His conscience was troubling him; and he was trying to quiet it with Kite’s more or less specious argument that this was politics, not morality. If Chase had been asked to come out, point-blank, and champion the nonenforcement of the liquor law, he would have refused; and he would have refused with indignation at the suggestion. But the issue was not so clear as that. It was clouded by his dislike for Amos. It was not merely a question of enforcing the law; it was a question of balking Amos Caretall. And Chase was prepared to go a long way to put a spoke in Amos’s wheel. Wint had not yet come, when he reached his home; and he was glad of that. It gave him some leeway, gave him some further time to think. But his thoughts ran in an endless circle; his convictions countered his enmity toward Amos. It was only by small degrees that his attitude toward Amos crowded other considerations out of his mind. He was gradually coming to the point of decision when he heard Wint at the door. Mrs. Chase met Wint in the front hall, and told him hurriedly: “Now, Wint, you’re late again. You run right upstairs and wash your face and hands. Supper’s all ready, and Hetty wants to go out, and I don’t want to keep her waiting any--” Wint laughed, and kissed her, and told her he would hurry, and he was gone up the stairs, two steps at a time, while his mother still talked to him. When he came down, his father and mother had already gone into the dining room. He followed them, answered his father’s “Good evening, Wint,” in an abstracted way, and sat down hurriedly. He did not look toward his father; he was conscious he had not done the fair thing in failing to tell the older man of his orders to Radabaugh. He felt guilty. Mrs. Chase never allowed any gaps in the conversation to go unplugged; and since Wint and his father were both normal men, with normal appetites, she did most of the talking during the early part of the meal, while they ate. It was only when Hetty brought on a thick rhubarb pie and Mrs. Chase began to cut it that Chase said casually to his son: “Well, Wint, I hear you’ve set out to clean up Hardiston.” Wint gulped what was in his mouth, and uneasily admitted that this was true. Mrs. Chase was talking to Hetty about the pie and did not hear what they said. Chase asked: “What does Amos think of that?” Wint looked for an instant at his father. “Thinks it’s all right,” he said. Mrs. Chase came back into the conversation then. She had the aggravating habit of catching the tail end of a story or a remark and demanding that the whole be repeated for her benefit. “What’s all right?” she asked. “What’s all right, Wint? Who thinks it’s all right? It keeps me so busy looking after things here that it seems like I never hear what’s going on. What is it that--” Chase told her quietly: “Wint has given Marshal Radabaugh orders not to allow any more selling of liquor in Hardiston.”