“Mr. Quarrier, I want to tell you something. Never before, in business differences, has private indignation against any individual interfered or modified my course of action. It does now; but it does not dictate my policy toward you; it merely, as I say, modifies it. I am perfectly aware of what I am doing; what social disaster I am inviting by this attitude toward you personally; what financial destruction I am courting in arousing the wrath of the Algonquin Trust Company and of the powerful interests intrenched behind Inter-County Electric. I know what the lobby is; I know what judge cannot be counted on; I know my peril and my chances, every one; and I take them—every one. For it is a good fight, Mr. Quarrier; it will be talked of for years to come, wonderingly; not because of your effrontery, not because of my obstinacy, but because such monstrous immorality could ever have existed in this land of ours. Your name, Harrington's, mine, will have become utterly forgotten long, long before the horror of these present conditions shall cease to be remembered.”
He stretched out one ponderous arm, pointing full between Quarrier's unwinking eyes.
“Take your fighting chance—it is the cleanest thing you ever touched; and use it cleanly, or there'll be no mercy shown you when your time comes. Let the courts alone—do you hear me? Let the legislature alone. Keep your manicured hands off the ermine. And tell Harrington to shove his own cold, splay fingers into his own pockets for a change. They'll be warmer than his feet by this time next year.”
For a moment he towered there, powerful, bulky, menacing; then his arm dropped heavily—the old stolid expression came back into his face, leaving it calm, bovine, almost stupid again. And he turned, moving slowly toward the door, holding his hat carefully in his gloved hand.
Stepping out of the elevator on the ground floor he encountered Mortimer, and halted instinctively. He had not seen Mortimer for weeks; neither had Leila; and now he looked at him inquiringly, disturbed at his battered and bloodshot appearance.
“Oh,” said Mortimer, “you down here?”
“Have you been out of town?” asked Plank cautiously.
Mortimer nodded, and started to pass on toward the bronze cage of the elevator, but something seemed to occur to him suddenly; he checked his pace, turned, and waddled after Plank, rejoining him on the marble steps of the rotunda.
“See here,” he panted, holding Plank by the elbow and breathing heavily even after the short chase across the lobby, “I meant to tell you something. Come over here and sit down a moment.”
Still grasping Plank's elbow in his puffy fingers, he directed him toward a velvet seat in a corner of the lobby; and here they sat down, while Mortimer mopped his fat neck with his handkerchief, swearing at the heat under his breath.