Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/234

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been able to manage and harder to resist, for Quackenbaugh's was a perceptibly finer soul. "You're not going to turn on me, Henry, are you? Hurricane Island is my scheme, you know. You're not going to make it hard for me, are you, with J. B.?" There was almost a quaver in the voice; and there was that about the way in which Quackenbaugh's misty eyes bored into his that made Harrington feel small and ornery.

"Of course I'm not, Quack. It's just——"

"But you are, Henry," persisted the president of Boland Cedar, in teary tones; "you are turning against me if you attack that lease."

"I'm going to attack it," announced Harrington resolutely.

Quackenbaugh calmed himself, accepting the inevitable. "I'm hurt, Henry—that's all," he said solemnly, and exchanged a glance with Scanlon.

Harrington felt a knife turning in his own heart, appreciating freshly what a fine manly fellowship it was to which he had been admitted in this Cabinet of Boland General, and realizing how much he wanted to retain that fellowship.

"Promise you won't say anything about it, Henry; this nutty notion of yours—not yet—till I can get some of the other boys to talk to you, won't you?" Scanlon pleaded wistfully.

"Why, sure, old man; let 'em come," Harrington's heart made answer. It was no use, of course, but—it was fair. He wrung the hands of the two more sympathetically at parting than he had ever wrung them before.

"They're making more of it than I expected," he