"One would think we had come to drag you all off to jail, Ormsby and I," he said; and then he went on to explain. "It's about your Western Pacific stock, you know. To-day's quotations put it a point and a half above your purchase price, and we've come to persuade you to unload, _pronto_, as the member from the Rio Blanco would say." "Is that all?" said Penelope, stifling a yawn. "Then I'm not in it: I'm an infant." And she rose and went to the piano. "You haven't told us all of it: what has happened?" queried Elinor, speaking for the first time since her greeting of Kent. He briefed the story of House Bill Twenty-nine for her, pointing out the probabilities. "Of course, no one can tell what the precise effect will be," he qualified. "But in my opinion it is very likely to be destructive of dividends. Skipping the dry details, the new law, which is equitable enough on its face, can be made an engine of extortion in the hands of those who administer it. In fact, I happen to know that it was designed and carried through for that very purpose." She smiled. "I have understood you were in the opposition. Are you speaking politically?" "I am stating the plain fact," said Kent, nettled a little by her coolness. "Decadent Rome never lifted a baser set of demagogues into office than we have here in this State at the present moment." He spoke warmly, and she liked him best when he put her on the footing of an equal antagonist. "I can't agree with your inference," she objected. "As a people we are neither obsequious nor stupid." "Perhaps not. But it is one of the failures of a popular government that an honest majority may be controlled and directed by a small minority of shrewd rascals. That is exactly what has happened in the passage of this bill. I venture to say that not one man in ten who voted for it had the faintest suspicion that it was a 'graft'." "If that be true, what chances there are for men with the gift of true leadership and a love of pure justice in their hearts!" she said half-absently; and he started forward and said: "I beg pardon?" She let the blue-gray eyes meet his and there was a passing shadow of disappointment in them. "I ought to beg yours. I'm afraid I was thinking aloud. But it is one of my dreams. If I were a man I should go into politics." "To purify them?" "To do my part in trying. The great heart of the people is honest and well-meaning: I think we all admit that. And there is intelligence, too. But human nature is the same as it used to be when they set up a man who _could_ and called him a king. Gentle or simple, it must be led." "There is no lack of leadership, such as it is," he hazarded. "No; but there seems to be a pitiful lack of the right kind: men who will put self-seeking and unworthy ambition aside and lift the standard of justice and right-doing for its own sake. Are there any such men nowadays?"