"It's easy enough to be honest, but it is great to make your honesty save and not destroy you. To get these men behind you instead of opposed to you; to make your organisation do what you want it to do; to rise upon its shoulders because you make it lift you up—Ah!..."
"But, Shirley," interposed Murgatroyd, "can't you see that the man who stands up for a principle cannot fail?"
"What have you done so far?" she kept on persistently. "You're prosecutor of the pleas, your first, last and only office. Am I right?"
"I'm afraid you are," he answered dully. "In a way what you say is the truth. Politically I shall die—" Murgatroyd shuddered as he spoke—"unless I can force this issue to a finish while my office lasts."
"And then?" Her manner in putting the question nettled him.
"Well, then I suppose I shall live and die poor. But at least I shall die honest," he added.
Shirley shifted her mode of attack.
"Look at Mr. Thorne!"
"Ah, it is Thorne, then."
"A while ago I told you it was not Mr. Thorne." She paused a moment and then, as if speaking to herself, said: "But some day I shall meet the man I'm looking for—some day——"