* * * * *
The dinner that night of the three men and the woman was tense and still at first. All the radiance had faded from Isabelle's face, leaving it white, and she moved as if she were numb. Vickers, watching her face, was sad at heart, miserable as he had been since he had seen her and Cairy together. Already it had gone so far! … Cairy was talkative, as always, telling stories of his trip to the South. At some light jeer over the California railroad situation, Lane suddenly spoke:—
"That is only one side, Tom. There is another."
Ordinarily he would have laughed at Cairy's flippant handling of the topics of the day. But to-night he was ready to challenge.
"The public doesn't want to hear the other side, it seems," Cairy retorted quickly.
Lane looked at him slowly as he might at a mosquito that he purposed to crush. "I think that some of the public wants to hear all sides," he replied quietly. "Let us see what the facts are."…
To-night he did not intend to be silenced by trivialities. Cairy had given him an opening on his own ground,—the vast field of fact. And he talked astonishingly well, with a grip not merely of the much-discussed railroad situation, but of business in general, economic conditions in America and abroad,—the trend of development. He talked in a large and leisurely way all through the courses, and when Cairy would interpose some objection, his judicious consideration eddied about it with a deferential sweep, then tossed it high on the shore of his buttressed conclusions. Vickers listened in astonishment to the argument, while Isabelle, her hands clasped tight before her, did not eat, but shifted her eyes from her husband's face to Cairy's and back again as the talk flowed.
… "And granted," Lane said by way of conclusion, having thoroughly riddled Cairy's contentions, "that in some cases there has been trickery and fraud, is that any reason why we should indict the corporate management of all great properties? Even if all the law-breaking of which our roads are accused could be proved to be true, nevertheless any philosophic investigator would conclude that the good they have done—the efficient service for civilization—far outbalances the wrong—"
"Useful thieves and parasites!" Cairy interposed.
"Yes,—if you like to put it in those words," Lane resumed quietly. "The law of payment for service in this world of ours is not a simple one. For large services and great sacrifices, the rewards must be large. For large risks and daring efforts, the pay must be alluring. Every excellence of a high degree costs,—every advance is made at the sacrifice of a lower order of good."