ore. "You mean you go ahead
your own way and don't mind making enemies."

"I sometimes like it," answered O'Bannon.

"Making them is all right." Albee looked right at him. "Taking the
consequences of doing so isn't always so enjoyable. Good night."

When the sound of the governor's motor had died away O'Bannon went back
to his desk. His mother had long ago gone upstairs, and the house was
quiet. Disgust and anger were like a poison in his veins. So that vile,
sleek old man was to have her? Love was out of the question? She did not
even have the excuse of needing money! What a loathsome bargain! What a
loathsome woman! To think he had allowed himself to be stirred by her
beauty? He wouldn't touch her with his little finger now if she were the
last woman in the world. Albee? Good God! There must be thirty-five
years between them. Someone ought to stop it. She would be better in
prison than giving herself to an old man like that. She was no ignorant
child. She knew what she was doing. If he were the girl's brother or
father he'd rather see her dead.

It was after midnight when he set to work on the papers in the case. He
worked all night. The old servant bringing Mrs. O'Bannon her breakfast
in the early morning reported Mr. Dan as being up and away. He had come
into the kitchen at six for a cup of coffee, his face as white as that
sheet and his eyes nearly out of his head.

This was the afternoon that Eleanor selected to take the matter into her
own hands and come to his office. She came late in the afternoon. It was
after six. She saw his car standing in the street and she knew he was
still there. She went in past the side entrance to Mr. Wooley's shop, up
the worn wooden stairs, through the glass door with its gold letters,
"Office of the District Attorney of Princess County." The stenographers
and secretaries had gone. Their desks were empty, their typewriters
hooded. O'Bannon was standing alone in the middle of the room with his
hat and overcoat on, as if he had been caught by some disagreeable
thought just in the moment of departure.

Eleanor's step made no sound on the stairs. He looked up in surprise as
she opened the door, and as their eyes met she knew clearly that he did
not want to see her. There was something almost brutal in the way that
he looked at her and then looked away again, as if he hoped she might be
gone when he looked back. If she had come on her own business she would
have gone. As it was, sh