"I wonder!" Edwardes spoke reflectively; then with a straightforward honesty he went on: "It rather seems to me that once in a great while there rises in the world a marvel-man. To such a spirit the impossible is possible and opportunity is pliant. He may become the greatest boon or the greatest scourge of his generation. Such a man uses or prostitutes his great gifts in just so far as he uses, or fails to use, a conscience."

For an instant Hamilton's cheeks flamed, then he laughed:

"A very pretty golden rule of finance, Edwardes," he observed quietly, "and since I suppose you feel in a way responsible for me it's a homily you have the right to read. Does it carry a personal implication?"

Edwardes smiled and held out his hand. "You are the best judge of that,"

he replied. "Good-night."

But as the door closed upon him the smile died on the guest's lips, and a premonition of evil settled upon his mind. No one had ever defied this man and come through unscathed. His power held leashed lightnings that might destroy, and Edwardes had been frank to a point which might stir that wrath. To his direct manner of thinking his answer had been unavoidable, yet to put Hamilton Burton among his enemies was a dangerous thing. His love for Mary and the very endurance of the business which had stood so long in honor and prosperity might have to suffer for the over-frankness of his words. For a moment before entering his car he stood on the curb and looked back at the house he had just left.

"The man is a tyrant--and conscienceless," he exclaimed. "He is as destructive as a sawed-off shotgun!"

CHAPTER XVII

If Hamilton Burton had been one of the most picturesque figures in finance before, he was now a flaming meteor of public interest. He had come out of the dark and raided the directorate of a giant corporation, gathering into his strong hands reins that the world believed to be held beyond the possibility of filching. Moreover, this corporation was the keystone and crowning pride in the firmly cemented arch of Consolidated's power.

The world of business was stunned. It went to bed one night, believing certain forces immutable, and awoke to find them overthrown and a ministry changed. Along the chasms and canons that debouch from lower Broadway one question was insistently asked--and went unanswered: "What will he do next?" Perhaps the nearest approach to a reply was the prophecy of a cynical curb-broker--"Whatever he damn pleases." One thing was definite. While Hamilton Burton had forced the admiration of his world, he had forced it by the audacity of a strong grip on its throat and by bending it to its knees.

Such admiration is accorded a tyrant and carries scant love. When the gong sounded in the Stock-Exchange it was an alarm and the faces on the floor were faces that mirrored fear of the day. Yet the first transactions showed Hamilton Burton's brokers standing like pillars under the shaky market. As the day wore on these same lieutenants met and stemmed every tendency toward receding prices. Several banks announced incipient runs and at once from the Burton treasury came a tide of gold, so that reassured depositors turned away smiling.

When the actual meeting of Coal and Ore stock-holders was called to order both Burton and Harrison were present in person.

"Before this vote is taken," said Harrison, rising with a face upon which was indelibly stamped the grim determination of one so long victorious that defeat was unspeakably bitter, "I wish to be heard.

Though the registry of transfers tells the story in advance, I know as Hamilton Burton knows, that it is a victory for traitors. If there is a chance that some of these may yet turn back from their treason, I want them to listen to me."

Burton glanced about the table, where the mastery was his own.

"When I attend a meeting of this character," he curtly announced, "we vote first, and whoever wishes to can talk after I have gone."

Outside, as the two men left the room, waited the batteries of reporters. On the threshold, the appearance of each was noted and flashed in first-page stories wherever news went. The new One-man-power stood slender and strong, and tigerish; an incarnation of dominant youth and triumph. Harrison might have been passing into exile, but he walked with his head high and eyes that met every questioning gaze with the forbidding glitter of a newly trapped and caged lion. There was something about the man so suggestive of a broken warrior that the scribes whose duty was to interrogate refrained and stood respectfully silent as he passed between them.

But they questioned Burton and Burton smiled. "Gentlemen," he said in that velvety voice that fitted in so charmingly with the winning quality of his smile, "you know my rule. I am never interviewed--but you may announce that the Coal and Ore directorate will be reorganized."

At the curb Paul was waiting in the car, and around it pressed an inquisitive mob, which the police were already beginning to push back and stir into motion. As they cleared a path for him through the idle humanity the man who had come from the abandoned farm went to his machine with an unconcern which took no note of their interest. To his brother he commented in a low and musical voice. "They aren't so different from Slivers Martin. I bought those lambs for seven and sold them for ten. But it's only the first transaction, Paul, that gives one the real thrill."

When he reached his library he found Mary there. "I have been reading the papers, Hamilton," she said quietly. "As near as I can make it all out, 'it was a famous victory,' but why do the papers all call it a raid?" Her brother looked at her and a flash of pride kindled fondly in his eyes for the face which a shaft of the sun lighted into vivid beauty.

"I told you once," he said, "that we should reign together. This is for me a victorious day. I am glad that you are the woman to whom I come fresh from the field I have won and the frontier I have pushed forward."

He turned away from her and stood for a moment at the window in a flood of yellow radiance. The clarity of his eyes and luster of his dark hair and the hue of his cheeks were all declarations of gladiatorial perfection of condition. His brow was unclouded.

He began to speak, at first with a modulated voice that mounted with his words to a fiery eloquence:

"Many marches follow, Mary ... toward vaster victories. To me a certain memory lives clear in every detail. I see a small girl with her thin little body shaking with sobs ... because her life seemed doomed to drudgery and emptiness. I see my mother and my aunt and my father suffering like beasts of burden under the goad and yoke of poverty. I see a boy, ragged and rebellious, declaring war on the world and swearing to wrest from it every good thing that those he loved might ever covet--and for himself unparalleled power." He paused and spread his hands apart with a gesture of dismissing the abstract. "I have proven myself able to realize my dreams. I shall go on. My aspirations of empire look far ahead: my horizons are limitless. There are few people to whom I can express my ambitions. But you--" He came across and took her hand. "You can understand. Tell me, Mary, is there anything in the world you want? Because, by heaven, if there is it shall be yours."

The girl's eyes, as she met his gaze, were deeply grave.

"In all this dream of power, Hamilton," she said softly, "you have never spoken of any sense of trust or stewardship, and what you call a victory, the papers call a raid. Has it ever occurred to you, my dear brother, that perhaps your dream is, after all, one of colossal selfishness?"

The rippling ease of his muscles stiffened and his smile faded.

"Is it selfishness to give back to those one loves the things of which life has robbed them?"

She shook her head. "No--but there is such a thing as suffocating the souls in them with material kindness and bodily luxuries," she answered.

"You have been spending a great deal of time of late with Jefferson Edwardes." The manner of the man underwent one of its swift changes and grew cool and acid. "Perhaps he has been talking to you as he undertook to talk to me last night."

A light as dominant as that in her brother's came to Mary Burton's pupils.

"Perhaps," she replied.

"I'm not at all sure that I care for this intimate association with Mr.

Edwardes," he curtly announced. "I am not enamored of the vaporings of visionary and self-ordained preachers."

"Possibly it is not necessary that you should be," the girl suggested.

"Maybe for the purpose of my own friendships, it is enough that I like him. I hardly think you would understand his type, Hamilton."

Her brother's face reddened dangerously.

"I should call my intelligence human," he declared. "I've been able to make certain use of it."

"Call it superhuman if you like--or inhuman, yet I hardly think it can truly gage that type of gallant gentleman who has kept his dreams untainted and his ideals clean."

The man who had found the world a thing upon which he could stamp his hall-mark stood for a while without speaking; then his voice came keyed to a satirical coldness.

"Whatever your estimate may be of my ability to understand this peerless gentleman and chevalier, one thing I can do. I can crush him into pulp.

If he has poisoned against me the minds of my own family, I swear to you that I both can and will nail him to the cross of utter ruin. You had better warn your knightly friend, Mary, that the days of grail-seeking are ended."

The girl came to her feet and her eyes were stars of scorn as she faced the man whose sudden anger had brought out the arteries corded on his temples.

"Such talk," she said, "belongs to the shambles of your cut-throat finance. I have no wish to listen to it." Gradually the scornful light in Mary's pupils hardened and brightened into the fighting fire that might come into those of a tigress whose den has been threatened. Her delicate nostrils quivered and her cheeks flamed.

"Five minutes ago you were inquiring what costly gifts my heart desired, that you might buy them for me with your money. Well, there is something I want that I haven't got--and your millions can't buy it. I want decent love. You had me schooled into a Circe and you almost killed my soul.

Thank God, some one came in time, some one whose thoughts are above sordid conquest. Some one who wanted to save me from the legalized prostitution of a loveless marriage. And because he has said to your face what all men say in your absence, you talk of crucifying him." She broke off and her breath came fast.

Hamilton Burton gazed silently for a moment, then he said shortly:

"I'm not such a damn' fool as to try to argue with a woman in a rage.

You have too much brain, Mary, and at times you irritate me. Paul is the only one in this family who soothes me. I'll go to him."

"Yes," she retorted contemptuously, "Paul will burn incense to your vanity. Go to him."

She turned to leave the room, but at the door she paused. "Jefferson Edwardes will dine here this evening," she volunteered. "Any discourtesy to him will be an insult to me."