When he awoke again he felt that he should get well rapidly. He was
weak, but it seemed the weakness of hunger rather than of illness. His
head was clear, his nerves tranquil; his mind was as hungry for action
as his body was for food.
"As soon as I've had something to eat," he said to himself, "I'll be
better than for years. I needed this." And straightway he began to
take hold of the outside world.
"Are you there, Pauline?" he asked, after perhaps half an hour during
which his mind had swiftly swept the whole surface of his affairs.
The nurse rose from the lounge across the foot of the bed. "Your wife
was worn out, Mr. Dumont," she began. "She has--"
"What day is it?" he interrupted.
"Thursday."
"Of the month, I mean."
"The seventeenth," she answered, smiling in anticipation of his
astonishment.
But he said without change of expression,
"Then I've been ill three weeks and three days. Tell Mr. Culver I wish
to see him at once."
"But the doctor--"
"Damn the doctor," replied Dumont, good-naturedly. "Don't irritate me
by opposing. I shan't talk with Culver a minute by the clock. What I
say will put my mind at rest. Then I'll eat something and sleep for a
day at least."
The nurse hesitated, but his eyes fairly forced her out of the room to
fetch Culver. "Now remember, Mr. Dumont--less than a minute," she
said. "I'll come back in just sixty seconds."
"Come in forty," he replied. When she had closed the door he said to
Culver: "What are the quotations on Woolens?"
"Preferred twenty-eight; Common seven," answered Culver. "They've been
about steady for two weeks."
"Good. And what's Great Lakes and Gulf?"
Culver showed his surprise. "I'll have to consult the paper," he said.
"You never asked me for that quotation before. I'd no idea you'd want
it." He went to the next room and immediately returned. "G. L. and G.
one hundred and two."
Dumont smiled with a satisfied expression.
"Now--go down-town--what time is it?"
"Eight o'clock."
"Morning?"
"Yes, sir, morning."
"Go down-town at once and set expert accountants--get Evarts and
Schuman--set them at work on my personal accounts with the Woolens
Company. Tell everybody I'm expected to die, and know it, and am
getting facts for making my will. And stay down-town yourself all
day--find out everything you can about National Woolens and that
raiding crowd and about Great Lakes and Gulf. The better you succeed in
this mission the better it'll be for you. Thank you, by the way, for
keeping my accident quiet. Find out how the Fanning-Smiths are
carrying National Woolens. Find out--"
The door opened and the plain, clean figure of the nurse appeared.
"The minute's up," she said.
"One second more, please. Close the door." When she had obeyed he
went on: "See Tavistock--you know you must be careful not to let any
one at his office know that you're connected with me. See him--ask
him--no, telephone Tavistock to come at once--and you find out all you
can independently--especially about the Fanning-Smiths and Great Lakes
and Gulf."
"Very well," said Culver.
"A great deal depends on your success," continued Dumont--"a great deal
for me, a great deal--a VERY great deal for you."
His look met Culver's and each seemed satisfied with what he saw. Then
Culver went, saying to himself: "What makes him think the
Fanning-Smiths were mixed up in the raid? And what on earth has G. L.
and G. got to do with it? Gad, he's a WONDER!" The longer Culver
lived in intimacy with Dumont the greater became to him the mystery of
his combination of bigness and littleness, audacity and caution, devil
and man. "It gets me," he often reflected, "how a man can plot to rob
millions of people in one hour and in the next plan endowments for
hospitals and colleges; despise public opinion one minute and the next
be courting it like an actor. But that's the way with all these big
fellows. And I'll know how to do it when I get to be one of 'em."
As the nurse reentered Dumont's bedroom he called out, lively as a boy:
"SOMETHING to eat! ANYthing to eat! EVERYthing to eat!"
The nurse at first flatly refused to admit Tavistock. But at half-past
nine he entered, tall, lean, lithe, sharp of face, shrewd of eye,
rakish of mustache; by Dumont's direction he closed and locked the
door. "Why!" he exclaimed, "you don't look much of a sick man. You're
thin, but your color's not bad and your eyes are clear. And down-town
they have you dying."
Dumont laughed. Tavistock instantly recognized in laugh and look
Dumont's battle expression. "Dying--yes. Dying to get at 'em.
Tavistock, we'll kick those fellows out of Wall Street before the
middle of next week. How much Great Lakes is there floating on the
market?"
Tavistock looked puzzled. He had expected to talk National Woolens,
and this man did not even speak of it, seemed absorbed in a stock in
which Tavistock did not know he had any interest whatever. "G. L. and
G.?" he said. "Not much--perhaps thirty thousand shares. It's been
quiet for a long time. It's an investment stock, you know."
Dumont smiled peculiarly. "I want a list of the stock-holders--not
all, only those holding more than a thousand shares."
"There aren't many big holders. Most of the stock's in small lots in
the middle West."
"So much the better."
"I'm pretty sure I can get you a fairly accurate list."
Tavistock, Dumont's very private and personal broker, had many curious
ways of reaching into the carefully guarded books and other business
secrets of brokers and of the enterprises listed on the New York Stock
Exchange. He and Dumont had long worked together in the speculative
parts of Dumont's schemes. Dumont was the chief source of his rapidly
growing fortune, though no one except Culver, not even Mrs. Tavistock,
knew that they had business relations. Dumont moved through Tavistock
secretly, and Tavistock in turn moved through other agents secretly.
But for such precautions as these the great men of Wall Street would be
playing with all the cards exposed for the very lambs to cock their
ears at.
"I want it immediately," said Dumont. "Only the larger holders, you
understand."
"Haste always costs. I'll have to get hold of a man who can get hold
of some one high up in the Great Lakes dividend department."
"Pay what you must--ten--twenty thousand--more if necessary. But get it
to-night!"
"I'll try."
"Then you'll get it."
He slept, with a break of fifteen minutes, until ten the next morning.
Then Tavistock appeared with the list. "It was nearly midnight before
my man could strike a bargain, so I didn't telephone you. The dividend
clerk made a memory list. I had him verify it this morning as early as
he could get at the books. He says at least a third of the road is
held in small lots abroad. He's been in charge of the books for twenty
years, and he says there have been more changes in the last two months
than in all that time. He thinks somebody has sold a big block of the
stock on the quiet."
Dumont smiled significantly. "I think I understand that," he said. He
glanced at the list. "It's even shorter than I thought."
"You notice, one-third of the stock's tied up in the Wentworth estate,"
said Tavistock.
"Yes. And here's the name of Bowen's dividend clerk. Bowen is
traveling in the far East. Probably he's left no orders about his
Great Lakes--why should he when it's supposed to be as sound and steady
as Government bonds? That means another fifty thousand shares out of
the way for our purposes. Which of these names stand for the
Fanning-Smiths?"
"I only recognize Scannell--James Fanning-Smith's private secretary.
But there must be others, as he's down for only twenty-one thousand
shares."
"Then he's the only one," said Dumont, "for the Fanning-Smiths have
only twenty-one thousand shares at the present time. I know that
positively."
"What!" Tavistock showed that he was astounded. "I knew James
Fanning-Smith was an ass, but I never suspected him of such folly as
that. So they are the ones that have been selling?"
"Yes--not only selling what they owned but also-- However, no matter.
It's safe to say there are less than a hundred and fifty thousand
shares for us to take care of. I want you to get me--right
away--options for fifteen days on as many of these remaining big lots
as possible. Make the best terms you can--anything up to one hundred
and twenty-five--and offer five or even ten dollars a share forfeit for
the option. Make bigger offers--fifteen--where it's necessary. Set
your people to work at once. They've got the rest of to-day, all day
to-morrow, all day Sunday. But I'd rather the whole thing were closed
up by Saturday night. I'll be satisfied when you've got me control of
a hundred thousand shares--that'll be the outside of safety."
"Yes, you're reasonably sure to win, if you can carry that and look
after offerings of fifty thousand in the market. The options on the
hundred thousand shares oughtn't to cost you much more than a million.
The fifty thousand you'll have to buy in the market may cost you six or
seven millions." Tavistock recited these figures carelessly. In
reality he was watching Dumont shrewdly, for he had believed that the
National Woolens raid had ruined him, had certainly put him out of the
large Wall Street moves.
"In that small drawer, to the left, in the desk there," said Dumont,
pointing. "Bring me the Inter-State National check-book, and pen and
ink."
When he had the book he wrote eight checks, the first for fifty
thousand, the next five for one hundred thousand each, the last two for
two hundred and fifty thousand each. "The first check," he said, "you
may use whenever you like. The others, except the last two, will be
good after two o'clock to-day. The last two can be used any time after
eleven to-morrow. And--don't forget! I'm supposed to be hopelessly
ill--but then, no one must know you've seen me or know anything about
me. Spread it as a rumor."
Tavistock went away convinced, enthusiastic. There was that in Dumont
which inspired men to their strongest, most intelligent efforts. He
was harsh, he was tyrannical, treacherous even--in a large way, often
cynically ungrateful. But he knew how to lead, knew how to make men
forget all but the passion for victory, and follow him loyally.
Tavistock had seen his financial brain solve too many "unsolvable"
problems not to have confidence in it.
"I might have known!" he reflected. "Why, those fellows apparently
only scotched him. They got the Woolens Company away from him. He
lets it go without a murmur when he sees he's beaten, and he turns his
mind to grabbing a big railway as if Woolens had never existed."
Just after his elevated train passed Chatham Square on the way
down-town Tavistock suddenly slapped his leg with noisy energy and
exclaimed half-aloud, "By Jove, of course!" to the amusement of those
near him in the car. He went on to himself: "Why didn't I see it
before? Because it's so beautifully simple, like all the things the
big 'uns do. He's a wonder. So THAT'S what he's up to? Gad, what a
breeze there'll be next week!"
At eleven o'clock Doctor Sackett came into Dumont's bedroom, in arms
against his patient.
"You're acting like a lunatic. No business, I say--not for a week.
Absolute quiet, Mr. Dumont, or I'll not answer for the consequences."
"I see you want to drive me back into the fever," replied Dumont. "But
I'm bent on getting well. I need the medicine I've had this morning,
and Culver's bringing me another dose. If I'm not better when he
leaves, I agree to try your prescription of fret and fume."
"You are risking your life."
Dumont smiled. "Possibly. But I'm risking it for what's more than
life to me, my dear Sackett."
"You'll excite yourself. You'll----"
"On the contrary, I shall calm myself. I'm never so calm and cheerful
as when I'm fighting, unless it's when I'm getting ready to fight.
There's something inside me--I don't know what--but it won't let me
rest till it has pushed me into action. That's my nature. If any one
asks how I am, say you've no hope of my recovery."
"I shall tell only the truth in that case," said Sackett, but with
resignation--he was beginning to believe that for his extraordinary
patient extraordinary remedies might be best.
Dumont listened to Culver's report without interrupting him once.
Culver's position had theretofore been most disadvantageous to himself.
He had been too near to Dumont, had been merged in Dumont's big
personality. Whatever he did well seemed to Dumont merely the direct
reflection of his own abilities; whatever he did ill seemed far more
stupid than a similar blunder made by a less intimate subordinate--what
excuse for Culver's going wrong with the guiding hand of the Great Man
always upon him?
In this, his first important independent assignment, he had at last an
opportunity to show his master what he could do, to show that he had
not learned the Dumont methods parrot-fashion, but intelligently, that
he was no mere reflecting asteroid to the Dumont sun, but a
self-luminous, if lesser and dependent, star.
Dumont was in a peculiarly appreciative mood.
"Why, the fellow's got brains--GOOD brains," was his inward comment
again and again as Culver unfolded the information he had
collected--clear, accurate, non-essentials discarded, essentials given
in detail, hidden points brought to the surface.
It was proof positive of Dumont's profound indifference to money that
he listened without any emotion either of anger or of regret to the
first part of Culver's tale, the survey of the wreck--what had been
forty millions now reduced to a dubious six. Dumont had neither time
nor strength for emotion; he was using all his mentality in gaging what
he had for the work in hand--just how long and how efficient was the
broken sword with which he must face his enemies in a struggle that
meant utter ruin to him if he failed. For he felt that if he should
fail he would never again be able to gather himself together to renew
the combat; either he would die outright or he would abandon himself to
the appetite which had just shown itself dangerously near to being the
strongest of the several passions ruling him.
When Culver passed to the Herron coterie and the Fanning-Smiths and
Great Lakes and Gulf, Dumont was still motionless--he was now
estimating the strength and the weaknesses of the enemy, and
miscalculation would be fatal. At the end of three-quarters of an hour
Culver stopped the steady, swift flow of his report--"That's all the
important facts. There's a lot more but it would be largely
repetition."
Dumont looked at him with an expression that made him proud. "Thanks,
Culver. At the next annual meeting we'll elect you to Giddings' place.
Please go back down-town and--" He rapidly indicated half a dozen
points which Culver had failed to see and investigate--the best
subordinate has not the master's eye; if he had, he would not be a
subordinate.
Dumont waved his hand in dismissal and settled himself to sleep. When
Culver began to stammer thanks for the promised promotion, he frowned.
"Don't bother me with that sort of stuff. The job's yours because
you've earned it. It'll be yours as long as you can hold it down--or
until you earn a better one. And you'll be loyal as Giddings was--just
as long as it's to your interest and not a second longer. Otherwise
you'd be a fool, and I'd not have you about me. Be off!"
He slept an hour and a half, then Pauline brought him a cup of beef
extract--"A very small cup," he grumbled good-humoredly. "And a very
weak, watery mess in it."
As he lay propped in his bed drinking it--slowly to make it last the
longer--Pauline sat looking at him. His hands had been fat and puffy;
she was filled with pity as she watched the almost scrawny hand holding
the cup to his lips; there were hollows between the tendons, and the
wrist was gaunt. Her gaze wandered to his face and rested there, in
sympathy and tenderness. The ravages of the fever had been
frightful--hollows where the swollen, sensual cheeks had been; the neck
caved in behind and under the jaw-bones; loose skin hanging in wattles,
deeply-set eyes, a pinched look about the nostrils and the corners of
the mouth. He was homely, ugly even; except the noble curve of head
and profile, not a trace of his former good looks--but at least that
swinish, fleshy, fleshly expression was gone.
A physical wreck, battered, torn, dismantled by the storm and fire of
disease! It was hard for her to keep back her tears.
Their eyes met and his instantly shifted. The rest of the world saw
the man of force bent upon the possessions which mean fame and honor
regardless of how they are got. He knew that he could deceive the
world, that so long as he was rich and powerful it would refuse to let
him undeceive it, though he might strive to show it what he was. But
he knew that SHE saw him as he really was--knew him as only a husband
and a wife can know each the other. And he respected her for the
qualities which gave her a right to despise him, and which had forced
her to exercise that right. He felt himself the superior of the rest
of his fellow-beings, but her inferior; did she not successfully defy
him; could she not, without a word, by simply resting her calm gaze
upon him, make him shift and slink?
He felt that he must change the subject--not of their conversation, for
they were not talking, but of their--her--thoughts. He did not know
precisely what she was thinking of him, but he was certain that it was
not anything favorable how could it be? In fact, fight though she did
against the thought, into her mind as she looked, pitying yet
shrinking, came his likeness to a wolf--starved and sick and gaunt, by
weakness tamed into surface restraint, but in vicious teeth, in savage
lips, in jaw made to crush for love of crushing, a wicked wolf,
impatient to resume the life of the beast of prey.
By a mischance unavoidable in a mind filled as was his he began to tell
of his revenge--of the exhibition of power he purposed to give, sudden
and terrible. He talked of his enemies as a cat might of a mouse it
was teasing in the impassable circle of its paws. She felt that they
deserved the thunderbolt he said he was about to hurl into them, but
she could not help feeling pity for them. If what he said of his
resources and power were true, how feeble, how helpless they
were--pygmies fatuously disporting themselves in the palm of a giant's
hand, unconscious of where they were, of the cruel eyes laughing at
them, of the iron muscles that would presently contract that hand
and--she shuddered; his voice came to her in a confused murmur.
"If he does not stop I shall loathe him AGAIN!" she said to herself.
Then to him: "Perhaps you'd like to see Langdon--he's in the
drawing-room with Gladys."
"I sent for him two hours ago. Yes, tell him to come up at once."
As she took the cup he detained her hand. She beat down the impulse to
snatch it away, let it lie passive. He pressed his lips upon it.
"I haven't thanked you for coming back," he said in a low voice,
holding to her hand nervously.
"But you know it wasn't because I'm not grateful, don't you? I can
hardly believe yet that it isn't a dream. I'd have said there wasn't a
human being on earth who'd have done it--except your mother. No, not
even you, only your mother."
At this tribute to her mother, unexpected, sincere, tears dimmed
Pauline's eyes and a sob choked up into her throat.
"It was your mother in you that made you come," he went on. "But you
came--and I'll not forget it. You said you had come to stay--is that
so, Pauline?"
She bent her head in assent.
"When I'm well and on top again--but there's nothing in words. All I'll
say is, you're giving me a chance, and I'll make the best of it. I've
learned my lesson."
He slowly released her hand. She stood there a moment, without
speaking, without any definite thought. Then she left to send Langdon.
"Yes," Dumont reflected, "it was her duty. It's a woman's duty to be
forgiving and gentle and loving and pure--they're made differently from
men. It was unnatural, her ever going away at all. But she's a good
woman, and she shall get what she deserves hereafter. When I settle
this bill for my foolishness I'll not start another."
Duty--that word summed up his whole conception of the right attitude of
a good woman toward a man. A woman who acted from love might change
her mind; but duty was safe, was always there when a man came back from
wanderings which were mere amiable, natural weaknesses in the male.
Love might adorn a honeymoon or an escapade; duty was the proper
adornment of a home.
"I've just been viewing the wreck with Culver," he said, as Langdon
entered, dressed in the extreme of the latest London fashion.
"Much damage?"
"What didn't go in the storm was carried off by Giddings when he
abandoned the ship. But the hull's there and--oh, I'll get her off and
fix her up all right."
"Always knew Giddings was a rascal. He oozes piety and respectability.
That's the worst kind you have down-town. When a man carries so much
character in his face--it's like a woman who carries so much color in
her cheeks that you know it couldn't have come from the inside."
"You're wrong about Giddings. He's honest enough. Any other man would
have done the same in his place. He stayed until there was no hope of
saving the ship."
"All lost but his honor--Wall Street honor, eh?"
"Precisely."
After a pause Langdon said: "I'd no idea you held much of your own
stock. I thought you controlled through other people's proxies and
made your profits by forcing the stock up or down and getting on the
other side of the market."
"But, you see, I believe in Woolens," replied Dumont. "And I believe
in it still, Langdon!" His eyes had in them the look of the fanatic.
"That concern is breath and blood and life to me, and wife and children
and parents and brothers and sisters. I've put my whole self into it.
I conceived it. I brought it into the world. I nursed it and brought
it up. I made it big and strong and great. It's mine, by heaven!
MINE! And no man shall take it from me!"
He was sitting up, his face flushed, his eyes blazing. "Gad--he does
look a wild beast!" said Langdon to himself. He would have said aloud,
had Dumont been well: "I'm precious glad I ain't the creature those
fangs are reaching for!" He was about to caution him against exciting
himself when Dumont sank back with a cynical smile at his own outburst.
"But to get down to business," he went on. "I've eleven millions of
the stock left--about a hundred and twenty thousand shares. Gladys has
fifty thousand shares--how much have you got?"
"Less than ten thousand. And I'd have had none at all if my mind
hadn't been full of other things as I was sailing. I forgot to tell my
broker to sell."
Dumont was reflecting. Presently he said: "Those curs not only took
most of my stock and forced the sale of most of my other securities;
they've put me in such a light that outside stockholders wouldn't send
me their proxies now. To get back control I must smash them, and I
must also acquire pretty nearly half the shares, and hold them till I'm
firm in the saddle again."
"You'd better devote yourself for the present to escaping the grave.
Why bother about business? You've got enough--too much, as it is.
Take a holiday--go away and amuse yourself."
Dumont smiled. "That's what I'm going to do, what I'm doing--amusing
myself. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't live, if I didn't feel that I was
on my way back to power. Now--in the present market I couldn't borrow
on my Woolens stock. I've two requests to make of you."
"Anything that's possible."
"The first is, I want you to lend me four millions, or, rather,
negotiate the loan for me, as if it were for yourself. I've got about
that amount in Governments, in several good railways and in the
property here. The place at Saint X is Pauline's, but the things I can
put up would bring four millions and a half at least at forced sale.
So, you'll be well secured. I'm asking you to do it instead of doing
it myself because, if I'm to win out, the Herron crowd must think I'm
done for and nearly dead."
Langdon was silent several minutes. At last he said: "What's your
plan?"
Dumont looked irritated--he did not like to be questioned, to take any
one into his confidence. But he restrained his temper and said: "I'm
going to make a counter-raid. I know where to strike."
"Are you sure?"
Dumont frowned. "Don't disturb yourself," he said coldly. "I can
arrange the loan in another way."
"I'm asking you only for your own sake, Jack," Langdon hastily
interposed. "Of course you can have the money, and I don't want your
security."
"Then I'll not borrow through you." Dumont never would accept a favor
from any one. He regarded favors as profitable investments but ruinous
debts.
"Oh--very well--I'll take the security," said Langdon. "When do you
want the money?"
"It must be covered into my account at the Inter-State
National--remember, NOT the National Industrial, but the Inter-State
National. A million must be deposited to-day--the rest by ten o'clock
to-morrow at the latest."
"I'll attend to it. What's your other request?"
"Woolens'll take another big drop on Monday and at least two hundred
and fifty thousand shares'll be thrown on the market at perhaps an
average price of eighteen--less rather than more. I want you quietly
to organize a syndicate to buy what's offered. They must agree to sell
it to me for, say, two points advance on what they pay for it. I'll
put up--in your name--a million dollars in cash and forfeit it if I
don't take the stock off their hands. As Woolens is worth easily
double what it now stands at, they can't lose. Of course the whole
thing must be kept secret."
Langdon deliberated this proposal. Finally he said: "I think
brother-in-law Barrow and his partner and I can manage it."
"You can assure them they'll make from six hundred thousand to a
million on a less than thirty days' investment of four millions and a
half, with no risk whatever."
"Just about that," assented Langdon--he had been carefully brought up
by his father to take care of a fortune and was cleverer at figures
than he pretended.
"Do your buying through Tavistock," continued Dumont. "Give him orders
to take on Monday all offerings of National Woolens, preferred and
common, at eighteen or less. He'll understand what to do."
"But I may be unable to get up the syndicate on such short notice."
"You must," said Dumont. "And you will. You can get a move on
yourself when you try--I found that out when I was organizing my
original combine. One thing more--very important. Learn for me all
you can--without being suspected--about the Fanning-Smiths and Great
Lakes."
He made Langdon go over the matters he was to attend to, point by
point, before he would let him leave. He was asleep when the nurse,
sent in by Langdon on his way out, reached his bed--the sound and
peaceful sleep of a veteran campaigner whose nerves are trained to take
advantage of every lull.
At ten the next morning he sent the nurse out of his room. "And close
the doors," he said, "and don't come until I ring." He began to use
the branch telephone at his bedside, calling up Langdon, and then
Tavistock, to assure himself that all was going well. Next he called
up in succession five of the great individual money-lenders of Wall
Street, pledged them to secrecy and made arrangements for them to call
upon him at his house at different hours that day and Sunday. Another
might have intrusted the making of these arrangements to Culver or
Langdon, but Dumont never let any one man know enough of his plan of
battle to get an idea of the whole.
"Now for the ammunition," he muttered, when the last appointment was
made. And he rang for Culver.
Culver brought him writing materials. "Take this order," he said, as
he wrote, "to the Central Park Safety Deposit vaults and bring me from
my compartment the big tin box with my initials in white--remember, IN
WHITE--on the end of it."
Three-quarters of an hour later Culver returned, half-carrying,
half-dragging the box. Dumont's eyes lighted up at sight of it. "Ah!"
he said, in a sigh of satisfaction and relief. "Put it under the head
of the bed here. Thanks. That's all."
The nurse came as Culver left, but he sent her away. He supported
himself to the door, locked it. He took his keys from the night-stand,
drew out the box and opened it. On the mass of stocks and bonds lay an
envelope containing two lists--one, of the securities in the box that
were the property of Gladys Dumont; the other, of the securities there
that were the property of Laura Dumont, their mother.
His hands shook as he unfolded these lists, and a creaking in the walls
or flooring made him start and glance round with the look of a
surprised thief. But this weakness was momentary. He was soon
absorbed in mentally arranging the securities to the best advantage for
distribution among the money-lenders as collateral for the cash he
purposed to stake in his game.
Such thought as he gave to the moral quality of what he was doing with
his sister's and his mother's property without asking their consent was
altogether favorable to himself. His was a well-trained, "practical"
conscience. It often anticipated his drafts upon it for moral support
in acts that might at first blush seem criminal, or for soothing
apologies for acts which were undeniably "not QUITE right." This
particular act, conscience assured him, was of the highest
morality--under his own code. For the code enacted by ordinary human
beings to guide their foolish little selves he had no more respect than
a lion would have for a moral code enacted by and for sheep. The sheep
might assert that their code was for lions also; but why should that
move the lions to anything but amusement? He had made his own
code--not by special revelation from the Almighty, as did some of his
fellow practitioners of high finance, but by especial command of his
imperial "destiny." And it was a strict code--it had earned him his
unblemished reputation for inflexible commercial honesty and commercial
truthfulness. The foundation principle was his absolute right to the
great property he had created. This being granted, how could there be
immorality in any act whatsoever that might be necessary to hold or
regain his kingdom? As well debate the morality of a mother in
"commandeering" bread or even a life to save her baby from death.
His kingdom! His by discovery, his by adroit appropriation, his by
intelligent development, his by the right of mental might--HIS! Stake
his sister's and his mother's possessions for it? Their lives, if
necessary!
Than John Dumont, president of the Woolens Monopoly, there was no
firmer believer in the gospel of divine right--the divine right of this
new race of kings, the puissant lords of trade.
When he had finished his preparations for the money-lenders he unlocked
the door and sank into bed exhausted. Hardly had he settled himself
when, without knocking, Gladys entered, Pauline just behind her. His
face blanched and from his dry throat came a hoarse, strange cry--it
certainly sounded like fright. "You startled me--that was all," he
hastened to explain, as much to himself as to them. For, a something
inside him had echoed the wondering inquiry in the two women's faces--a
something that persisted in reverencing the moral code which his new
code had superseded.