Covington found himself being rapidly forced into an equivocal position. No one knew so well as he that the present conditions were the direct result of his skilful and persistent manipulation, yet the result of this first issue had not been what he had foreseen. In fact, it had turned out better than he had expected, in that Gorham now leaned on him as his sole support. Yet it was dangerous, Covington realized, to be placed where he could be accused of carrying water on both shoulders, so he hastened to put himself on record, midway between the two factions. "They had no idea that you laid so much stress on the moral side, in your own mind--" he began. "How could they have known me at all and thought otherwise?" "The whole scheme of the Consolidated Companies is so unusual that perhaps it isn't to be wondered at. What you consider to be unwarranted is a recognized business method in other corporations." "Why do you tell me this?" Gorham demanded, suddenly. "Because I feared that you had overlooked it, in the heat of the argument, and some sort of a compromise is of course necessary." "Compromise?" repeated Gorham, questioningly. "I don't follow you." "Why, you've carried your point, and proved your strength, but you have divided the Companies into two camps. Of course something must be done to conciliate. By Jove! that was an arraignment you gave them!" "There can be no conciliation, Covington," was the firm response; "there can be no compromise. The Consolidated Companies either is what it is, or it is nothing. The pledges which I have made from the beginning shall be lived up to in spirit and in letter, or the final exercise of the strength which they all are forced to admit shall be again to separate it into its integral parts, and prevent it from undoing that which I have already accomplished through its agency." "That is a large contract for any one man to undertake," Covington remarked. "No individual has yet been able to disintegrate a successful going corporation when the stockholders and the directors were opposed to it." "We are talking of unusual things," Gorham replied. "No individual before has been able to found so mammoth or so successful a corporation as the Consolidated Companies. No individual before this has found himself strong enough to force the immediate capitulation, against their wills, of so powerful an Executive Committee. With these precedents before me, I state my determination not as a threat, or as a boast, but as a fact." "Are you counting on the stockholders for support?" "Absolutely." "You will find them as unanimously against you as you have just found the committee." "Do you know this?" "They all know it; they would not have taken their position otherwise. Next time, the stockholders will be put in evidence." Gorham again became silent. This second shock, following so soon after the first, for a moment paralyzed his power to think, but he quickly recovered his optimism.