"It was really Sam they listened to--when he sent out the message asking them to let the law have its way.""No, I think it was the way you handled the message.You're a wizard at a speech, you know.""Thanks."
He glanced up, for Alphonse was waiting at his elbow."You're wanted on the telephone, monsieur.""You can't get away from business even for an hour, can you?" she rallied."My heaven ,wouldn't suit you at all, unless I smuggled in a trust for you to fight.""I expect it is Eaton," he explained."Steve phoned down to the office that he isn't feeling well to-day.I asked him to have me called up here.If he isn't better, I'm going to drop round and see him."But when she caught sight of his face as he returned she knew it was serious.
"What's the matter? Is it Mr.Eaton? Is he very ill?" she cried.
His face was set like broken ice refrozen."Yes, it's Eaton.They say-- but it can't be true!"She had never seen him so moved."What is it, Waring?""The boy has sold me out.He is at the courthouse now, undoing my work--the Judas!"The angry blood swept imperiously into her cheeks."Don't waste any more time with me, Waring.Go--go and save yourself from the traitor.Perhaps it is not too late yet."He flung her a grateful look."You're true blue, Virginia.Come! I'll leave you at the store as we pass."The defection of Eaton bit his chief to the quick.The force of the blow itself was heavy--how heavy he could not tell till he could take stock of the situation.He could see that he would be thrown out of court in the matter of the Consolidated Supply Company receivership, since Eaton's stock would now be in the hands of the enemy.But what was of more importance was the fact that Eaton's interest in the Mesa Ore-producing Company now belonged to Harley, who could work any amount of mischief with it as a lever for litigation.
The effect, too, of the man's desertion upon the morale of the M.O.P.forces must be considered and counteracted, if possible.He fancied he could see his subordinates looking shiftyeyed at each other and wondering who would slip away next.
If it had been anybody but Steve! He would as soon have distrusted his right hand as Steve Eaton.Why, he had made the man, had picked him out when he was a mere clerk, and tied him to himself by a hundred favors.Up on the Snake River he had saved Steve's life once when he was drowning.The boy had always been as close to him as a brother.That Steve should turn traitor was not conceivable.He knew all his intimate plans, stood second to himself in the company.Oh, it was a numbing blow! Ridgway's sense of personal loss and outrage almost obliterated for the moment his appreciation of the business loss.
The motion to revoke the receivership of the Supply Company was being argued when Ridgway entered the court-room.Within a few minutes the news had spread like wild-fire that Eaton was lined up with the Consolidated, and already the paltry dozen of loafers in the court-room had swelled into hundreds, all of them eager for any sensation that might develop.
Ridgway's broad shoulders flung aside the crowd and opened a way to the vacant chair waiting for him.One of his lawyers had the floor and was flaying Eaton with a vitriolic tongue, the while men craned forward all over the room to get a glimpse of the traitor's face.
Eaton sat beside Mott, dry-lipped and pallid, his set eyes staring vacantly into space.Once or twice he flung a furtive glance about him.His stripped and naked soul was enduring a foretaste of the Judgment Day.The whip of scorn with which the lawyer lashed him cut into his shrinking sensibilities, and left him a welter of raw and livid wales.Good God! why had he not known it would be like this? He was paying for his treachery and usury, and it was being burnt into him that as the years passed he must continue to pay in self-contempt and the distrust of his fellows.
The case had come to a hearing before Judge Hughes, who was not one of Ridgway's creatures.That on its merits it would be decided in favor of the Consolidated was a foregone conclusion.It was after the judge had rendered the expected decision that the dramatic moment of the day came to gratify the seasoned court frequenters.
Eaton, trying to slip as quietly as possible from the room, came face to face with his former chief.For an interminable instant the man he had betrayed, blocking the way squarely, held the trembling wretch in the blaze of his scorn.Ridgway's contemptuous eyes sifted to the ingrate's soul until it shriveled.Then he stood disdainfully to one side so that the man might not touch him as he passed.
Some one in the back of the room broke the tense silence and hissed: "The damned Judas!" Instantly echoes of "Judas! Judas!" filled the room, and pursued Eaton to his cab.It would be many years before he could recall without scalding shame that moment when the finger of public scorn was pointed at him in execration.
