The well-worn argument is always specious to the beginner, and Blount thought he had sufficiently justified himself by the time he was pushing through the revolving doors into the Inter-Mountain lobby. But when he saw his father quietly smoking his bed-time cigar in one of the big leather-covered lounging-chairs, he realized that the first step had been taken in an exceedingly thorny path; that whatever else might be the outcome of the bargain with Thomas Gryson, a son was coldly plotting to bring disgrace and humiliation upon a father.
For this reason, and because, when all is said, blood is much thicker than water, Blount made as if he did not see the beckoning hand-wave from the depths of the big chair in the smokers' alcove; ignored it, and with set lips and burning eyes made for the nearest elevator to take refuge in his room.
XXIII
A CRY IN THE NIGHT.
With the critical election, a struggle which was to decide for another two-year period whether or not the people of the Sage-Brush State were to be the masters or the servants of chartered monopoly, only four days distant, the capital city took on the aspect of a stirring camp—two rival camps, in fact, since the State headquarters of the two chief parties were in the Inter-Mountain Hotel—and each incoming train brought fresh relays of henchmen and district spellbinders to swell the sidewalk throngs and to crowd the lobbies.
On the Friday morning Blount awoke with the feeling that he had definitely cut himself off from all the commonplace activities of the campaign. There were two days of suspense to be outworn, and if he could have compassed it he would have been glad to efface himself completely. Since that was impossible, and since it seemed equally impossible that he should go on keeping up the farce of the modus vivendi after he had taken the step which would presently blazon his name to the world as that of his father's accuser, he bought the morning papers hurriedly at the hotel news-stand and went down the avenue to get his breakfast at the railroad restaurant, where he would be measurably sure of isolation.
After giving his order he ran hastily through the local news in the papers. There was no mention of the arrest of one Thomas Gryson in any of the police notes, and he breathed freer. But in The Plainsman there was an editorial which was vaguely disturbing. Blenkinsop, who wrote his own leaders, hinted pointedly at coming disclosures which would change the political map of the State for all time. Blount, trying to determine how much or how little the editorial was based upon his talk with the editor on the Wednesday night, found his omelet tasteless. Ready enough, as he was persuaded, to fire the disrupting mine with his own hand, he was not ready to surrender the match to any one else. Manifestly he must see Blenkinsop and caution him.
Breakfast over, he walked, by the longest way around, to his office in the Temple Court, hoping to find work which would help him through the forenoon. It was an idle hope. From a State-wide shower of political correspondence the daily mail had dropped suddenly to an inconsequential drizzle, and there were no callers. Here, again, he saw, or thought he saw, the all-powerful hand of the machine. He had been used for a purpose, the purpose of hoodwinking and deceiving the voters. That purpose having been served, he was to be dropped—was already dropped, as it seemed. By noon the sheer time-killing effort became blankly unbearable, and in desperation he broke with another of the ideals—the one labelled sincerity—and going boldly to the Inter-Mountain he waited in the lobby for the family party of three to come down to the one-o'clock luncheon in the public café.
Joining the party when it came down, he found it difficult only in the inner sanctuaries to maintain the status quo ante Gryson. There was no shadow of suspicion or coolness in his father's kindly smile and genial greeting, and Mrs. Honoria rallied him playfully upon the narrow margin by which he had held his own and Patricia's places at the Gordon dinner-table the night before. Only in Patricia's eyes he read a curious questioning, a hint that they were finding something in his eyes which was new and not wholly understandable. He knew well enough what it was that she saw; and though she was sitting opposite him at the table for four, he looked at her as seldom as possible, devoting himself, for once in a way, resolutely to his father's wife.