Jackson Gregory

“ So this afternoon, sitting at the window of Jasper Ruud's private sitting-room, frowning out across the river, which had been so beautiful a thing a little while ago, and which now was as joyless as the Styx, John Rand gave himself up to the bitterness that welled up within him. He had just learned to the uttermost how undesirable a thing wealth could be when it brought with it the exclusion of Something Else. And he felt very much like cursing Jasper Ruud, not because he had set the police upon him in the first place, but because he had allowed himself to be run over and mangled by an engine. ”

“ And now, because it had been so happy, such a bubbling, effervescent day, John Rand was utterly miserable. For, he reflected, Jasper Ruud was not coming back, for the simple reason that he was dead. And how was John Rand to win the one thing in the universe he wanted? To be sure, Audrey claimed now that he in no slightest way resembled Jasper Ruud. He knew already that he loved her, he dared hope, as is the way with youth and love, that she would some day love him. ”

“ I'm going to marry her myself!”
Clysdale's mouth sagged open, his small eyes opened until they were no longer small.
“Marry her!” he stuttered. “You! What do you mean?”
“Mean?” shouted John Rand. “I mean what I—” Then he remembered that he was supposed to be Jasper Ruud, and he ended weakly, “I mean I'm going to marry her to somebody I've picked out for her, of course!”
“But, old fellow, I—I thought that—that I—that you thought—”
“Well, I've changed my mind. Audrey isn't going to marry you now or later. I've got somebody else for her. That's all. Good day, Clysdale.” ”