“ Instantly there was a shifting and a dragging of chairs, a confused jumble of questions and explanations.
Nan Charters for the second time seized the arm of Teddy Beecher. She murmured something which he did not hear. He glanced at her face, and for a moment an incredible suspicion crossed his mind. But the next, as he glanced down the table at the totally unnerved attitude of Mrs. Cheever and Mrs. Bloodgood, he understood better the agitation of his companion.
"Do you suspect any one?" he whispered, by an impulse that seemed to spring into his mind. ”

“ With the opening of the market, all the giant sides of Wall Street seemed suddenly animated with the fury of a disturbed ant-hill. Every one was rushing in and out, carrying with them the pollution of disaster and alarm. Eddie Fontaine and Steve Plunkett hurried past them with quick nods. At the curb market the brokers were shrieking and flinging their frantic signals in the air. They entered the Stock Exchange, nodding to the doorkeeper, who knew Gunther, and reached the balcony, their ears suddenly smitten with the confused uproar from below. ”

“ Give me time, money, and no strings on me, there isn't any crime can't be worked out."
"But how the deuce are you going to locate a ring," said Beecher, "if you don't know whom to follow?"
"The ring's the easiest part," said the detective. "You may not know it, but every stone of great value is what's called a named stone; every jeweler knows of it. Now, there aren't many rubies worth over fifteen thousand floating around. If you don't believe it, I'll show you how easy it's done. Inside a week I'll give you the history of the stone and just how it came into the hands of Mrs. Kildair." ”

“ All these notes were to him notes of the hand that had arranged them, as he felt in the struggling muscles of the bared marble torsos, wrestling on the mantel, and the lithe, virile body of the discus-thrower on the table, the virility and aggressiveness of the woman. This perception awoke his defiance as though one personality had been substituted for another.
"What does she want with me?" he thought. "Is she daring enough to tell me all, or is she worried at what I may know?"
While he was still in the midst of his reflections, Mrs. Kildair entered. ”

“ She was listening, perfectly composed, looking straight before her with a tolerant, uninterested smile.
If women often can conceal their true natures from women, men seldom deceive one another. There was a fixity in Garraboy's glance which Beecher understood and hotly resented. But at the moment when, setting the tray on the table, he was meditating some ill-advised remark, Mrs. Cheever, passing by, said with ill-concealed impatience in her thin, hurried voice:
"Mr. Garraboy, I am sorry for you, but I have been assigned as your assistant, and I should like to know what I am to do." ”

“ I know where I stand. If Majendie and the Atlantic Trust hadn't gone to smash, there wouldn't be a ghost of a show for me; you'd squeeze every last cent I had. I know it. I knew it then when I knew it was Majendie or me. But you see Majendie's dead and the Atlantic Trust—three hundred and eighty millions—has closed its doors. That makes all the difference in the world. You don't want to trim me—not primarily. Forscheim and the United Mining do—that's their private affair. What you men who count want, I repeat, is to stop this panic—to get me out of the way and stop the panic if you can ”

“ John G. Slade, at the goal of her ambitions, over what perilous paths only she herself knew. The knowledge of what she had won suffocated her, for the nature of dramatic and adventurous spirits is such that they must seek relief in confidence. More, they crave the admiration that only another can bring to complete their moments of self-intoxication. At this moment, when her rôle had been played, she craved applause. McKenna was not a friend—he was a machine, a rock that would give back an echo. ”

“ I don't want any cold-blooded reason-and-logic marriage. Look here. You've got to love me—like hell—do you understand?"
She turned on him swiftly, opening her lips until her white teeth showed in their tense grip. Then, suddenly veiling her emotion in a relaxing smile, she said, as she rang for Henriette:
"No woman could find it hard to love you, John Slade." ”

“ But he rejected this as a subterfuge, and continued his slow, uneven progress down Seventh Avenue, which he had selected at random in search of a little oddity and interest; and gradually he recognized that the vexation he felt was, in reality, not at being unable to find an excuse for calling on Miss Charters, but the keen sense of disappointment he had in missing an intimate hour with Rita.
It was essentially the woman of the world in her that fascinated him, the woman of mysterious experience, of sure knowledge and complete command of situations. ”

“ Emma Fornez, lending herself to the maneuver, opened her wide, languorous eyes, singing to him alone, with a little forward leaning of her body:
"L'amour est enfant de la Bohême,
Il n'a jamais connu de loi
Si tu m'aimes."
The song ended in a furore. Mme. Fornez was overwhelmed with spontaneous adulation, and Beecher, laughing and struggling, was choked and carried away by the indignant suitors. Escaping, he came back, happy and resolved on more mischief. He had always had a passion for what is called fancy dancing, and in Europe had learned the dances of the country. ”

“ For beyond the Stock Exchange, which is a purely artificial organization, the financial powers will always create what amounts to a saving check, around one inevitable personality, whom they can trust and about whom, in times of common danger, they can rally as to a standard. At this moment, the invested wealth of the country, frightened at the cataclysm which threatened it, had thrown its resources implicitly into the hands of this one man, who came forward at the psychological time to stop the panic, issuing his orders, and marshaling his forces with a response of instant obedience. ”

“ The whole earth has no such passion any longer. Do you understand? Something is gone—your youth is ended. Keep tight hold of the little that is left. Come, be strong. Dissimulate as you have before. Come."
"Not now," said Mrs. Bloodgood, terrified.
"Yes, now. If possible, you must be back before he returns."
And Beecher, from his chair where he had watched, forgotten by both women, saw Mrs. Kildair, who not for a moment had deviated from the vital issue, draw the unresisting woman by the very force of her energy into the bedroom, from which shortly they emerged again. ”

“ There are only two classes of human beings—those like you two here, who get through life with the most pleasure you can, who get through—pass through; and then a few, a handful, who create something—an empire, like Rhodes, invent a locomotive or a system of electric production, add something to human history. What if they steal, or grind out the lives of others? They're the only ones who count. And the public knows it—it forgives everything to greatness; it's only petty crime it hates. Look at the sympathy a murderer gets on trial—look at the respect a great manipulator gets. ”

“ He felt that to all he must appear guilty. "Every one feels the same," he thought, looking again at his companion, who was gazing with almost frightened intensity straight ahead of her.
He followed her glance, and saw that the object of her gaze was none other than Mrs. Enos Bloodgood, who still held her hand pressed over her breast, her lips parted as though suffocating with emotion. But, before he had time even to consider the bearing of this discovery, Mrs. Kildair's voice, firm and unrelenting, cut short the confusion. ”

“ Between the two, from his college days, had been a sort of confidential intimacy which Beecher had the knack of cultivating.
Holliday having ordered the dinner, Mme. Fornez took special delight in countermanding everything that could be countermanded, substituting other wines and abolishing the soup, scolding her escort all the while with a calculated tyranny which Mrs. Fontaine admired with a slight smiling tribute of her lips, as the clever advertisement of a professional woman that Mr. Holliday's fetch and carry attentions were entirely on her own sufferance. ”

“ Had this complete reticence been associated with an individuality of impressive oddity, he would have perhaps regarded it with respect. As it was, he was conscious only of being defrauded as though some one were tearing away a precious illusion.
"There's a poor devil; got all his money tied up in the Atlantic Trust," said Gunther, joining him and passing out to the waiting automobile.
"The Atlantic Trust can't fail," said Beecher, amazed. "Things aren't as bad as that." ”

“ For the moment, however, the memory of the younger woman was dimmed. He was conscious only of the indefinite lure of mystery which Rita Kildair always exerted over his curiosity the moment they were alone.
"Look here, Rita," he said impulsively, "I should think, in a case like this, you'd want all the help you can get!"
Her smile disappeared. She looked at him a moment with almost a masculine penetration, and then, her smile returning, said quietly:
"It's curious, but each person who came back here tonight came back just to—help." ”

“ There are two kinds of marriages, Teddy. The marriage that ninety-nine persons out of a hundred make—the marriage that is a joining of forces to fight the battle of life—has a definite object. The wife is the helpmate. The serious thing is to live, to pay the bills and to save a little money. You have nothing to do with that kind of marriage. The other kind of marriage is the marriage our sort makes, most of the time—no responsibilities, no object, and no struggle. You take a wife to help you enjoy yourself, and your enjoyment depends on piling up new sensations—in never being bored. ”

“ You have the vision of an eagle on one side, and the groping glance of a baby when you deal with us. Sometimes I think that it's all instinct, that all you understand is to throw down what resists you—that you haven't great minds at all, and that that is all that interests you in business and in us. That is why a big man will always end up by meeting some little woman who will lead him around by the nose. Any little fool of a woman who knows enough never to cease resisting you can do it. ”

“ It always impresses me. Magnificent!"
No one listened to him. The women nodded from time to time as their glasses encountered those of acquaintances; Beecher, troubled at a figure which he had half perceived in the orchestra and which he sought to distinguish, fancied a resemblance to Nan Charters; Gunther, bored by a spectacle which had no novelty for him, watched Mrs. Kildair, noting the nervous hands and the occasional quickly taken breaths, asking himself what had been the real cause of her absence, half divining in a confused way the truth. ”

“ I don't want to be cruel, but Miss Charters is of another world. I know there is nothing against her. She may be able to enter your world, and then again she may not want to—may prefer the freedom of her own, and you will follow her. Have you thought of that? Your friends must be your wife's friends, or you will give them up. Marriage, Teddy, which can be the most decisive act in a man's life, is the one he throws away the most lightly. I'm only afraid you may wake up to what you might have done, Teddy. You are young, eager, you are not yet bored. ”

“ But the tensity of the drama drove from her all other considerations. Completely mystified by Majendie's manner, she was studying the moment when she could throw him together with Elise Bloodgood, convinced that from the woman she would learn what the man concealed.
"Your rings are beautiful, dear, beautiful," said the deep voice of Maud Lille, who, with Garraboy and Mrs. Cheever, was in the room.
"I never saw the ruby before," said Mrs. Cheever in a nervous voice. "My dear, you are the most mysterious woman in the world. Think of having a ring like that, and never wearing it!" ”

“ Miss Charters excused herself—she was lying down and dining out.
He cast a furious look at the telephone-booth, by means of which she might personally have assured him of her great regret, and stalked out in a worse temper than ever—Rita Kildair, Nan Charters, all the women in the world consigned to perdition.
"Confound them all!" he said, brandishing his cane. "What a lot of time a man wastes over them. She might have telephoned me. They only exist in this world to distract us from what we ought to do. ”

“ For each man that he had sent to jail for embezzlement, in the capacious corridor of his memory he knew another who ethically was the greater rogue, and, as he had said to Beecher, each day he met one such, looked into his eyes, shook his hands and took his orders. For each woman upon whom public scorn had set the brand of adventuress, he knew another woman who stood enthroned by that same society. ”

“ Even as royal personages of distinctly bourgeois caliber have been impressed on history by the exigencies of the kingly tradition as models of tact and statesmanship, so events and the necessities of the public imagination had combined to throw about the personality of Gunther an atmosphere of grandiose mystery. Just as it is true that what is a virtue in one man is a defect in another, the imagination he possessed was much less than he was credited with and his power lay in his ability to control it. For imagination, which is the genius of progress, in a banker approaches a crime. ”

“ This announcement was so entirely unexpected that it left the two young men staring at each other, absolutely incapable of speech.
"But then," said Gunther, the first to recover, "the ring was given her by Slade!"
"At a cost of thirty-two thousand," said the detective in a quick, businesslike tone.
"You are sure?"
"As positive as any one can be. There are only three other rings—"
"That's why she wanted to keep it quiet!" exclaimed Beecher, rousing himself from his stupor. The whole machination of Mrs. Kildair became comprehensible to him on the instant. "Now I see!"
"Precisely," said McKenna. ”

“ Fornez, who, from pride perhaps, chose to retain the freedom of the peasant, tapped him familiarly on the arm and said: "I like you. You don't look so clean and stupid as most of your dollar men. You will sit by my side. I select you. Monsieur Gunthère, Bobbie—enough of your old panics and your stocks; you have two charming ladies present, that's all you need to know. Bobbie, obey me at once!"
Beecher was giving his hand to Mrs. Craig Fontaine, a young widow, slight, with quick eyes, and almost masculine vitality, and an extraordinary elegance of dress and carriage, whom Gunther called Louise. ”