Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-04-06
THE CHAPTERS
Copyright, roo4, by Tho Bobbs-Msrrill companyJ
FRAN cIS LYN D B
CHAPTER XXIII. INTO THE PRIMITIVE.

INTO THE PRIMITIVE.
 Tested upon purely diplomatic principles, Miss Van Brooks temper was little less than angelic, exhibiting itself under provocation only in guard ed pin-pricks of sarcasm, or in small sharp-clawed en-buffetings of repartee. But she was at no pains to conceal her scornful disappointment when David Kent made known his doubts concerning his moral right to use the weapon he had so skillfully forged.
 He delayed the inevitable confession to Portia until he had told Loring;: and in making it he did not tell Miss Van Brock to whom he owed the sud- den change in the point of view. But Portia would have greatly discredited her gift of insight if she had not in- stantly reduced the problem to it's low est terms.
 You have been asking Miss Brent wood to lend you her conscience, and she has done it," was the form in which she stated the fact. And when Kent did not deny it: You lack at least one quality of greatness, David; you sway too easily
 N "No, don't!" he protested. T am as obstinate as a mule. Ask Ormsby, or Loring. But the logic of the thing is blankly unanswerable. can eith CT get down to the dirty level of these ghbinders-fght the devil with a brand taken out of his own fire; or"
 "Or what?" she asked.
 'Or think up some other scheme; some plan which doesn't involve sur render on my part of common decency and self-respect"
 E 'Yes?" she retorted. "I suppose you have the other plan all wrought out and ready to drop into place?'
 No, I haven't" he admitted re- luctantly.
 But at least you have some notion of what it is going to be-"
 No"
 She was pacing back and forth in liOul Ol ulS Cudll III O way IhoI " eao almost man-like; but her contemptu- ous. impatience made her dangerously beautiful. Suddenly she stopped and turned upon him, and there were sharp claws in the itten-buffetings.
 "Doyou know you're spelling a fu- ture that most men would hesitate to throw away?" she asked. While you have been a man of one idea in this railroad affair, We haven't been idle your newspaper and political friends, and Ormsby and I. You are ambitious; you want to succeed; and We have been laying the foundations for you. The next election would give you anything in the gift of the state that a man of your years could aspire to. Have you known this?"
 T have guessed it," he said quite humbly.
 of course you have. But it has all been contingent upon one thing: you were to crush the grafters in this rail- s2pad struggle-show them up-and Aimb to distinction yourself on the hdder from which you have shaken them. It might have been done; it was in fair way to be done. And now you turn back and leave the blow in the furrow."
 There was more of like quality ea good bit more; some of it regretful; all of it pungent and logical from Miss Van Brooks point of view; and Kent was no rock not to be moved by the small tempest of disappointed yicarious ambition. Wherefore he es- capped when he could, though only to begin the ethican battle all over again; to fight and wander among the tombs In the valley of indecision for week and a day, eight miserable twirlings of the earth in space. during which in- sterval he was invisible to his friends and innocuous to his enemies.
 On the morning of the ninth day Editor Hildreth telephoned Miss Van Brock to ask if she knew where Kent could be found. The answer was a rather anxious negative: though the query could have been answered af- armatively by the conductor and mot orman of an early morning electric ear which ran 10 the farthest out skirts of the eastern suburbs of the city. Following a boyish habit he had never fully outgrown. Kent had once more taken his problem to the sopen. and the hour after luncheon time found him plodding wearily back to the end Of the car line. jaded, dusty and stifT from much tramping of the brown plain. but with the long duel I. finally fosght out to some despairing conclusion.
 The city hall clock was upon the stroke of thres when the inbound troll ley-car landed him in front of the Clarendon. It vas a measure of his purposeful abstraction that he went i. on around the corner to the Security , hank, dusty and unpresentable 'as he .ras. and transferred the packet of in- terminating affidavits from the safety deposit box to his pocket before going D his rooms in the hotel
 4 This paper weapon was the centering opoint of the struggle which had now I.lasted for nearly a fortnight. So long as the weapon was his to use or to cast away. the outcome of the moral 1. sontiict hung in the balance But now he vas emerging from the night wan oerinEs among the tOmbs of the unde- Cided-
 ~ T can't give it up. there is too uuch al stake he muttered. as he trudged