Gordon, gazing with equal solemnity at his friend, for answer bared his head. "It has been," he said simply, "the people's fight," and then, for the greatest and most successful of us, after all, are only human, the governor-to-be and his right-hand man burst forth simultaneously into sudden, unlooked-for and most unseemly laughter. And they laughed until they could laugh no more.
PART III
[THE RECKONING]
CHAPTER I
[THE HAZARD OF THE DIE]
Mrs. Holton doubtfully shook her head. "But he won't come," she said; "you can't fool him that way, Tom. He's too clever a man."
Lynch's eyes narrowed a trifle. "Oh, don't think I'm forgetting that," he answered; "on the contrary, that's the very thing I'm taking most pains to remember. It's the very fact that he is a clever man that's going to bring him here, where a stupid man, for love or money, wouldn't dare come on his life."
Mrs. Holton looked puzzled. "But I don't see—" she began.
Lynch leaned forward in his chair. "Look," he said abruptly. "Things can't go on the way they're going now. Either we've got to do something pretty quick, or else he will. That's the point. It's simple enough, and yet, when you begin to follow things out, right away you run into all sorts of complications. First of all, of course, he'd like nothing better than to have us out of the way. There's no doubt about that, is there?"
Mrs. Holton shivered. "No," she answered, in a low tone, "there isn't. And yet, knowing him the way we do, isn't it strange he hasn't tried before now?"