The hour was that at which Westville arose from its accustomed mid-day dinner--which was the reason Katherine was calling at Blake's home instead of going downtown to his office. She was informed that he was in. Telling the maid she would await him in his library, where she knew he received all clients who called on business at his home, she ascended the well-remembered stairway and entered a large, light room with walls booked to the ceiling.
Despite her declaration to her father that that old love episode had been long forgotten by Mr. Blake, at this moment it was not forgotten by her. She could not subdue a fluttering agitation over the circumstance that she was about to appeal for succour to a man she had once refused.
She had but a moment to wait. Blake's tall, straight figure entered and strode rapidly across the room, his right hand outstretched.
"What--you, Katherine! I'm so glad to see you!"
She had risen. "And I to see you, Mr. Blake." For all he had once vowed himself her lover, she had never overcome her girlhood awe of him sufficiently to use the more familiar "Harrison."
"I knew you were coming home, but I had not expected to see you so soon. Please sit down again."
She resumed her soft leather-covered chair, and he took the swivel chair at his great flat-topped library desk. His manner was most cordial, but lurking beneath it Katherine sensed a certain constraint--due perhaps, to their old relationship--perhaps due to meeting a friend involved in a family disgrace.
Blake was close upon forty, with a dark, strong, handsome face, penetrating but pleasant eyes, and black hair slightly marked with gray. He was well dressed but not too well dressed, as became a public man whose following was largely of the country. His person gave an immediate impression of a polished but not over-polished gentleman--of a man who in acquiring a large grace of manner, has lost nothing of virility and bigness and purpose.
"It seems quite natural," Katherine began, smiling, and trying to speak lightly, "that each time I come home it is to congratulate you upon some new honour."
"New honour?" queried he.
"Oh, your name reaches even to New York! We hear that you are spoken of to succeed Senator Grayson when he retires next year."
"Oh, that!" He smiled--still with some constraint. "I won't try to make you believe that I'm indifferent about the matter. But I don't need to tell you that there's many a slip betwixt being 'spoken of'
and actually being chosen."
There was an instant of awkward silence. Then Katherine went straight to the business of her visit.
"Of course you know about father."
He nodded. "And I do not need to say, Katherine, how very, very sorry I am."
"I was certain of your sympathy. Things look black on the surface for him, but I want you to know that he is innocent."
"I am relieved to be assured of that," he said, hesitatingly. "For, frankly, as you say, things do look black."
She leaned forward and spoke rapidly, her hands tightly clasped.
"I have come to see you, Mr. Blake, because you have always been our friend--my friend, and a kinder friend than a young girl had any right to expect--because I know you have the ability to bring out the truth no matter how dark the circumstantial evidence may seem. I have come, Mr. Blake, to ask you, to beg you, to be my father's lawyer."
He stared at her, and his face grew pale.
"To be your father's lawyer?" he repeated.
"Yes, yes--to be my father's lawyer."
He turned in his chair and looked out to where the fountain was flinging its iridescent drapery to the wind. She gazed at his strong, clean-cut profile in breathless expectation.
"I again assure you he is innocent," she urged pleadingly. "I know you can clear him."
"You have evidence to prove his innocence?" asked Blake.
"That you can easily uncover."
He slowly swung about. Though with all his powerful will he strove to control himself, he was profoundly agitated, and he spoke with a very great effort.
"You have put me in a most embarrassing situation, Katherine."
She caught her breath.
"You mean?"
"I mean that I should like to help you, but--but----"
"Yes? Yes?"
"But I cannot."
"Cannot! You mean--you refuse his case?"
"It pains me, but I must."
She grew as white as death.
"Oh!" she breathed. "Oh!" She gazed at him, lips wide, in utter dismay.
Suddenly she seized his arm. "But you have not yet thought it over--you have not considered," she cried rapidly. "I cannot take no for your answer. I beg you, I implore you, to take the case."
He seemed to be struggling between two desires. A slender, well-knit hand stretched out and clutched a ruler; his brow was moist; but he kept silent.
"Mr. Blake, I beg you, I implore you, to reconsider," she feverishly pursued. "Do you not see what it will mean to my father? If you take the case, he is as good as cleared!"
His voice came forth low and husky. "It is because it is beyond my power to clear him that I refuse."
"Beyond your power?"
"Listen, Katherine," he answered. "I am glad you believe your father innocent. The faith you have is the faith a daughter ought to have. I do not want to hurt you, but I must tell you the truth--I do not share your faith."
"You refuse, then, because you think him guilty?"
He inclined his head. "The evidence is conclusive. It is beyond my power, beyond the power of any lawyer, to clear him."
This sudden failure of the aid she had so confidently counted as already hers, was a blow that for the moment completely stunned her.
She sank back in her chair and her head dropped down into her hands.
Blake wiped his face with his handkerchief. After a moment, he went on in an agitated, persuasive voice:
"I do not want you to think, because I refuse, that I am any less your friend. If I took the case, and did my best, your father would be convicted just the same. I am going to open my heart to you, Katherine. I should like very much to be chosen for that senatorship.
Naturally, I do not wish to do any useless thing that will impair my chances. Now for me, an aspirant for public favour, to champion against the aroused public the case of a man who has--forgive me the word--who has betrayed that public, and in the end to lose that case, as I most certainly should--it would be nothing less than political suicide. Your father would gain nothing. I would lose--perhaps everything. Don't you see?"