the others were. The thing came in upon him
slowly, warmingly, like the breeze that stirred the curtains. He felt
himself, as never before, a man. You can see him sitting back in his
chair, in the smoke and the noise and the foolish singing, cool, his
eyes a little closed. He knew now that he had passed the level of these
men; yes, even the shining mark Bewsher had set. He had gone on, while
they had stood still. To him, he suddenly realized, and to such as he,
belonged the heritage of the years, not to these men who thought they
held it. These old gray buildings stretching away into the May dusk, the
history of a thousand years, were his. These sprawled young aristocrats
before him--they, whether they eventually came to know it or not, they,
and Bewsher with them--would one day do his bidding: come when he
beckoned, go when he sent. It was a big thought, wasn't it, for a man of
twenty-two?" Sir John paused and puffed at his cigarette.

"That was the second high light," he continued, "and the third did not
come until fifteen years later. Bewsher went into the Indian army--his
family had ideas of service--and Morton into a banking-house in London.
And there, as deliberately as he had taken them up, he laid aside for
the time being all the social perquisites which he had with so much
pains acquired. Do you know--he told me that for fifteen years not once
had he dined out, except when he thought his ambitions would be
furthered by so doing, and then, as one turns on a tap, he turned on the
charm he now knew himself to possess. It is not astonishing, is it, when
you come to think of it, that eventually he became rich and famous?
Most people are unwilling to sacrifice their youth to their future. He
wasn't. But it wasn't a happy time. He hated it. He paid off his debts,
however, and at the end of the fifteen years found himself a big man in
a small way, with every prospect of becoming a big man in a big way.
Then, of course--such men do--he began to look about him. He wanted
wider horizons, he wanted luxury, he wanted a wife; and he wanted them
as a starved man wants food. He experienced comparatively little
difficulty in getting started. Some of his school and university friends
remembered him, and there was a whisper about that he was a man that
bore watching. But afterward he stuck. The inner citadel of London is by
no means as assailable as the outer fortifications lead one to suppose.

"They say a man never has a desire