."

"Of course he told you all about it," said Kent, incredulously.

"He told me what I needed to know. The broker in question is a Plantagould man."