ve
hundred thousand dollars would eventually be returned to the treasury.
If they refused, and injury was done him, he proposed to let them wait
until he was "good and ready," which in all probability would be never.
But, really, it was not quite clear how action against him was to be
prevented--even by them. The money was down on his books as owing the
city treasury, and it was down on the city treasury's books as owing
from him. Besides, there was a local organization known as the Citizens'
Municipal Reform Association which occasionally conducted investigations
in connection with public affairs. His defalcation would be sure to come
to the ears of this body and a public investigation might well follow.
Various private individuals knew of it already. His creditors, for
instance, who were now examining his books.

This matter of seeing Mollenhauer or Simpson, or both, was important,
anyhow, he thought; but before doing so he decided to talk it all over
with Harper Steger. So several days after he had closed his doors, he
sent for Steger and told him all about the transaction, except that he
did not make it clear that he had not intended to put the certificates
in the sinking-fund unless he survived quite comfortably.

Harper Steger was a tall, thin, graceful, rather elegant man, of gentle
voice and perfect manners, who walked always as though he were a cat,
and a dog were prowling somewhere in the offing. He had a longish, thin
face of a type that is rather attractive to women. His eyes were blue,
his hair brown, with a suggestion of sandy red in it. He had a steady,
inscrutable gaze which sometimes came to you over a thin, delicate hand,
which he laid meditatively over his mouth. He was cruel to the limit
of the word, not aggressively but indifferently; for he had no faith in
anything. He was not poor. He had not even been born poor. He was just
innately subtle, with the rather constructive thought, which was about
the only thing that compelled him to work, that he ought to be richer
than he was--more conspicuous. Cowperwood was an excellent avenue toward
legal prosperity. Besides, he was a fascinating customer. Of all his
clients, Steger admired Cowperwood most.

"Let them proceed against you," he said on this occasion, his brilliant
legal mind taking in all the phases of the situation at once. "I don't
see that there is anything more here than a technical charge. If it
ever came to anything like that, which I don'