Blount thrust the big envelope into his pocket unopened,
and later in the day, when he went around to his bank to put the
evidence letters into his safe-deposit box, the incident of the morning
had lost its significance so completely, or had been so deeply buried
under other and more important matters, that he deposited the packet
without examining it.
The evening of this same day there was a dance given by the Gordons in
the ranchman candidate's big house opposite the Weatherfords' in Mesa
Circle, and Blount went, hoping that Patricia would be there. She was
there; and in the heart of the evening, when Blount had persuaded her to
sit out a dance with him in a corner of the homelike reception-hall, he
began to pry at a little stone of stumbling which was threatening to
grow too large to be easily rolled aside.
"I'm hunting a conscience to-night," he said, without preface. "Have you
got one that you could lend me?"
She laughed lightly.
"You told me once that I had the New England conscience--which was the
same as saying that I had enough for my own needs and a surplus to pass
around among my friends. What bad thing have you been doing now?"
He made a wry face. "It's the 'practical politics' again. Suppose I say
that I have obtained positive evidence of a crime against the laws of
the State and the nation.
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