Gordon laughed. "The eternal feminine," he quoted. "I'm sorry, my dear, but I'm afraid I can't give them up, even to please you. Let me try them first, anyway, and then, if you're still of the same mind, we'll have the cottage and the roses to fall back on in our old age. Well, I suppose I must really be going. Until next week, then."
He stooped and kissed her, and in another moment the door had closed behind him, and he was striding away down the street.
Outwardly, to the casual passer-by, he appeared the very embodiment of content; prosperous, untroubled, self-satisfied. But inwardly, his keen mind was busy forecasting the future, and he was even then dissecting himself, his strong and weak points, his successes and his failures, as judicially and as mercilessly as he might have done if he had been sitting in judgment on some stranger in whom and in whose fortunes he had not a ray of interest.
"Promising to marry her," he mused; "that was the worst mistake. I had to do it, of course, to get at old Pearson, and to get at Palmer, and for that matter I was crazy enough about her for a while to promise anything, but I was a fool not to look further ahead. It's only fools, anyway, who say, 'Let's cross that bridge when we get to it.' I suppose a more dangerous proverb was never coined. In plain English, all it means is that we're too lazy to take a look ahead to see if there's a bridge there at all. Yes, that was my mistake. Given a hundred thousand and my start, I was ready to promise anything, and now there's so much ahead I never dreamed of then, marrying her seems absolutely out of the question. Who would ever have foreseen, though, that she'd develop this spasm of virtue? If she'd been what I thought she was—and what I had every reason for thinking she was—I imagine things could have been fixed up easily enough. I wonder whether—"
Abstractedly, as he crossed towards the park, he had paused for a passing victoria. As the carriage passed, he noticed that its only occupant was a girl, her slender figure clothed in deep black, and glancing up, he was just in time to receive Miss Sinclair's friendly bow. Raising his hat, he passed on and entered the park.
"The devil!" he muttered. "Coincidences are queer things." And with a shrug of his shoulders he turned his thoughts in the direction of the day's plans.
Ten minutes later he entered the Equitable Building, and turned sharp to the left where the doors leading into the big ground floor office suite bore the inscription, "Gordon and Randall; Investment Securities."
Confident in himself as he was, firm believer as he had been from the first in the destinies of himself and his firm, even he still felt a trifle awe-struck at the wonder of it all. Only a few months ago and he had been proud of his little two room and a ticker establishment, proud of the fact that he had a stock clerk, a stenographer and an office boy, proud that he was slowly piling up his modest profits, regarding a five hundred share order with veneration—and now—the huge modern office lay outspread before him, clean, light, spacious, the delicate tracery of steel work taking the place of old-time partition and creaking door. To the right, occupying more than half the whole floor space was the huge "cage," with its ordered ranks of busy bookkeepers, cashiers, order clerks, margin clerks, telephone operators and messengers; in front, the pleasant room reserved for the firm's customers, where the casual investor might drop in for a moment to read at a glance the long rows of quotations on the board, and where the leisurely professionals gathered daily from ten to three to sit and smoke in the big cushioned armchairs, basking pleasantly in the sunshine, and listening to the whirring tickers as they sang their two songs, one merry and cheerful—up, up,—click, click,—up, up,—the other sorrowful and full of discouragement,—down—click—down, down—click—away, way down, more margin, quick,—click, click,—down, down, still further down, down—and out. To the left lay the private offices of the firm; first, the luxurious ladies' room; then, in sequence, the room for ordinary private business, then Gordon's and Randall's private consulting-room, and last of all, the holy of holies, Gordon's own special office, cosy and homelike, where he could retire when he pleased and be as safe from intrusion or interruption as though he were a thousand miles away. All in all, it was small wonder that Gordon stood still for the briefest of moments, looking quickly to right and left with the glance of the general marshalling his forces in review before going into action. Then, with a momentary glow of just self-satisfaction, he turned into the first office on the left and hastened to his desk.
Field, his private secretary, had just finished sorting the mail, and stood waiting by the window while Gordon quickly ran through the letters that were left, checking, penciling, laying aside, with speed and despatch, and yet with due consideration and without haste; then he called Field to his side.