"What is it, little brother?" he asked.
"Hamilton," began the other in an awkward, diffident fashion, "you are planning something a little vaster than usual. I am frightened. Sometimes the end of empire is—St. Helena."
The financier laughed.
"It is not written that I can fail, Paul. It's not in my horoscope. You are right. I am planning something broader than I have done before." He paused only to add in a vibrant voice: "I told you that the day would come when above me there would be no man. That day will be tomorrow."
"Is there no chance of defeat?"
"I admit none. To me the influx of gold, and that attendant power which is its only worth, have become a tidal wave. Nothing can check it."
"And the end of it all?" questioned the other.
"While there is a game to play, Paul, no man has won enough. It's the splendid sense of growing power. It's the thirst that grows with the wine you drink. It's fighting and conquering. It is the magnificent dream of world-mastery. The money itself!" He spread his hands contemptuously. "That is a beggar's reward—it's the symbol of Might that counts."
Their mother entered the room as he spoke and paused at the threshold. Her two sons went forward to meet her, and for a moment, she stood looking into Hamilton's eyes. Under her gaze their lust of conquest softened into tenderness and she brushed back the hair from his forehead as she shook her head and her eyes became misty.
"My egotistical boy," she said in a low voice. "My dear, egotistical boy!"