that he concluded that no very serious damage could come to him in the
presence of Thelismer Thornton's grandson. But when they arrived near
the door of General Waymouth's parlor, Spinney recognized what it meant
and resisted.

"It's a trap!" he gasped. "I thought your grandfather--"

The State Committeemen were following along the corridor, growling
threats. Now they understood that this was practically an abduction.
They hastened up to the scene of the struggle. But the young man was not
deterred. He was obeying orders without question. With him it was not a
matter of politics; he did not pause to wonder how the affair would be
looked upon. The man to whom all his loyalty had gone out had commanded;
he was obeying. But the others were resolute too. They were about to
interfere. At that moment Thelismer Thornton appeared in the corridor.

"Let the boy alone," he commanded, thrusting himself among them.

The diversion gave Harlan his opportunity. Clutching Spinney with one
hand, he threw open the door and pushed him in, followed him, and closed
the door. He locked it, and stood with his back against it.

In that moment he did not reflect that in obeying General Waymouth so
implicitly he might be playing traitor to his own flesh and blood. But
the Duke, in his cynicism, had never attracted his grandson's political
loyalty. That had seemed a matter apart from the family ties between
them. His grandfather had set him on the trail of decency in politics,
and had given him a leader to follow.

The frankness with which his grandfather had exposed the code by which
he and his ilk operated in politics, making tricks, subterfuge, and
downright dishonesty an integral part of the game and entitled to
absolution, had divorced Harlan's straightforward sympathies when the
question came to issue between his own relative, complacently
unscrupulous, and General Waymouth, heroically casting off bonds of
friendship and political affiliations, and standing for what was
obviously the right. It was chivalrous. It appealed to the youth in
Harlan. His manhandling of the amazed Spinney was an unheard-of event
among gentlemen at a political convention, but there was more than
impulse behind it. Harlan Thornton was a woodsman. Social conventions
make the muscles subservient, but in the more primitive conditions the
muscles leap ahead of the mind.

Therefore, he came with Mr. Spinney and tossed him into the presence of
the chief, who had