had read in her eyes a trace of the riddle
which had been relentlessly pursuing him; there was an odd relation in
her look to that of Sarah Austen. During the long years he had been
coming to Fairview, even before the new house was built, when Victoria
was in pinafores, he had never understood her. When she was a child, he
had vaguely recognized in her a spirit antagonistic to his own, and her
sayings had had a disconcerting ring. And now this simple glance of hers
had troubled him--only more definitely.

It was a new experience for the Honourable Hilary to go into a business
meeting with his faculties astray. Absently he rang the stable bell,
surrendered his horse, and followed a footman to the retired part of the
house occupied by the railroad president. Entering the oak-bound sanctum,
he crossed it and took a seat by the window, merely nodding to Mr. Flint,
who was dictating a letter. Mr. Flint took his time about the letter, but
when it was finished he dismissed the stenographer with an impatient and
powerful wave of the hand--as though brushing the man bodily out of the
room. Remaining motionless until the door had closed, Mr. Flint turned
abruptly and fixed his eyes on the contemplative figure of his chief
counsel.

"Well?" he said.

"Well, Flint," answered the Honourable Hilary.

"Well," said Mr. Flint, "that bridge over Maple River has got loosened up
so by the freshet that we have to keep freight cars on it to hold it
down, and somebody is trying to make trouble by writing a public letter
to the Railroad Commission, and calling attention to the head-on
collision at Barker's Station."

"Well," replied the Honourable Hilary, again, "that won't have any
influence on the Railroad Commission."

"No," said Mr. Flint, "but it all goes to increase this confounded public
sentiment that's in the air, like smallpox. Another jackass pretends to
have kept a table of the through trains on the Sumsic division, and says
they've averaged forty-five minutes late at Edmundton. He says the
through express made the run faster thirty years ago."

"I guess that's so," said the Honourable Hilary, "I was counsel for that
road then. I read that letter. He says there isn't an engine on the
division that could pull his hat off, up grade."

Neither of the two gentlemen appeared to deem this statement humorous.

"What these incendiaries don't understand," said Mr. Flint, "is that we
have to pay dividends."

"It's because they do