On the fourth evening after their stormy ride she thought the collision was at hand.
“There is something serious I want to speak to you about,” he began, as they sat in the old-fashioned parlour. “You know what the storm has done to the city water. It has washed all the summer’s accumulation of filth down into the streams that feed the reservoir, and since the filtering plant is out of commission the water has been simply abominable. The people are complaining louder than ever. Blake and the rest of his crew are telling the public that this water is a sample of what everything will be like if I’m elected. It’s hurting me, and hurting me a lot. I don’t blame the people so much for being influenced by what Blake says, for, of course, they don’t know what’s going on beneath the surface. But I’ve got to make some kind of a reply, and a mighty strong one, too. Now here’s where I want you to help me.”
“What can I do?” she asked.
“If I could only tell the truth—what a regular knock-out of a reply that would be!” he exclaimed. “Some time ago you told me to wait—you expected to have the proof a little later. Do you have any idea how soon you will have your evidence?”
Again she felt the impulse to tell him all she knew and all her plans. But a medley of motives worked together to restrain her. There was the momentum of her old decision to keep silent. There was the knowledge that, though he loved her as a woman, he still held her in low esteem as a lawyer. There was the instinct that what she knew, if saved, might in some way serve her when they two fought their battle. And there was the thrilling dream of waiting till she had all her evidence gathered and then bringing it triumphantly to him—and thus enable him through her to conquer.
“I’m afraid I can’t give you the proof for a while yet,” she replied.
She saw that he was impatient at the delay, that he believed she would discover nothing. She expected the outbreak that very instant. She expected him to demand that she turn the case over to the Indianapolis lawyer he had spoken to her about, who would be able to make some progress; to demand that she give up law altogether, and demand that as his intended wife she give up all thought of an independent professional career. She nerved herself for the shock of battle.
But it did not come.
“All right,” he said. “I suppose I’ll have to wait a little longer, then.”
He got up and paced the floor.