As for the election, he will secure that. If Natalie attempts exposure, he will claim it to be a blackmail invention of political enemies. Ha! Money! Yes, the golden arguments of concrete power. He will use it in floods of double eagles.
He will see Natalie on her way to Paris before the second hearing. Yes, and send some one out of the State to watch her as far as New York. He must buy her off.
A part of the money in hand; the rest payable at Paris to her own order. She must be out of the way.
Mariposa boasts two hotels. The avoidance of Hardin's friends brings all the strangers, perforce, together in the other. They have been strangely private in their habits.
Philip Hardin's brow is set. It is no time for trifling. He sends his name up to Madame de Santos. She begs to be excused. "Would Judge Hardin kindly call in the evening?"
This would be after a council of war of his enemies. It must be prevented. He pens a few words on a scrap of paper, and waits with throbbing pulses,
"Madame will receive him." As he walks upstairs, he realizes he has to face a reckoning with Joe Woods. He will make that clumsy-headed Croesus rue the day. And yet Woods is in the State Senate, and may oppose his election.
With his eyes fixed on the doors of Natalie's apartment, he does not notice Woods gazing at him, from the end of the hall, in the open door of the portico.
Natalie motions him to a seat as he enters. He looks at her in amazement. She is not the same woman who entered that court-house. He speaks. The sound of his own voice makes him start.
"What is all this devil's tomfoolery? Explain it to me. Are you mad?" His suppressed feelings overmaster him. He gives way to an imprudent rage.