It was good to hear her defend his father. It was what he would have wished his wife to do. Suddenly there arose within him a huge reluctance to lessen or to weaken in any way her trust in David Blount.
"Let us say that the fault is mine," he interposed hastily. "God forbid that I should be the means of making you think less of him in any respect."
"You couldn't do that, Evan. He is simply a grand old man—the first I have ever known for whom the hackneyed phrase seemed to have been made," she asserted warmly. "If he has faults, I am sure they are nothing more than gigantic virtues—the faults of a man who is too strong and too magnanimous to be little in any respect."
The final half-square lay behind them, and Mrs. Honoria and the senator, Gantry, Gordon and his wife, and the two Weatherfords, with one of the marriageable daughters, were at the café door waiting for the laggards. Being in no proper frame of mind to enjoy a theatre supper with another Weatherford attack as the possible penalty, Blount reluctantly surrendered Patricia to Gantry, made his excuses, and went to smoke a bedtime pipe in the homelike and democratic lobby.
With Patricia in town the "silver-tongued spellbinder of Quaretaro Mesa," as The Daily Capital called the railroad company's campaign field-officer, would have been glad to evade some of the speaking appointments; but since his engagements had been made some days in advance, he was obliged to go.
On his return to the capital he was delighted to find the party of three still occupying the private dining-room suite at the Inter-Mountain. Arriving on a morning train, he was permitted to make the party of three a party of four at the breakfast-table; and with Patricia sitting opposite he was able to forget the strenuosities for a restful half-hour.
Later, when he went to his offices in the Temple Court Building, the strenuosities reasserted themselves with emphasis. Though he found his desk closed, and was reasonably certain that he had in his pocket the only key that would unlock it, he found his papers scattered in confusion under the roll-top. A touch upon the electric button brought the stenographer from the anteroom.
"Who's been into my desk, Collins?" he demanded, pointing to the confusion and scrutinizing the face of the young man sharply for signs of guilt.
"Goodness gracious! How could anybody get into it when you've got the only key, Mr. Blount?" stammered the clerk. Then he went on, parrot-like: "I've been putting the letters and telegrams through the letter-slit, as you told me to, and I've kept the private office locked."
"Nevertheless it is very evident that somebody has been here," said Blount. Then he had a sudden shock and wheeled shortly upon the stenographer. "Collins, what did you do with that packet of papers I gave you last Monday—the one I told you to put away in the safe?"