As we have intimated, Kent had hitherto found Miss Portia's confidences exceedingly helpful in a business way, and he hesitated. "Tell me," he begged. "No, I can't remember it: I doubt if I shall ever remember it unless you can remind me by telling me why you are so desperately anxious to find Mr. Ormsby." "I wonder if you hold everybody up like this," he laughed. "But I don't mind telling you. Western Pacific preferred has gone to fifty-eight and a half." "And Mr. Ormsby has some to sell? I wish I had. Do you know what I'd do?" She drew closer and laid a hand on his arm. "I'd sell--by wire--to-night; at least, I'd make sure that my telegram would be the first thing my broker would lay his hands on in the morning." "On general principles, I suppose: so should I, and for the same reason. But have I succeeded in reminding you of that thing you were going to tell me?" "Not wholly; only partly. You said this matter of Mr. Ormsby's concerned Miss Brentwood--in a way--didn't you?" "You will have your pound of flesh entire, won't you? The stock is hers, and her mother's and sister's. I want Ormsby to persuade them to sell. They'll listen to him. That is all; all the all." "Of course!" she said airily. "How simple of me not to have been able to add it up without your help. I saw the quotation in the evening paper; and I know, better, perhaps, than you do, the need for haste. Must you go now?" She had taken his arm and was edging him through the press in the parlors toward the entrance hall. "_You_ haven't paid me yet," he objected. "No; I'm trying to remember. Oh, yes; I have it now. Wasn't some one telling me that you are interested in House Bill Twenty-nine?" They had reached the dimly lighted front vestibule, and her hand was still on his arm. "I was interested in it," he admitted, correcting the present to the past tense. "But after it went to the House committee on judiciary you left it to more skilful, or perhaps we'd better say, to less scrupulous hands?" "I believe you are a witch. Is there anything you don't know?" "Plenty of things. For example, I don't know exactly how much it cost our good friends of the 'vested interests' to have that bill mislaid in the committee room. But I do know they made a very foolish bargain." "Beyond all doubt a most demoralizing bargain, which, to say the best of it, was only a choice between two evils. But why foolish?" "Because--well, because mislaid things have a way of turning up unexpectedly, you know, and--" He stopped her in a sudden gust of feverish excitement. "Tell me what you mean in one word, Miss Van Brock. Don't those fellows intend to stay bought?" She smiled pityingly. "You are very young, Mr. David--or very honest. Supposing those 'fellows', as you dub the honorable members of the committee on judiciary, had a little plan of their own; a plan suggested by the readiness of certain of their opponents to rush into print with statements which might derange things?"