She draws his face down until their lips meet.
XVIII.
The next few years of Edgar Braine's life were years of strenuous, almost turbulent, endeavor, but their details do not belong to this history. Their outline only concerns us.
When the consolidation of the Central road with the other lines north and south, was effected, Braine had every reason to feel as he had on the day of his battle with Cale Dodge. In the one case, as in the other, he had won a passionately coveted victory; in the one case as in the other, it was unsatisfying.
He had felt almost a savage joy in the process of conquering Hildreth and his party, and teaching them to recognize him as the master; but when the conquest was over, it seemed a very little victory after all, because the enemy was so contemptible.
"Hildreth has experience and cunning," he said, "but he has no masterful ability. As to the rest—faugh! Why should I care to match my brains against their poor headpieces? One little loving thought of Helen's is worth more than a thousand such victories."
Braine valued the wealth that was now securely his, not for any vulgar love of wealth, such as men are apt to feel who have grown up in poverty and wrought out riches for themselves, but for the liberty it secured to him to prosecute his other purposes unhampered by any bread-winning necessity.
He had enough money now, in possession and in certain prospect, to satisfy his desires in that direction, and if he afterward engaged in great financial undertakings, as he did, it was as the athlete expends his strength, not for results, but for the joy of the exercise.
Braine's mind found pleasure in forming and directing difficult schemes, and his self-love was gratified by the recognition of himself as the master mind among the strong men of finance with whom he allied himself in these schemes.