"Do I intrude?" he drawled, deliberately.
Carolina drew away her hands from Haines and faced the newcomer.
"Intrude!" she exclaimed, contemptuously, in a tone that Norton construed as in his favor and Haines in his own.
"Intrude!" Haines laughed, sarcastically, feeling that now he was leader in the race for love against this Mississippi representative, who was, he knew, a subservient tool and a taker of bribes. "You surely do intrude, Norton. Wouldn't any man who had interrupted a tête-á-tête another man was having with Miss Langdon be intruding?"
"I suppose I can't deny that," he replied.
The secretary smiled again.
"I'll match you to see who stays," he said.
But Norton's turn to defeat his rival had come. He held out a paper to
Haines.
"Senator Langdon gave me this for you. I reckon I don't have to match."
The secretary opened the note to read: