As Culver and Merriweather were seated, with the dinner before them which Culver did not touch, and which Merriweather ate placidly, Culver asked him whether there was "any hope at all."
"There's always hope," replied Merriweather. "Promises, especially from Joe Larkin, will go a long way, though they don't rouse the white hot enthusiasm that cold cash in the pocket does. We'll pull through all right." He ate for a while in silence. Then: "This Mrs. Dumont must be an uncommon woman." A few more mouthfuls and with his small, icy, mirthless laugh, he added: "I've got one something like her at home. I keep her there."
Culver decided to spend the night at the hotel. He hung round the hotel office until two in the morning, expecting and dreading Dumont's reply to his telegram. But nothing came either for him or for Merriweather. "Queer we don't get word of some sort, isn't it?" said he to Merriweather the next morning, as the latter was leaving for the convention.
Merriweather made no reply beyond a smile so faint that Culver barely saw it.
"She was right, after all," thought Culver, less despondent. "I'll get the money just before I leave and take it back. And I'll not open this subject with Dumont. Maybe he'll never speak of it to me."
And Dumont never did.
XX.
A MAN IN HIS MIGHT.
Olivia came to attend the convention as Fred was a delegate from Marion County. Pauline and Gladys accepted her invitation and shared her box—the convention was held in the Saint X Grand Opera House, the second largest auditorium in the state. Pauline, in the most retired corner, could not see the Marion County delegation into which Scarborough went by substitution. But she had had a glimpse of him as she came in—he was sitting beside Fred Pierson and was gazing straight ahead, as if lost in thought. He looked tired and worn, but not cast down.