Then he thought of Carnac’s new outburst, and his veins ran cold. “She’ll like that—but yes, she’ll like that: and if he succeeds she’ll think he’s great. Well, she’d be right. He’ll beat Barouche. He’s young and brave, careless and daring. Now where am I in this fight? I belong to Barouche’s party and my vote ought to go for him.”
For some minutes he sat in profound thought. What part should he play? He liked Carnac, he owed him a debt which he could never repay. Carnac had saved him from killing Denzil. If that had happened, he himself might have gone to the gallows.
He decided. Sitting down, he wrote Carnac the following letter:
DEAR CARNAC GRIER,
I see you’re beginning a new work. You now belong to a party that I
am opposed to, but that doesn’t stop me offering you support. It’s
not your general policy, but it is you, the son of your father, that
I mean to work for. If you want financial help for your campaign—
or after it is over—come and get it here—ten thousand or more if
you wish. Your father, if he knew—and perhaps he does know—would
be pleased that you, who could not be a man of business in his
world, are become a man of business in the bigger world of law-
making. You may be right or wrong in that policy, but that don’t
weigh with me. You’ve taken on as big a job as ever your father
did. What’s the use of working if you don’t try to do the big thing
that means a lot to people outside yourself! If you make new good
laws, if you do something for the world that’s wonderful, it’s as
much as your father did, or, if he was alive, could do now.
Whatever there is here is yours to use. When you come back here to
play your part, you’ll make it a success—the whole blessed thing.
I don’t wish you were here now, except that it’s yours—all of it—
but I wish you to beat Barode Barouche.
Yours to the knife,
LUKE TARBOE.
He read the letter through, and coming to the words, “When you come back here to play your part, you’ll make it a success—the whole blessed thing,” he paused, reflecting... He wondered what Carnac would think the words meant, and he felt it was bold, and, maybe, dangerous play; but it was not more dangerous than facts he had dealt with often in the last two years. He would let it stand, that phrase of the hidden meaning. He did not post the letter yet.
Four days later he put on his wide-brimmed panama hat and went out into the street leading to the centre of the city. There was trouble in the river reaches between his men and those of Belloc-Grier, and he was keeping an appointment with Belloc at Fabian Grier’s office, where several such meetings had taken place.
He had not gone far, however, when he saw a sprightly figure in light-brown linen cutting into his street from a cross-road. He had not seen that figure for months-scarcely since John Grier’s death, and his heart thumped in his breast. It was Junia. How would she greet him?
A moment later he met her. Raising his hat, he said: “Back to the firing-line, Miss Shale! It’ll make a big difference to every one concerned.”
“Are you then concerned?” she asked, with a faint smile.
“One of the most concerned,” he answered with a smile not so composed as her own. “It’s the honour of the name that’s at stake.”