Lucille, in the meantime, had not been idle. She set herself the task of saving Alice from Lanny Welsh, and she went about it in a manner that would have done credit to an experienced diplomat. One of the men she had tried hardest to induce to become a frequenter of the “salon” she had attempted to create was Van Dusen, the owner of the Eagle, and in a certain satirically smiling way he admired Lucille. He had once had literary ambitions and, like most small town editors, he had his share of political hopefulness, especially with reference to a post office; and he recognized in Lucille a power such as Riverbank had not previously possessed. She knew congressmen and senators, and dined them when they came to town; and they seemed to think her worth knowing. A word from her might, at the right moment, throw an office from one applicant to another. Van Dusen cultivated her friendship. He was a good talker and a great reader, and Lucille enjoyed him. He was a busy and a sadly overworked man, hard to draw from his home after his day's work was done, but he did accept Lucille's invitations. His presence at her house meant much; the town considered him one of its illustrious men.
Lucille jingled into his office one morning, rustled into a chair and leaned her arms on his desk.
“Are you going to do something for me, like a good man?” she began.
Van Dusen leaned back in his chair and smiled.
“To the half of my kingdom,” he said.
“That's less than I expected, but I suppose I'll have to make it do,” she returned playfully. “Isn't there, Mr. Van Dusen, some newspaper or printing office in Derlingport that pays more than you pay! Some place where a deserving young man could better himself?”
“Some of them pay more than the Eagle,” he admitted.
“And you could get a young man a place there?”
“I might. The Gazette might do it for me; Bender is an old friend of mine.”
“Then I want you to do it,” said Lucille. “You won't ask why, will you? Just do it for me?”