But when Jeremy’s anxious glance finally reached the Governor’s high chair he breathed a temporary sigh of relief. In the place of honor, on the right of the gubernatorial smile, sat Magnus Laurens. Surely that indicated an acceptance by Embree of Jeremy’s argument; Laurens was to be appointed chairman of the council, after all. The Governor’s left was occupied by Ensign, the millionaire absentee owner of The Record. In a less crowded moment Jeremy would have given some thought to this curious preferment. Directly across the table from the central group there protruded loftily from between a pursy judge and a northwestern corn-raiser, a figure tall, stiff, and meager, a lean, hard-wood lath of a man lost in the dim, untroubled contemplation of an awful example of political portraiture on the far wall. Why Professor Rappelje should have been included, Jeremy could not surmise, unless it was that Governor Embree could count upon him as an unquestioning follower through thick and thin. In fact the whole composition of the meeting suggested that the summons had been apportioned with a view to safe control by the Governor. To the watchful Jeremy it seemed that Governor Embree was nervous. The smile at the corners of the conciliatory lips was disturbed by a restless twitching. After an anxiously calculating glance over the assemblage he began to read from a typed sheet a preamble, concluding: “Therefore, I present for the consideration of this honorable body the following names to constitute the Centralia State Council of Defense.” The first nomination fell upon Jeremy’s ears like a burst of thunder. It was that of Emil Bausch, chairman. The second nomination fell upon his brain like a bludgeon. It was that of Jeremy Robson, vice-chairman. From down the table he caught the confirmatory sneer of Montrose Clark. His eyes darted to Magnus Laurens, squarest and most honorable of enemies, and met in his face a wrathful contempt. Cassius Kimball leaned to him and whispered: “First you knew of it?” “Yes.” “He’s put it over on you.” Jeremy sat in a daze. His mind was confused by the suddenness of the thrust; his will was blurred. Instinctively he felt that he must do something. But what? Protest? Decline to serve? Announce his attitude? And already his time was past! The monotonous, fateful reading had gone beyond him. Wanser and Fliess, Kimball, Laurens, ex-Governor Scudder, Montrose Clark, the Reverend Theo Gunst, Lieutenant-Governor Maxwell, Ensign, Bredle, Girdner, Ivanson, the Swede, and so on with the German and pacifist element always slightly but safely in the majority. Not a word was spoken, except once when in a brief breathing-pause some one shot out, like an arrow through the tense quiet, the contemptuous monosyllable: “Packed!” Jeremy thought that he identified the voice as that of Judge Selden Dana. Then the reader pronounced the name of Professor Harvey Rappelje. “Wait!” said that gentleman.