ent of a system, a manipulator of
dexterity and courage. All this would not have come about if his big head
had not been packed with common-sense brains, and he had not had uncommon
will and force of character. Success had developed the best side of him,
the family side; and the worst side of him--a brutal determination to
increase his big fortune. He was not hampered by any scruples in
business, but he had the good-sense to deal squarely with his friends
when he had distinctly agreed to do so.

Henderson did not respond to the matrimonial suggestion; it was not
possible for him to vulgarize his own affair by hinting it to such a man
as Hollowell; but they soon fell into serious talk about schemes in which
they were both interested. This talk so absorbed Henderson that after
they had reached the city he had walked some blocks towards his lodging
before he recalled his promise about the message. On his table he found a
note from Carmen bidding him to dinner informally--an invitation which he
had no difficulty in declining on account of a previous engagement. And
then he went to his club, and passed a cheerful evening. Why not? There
was nothing melancholy about the young fellows in the smoking-room, who
liked a good story and the latest gossip, and were attracted to the
society of Henderson, who was open-handed and full of animal spirits, and
above all had a reputation for success, and for being on the inside of
affairs. There is nowhere else so much wisdom and such understanding of
life as in a city club of young fellows, who have their experience still,
for the most part, before them. Henderson was that night in great
"force"--as the phrase is. His companions thought he had made a lucky
turn, and he did not tell them that he had won the love of the finest
girl in the world, who was at that moment thinking of him as fondly as he
was thinking of her--but this was the subconsciousness of his gayety.
Late at night he wrote her a long letter--an honest letter of love and
admiration, which warmed into the tenderness of devotion as it went on; a
letter that she never parted with all her life long; but he left a
description of the loneliness of his evening without her to her
imagination.

It was for Margaret also a happy evening, but not a calm one, and not
gay. She was swept away by a flood of emotions. She wanted to be alone,
to think it over, every item of the short visit, every look, every tone.
Was it all true? The great