And Dyer nodded, and grinned, and said: “Yes, wait till old V. R. takes a hand.”
When every one was gone except Radabaugh, and Foster, and one or two others, Wint got up and went into his office and shut the door.
CHAPTER VII
A FEW WORDS TO THE WISE
THOSE minutes—five or ten—which Wint spent with V. R. Kite in his office behind the council chamber, before he sentenced Lutcher, left Wint depressed, shaken by foreboding. He was like one beset in the darkness by enemies he could not see. He felt the imminence of disaster without being able to avert it. The world was all wrong. Life had turned her thumbs down. There could be only destruction ahead.
He felt this, without being able to put a name to the peril. It was intangible; Kite had only hinted at it. But the little buzzard of a man had been in deadly earnest. Wint was sure of that. So.... There was nothing to do but wait for the blow to fall; and waiting is the hardest thing in the world to do.
Kite had come into Wint’s office that morning with a smile in his dry eyes. It was a smile that had triumph in it; and it held also a certain mean magnanimity to a fallen foe. It was as though Kite knew Wint was beaten, and expected him to surrender, and was willing to accept the surrender while despising Wint for yielding. Wint had expected the little man to come in anger, with protestations, and open threats, and a desperate sort of defiance. He was prepared for these things; he was not prepared for the confidence in Kite’s bearing. And his first glimpse of it disturbed him, made him uneasy.
Kite sat down without being invited; he put his hat on Wint’s desk; and he said in an amiably triumphant way:
“Well, young man?”
He seemed to expect Wint to speak; but Wint had nothing to say to Kite. He replied: “You wanted to speak to me?”
“Not exactly,” said Kite. “I wanted to hear what you have to say.”