And so it was without high hopes that Wade led the way into the broad stairway to the castle. He wished that the men would pound down their feet on those stairs so that King Spruce would know that they were coming as bold and honest men should come. But his little army tiptoed up, their heavy boots creaking as do the boots of decorous mourners at a funeral.
When he opened the door of the big general room his face did not show that he was disheartened. He had determined not to come to John Barrett as a mere petitioner. He was no longer allowing hope to soften the bitter business of demanding.
He saw the situation more plainly now than he saw it when he had bidden farewell to Elva Barrett in Pogey Notch. There could be no hope of truce between himself and John Barrett. By winning the love of John Barrett’s daughter, by possessing himself of the secret of John Barrett’s shame, he realized that he had committed offences that the pride of Barrett could not pardon. He had followed this by striking the first blow against the autocracy of King Spruce in the north country, and he was now appearing before King Spruce’s high chamberlain as the leader of the rebels whom his deed had spurred to rebellion.
In spite of his great love for Elva Barrett, he felt a sense of exaltation because he had the power to put that love behind him in his dealings with the man he had resolved to fight. It was a relief to convince himself now that Barrett was his implacable foe. Any other belief would have made him less courageous.
And when John Barrett, at sound of the tramp of many feet in the outer room, opened the door of his private office and stood framed there, Dwight Wade welcomed the spectacle of his antagonist. Barrett’s face was saturnine when he surveyed the group.
“I do not understand this, Mr. Wade,” he said. “You and I arranged a conference. But there was no arrangement for a general hearing.”
“The question of conditions on the Umcolcus is a question that takes in all of us who operate there, Mr. Barrett,” said Wade. “I’m present to answer to matters that can be charged to my individual responsibility, but the interests of all of us have a bearing on that responsibility, and we are here to have a fair understanding.”
Barrett stepped back, and motioned the young man to enter the private office.
“If you have come to speak for these men,” he said, “you may step in here, and we will see if we can arrange to have the directors meet them later.”
“Well, Mr. Wade,” he remarked, when they were alone, “so you have become a magnate in the north country in strictly record time!”