—and he had not found the man who he felt could be trusted with negotiations so important and delicate; yet they must be entered upon at once; and he was temperamentally unfitted for the task himself; accustomed to command, he would not be good at supplication. Yet there was no one else he trusted this morning so much as he trusted himself.
True if he appeared among them suddenly, the people of Edgewater might leap upon him and tear him to pieces; yet Old Two Blades was not a coward. He took the chance. He ordered his car and descended for the first time into the smoldering city, daring the temper of the crowds.
Entirely alone, as advertising either his courage or his faith in his fellow citizens, he stepped out of his car at the courthouse—standing tall and nearly as erect, nearly as immaculate as ever. His manner was a bit complex—properly restrained as acknowledging sympathy with these victims of his, slightly humbled acknowledging that he himself had encountered bitter disaster; yet somehow dauntless besides, as insistent that though battered he was not broken, that he staggered but stood up. This manner was meant to show that he confessed a fault but that his will was still indomitable—that people, if they would be lenient and trust him once more, might yet have cause to be grateful to him.
And strangely the gathered throng neither spat upon him, nor spoke to him. It reviled him with silence. It did not clamor for his arrest for the gigantic fraud he had practiced. The people thought that would take care of itself. Their chief concern was in their own distresses and distractions. They wanted to know
