The portières were swished aside with a jerk that set the curtain rings to jingling, and Caleb Conover, in riding dress, hatted, spurred and slashing his crop against one booted leg, filled the narrow doorway. Mrs. Conover gave a little gasp of fear. Anice Lanier let fall over her bright face the mask of quiet reserve it always wore in her employer’s presence. Clive rose and took a step toward his unwelcoming host. And so, for ten seconds, the rival candidates faced each other in silence—a silence heavy with promise of storm. CHAPTER VIII CALEB CONOVER LISTENS AND ANSWERS “Well,” began Conover, breaking the short pause, “what do _you_ want?” “I want to speak to you—alone,” answered Standish. “Come up to my study. Gaines, tell the groom to keep Dunderberg moving. I’ll be down in ten minutes.” In silence the Railroader led the way upstairs. He passed into the study, leaving Clive to follow. Nor, as he seated himself in his big desk chair, did he request his visitor to sit down. Ignoring these slights, Clive took up his stand on the opposite side of the desk. “Now, then,” said Caleb, “get through your business as quick as you can. What do you want?” “To speak to you in reference to this campaign.” “Had enough, eh?” “Altogether too much of the sort you’ve inflicted on me.” “Good! You’ve got more sense than I thought. There’s two kinds of fools: the kind that put their heads in a hornet’s nest once and then have sense enough to admit they’ve been stung, and the kind that keeps their heads there because they’re too daffy to see the exit-signs or too pig-headed to confess that hornet-stings ain’t the most diverting form of massage. I’m glad to see you belong to the first class. I’d placed you in the second.” “But I——” “But you want to get out of this p’ticular hornet’s nest, I s’pose, without giving too life-like an imitation of a man shinning down from a tree, eh? Well, I guess that can be fixed. Sit down. We’ll——” “You’re mistaken!” broke in Standish, resenting the more civil tone of his host as he had not resented his former rudeness, “I’m in this fight to stay. I——” “Want your cash losses made good! If you——” “Mr. Conover,” said Clive calmly, though the knuckles that gripped the table-edge were white with pressure, “when your lackey, Shevlin, made that same proposition to me, he thought he was making a perfectly straight offer. And, judging by the standards you’ve taught him, I suppose the suggestion was almost holy compared with the majority of his tactics. So I didn’t thrash him. He knew no better; for the same reason I don’t thrash _you_.”