At every step in the hitherto discouraging struggle Portia Van Brock had been his keen-sighted adviser, prompter, ally of proof. He told himself now and again in a flush of gratitude that he was coming to owe her more than he had ever owed any woman; that where other men, more—or less—fortunate, were not denied the joy of possession, he, the disappointed one, was finding a true and loyal comradeship next best, if not quite equal to the beatitudes of passion.
In all of which David Kent was not entirely just to himself. However much he owed to Portia—and the debt was large—she was not his only creditor. Something he owed to the unsatisfied love; more, perhaps, to the good blood in his veins; but most of all to the battle itself. For out of the soul-harrowings of endeavor was emerging a better man, a stronger man, than any his friends had known. Brutal as their blind gropings were, the Flagellants of the Dark Ages plied their whips to some dim purpose. Natures there be that rise only to the occasion; and if there be no occasion, no floggings of adversity or bone-wrenchings upon the rack of things denied, there will be no awakening—no victory.
David Kent was suffering in both kinds, and was the better man for it. From looking forward to success in the narrow field of professional advancement, or in the scarcely broader one of the righting of one woman's financial wrongs, he was coming now to crave it in the name of manhood; to burn with an eager desire to see justice done for its own sake.
So, when he had come to Portia with the scheme of effacing Judge MacFarlane and his receiver at one shrewd blow, the first of the many plans which held out a fair promise of success as a reward for daring, he was disappointed at her lack of enthusiasm.
"What is the matter with it?" he demanded, when he had given her five full minutes for reflection.
"I don't know, David," she said gravely. "Have I ever thrown cold water on any of your schemes thus far?"
"No, indeed. You have been the loyalest partizan a man ever had, I think; the only one I have to whom I can talk freely. And I have told you more than I have all the others put together."
"I know you have. And it hurts me to pull back now when you want me to push. But I can't help it. Do you believe in a woman's intuition?"
"I suppose I do: all men do, don't they?"
She was tying little knots in the fringe of the table scarf, but the prophetess-eyes, as Penelope called them, were not following the deft intertwinings of the slender fingers.