"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."