"
"We'll talk that over with Coulter. Personally I like this
'yellow-journalism'--when it's done intelligently. I always told Coulter
we'd have to come to it. It's only common sense to make a paper easy
reading. Then, too, we can have a great deal more influence--in fact, we
have already. I'm getting what I want up at Albany this winter much
cheaper."
Howard winced. "He made me feel like a blackmailer," he said to himself
when Stokely had gone. "And I suppose these fellows do look on me as a new
Malcolm with up-to-date tricks. Well, they will see, they will see."
He tried to go on with his work, but Stokely's cynical words persistently
interrupted him. Why had he not squarely challenged Stokely then and there?
Why had he only winced where a year ago he would have demanded an
explanation?
He hated to confess it to himself, he made every effort to smother it, but
the thought still stared him in the face--"I am not so strong in my ideals
of personal character as I was a year ago."
The fact that his present course was profitable gave him, he felt, more
pleasure than the fact that it was right. If the alternative of wealth and
power with self-abasement or poverty, obscurity with self-respect were put
to him now, what would he decide? Would he give up his prospects, his hopes
of Marian and of an easy career? He was afraid to answer.
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