who had found place in that
roomy chamber to listen to the ugly tale of squandered millions, looked
at him with a resentment that was sharpened by his apparent nonchalance.

For the failure of the concern upon which a legislature had now turned
the search-light of its inquiry, might to him have been a thing of
trivial interest, and the present task an alien one, which he must
against his will go through with. Often his eyes had wandered to the
window, through which came the crisp _clip-trip-clop_ of the cab horses
on the asphalt, the irritant clang of trolleys and the monstrous panther
purr of motors. Only once had this seeming indifference been shaken:
when the figures of the salary voted the Corporation's chief officers
had been sardonically cited--when in the tense quiet a woman had laughed
out suddenly, a harsh jeering note quickly repressed. For one swift
second then Valiant's gaze had turned to the rusty black gown, the
flushed face of the sleeping child against the tawdry fall of the
widow's veil. Then the gaze had come back, and he was once more the
abstracted spectator, boredly waiting his release.

Long before the closing session it had been clear that, as far as
indictments were concerned, the investigation would be barren of result.
Of individual criminality, flight and suicide had been confession, but
more sweeping charges could not be brought home. The gilded fool had
not brought himself into the embarrassing purview of the law. This
certainty, however, had served to goad the public and sharpen the satire
of the newspaper paragraphist; and the examiner, who incidentally had a
reputation of his own to guard, knew his cue. There were possibilities
for the exercise of his especial gifts in a vice-president of the
Corporation who was also Vanity Valiant, the decorative idler of social
fopperies and sumptuous clothes.

Valiant took the chair with a sensation almost of relief. Since that day
when he had spun down-town in his motor to that sharp enlightenment,
his daily round had gone on as usual, but beneath the habitual pose,
the worldly mask of his class, had lain a sore sensitiveness that had
cringed painfully at the sneering word and the envenomed paragraph.
Always his mental eye had seen a white-faced crowd staring at a marble
building, a coarsely-dressed woman crossing the street with a
handkerchief pressed to her face.

And mingling with the sick realization of his own inadequacy had woven
panging tho