being the twenty-five hundred
word story written and dispatched to the _Daily Tory_, and that was one
reason for joy. Besides, there was the manager's wire of praise--and
Richard thought it marked a weakness in him--that, too, had warmed the
cockles of his heart. Being in good humor, he listened without
interrupting comment to the rasping, parrot tones of Mr. Gwynn while
that gentleman, without inflection or emphasis or slightest shade of
personal interest, told the tale of the night's adventures, from Mrs.
Hanway-Harley's flattery and Mr. Harley's song, to Senator Hanway's last
handclasp and that parting promise of a call.

"And that is all, sir," said Mr. Gwynn, at the close, coughing
apologetically behind his palm as though fearful of criticism.

"You did well," was Richard's response. "When Senator Hanway calls
to-morrow, introduce me to him at once. After that, I shall talk and you
will acquiesce. You may go."

"Thank you, sir. Very good, sir!" said Mr. Gwynn.

Mr. Gwynn received Senator Hanway in his library; Richard was present,
considering the world at large from a window.

"And first of all," said Mr. Gwynn, after greeting Senator Hanway, "and
first of all, let me introduce to your notice Mr. Storms. I may say to
you, sir, I have confidence in Mr. Storms; I act much by his advice."
And here Mr. Gwynn looked at Richard as though appealing for
corroboration.

Senator Hanway, from whose nimble faculties nothing escaped, noted this
appeal. He thought the less of it, since Mr. Harley had given him some
glint of the measureless millions of Mr. Gwynn, and he deduced from this
stiff turning towards Richard, this brittle deference, nothing save a
theory that Mr. Gwynn, by virtue of his tremendous riches, had grown too
great to do his own listening and thinking. It was as plain, as it was
proper, that he should hire them done, precisely as he hired a groom for
his horses or a valet to superintend his clothes. Senator Hanway,
himself, was at bottom impressed by nothing so much as money, and was
quite prepared to believe that one of the world's wealthiest men--for
such he understood to be the case of Mr. Gwynn--would prove in word and
deed and thought a being wholly different from everyone about him.
Wherefore, his heaped millions accounted in Mr. Gwynn for what otherwise
might have been considered by Senator Hanway as queernesses.

To add to this, Mr. Gwynn was of a certain select circle of English
exclusives; Sen