. I shouldn't have been able to keep
my state of mind out of my voice, if I had tried. And I didn't try.

Trust the right sort of woman to see the right sort of thing in a man
through any and all kinds of barriers of caste and manners and breeding.
Her voice was much softer as she said: "I think I must stay here. Thank
you, just the same."

As soon as Sam and I were alone, I apologized. "I hope you'll tell your
sister I'm sorry for that break," said I.

"Oh, that's all right," he answered, easy again, now that we were away from
the others. "You meant well--and motive's the thing."

"Motive--hell!" cried I in my anger at myself. "Nobody but a man's God
knows his motives; he doesn't even know them himself. I judge others by
what they do, and I expect to be judged in the same way. I see I've got a
lot to learn." Then I suddenly remembered the Travelers Club, and asked him
what he'd done about it.

"I--I've been--thinking it over," said he. "Are you _sure_ you want to
run the risk of an ugly cropper, Matt?"

I turned him round so that we were facing each other. "Do you want to do me
that favor, or don't you?" I demanded.

"I'll do whatever you say," he replied. "I'm thinking only of your
interests."

"Let _me_ take care of _them_," said I. "You put me up at that
club to-morrow. I'll send you the name of a seconder not later than noon."

"Up goes your name," he said. "But don't blame me for the consequences."

And my name went up, with Mowbray Langdon's brother, Tom, as seconder.
Every newspaper in town published the fact, most of them under big black
headlines. "The fun's about to begin," thought I, as I read. And I was
right, though I hadn't the remotest idea how big a ball I had opened.

V. DANGER SIGNALS

At that time I did not myself go over the bills before the legislatures
of those states in which I had interests. I trusted that work to my
lawyers--and, like every man who ever absolutely trusted an important
division of his affairs to another, I was severely punished. One morning
my eye happened to light upon a minor paragraph in a newspaper--a list
of the "small bills yesterday approved by the governor." In the list was
one "defining the power of sundry commissions." Those words seemed to
me somehow to spell "joker." But why did I call up my lawyers to ask
them about it? It's a mystery to me. All I know is that, busy as I was,
something inside me compelled me to drop everything else and hunt that