Page:The council of seven.djvu/146

 had shown a desire to carry farther a casual acquaintance.

The truth was, no doubt, that they didn't quite set one another's genius. Rose Carburton was something of une maitresse femme and the dark shadow of the Colossus had fallen not without menace, as was its way, across her path. Over and beyond the fact that she was one of the most accomplished stalkers of the lion in Europe, she had her private ideas, her philosophy of life, her point of view. She was far more than a mere hunter of notoriety. Not only were her political instincts highly developed, but she had a faculty not always given to her sex, of seeing things "in the round." Mindful of the commonweal she had learned to look ahead. It may have been that, to a gaze so far-seeing, Saul Hartz was the writing on the wall.

The Colossus had much to occupy his thoughts in the ten days that lay between the arrival of the Society's ukase and the visit to Doe Hill. When, how or by what means he would be called to its presence, no word was given him. This thing had come as a sharp and distinctly unpleasant shock, yet considering the matter with the poise of mind on which he prided himself, he did not pretend for a moment that it was in any sense a surprise. At the core of being was a nest of dark designs. Their nature had only to be suspected for powerful and implacable foes to take the field against him who dared to harbor them.