e man. I'm
ruined. Leonora--"

Dumont shook his head, the veins swelling in his forehead and neck.
The last strand of his self-restraint snapped. "Leave her out of this!
She has no claim on me NOW--and YOU never had."

Fanshaw stared at him, then sprang to his feet, all in a blaze. "You
scoundrel!" he shouted, shaking his fist under Dumont's nose.

"If you don't clear out instantly I'll have you thrown out," said
Dumont. He was cool and watchful now.

Fanshaw folded his arms and looked down at him with the dignified fury
of the betrayed and outraged. "So!" he exclaimed. "I see it all!"

Dumont pressed an electric button, then leaned back in his revolving
chair and surveyed Fanshaw tranquilly. "Not a cent!" he repeated, a
cruel smile in his eyes and round his mouth. The boy came and Dumont
said to him: "Send the watchman."

Fanshaw drew himself up. "I shall punish you," he said. "Your wealth
will not save you." And he stalked past the gaping office boy.

He stood in front of the Edison Building, looking aimlessly up and down
the street as he pulled his long, narrow, brown-gray mustache. Gloom
was in his face and hate in his heart--not hate for Dumont alone but
hate for all who were what he longed to be, all rich and "successful"
men. And the towering steel and stone palaces of prosperity sneered
down on him with crushing mockery.

"Damn them all!" he muttered. "The cold-hearted thieves!"

From his entry into that district he had played a gambling game, had
played it dishonestly in a small way. Again and again he had
sneakingly violated Wall Street's code of morality--that curious code
with its quaint, unexpected incorporations of parts of the decalogue
and its quainter, though not so unexpected, infringements thereof and
amendments thereto. Now by "pull," now by trickery, he had evaded
punishment. But apparently at last he was to be brought to bar,
branded and banished.

"Damn them all!" he repeated. "They're a pack of wolves. They've got
me down and they're going to eat me."

He blamed Dumont and he blamed his wife for his plight--and there was
some justice in both accusations. Twenty years before, he had come
down to "the Street" a frank-looking boy, of an old and distinguished
New York family that had become too aristocratic for business and had
therefore lost its hold upon its once great fortune. He was neither a
good boy nor a bad. But he was weak, and had the extravagant tastes and