Whether she knew it or not, from the moment of her appearance at the hostess"s end of the long receiving-line, the senator"s wife had been marked and followed in her slow progress through the rooms by a thin-faced man who seemed to be nervously trying to hunch himself into better relations with his ill-fitting dress-coat, an eager gentleman whose hawk-like eyes never lost sight of the little lady with her hand on Gantry"s arm. Only the senator saw and remarked this bit of by-play, and he looked as if he were enjoying it, the shrewd gray eyes lighting humorously as he bent to hear what Patricia was saying.
When his quarry stopped, as she did frequently to chat with one or another of the guests, the man with the hawk-like profile and the nervous hunch circled warily, and once or twice seemed about to make the opportunity which was so slow in making itself. But it was not until the little lady in the claret-colored party-gown had drifted, still with a hand on Gantry"s arm, in among the palm and banana trees of the herbarium that the bird-of-prey person made his swoop. A moment later Gantry, taking a low-toned command from his companion, was disappearing in the direction of the refreshment-tables, and the lady looked up to say: "Dear me, Mr. Hathaway, you almost startled me!"
"Did I?" said the lumber-king, rather grimly, if he meant the query to be apologetic. "I am sorry. I didn"t mean to; but Mrs. Gordon said I would find you here, and so I took the liberty of following you. I"m needing a little straightening out, you know, and--ah--would you mind letting me talk business with you for a minute or two, Mrs. Blount?"
She drew her gown aside, and made room for him on the carved rustic settee, which was exceedingly uncomfortable to sit in, but which was in perfect harmony with the background of gigantic palmettos. He nodded gratefully and took the place, and the manner of his sitting down was that of a man who wears evening-clothes only under compulsion.
"Business?" she was saying. "Certainly not; if you can talk business in such a place as this"--giving him the coveted permission.
"Perhaps it ain"t what you"d call business--maybe it"s only politics,"
he resumed; then, with the abruptness of one whose dealings have been with men oftener than with women: "In the first place, I wish you"d tell me what I"ve been doing to get myself into your bad books."
She laughed easily. "Who said you had been doing anything, Mr.
Hathaway?" she asked.
"The senator," he answered shortly, adding: "He told me I"d have to make my peace with you."
She had developed a sudden interest in the quaint j.a.panese figures on the ivory sticks of her fan. "You want something, Mr. Hathaway; what is it?" she inquired.
"I want to be put next in this pigs-in-clover railroad puzzle," was the blunt statement of the need. "Our freight contract with the Transcontinental is about to expire, and I"d like to get it renewed on the same terms as before."
"Well," she said ingenuously, "why don"t you do it?"
"I can"t," he bl.u.s.tered. "Everybody has suddenly grown mysterious or gone crazy--I don"t know which. Kittredge, the general superintendent, don"t seem to remember that we ever had any contract, and Gantry is just as bad. And when I go to the senator he tells me I must make my peace with you. I"m left out in the cold; I can"t begin to _sabe_ what the senator and these railroad bra.s.s-collar men are driving at. I"ve got something to sell; something that the railroad company needs. Where the d---- I mean, where"s the hitch?"
The small person in the fetching party-gown reached up and pinched a leaf from a fragrant shrub fronting the settee.
"Mr. Gantry has gone to fetch me an ice, and he will be back in a very few minutes," she suggested mildly. "Consider your peace made, Mr.
Hathaway, and tell me what I can do for you."
"You can put me next," said the lumber lord, going back to the only phrase that seemed to fit the exigencies of the case. "Why the--why can"t we get our contract renewed?"
The little lady was opening and shutting her fan slowly. "What was your contract?" she inquired innocently.
"If I thought you didn"t know, I"d go a long time without telling you,"
he said bluntly. "But you do know. It"s the rebate lumber rate from our mills at Twin b.u.t.tes and elsewhere, and it was given us two years ago, a few days before election."
"And the consideration?" she asked, looking up quickly.
"You know that, too, Mrs. Blount. It was the swinging of the solid employees" vote of the Twin b.u.t.tes Lumber Company over to the railroad ticket."
"And you wish to make the same arrangement again?"
"Exactly. We"ve got to have that preferential rate or go out of business."
"With whom did you make the contract two years ago?"
"With Mr. McVickar, verbally. Of course, there wasn"t anything put down in black and white, but the railroad folks did their part and we did ours."
"I see--a gentleman"s agreement," she murmured; and then: "You have tried Mr. McVickar again?"
"Yes, and he referred me to Gantry."
"And what did Mr. Gantry say?"
"I couldn"t get him to say anything with any sense in it," said the lumber magnate grittingly. "The most I could get out of him was that I would have to see the boss."
"And instead of doing that you went to see the senator?" she asked.
"Of course I did. Who else would Gantry mean by "the boss"?" demanded the befogged one.
"Possibly he meant the senator"s son," she ventured, tapping a pretty cheek with the folded fan. "Have you been leaving Evan Blount out in all of this?"
"I didn"t know where to put him in. That"s what brings me here to-night.
The senator, or McVickar, or both of them together, have set the whole State to running around in circles with this appointment of young Blount. Some say it"s a deal between the senator and McVickar, and some say it"s a fight. Half of the professional spellbinders are walking in their sleep over it right now. I thought maybe you could tell me, Mrs.
Blount."
"I can"t tell you anything that would help the people who are walking in their sleep," she returned, "but I might offer a suggestion in your personal affair. Mr. Evan Blount is your man."
Hathaway pursed his thin lips and frowned. "I"m in bad there--right at the jump," he objected.
"I know," she shot back quickly. "For some reason best known to yourself, you saw fit to have Mr. Evan waylaid and man-handled on the first night of his return to his native State. But you needn"t worry about that. He won"t hold it against you. I"m sure you"ll find him entirely amenable to reason."
The tyrant of "timber-jacks" frowned again. "H"m--reason, eh? How big a block of Twin b.u.t.tes stock shall I offer him?"
Her laugh was a silvery peal of derision.
"You always figure in dollars and cents, don"t you, Mr. Simon Peter Hathaway?" she mocked.
"I have always found it the cheapest in the end."
"Listen," she said, with the folded fan held up like a monitory finger.
"Mr. Gantry may be back any minute, and I can give you only the tiniest hint. You must go to Mr. Evan Blount and appeal to him frankly, as one business man to another."
"But I have heard--they say he"s all kinds of a crank."
"Never mind what you have heard. Tell him all the facts and ask him to help you, and for mercy"s sake don"t offer him a block of your stock.
Put it where it will do the most good. Put it in the name of Professor William J. Anners, of Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts, and show Mr. Blount how dreadfully disastrous the loss of the preferential freight rate would be to all the poor people in your list of stock-holders--including Professor Anners."
Hathaway drew down his cuff and made a pencil memorandum of the name and address of the new beneficiary.
"You"ll notice that I"m not asking any foolish questions about who this Professor Anners is, or why I should be making him a present of a block of stock. If I don"t, it"s because what you say goes as it lies.
Anything else?"
"Yes; don"t fail to be perfectly frank with Mr. Blount, and don"t let him put you off. He may pretend to be very angry at first, but you won"t mind that."
"I won"t mind anything if I can bring this business down to the every-day commonplace earth once more. You and the senator and Gantry and McVickar are playing some sort of a game, and you ain"t showing me anything more than the back of the cards. That"s all right. I guess I"m fly enough to play my hand blindfolded, if I"ve got to. I don"t care, just so I win the odd trick."
Gantry was coming down the avenue of banana-trees with the ice he had taken so much time to procure, and the lumber magnate rose reluctantly.