an injudicious remark.

"Well, your campaign against Ennerly and Jackson fell through, didn't
it?" Ennerly and Jackson were the city officials who had been tried.

"It wasn't a campaign against them," he answered. "And considering the
subordinate part I took in it, it could scarcely be called mine."

"Greenhalge turned to you to get the evidence."

"Well, I got it," he said.

"What became of it?"

"You ought to know."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I say, Paret," he answered slowly. "You ought to know, if
anyone knows."

I considered this a moment, more soberly. I thought I might have counted
on my fingers the number of men cognizant of my connection with the case.
I decided that he was guessing.

"I think you should explain that," I told him.

"The time may come, when you'll have to explain it."

"Is that a threat?" I demanded.

"A threat?" he repeated. "Not at all."

"But you are accusing me--"

"Of what?" he interrupted suddenly.

He had made it necessary for me to define the nature of his charges.

"Of having had some connection with the affair in question."

"Whatever else I may be, I'm not a fool," he said quietly. "Neither the
district attorney's office, nor young Arbuthnot had brains enough to get
them out of that scrape. Jason didn't have influence enough with the
judiciary, and, as I happen to know, there was a good deal of money
spent."

"You may be called upon to prove it," I retorted, rather hotly.

"So I may."

His tone, far from being defiant, had in it a note of sadness. I looked
at him. What were his potentialities? Was it not just possible that I
should have to revise my idea of him, acknowledge that he might become
more formidable than I had thought?

There was an awkward silence.

"You mustn't imagine, Paret, that I have any personal animus against you,
or against any of the men with whom you're associated," he went on, after
a moment. "I'm sorry you're on that side, that's all,--I told you so once
before. I'm not calling you names, I'm not talking about morality and
immorality. Immorality, when you come down to it, is often just the
opposition to progress that comes from blindness. I don't make the
mistake of blaming a few individuals for the evils of modern industrial
society, and on the other hand you mustn't blame individuals for the
discomforts of what you call the reform movement, for that movement is
merely a symptom--a symptom of a disease due to a change in t