She rose and stood before him, leaning against one of the vine-clad porch pillars with her hands behind her. "David Kent, are there any circumstances in which you would accept a bribe?" He answered her in all seriousness. "They say every man has his price: mine is higher than any bid they have yet made--or can make, I hope." "Why don't you let _them_ bribe _you_?" she asked coolly. "Is it because it is inexpedient--because there is more 'success' the other way?" He tried to emulate her coolness and made a failure of it. "Have I ever done anything to make you think I had thrown common honesty and self-respect overboard?" he demanded. Her answer was another question, sharp-edged and well thrust home. "Is it any worse to take a bribe than it is to give one? You have just admitted that you are going to buy the governor's neutrality, you know." "I don't see it in that light at all." "The other David Kent would have seen it. He would have said: These men are public criminals. If I can not bring them to justice, I can at least expose them to the scorn of all good men. Therefore I have no right to bargain with them." Kent was silent for a long time. When he spoke it was to say: "Why have you done this, Elinor?" "Because I had to, David. Could I do less?" "I suppose not. It's in the blood--in your blood and mine. Other folk call it the Puritan virus of over-righteousness, and scoff at it. I don't know: sometimes I think they have the best of the argument." "I can't believe you are quite sincere when you say that," she asserted. "Yes, I am. One can not compromise with conscience; that says itself. But I have come to believe latterly that one's conscience may be morbidly acute, or even diseased. I'll admit I've been taking treatment." "That sounds very dreadful," she rejoined. "It does, doesn't it? Yet it had to be done. As I intimated a few minutes ago, my life has hitherto been a sort of unostentatious failure. I used to think it was because I was outclassed: I know now it has been because I wouldn't do as other men do. It has been a rather heart-breaking process--to sort out the scruples, admitting the just and overriding the others--but I have been given to see that it is the price of success." "I want you to succeed," she said. "Pardon me; I don't think you do. You have reopened the door to doubt, and if I admit the doubt I shall fail." The sonata Penelope was playing was approaching its finale, and Elinor was suddenly shaken with a trembling fit of fear--the fear of consequences which might involve this man's entire future. She knew Kent was leaning on her, and she saw herself as one who has ruthlessly thrust an iron bar among the wheels of a delicate mechanism. Who was she to be his conscience-keeper--to stand in the way and bid him go back? Were her own motives always so exalted? Had she not once deliberately debated this same question of expediency, to the utter abasement of her own ideals?