“No? I never yet heard a scream that was so loud a big enough check wouldn’t gag it. This interview isn’t so allooring that I’m stuck on stretching it out any longer. Make your offer.”
“I’ve explained to you that I want none of your money.”
“Then what—Oh!” broke off Conover, clicking his teeth and narrowing his eyes to gleaming slits, “I think I see. The Governorship, eh?”
Anice inclined her head.
“So I’m to throw it to Standish? H’m! And yet you say you’re not putting the hooks in me! If that isn’t cold, straight, all-wool blackmail, I don’t know what is. You think you owe me something because I didn’t treat your father just square. So you pay the grudge off by blackmailing me. Maybe your holy New England conscience is too near-sighted to see it’s only in the devil’s ledger that two wrongs make a right.”
“Do you speak from experience? Because it doesn’t fit this case. I propose nothing of the sort.”
“Then what in thunder do you want?” snarled Caleb, thoroughly mystified. “If it ain’t cash or——”
“I want you to give Mr. Standish a fair chance. That is all. I want you to remove the embargo from his speeches and advertising; to open the columns of every paper in the Mountain State to him. To promise not to molest him in any way, not to allow your rowdies to break up his meetings nor to prevent him from hiring halls. Not to stuff the ballot-boxes, falsify the returns, employ ‘floaters’ or—in short, I want you to give him an equal chance with yourself; to conduct the campaign honestly, and to leave the issue solely to the voters. Will you do this?”
“And if I beat him at that?”
“If you are elected by an honest majority, that is no concern of ours. All I demand is that you fight in the open and leave the result to the people.”