h, a
loan to be called by him at any time. Lewiston's loan had seemed easy
of repayment at six months. Justin knew when the money was coming in,
but he had been obliged, after all, to anticipate, and get his bills
discounted before they came due for other purposes, often paying huge
tribute for the service. Lewiston had renewed the note for sixty days,
and then for sixty more, but with the proviso that this was the last
extension.

In short, the whole process of competently keeping afloat had been
gone through, with a definite aim of accomplishment. Cater's
cooperation, about which he had been so slow, would infuse new blood
into the business. It was maddening at times to have so many good uses
for money, and to be unable to command it at the crucial moment. He
had approached Eugene Larue on that past Sunday afternoon, only to
find him cautiously negative where once he had seemed friendlily
suggesting.

Such a process, to be successful, depends on the power of the man
behind it, which must not only comprehend and direct the larger
issues, but must be able to carry along smoothly all the easily
entangling threads of detail; he must not only have a capable brain,
but he must have the untiring nervous energy that can "hold out"
through any crisis. Such men may go to pieces after incredible effort,
but they are on the way to success first. Danger only quickens the
sure leap to safety.

[Illustration: "WITH EYES FOR NOBODY ELSE"]

Justin, preeminently clear-headed, had been conscious lately of two
phases--one an almost preternatural illumination of intellect, and the
other a sort of brain-inertia, more soul-and body-fatiguing than any
pain. There were seasons when he was obliged to think when he could
instead of when he would. He looked grave, alert, competent, but
underneath this demeanor there went an unceasing effort of computation
and reckoning to which the computation and reckoning on the first
night of his agreement with Leverich was as a child's play with toy
bricks is to the building of an edifice of stone.

[Illustration: "FLOWERS AND CHILDREN--CHILDREN AND FLOWERS!"]

The large business responsibilities now incurred clashed grotesquely
with the daily need of money at home for petty uses, a condition of
affairs which often happens at the birth of a child, when the
household is at loose ends, and the expenses are necessarily greater
in every direction, at the time when it seems most imperative to limit
them.