or not. I was the financier, the gambler and adventurer; and
that had been my principal asset. For, the man who wins in the long run at
any of the great games of life--and they are all alike--is the man with
the cool head; and the only man whose head is cool is he who plays for the
game's sake, not caring greatly whether he wins or loses on any one play,
because he feels that if he wins to-day, he will lose to-morrow; if he
loses to-day, he will win to-morrow. But now a new factor had come into the
game. I spread out the paper and stared at the head-lines: "Black Matt To
Wed Society Belle--The Bucket-Shop King Will Lead Anita Ellersly To The
Altar." I tried to read the vulgar article under these vulgar lines, but I
could not. I was sick, sick in body and in mind. My "nerve" was gone. I was
no longer the free lance; I had responsibilities.

That thought dragged another in its train, an ugly, grinning imp that
leered at me and sneered: "_But she won't have you now_!"

"She will! She must!" I cried aloud, starting up. And then the storm
burst--I raged up and down the floor, shaking my clinched fists, gnashing
my teeth, muttering all kinds of furious commands and threats--a truly
ridiculous exhibition of impotent rage. For through it all I saw clearly
enough that she wouldn't have me, that all these people I'd been trying
to climb up among would kick loose my clinging hands and laugh as they
watched me disappear. They who were none too gentle and slow in disengaging
themselves from those of their own lifelong associates who had reverses
of fortune--what consideration could "Black Matt" expect from them? And
she--The necessity and the ability to deceive myself had gone, now that I
could not pay the purchase price for her. The full hideousness of my
bargain for her dropped its veil and stood naked before me.

At last, disgusted and exhausted, I flung myself down again, and dumbly and
helplessly inspected the ruins of my projects--or, rather, the ruin of the
one project upon which I had my heart set. I had known I cared for her, but
it had seemed to me she was simply one more, the latest, of the objects on
which I was in the habit of fixing my will from time to time to make the
game more deeply interesting. I now saw that never before had I really been
in earnest about anything, that on winning her I had staked myself, and
that myself was a wholly different person from what I had been imagining.
In a word, I sat face to face w