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!"

"I've heard," Doak said, "he was pretty wild as a young man."

"Wild?" Mrs. Klein sniffed. "Degraded would be a better word. If his
father didn't have all the money in the county he'd have gone to jail
more than once, that man. And then the people of this state sending
him to the Senate."

Doak said nothing, staring out at the quiet night.

"Would you like a little snack?" Mrs. Klein asked. "I've some baked
ham and rolls out in the kitchen."

"No thanks," Doak said. "I'm not very hungry. Was Glen Ryder a friend
of Senator Arnold's?"

"Not until Glen went to work for the government. I don't think the
Senator had any friends except those who could profit by it."

"This Ryder was something of an--opportunist?"

"If that means what it sounds like, I guess that would describe Glen.
He wasn't one to overlook any opportunity to better himself and he cut
it pretty thin at times."

Doak looked over but could not see