dam, but again I must ask
you how you have penetrated so far into my secret thoughts, granting of
course for the sake of argument that you have done so?" he said, now in
complete possession of his faculties, and coolly on guard.

"I saw you listening at Judge Regis's office door the day the will was
read, and the day we first discussed our plans for winning equal
suffrage for women in this country. You are the only man in it who has
known positively from the first that we can do it!" she answered, and
showed her nerve by keeping her gaze fixed imperturbably upon him.

He bent forward, his face slowly purpling with rage, his fists clenched,
his upper lip skinned back from his teeth as he hissed: "You are a--you
did not see me!"

"I didn't see you, that's a fact, but I saw your shadow in the
ground-glass door, cast by the light from the window at the end of the
hall. Nobody could mistake it for any other shape who'd ever seen you,
Mike Prim!"

They sat for the briefest moment measuring each other, he with
incredible ferocity, and Susan with her lips primped, grimly fearless.

"Now that we understand each other, let's get down to business!" she
began.

"To business?" he snarled.

"Yes, this is the situation: you can't run for the legislature; you
don't want to! You have squeezed every dollar you can get out of the
Democrats here." She sniffed at the word. "They have lost confidence in
you as manager of their political ends. They've begun to suspect your
game. It's only a question of hours, I might say of one hour, before you
get your walking papers, so to speak; for they are mad, Mike Prim. They
are as angry as men always are when they realize that they've been duped
and robbed----"

"If you were not a woman you couldn't sit there and say such things to
me. Anyhow, I won't stand it! What's your business, as you call it?" he
exclaimed, heaving his huge bulk from the chair and coming to his feet.

"Sit down! Sit down, Mr. Prim. I am here to make you a definite
proposition!"

"Make it!" he growled, still standing, his feet wide apart, glowering
down at her.

"The Co-Citizens' Foundation is prepared to purchase your papers----"

"My papers?"

"Yes, your letters, your political correspondence."

"Think they are valuable?"

"We can get on without them, but we are willing to pay a reasonable
price for them. We know that they are valuable to a certain extent."

"How?"

"You remember your conversation with St