eat Mr. John Harley--brother-by-law of the still greater
Senator Hanway--stands in the dock as a forger. Will not our Dorothy
laugh? John Harley, forger; why not!"

Mr. Harley sat ghastly and still, while Storri rambled on for the mere
pleasure of torture. He did not leave Mr. Harley a hope wherewith to
prop himself. The deal in sugar had been in Mr. Harley's sole name--an
individual deal. There was not the flourish of a pen to prove Storri's
interest. Storri would even show how, for that very sugar stock, in that
very market, he was dealing the other way, selling ten thousand shares.

"But you paid your half of the losses in the deal in my name." Mr.
Harley's voice, commonly rich and full, was huskily dry. "That, when I
show it, will prove your interest."

"And how are you to show it?" cried Storri. "I paid in money; I did not
give you a check. There's not an exculpatory scrap at bank or broker's
in your defense. You make a deal; you are crowded for margins; you have
my French shares in your pocket as my agent in another transaction; you
offer them; the broker will not accept, they do not have my signature;
you are back in five minutes with a forgery, and obtain the money you
require. The thing is complete; I tell you, Harley--Mr. John Harley--you
are trapped. There is no escape; I have my knee on your neck."

Mr. Harley, still white, was beginning to regain his mental feet. He saw
the apparent hold that Storri had upon him. It was enough. To be merely
charged as a forger--to be apprehended as a criminal, would be ruin,
utter ruin, even if the affair were there to end. It would mean the
downfall of Senator Hanway's hopes of a White House. The simple
arrest--it would go like wildfire throughout the press--meant
destruction for Senator Hanway, for Dorothy, for Mrs. Hanway-Harley, for
all.

White and stricken, Mr. Harley pondered these questions, while Storri
watched him. Storri himself did not care to push for extremes. In his
vain egotism, which was like a madness, he would not have scrupled to
brand Mr. Harley as a forger had he been defied. But such a step was not
what Storri aimed at. It was his own possession of Dorothy rather than a
vengeance upon Mr. Harley that he sought to compass. Therefore, as
Storri made plain his power and threatened its exercise, he considered
Mr. Harley with the narrow intentness of a lynx. He was striving to
measure the other's resistance. He noted the horror of Mr. Harley at the
ter