In a corner of the room was seated, in a deep and luxurious armchair, a most beautiful woman. She was the wife of the son of the richest man in America; she was young; her husband was devotedly fond of her; she was mistress of a palace; anything that money could buy was hers did she but express the wish; but she was weeping softly, and had just made up her mind that she was the most miserable creature in all the land.

If a stranger had entered the room he would first have been impressed by the fact that he was looking at the prettiest woman he had ever seen; then he would have been haunted by the idea that he had met her somewhere before. If he were a man moving in artistic circles he might perhaps remember that he had seen her face looking down at him from various canvases in picture exhibitions, and unless he were a stranger to the gossip of the country he could hardly help recollecting the dreadful fuss the papers made, as if it were any business of theirs, when young Ed. Druce married the artists' model, celebrated for her loveliness.

Every one has read the story of that marriage; goodness knows, the papers made the most of it, as is their custom. Young Ed., who knew much more of the world than did his father, expected stern opposition, and, knowing the unlimited power unlimited wealth gave to the old man, he did not risk an interview with his parent, but eloped with the girl.

The first inkling old man Druce had of the affair was from a vivid sensational account of the runaway in an evening paper. He was pictured in the paper as an implacable father who was at that moment searching for the elopers with a shot gun. Old Druce had been too often the central figure of a journalistic sensation to mind what the sheet said.

He promptly telegraphed all over the country, and, getting into communication with his son, asked him (electrically) as a favour to bring his young wife home, and not make a fool of himself. So the errant pair, much relieved, came back to New York.

Old Druce was a taciturn man, even with his only son. He wondered at first that the boy should have so misjudged him as to suppose he would raise objections, no matter whom the lad wished to marry. He was bewildered rather than enlightened when Ed. told him he feared opposition because the girl was poor. What difference on earth did _that_ make? Had he not money enough for all of them? If not, was there any trouble in adding to their store? Were there not railroads to be wrecked; stockholders to be fleeced; Wall Street lambs to be shorn?

Surely a man married to please himself and not to make money. Ed.

a.s.sured the old man that cases had been known where a suspicion of mercenary motives had hovered round a matrimonial alliance, but Druce expressed the utmost contempt for such a state of things.

At first Ella had been rather afraid of her silent father-in-law, whose very name made hundreds tremble and thousands curse, but she soon discovered that the old man actually stood in awe of her, and that his apparent brusqueness was the mere awkwardness he felt when in her presence. He was anxious to please her, and worried himself wondering whether there was anything she wanted.

One day he fumblingly dropped a cheque for a million dollars in her lap, and, with some nervous confusion, asked her to run out, like a good girl, and buy herself something; if that wasn't enough, she was to call on him for more. The girl sprang from her chair and threw her arms around his neck, much to the old man's embarra.s.sment, who was not accustomed to such a situation. She kissed him in spite of himself, allowing the cheque to flutter to the floor, the most valuable bit of paper floating around loose in America that day.

When he reached his office he surprised his son. He shook his fist in the young fellow's face, and said sternly--

"If you ever say a cross word to that little girl, I'll do what I've never done yet--I'll thrash you!"

The young man laughed.

"All right, father. I'll deserve a thrashing in that case."

The old man became almost genial whenever he thought of his pretty daughter-in-law. "My little girl," he always called her. At first, Wall Street men said old Druce was getting into his dotage, but when a nip came in the market and they found that, as usual, the old man was on the right side of the fence, they were compelled reluctantly to admit, with emptier pockets, that the dotage had not yet interfered with the financial corner of old Druce's mind.

As young Mrs. Druce sat disconsolately in her drawing-room, the curtains parted gently, and her father-in-law entered stealthily, as if he were a thief, which indeed he was, and the very greatest of them.

Druce had small, shifty piercing eyes that peered out from under his grey bushy eyebrows like two steel sparks. He never seemed to be looking directly at any one, and his eyes somehow gave you the idea that they were trying to glance back over his shoulder, as if he feared pursuit. Some said that old Druce was in constant terror of a.s.sa.s.sination, while others held that he knew the devil was on his track and would ultimately nab him.

"I pity the devil when that day comes," young Sneed said once when some one had made the usual remark about Druce. This echoed the general feeling prevalent in Wall Street regarding the encounter that was admitted by all to be inevitable.

The old man stopped in the middle of the room when he noticed that his daughter-in-law was crying.

"Dear, dear!" he said; "what is the matter? Has Edward been saying anything cross to you?"

"No, papa," answered the girl. "n.o.body could be kinder to me than Ed.

is. There is nothing really the matter." Then, to put the truth of her statement beyond all question, she began to cry afresh.

The old man sat down beside her, taking one hand in his own. "Money?"

he asked in an eager whisper that seemed to say he saw a solution of the difficulty if it were financial.

"Oh dear no. I have all the money, and more, that anyone can wish."

The old man's countenance fell. If money would not remedy the state of things, then he was out of his depth.

"Won't you tell me the trouble? Perhaps I can suggest----"

"It's nothing you can help in, papa. It is nothing much, any way. The Misses Sneed won't call on me, that's all."

The old man knit his brows and thoughtfully scratched his chin.

"Won't call?" he echoed helplessly.

"No. They think I'm not good enough to a.s.sociate with them, I suppose."

The bushy eyebrows came down until they almost obscured the eyes, and a dangerous light seemed to scintillate out from under them.

"You must be mistaken. Good gracious, I am worth ten times what old Sneed is. Not good enough? Why, my name on a cheque is----"

"It isn't a question of cheques, papa," wailed the girl; "it's a question of society. I was a painter's model before I married Ed., and, no matter how rich I am, society won't have anything to do with me."

The old man absent-mindedly rubbed his chin, which was a habit he had when perplexed. He was face to face with a problem entirely outside his province. Suddenly a happy thought struck him.

"Those Sneed women!" he said in tones of great contempt, "what do _they_ amount to, anyhow? They're nothing but sour old maids. They never were half so pretty as you. Why should you care whether they called on you or not."

"They represent society. If they came, others would."

"But society can't have anything against you. n.o.body has ever said a word against your character, model or no model."

The girl shook her head hopelessly.

"Character does not count in society."

In this statement she was of course absurdly wrong, but she felt bitter at all the world. Those who know society are well aware that character counts for everything within its sacred precincts. So the unjust remark should not be set down to the discredit of an inexperienced girl.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," cried the old man, brightening up. "I'll speak to Gen. Sneed to-morrow. I'll arrange the whole business in five minutes."

"Do you think that would do any good?" asked young Mrs. Druce, dubiously.

"Good? You bet it'll do good! It will settle the whole thing. I've helped Sneed out of a pinch before now, and he'll fix up a little matter like that for me in no time. I'll just have a quiet talk with the General to-morrow, and you'll see the Sneed carriage at the door next day at the very latest." He patted her smooth white hand affectionately. "So don't you trouble, little girl, about trifles; and whenever you want help, you just tell the old man. He knows a thing or two yet, whether it is on Wall Street or Fifth Avenue."

Sneed was known in New York as the General, probably because he had absolutely no military experience whatever. Next to Druce he had the most power in the financial world of America, but there was a great distance between the first and the second. If it came to a deal in which the General and all the world stood against Druce, the average Wall Street man would have bet on Druce against the whole combination.

Besides this, the General had the reputation of being a "square" man, and that naturally told against him, for every one knew that Druce was utterly unscrupulous. But if Druce and Sneed were known to be together in a deal, then the financial world of New York ran for shelter.

Therefore when New York saw old Druce come in with the stealthy tread of a two-legged leopard and glance furtively around the great room, singling out Sneed with an almost imperceptible side nod, retiring with him into a remote corner where more ruin had been concocted than on any other spot on earth, and talking there eagerly with him, a hush fell on the vast a.s.semblage of men, and for the moment the financial heart of the nation ceased to beat. When they saw Sneed take out his note-book, nodding a.s.sent to whatever proposition Druce was making, a cold shiver ran up the financial backbone of New York; the shiver communicated itself to the electric nerve-web of the world, and storm signals began to fly in the monetary centres of London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna.

Uncertainty paralysed the markets of the earth because two old gamblers were holding a whispered conversation with a mult.i.tude of men watching them out of the corners of their eyes.

"I'd give half a million to know what those two old fiends are concocting," said John P. Buller, the great wheat operator; and he meant it; which goes to show that a man does not really know what he wants, and would be very dissatisfied if he got it.

"Look here, General," said Druce, "I want you to do me a favour."

"All right," replied the General. "I'm with you."

"It's about my little girl," continued Druce, rubbing his chin, not knowing just how to explain matters in the cold financial atmosphere of the place in which they found themselves.

"Oh! About Ed.'s wife," said Sneed, looking puzzled.

"Yes. She's fretting her heart out because your two girls won't call upon her. I found her crying about it yesterday afternoon."