Morgan's teeth closed with a slight click. The sinews of his chest and arms tightened. Such insolence rightfully called for the chastisement of cane or dog-whip, he thought, but that was impossible. He might undertake to rebuke Boone openly but could hardly assume so high-handed a course with Anne—or in her presence. He would nevertheless conduct his own affairs in his own way; so, quietly and with no intimation that he had been a witness to what he construed as an actual embrace, he turned and went back to the stairhead.

From there his voice, raised in a conversational tone to reach his father in the study, carried with equal clarity to the room below.

"Father," he called, "I'll see you in the morning. I have to run down to the office for an hour or so now. I didn't quite finish looking over those latest depositions in the Sweeney case."

After having served that notice of his coming, he strolled casually down the stairs—to overhear nothing more incriminating than Anne's earnest exhortation: "Promise me not to take any foolish chances tomorrow," and Boone's laugh, deprecating the apprehension. Boone held only one hand now.

But Morgan ground his teeth. The young cub had doubtless been trying to capitalize his petty part in the petty political game, he reflected. That was about the thing one might expect from a youth pitchforked into polite society out of a vermin-infested log cabin, where the women smoked pipes and dipped snuff! But his own bearing was outwardly unruffled as he took down his hat from the old mahogany hall stand.

"Mr. Wellver," he suggested—(he always called Boone Mr. Wellver, because that was his way of indicating his line of aloofness against distasteful intimacy)—"could you come to the office this evening for a while? There's a matter I'd like to talk about."

Boone repressed the flash of surprise which the request brought into his eyes. He knew of no business at the office in which he and Morgan had shared responsibility, and heretofore Morgan had rather resented his participation in any work more responsible or dignified than that of an office boy or clerk.

"Why, yes," he answered. "I was going home, but of course if it's important, I'll be there."

"I regard it as important."

Boone caught the intimation of threat, but Anne, knowing little of law-office procedure, recognized only what she resentfully considered a peremptory and supercilious note.

Morgan nodded to Anne, and let himself out of the door, and less than an hour later Boone entered the office building, deserted now save for the night watchman, and for scattered suites, here and there, where window lights told of belated clerks toiling over ledgers, or lawyers over briefs.

As the young man from the mountains let himself in through the door that bore the name of his employer's firm, the other man was standing with his back turned and his eyes fixed on some trifle on his desk. The back of a standing figure, no less than its front, may be eloquent of its feelings, and had the shoulder blades of Colonel Wallifarro's gifted son been those of a hairy caveman, instead of an impeccably tailored modern, there would perhaps have been bristles standing erect along his spine. Wellver saw that warning of ugly mood in the instant before Morgan wheeled, and he wheeled with a military quickness and precision.

"I was a little bit puzzled," said the younger man, meeting the glaring eyes with a coldly steady glance, "at your asking me to come here tonight. I couldn't think of any work we'd been doing together."

"I won't leave you in perplexity long," the wrathful voice of the other assured him. "I asked you to come because I couldn't well say what needed to be said under my father's roof—while you were a guest there."

"I take it, then, that it's something uncomplimentary?"

"I mean to go further than that."

Boone nodded, but he came a step nearer, and the lids narrowed over his eyes. "Whatever you might feel like saying to me, Mr. Wallifarro," he announced evenly, "would be a thing I reckon I could answer in a like spirit. But because I owe your father so much—that I've got to be mighty guarded—I hope you won't push me too far."

"I haven't the right to say whom my father shall permit in his house," declared Morgan with, as yet, a certain remnant of restraint upon his anger, "but I do assert plainly and categorically that I shan't remain silent under the abuse of that hospitality."

"I'm afraid you're still leaving me in considerable perplexity. I believe you promised not to do that long."

"I'd rather not go into details—and I think you know what I mean. I came down the stairs there a short while ago. You were with Anne—and I didn't like the picture I saw."

"What picture?"

"For God's sake, at least be honest!" retorted Morgan passionately. "Whatever barbarities mountain men have, they are presumed to be outspoken and direct of speech."

"We generally aim to be. I'm asking you to be the same."

"Very well. I mean to marry Anne, who is my cousin—and whose social equal I am. It doesn't please me to have you confuse my father's welcome with the idea of free and easy liberty. Is that clear?"

Morgan was glaring up into Boone's eyes, since Boone stood several inches the taller, and Boone's fingers ached to take him by the neck and shake him as a terrier does a rat. The need of remembering whose son he was became a trying obligation.

"Does Anne—whose social equal you are—know—that you're going to marry her?" he inquired, with a quiet which should have warned Morgan had he just then been able to recognize warnings.

"Perhaps," was the curt rejoinder, and Boone laughed.

"No, Mr. Wallifarro," he said. "No—even that 'perhaps' is a lie. She doesn't so much as suspect it. As for me, I know you are not going to marry her."

Morgan had turned and walked around behind his desk, and as Boone added his paralyzing announcement, he threw open the drawer. "I aim to marry her myself—when I've made good—if she'll have me."

Morgan halted, half bent over, and his eyes burned madly.

"You!" he exclaimed, with a boiling over of contemptuous rage. "You damned baboon!"

The words had sent Wellver, like the force of uncoiled springs, vaulting over the table, and his face had gone paste-white. Yet as he landed on the far side he halted and drew himself rigidly straight, though to keep his arms inactive at his sides he had to tense every sinew from wrist to shoulder, until each fibre ached with the cramp of repression. He had caught himself on the brink of murder lust, with the murder fog in his eyes. He had caught himself and now he held himself with a desperate sense of need, though he saw Morgan's fingers close over the stock of a heavy revolver. He even smiled briefly as he noted that it was a gun with an elegant pearl grip.

"If any other man of God's earth had fathered you," he said, each word coming separately like the drippings from an icicle, "I'd prove that I wasn't only a baboon but a gorilla—and I'd prove it by pulling the snobbish head off of your damned, tailor-made shoulders. People don't generally say things like that to me and go free."

Morgan too was pallid with anger, and in neither of them was any tragedy-averting possibility of faltering courage. Wallifarro held the pistol before him, and gave back a step—only one, and that one not in retreat but in order that he might have a chance to speak before he was forced to fire.

"I realize perfectly," he said, "that physically I'd be helpless in your hands. I'm as much your inferior in brute strength as—as mentally and socially—you are—mine. I don't want to take any advantage of you—it seems that we have to fight.—I'm waiting for you to draw."

He paused there, breathing heavily, and Boone stood unmoving, his hands still at his sides.

"I'm not armed," he said, and now he had recovered a less strained composure. "Why should I come with a gun on me when a gentleman of high social standing invites me to his office?"

"You're quibbling," Morgan burst out with a fresh access of fury. "You've given me the right to demand satisfaction. You've got a pistol in your desk there, haven't you?"

"Maybe so. Why do you ask? Isn't one gun enough for you when your man's unarmed?"

"Great God," shouted the Colonel's son, "are you trying to goad me into insanity? You are going to need one sorely in a moment. I give you fair warning. I'm tired of waiting. Will you arm yourself?"

Boone shook his head.

"I told you when I came in here why I wouldn't fight you. I can't fight your father's son. You know as damned well as you know you're living that no other man on earth could say the things you've said and go unpunished—and you know just that damned well, too, why I'm holding my hand."

As he paused, both were breathing as heavily as though their battle had been violently physical instead of only verbal, and it was Boone who spoke next.

"Put away that gun," he ordered curtly. "Unless you're still bent on doing murder."

He stepped forward until his chest came in contact with the muzzle, his own hands still unlifted.

"Get back!" barked Morgan, who stood with his back against the desk. "If you crowd me I will shoot."

There was a swift panther-like sweep of Boone's right arm and Morgan felt fingers closing about his wrist. Then reason left him and he pressed the trigger.

But no report started echoes in the empty building. Morgan felt only the bone-crushing pressure that made his wrist ache as it was forced up, and then he saw that the hand which had closed vice-like on it had one finger thrust between the hammer and firing pin of his weapon.

The reaction left him dizzy, as he reflected that he had done all that man could do toward homicide and had been halted only by his unarmed adversary's quicker thought and action. Boone uncocked the firearm and laid it on the table, under the other's hand.

"I guess you see now," said Morgan in a low voice, "that after this the two of us can't stay in this office."

Boone nodded. "I know, too, that I've got to get out. You're his son, but"—his voice leaped—"but I know that having held myself in this long I can last a little longer. You're too sanctified for politics and dirty work like that. But your father's in it—and until this election is over I'm going to stay right with him—I'm going to do it because he's in actual danger. After that I'll quit—I'm not afraid of cooling off too much in the meantime, are you?"

"By God, NO!"