It would have taken a keener discernment than Kent's or any man's to have fathomed the prompting of her laugh.
"I was only trying you," she said. "Perhaps, if you had said yes I should have deserted you and gone over to the other side."
He got up and went to sit beside her on the pillowed divan.
"Don't try me again, please—not that way. I am only a man."
"I make no promises—not even good ones," she retorted. And then: "Would you like to have your quo warranto blind alley turned into a thoroughfare?"
"I believe you can do it if you try," he admitted, brightening a little.
"Maybe I can; or rather maybe I can put you in the way of doing it. You say Mr. Meigs is obstinate, and the governor is likely to prove still more obstinate. Have you thought of any way of softening them?"
"You know I haven't. It's a stark impossibility from my point of view."
"Nothing is impossible; it is always a question of ways and means." Then, suddenly: "Have you been paying any attention to the development of the Belmount oil field?"
"Enough to know that it is a big thing; the biggest since the Pennsylvania discoveries, according to all accounts."