"O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
From whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent,
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blessed with health and peace and sweet content!
And, O, may heaven their—"
Doak felt a stirring in him and tears moved down his cheeks and he turned, quickly and silently, and went out the back door. He was no child at his mother's knee, he was no mewling kitten—he was a Security Officer and this was subversion.
Outside the stars were bright in a black sky. He stood in the back yard, breathing heavily, ashamed at the sudden surge of feeling that had moved through him. Some streak of adolescence, he thought, stirred by the words he had remembered from his mother's lips.
He walked slowly back toward town. He could call in local help and round up the gang back there in the house. He could wash this up tonight and be back in Washington tomorrow morning. With June.
The prospect of being with June had lost its flavor somehow. And if this was a widely published magazine, he had a larger duty than merely apprehending the gang. All of the magazine's readers were breaking the law and a real operative comes in with a complete, clean case.
Mrs. Klein still sat on her front porch. "Any luck?" she asked, as he came up to sit on the glider near her chair.
"Some. I'll see him again tomorrow."
Her voice was dry. "One of our most prominent citizens, the Senator. The other's Glen Ryder. I guess you know who he is."
He stiffened, trying to see her face in the dark. "Ryder? Oh, yes, in the Security Department."
"That's right. Glen isn't anything to be ashamed of really. But that Senator Arnold—my, the stories my mother told me about him!"