"It's no use!—let's go!" he begged, chokingly. "Quick!"
David's eyes blazed down upon Mr. Chambers. "Yes, let's leave the infernal thief!"
He took one of Rogers's arms, the Mayor, shaking a huge fist in Mr. Chambers's face, took the other, and they made for the door. Mr. Chambers, still seated, watched Rogers's thin figure, head pitched forward and sunken between his shoulders, pass out of the office. Brushing people out of his way had become the order of his life, and he did it impersonally, without malice, as a machine might have done it. And Rogers was one of the most insignificant he had ever brushed aside.
"Mr. Rogers, as of course you are aware, has not the rights of a citizen," Mr. Chambers said to the five. "Consequently his agreement with you is invalid; he can not hold you to it. If you will kindly wait in the next room a moment, Mr. Jordon will speak with you."
After they had filed out he remarked to Jordon: "They are stampeded. They will come to your terms. I leave them in your hands."
He touched the button on his desk and his secretary appeared. "If Senator Speed has come," he said, "ask him to step in."
When David and Rogers were home again, and the Mayor and his profanity had gone, there was a long silence during which both sat motionless. David searched his mind for some word of hope for Rogers, who was a collapsed bundle in a Morris chair, gazing through the window into the dusky air-shaft.
At length he bent before Rogers and took his hand. "We'll go to some new place together, and start all over again," he said.
Rogers turned his face—the only part of him that the deepening twilight had not blotted out. It seemed a bodyless face—the mask of hopelessness.