Darnell threw up his head, his lips curving disdainfully. He had emptied his champagne glass frequently, and there was a reckless light in his dark eyes. Isabelle trembled for his next remark:—
"You are wrong, sir, if you will allow me to say so. The legislation that we need is not against poor, feeble-minded rats like that murderer. We have prisons and asylums enough for them. What the country needs is legislation against its honored thieves, the real anarchists among us. We don't get 'em from Europe, Senator; we breed 'em right here,—in Wall street."
If some one had discharged assafoetida over the table, there could not have been a more unpleasant sensation.
"You don't mean quite that, Darnell," Lane began; but the Kentuckian brushed him to one side.
"Just that; and some day you will see what Americans will do with their anarchists. I tell you this land is full of discontent,—men hating dishonesty, privilege, corruption, injustice! men ready to fight their oppressors for freedom!"
The men about the table were all good Republicans, devout believers in the gospel of prosperity, all sharers in it. They smiled contemptuously at Darnell's passion.
"Our martyred President was a great and good man," the Senator observed irrelevantly in his public tone.
"He was the greatest breeder of corruption that has ever held that office," retorted the Kentuckian. "With his connivance, a Mark Hanna has forged the worst industrial tyranny the world has ever seen,—the corrupt grip of corporations on the lives of the people."
"Pretty strong for a corporation lawyer!" Lane remarked, and the men laughed cynically.
"I am no longer a corporation hireling," Darnell said in a loud voice.