he tea-party went back
to their seats. Mrs. Flint supposed he had come to sell Victoria the
horse; while Mrs. Pomfret, who had taken him in from crown to boots,
remarked that he looked very much like a gentleman.

"I came to see your father for a few moments--on business," Austen
explained.

She lifted her face to his with a second searching look.

"I'll take you to him," she said.

By this time a nimble groom had appeared from out o a shrubbery path
and seized Pepper's head. Austen alighted and followed Victoria into
a great, cool hallway, and through two darkened rooms, bewilderingly
furnished and laden with the scent of flowers, into a narrow passage
beyond. She led the way simply, not speaking, and her silence seemed to
betoken the completeness of an understanding between them, as of a long
acquaintance.

In a plain white-washed room, behind a plain oaken desk, sat Mr.
Flint--a plain man. Austen thought he would have known him had he seen
him on the street. The other things in the room were letter-files, a
safe, a long-distance telephone, and a thin private secretary with
a bend in his back. Mr. Flint looked up from his desk, and his face,
previously bereft of illumination, lighted when he saw his daughter.
Austen liked that in him.

"Well, Vic, what is it now?" he asked.

"Mr. Austen Vane to see you," said Victoria, and with a quick glance at
Austen she left him standing on the threshold. Mr. Flint rose. His
eyes were deep-set in a square, hard head, and he appeared to be taking
Austen in without directly looking at him; likewise, one felt that Mr.
Flint's handshake was not an absolute gift of his soul.

"How do you do, Mr. Vane? I don't remember ever to have had the pleasure
of seeing you, although your father and I have been intimately connected
for many years."

So the president's manner was hearty, but not the substance. It came,
Austen thought, from a rarity of meeting with men on a disinterested
footing; and he could not but wonder how Mr. Flint would treat the
angels in heaven if he ever got there, where there were no franchises
to be had. Would he suspect them of designs upon his hard won harp
and halo? Austen did not dislike Mr. Flint; the man's rise, his
achievements, his affection for his daughter, he remembered. But he was
also well aware that Mr. Flint had thrown upon him the onus of the first
move in a game which the railroad president was used to playing every
day. The dragon was on his h