He hastily thrust it into his pistol-pocket and went out into the night.
It was moonless and very dark, despite the myriads of scintillating stars. The Capitol was visible only as suggested in the irradiations of its great, flaring, yellow windows and the lights without on either side of the long flight of steps. As Kinsard ascended he noticed on the broad portico a group of men, separating at the moment, three of them going within and one approaching the steps.
He could not fail to recognize Harshaw’s bluff manner, his portly figure, his long, yellow beard, and his brisk, light step; and as the younger man walked along the portico, Harshaw’s eyes, glancing out sharply from under the brim of his slouch hat, identified him. There was no one by to note how they should meet; the significance of the encounter might have rejoiced the lovers of sensation. Kinsard was about to pass without salutation, but Harshaw, whirling half round on his light heel, paused, and with a bantering smile on his dimpled pink face showing in the gaslight above their heads, “Great news!” he exclaimed. “They’ve appointed a committee to investigate ‘the jedge’!”
Kinsard experienced a sharp pang of dismay for Gwinnan’s sake.
“And I suppose you are satisfied now,” he said, bitterly.
“Oh, no, my dear little sir. I am not half satisfied!” cried Harshaw, with his liquid rotund laugh. His foreshortened shadow swayed on the blocks of white limestone as if it could scarcely contain itself for laughter.
He had lost the poise which he had endured so much to maintain that day. He was intoxicated with his triumph; and indeed he could afford to indulge it, for he felt that there was nothing now at stake.
“And that is the reason,” continued Harshaw, “that I feel I owe you an obligation which I must not let pass without acknowledgment. In your able and cogent speech this afternoon you did more to effect Judge Gwinnan’s impeachment than, unaided, I could possibly have compassed. Let me beg you to accept my thanks—ha! ha! ha!”
Deeply wounded by this thrust, and conscious of the injury he had done Gwinnan’s interests, Kinsard turned upon him, but not without dignity.