"Yes."

"You say he is Vice-president of the company? Is he a great friend of
yours? Perhaps my first impression was wrong, but I don't believe I
liked Mr. O'Connor very much--not nearly so much as that amusing Mr.
Cuyler, or nice, polite Mr. Wintermuth, or queer, silent Mr. Bartels."

"Well, between you and me, I don't believe your first impression was
far from correct. I don't like O'Connor much, myself," said Smith.
"More than that, I know he is unfriendly to me. But that is not the
point. The point is that he is up to something, and I don't know what
it is. And I've got to find out what it is. That's what I was
thinking of."

"What kind of a thing do you mean? And what has he done to make you
think so?" the girl asked.

"He has succeeded in persuading the President to take the Guardian out
of the Eastern Conference. And I can't figure out why. He's got some
ulterior motive, but I can't guess what it is."

"What is the Eastern Conference?"

"It's a sort of association of insurance companies doing business in
New England, New York, and other Atlantic states. Most of the best
companies belong to it. It's a sort of offensive and defensive
alliance. It keeps down the general expense of conducting business by
limiting the rate of commission its members can pay to any agent, and
it supplies inspections to its members and does a lot of other things.
But it really isn't a question of what the Conference does for its
members so much as a question of what it may do to the Guardian, if the
Guardian gets out. There's considerable quiet coercion about such a
union, you see--the Conference companies can make it very interesting
for an outsider, if they choose to do so. And after a company has been
operating on the inside for a good many years, it's hard to jump the
fence and make so radical a change. It upsets your organization."

"But why should the Conference try to make you belong? And will they
attempt to hurt you if you resign?"

"I don't know. Possibly not. That will soon be seen. But what I
can't fathom is why O'Connor, after all these years, should now lay his
wires to get the Guardian out. He never does an important thing like
that for nothing; he's got some idea in the back of his head. I feel
certain of that from the elaborate pains he took to make me think it
was not at his instigation that the thing was done. But I know better,
for I know O'Connor."

"Haven't you any clew at all?"