Richards came in just as they were enjoying their after-breakfast cigars.
“Well,” he said, dropping into a chair without preliminary greetings, or waiting for Mr. Wade to request him to do so, “what’s the program for to-day?”
Then his eyes fell on Mr. Wade’s trouser legs.
“Told you it wouldn’t come off, didn’t I?” he laughed, boisterously.
Mr. Wade resented Richards’ unceremonious entrance, and resented still more this direct allusion to his sartorial disfigurement, which had resisted the most zealous efforts of Joseph. He considered that, under present circumstances, the legs should be considered as analogous to those of the Queen of Spain.
And that phrase of Hastings, “a matter of personal honor,” had hit the bull’s-eye.
Mr. Wade prided himself first that the family fortune had been made honestly, by the rise in Manhattan real estate; and last, that the Wade name stood in the business world to-day as a symbol of integrity that erred, if it erred at all, on the side of over-scrupulousness.
“Mr. Richards,” he said, a trifle stiffly, “when I inquired into the matter, you wrote me that Mr. Carrington’s grievance had no foundation in fact, did you not?”
The bluffness faded out of Richards’ face and left ugliness disclosed.
“He brought that old yarn back with him from Carrington’s yesterday, I suppose,” he sneered, jerking his head toward Hastings.
Hastings had that rare faculty of knowing when to let the game play itself.
“Very naturally, Mr. Richards,” said Mr. Wade, with dangerous smoothness; “but that is not the question.”
Richards’ face darkened.
“I’ll tell you what the question is, Mr. Wade, and you can settle it right now,” he snarled. “It’s whether you are going to take the word of the man who has made the mine, or the word of the man who’s trying to blackmail it, so’s he can buy it cheap.”
It was a good issue, so good that Richards himself was proud of it. He leaned back in his chair with something of a swagger.
“That you are still in charge of the Tray-Spot is the best proof of my confidence in you,” Mr. Wade said, in a more gracious tone, “but I propose to place the Carringtons in a position where they will have to admit that they are in the wrong, as you say they are. We will tell them that they may send a representative through our mine at any time, and that he will be accorded every courtesy.”
“Not on your life, we won’t!” said Richards, fiercely.
“That,” said Mr. Wade, serenely, “is a matter where we differ.”
“Do you suppose,” Richards went on, working himself into a rage, “that anyone they sent down would come up and tell the truth? He’d say just what he was paid to say, and he’d find just what he was paid to find.”
Joseph entered with two cards, and thereby effected a diversion.
One of the cards bore the name of Mr. John Carrington and the other that of Mr. Edward Carrington.
The gods fought on the Carrington side.
“Show him in,” said Mr. Wade, suavely.
Young Carrington, debonair as a certain Monsieur Beaucaire, made his entrance with an easy grace. The delicate deference of his manner toward Mr. Wade, the pleasant camaraderie which he showed to Hastings, the impersonal politeness with which he recognized Richards’ existence, were all points in his favor.
So, too, were his punctiliousness in making his father’s excuses, and the quiet courtesy with which he placed his horses at Mr. Wade’s disposal.
His manner was so free from embarrassment or assertiveness, so evidently inspired by a nice sense of proprieties, that he might have been the ambassador of one king to another.
Richards, retiring to one of the car windows, his back toward them all, his fingers beating a nerve-racking tattoo upon the glass, was his direct antithesis.
“My nephew tells me you have distinct ability as an artist,” Mr. Wade said, when, the preliminary interchange of courtesies over, the three were comfortably seated. Mr. Wade thought it was likely, too.
“Then, I may tell you that we expect him to be one of our best architects,” young Carrington returned, gracefully.
“The rising architect of Yellow Dog,” Hastings said, with a wave of his hands. “I think I shall begin by building a little bungalow here for myself.”
“A very good idea,” said Mr. Wade, decisively.
Hastings’ first phrase had smitten him with a sudden contrition. He felt, too, that if he was going to come out to Yellow Dog himself, and if his nephew stayed there he should, of course, come out once a year, at least, a cozily built bungalow, where he might be made comfortable, was in the line of a necessity. “I should get about it at once,” he declared.
“Perhaps you would like to drive about this morning, and select your site for ‘A Bungalow for One,’” said young Carrington, laughingly. There was a slightly mocking emphasis on the last word.
“I shouldn’t have it too small,” said Mr. Wade, firmly.
Richards was whistling between his teeth now, a performance which always enraged Mr. Wade.
“But we will have to let the site go for this morning, at least;” and there was a precise distinctness about Mr. Wade’s words now. “Mr. Richards has just been arranging to take us down the mine this morning.”
Richards wheeled round, surprised.
Young Carrington rose with an unhurried ease.
“Then, I must not detain you,” he said, calmly.
“And why would it not be a good idea for you to send one of your men, in whom you have full confidence, down with us?” – Mr. Wade’s tone was entirely urbane. “He would, perhaps, be able not only to assure himself of actual conditions, but to explain your contention to us in the workings under discussion.”
Richards held himself tense.
“I should like to send our shift boss, with your permission,” said young Carrington, quietly, though inwardly he exulted. “I will have him meet you at your shaft house whenever you say.”
“Mr. Wade,” said Richards, and the effort he made to control himself made the veins in his face distend purplingly, “when Mr. John Carrington is well enough to go down our mine, I shall be glad” – how the word choked him – “to take him down myself; but Trevanion, their shift boss, is at the bottom of the trouble. He’s tricky and dishonest. I’d rather resign than take him down the mine.”
For in the time that would elapse before John Carrington was able to take such a jaunt much could be done.
There was a moment’s pause, in which Richards’ claim and Carrington’s were equi-balanced. The very fact of Hastings’ personal bias held him inactive.
Then young Carrington spoke.
“I will answer for Trevanion’s honesty with my own,” he said. There was an emotional note in the voice he tried to hold steady.
“Off the same piece, I guess,” sneered Richards, nastily.
The scales swayed down on the Carrington side.
Mr. Wade’s code did not permit his guests to be insulted by his subordinates.
“My dear Mr. Carrington, you leave us no option when you take that stand,” he said, suavely. “Whenever your man is ready, then.”
“I think he is still at the house with my father,” said young Carrington, unsteadily. “I can telephone from the station here.”
Mr. Wade looked out of the