Sam trudged slowly up on the porch with the heart gone entirely out of him for business; and yet, as he approached Mr. Stevens he pulled himself together with a jerk. After all, she was gone, and he could not bring her back, and in his talk with Stevens he had just approached a grave and serious situation.
"The fact of the matter is, Mr. Stevens," said he as he sat down again, "these people are the very people I want to get into my concern, but they are old hands at the stock incorporation game, and even before I've organized the company they are planning to get it out of my hands. Now it is my scheme, mine and the kid brother's, and I don't propose to allow that."
"Well, Sam," said Mr. Stevens slowly, "you know capital of late has had a lot of experience with corporate business, and it isn't the fashionable thing this year for the control and the capital to be in separate hands—right at the very beginning."
This was the signal for the struggle, and Sam plunged earnestly into the conflict. At three-fifteen he suddenly rose and made his adieus. He would have liked to stay until Miss Josephine came back, so that he could make one more desperate attempt to set himself right with her, but there was that deferred engagement with Blackrock, and reluctantly he whirled back to Meadow Brook.
CHAPTER IX
WHEREIN SAM TURNER PROVES HIMSELF
TO BE A VIOLENT FLIRT
The rest of that week was a worried and an anxious one for Sam. He sent daily advices to his brother, and he received daily advices in return. The people upon whom he had originally counted to form the Marsh Pulp Company had set themselves coldly against the matter of control, and on comparing the apparent situation in New York with the situation at Meadow Brook, he made sure that he could secure more advantageous terms with the Princeman crowd. He spent his time in wrestling with his prospective investors both singly and in groups, but they were obdurate. They liked his company, they saw in it tremendous possibilities, but they did not intend to invest their money where they could not vote it. That was flat!
This was on the business side. About the really important matter of Miss Stevens, since his most recent bad performance, the time when he had made the special trip to see her and had spent his time in talking business with her father, he had not been able to come near her. She was always engaged. He saw her riding with Hollis; he saw her driving with Princeman; he saw her playing tennis with Billy Westlake, but the greatest boon he ever received was a nod and a pleasant word. He industriously sent her flowers. She as industriously sent him nice, polite little notes of thanks.
In the meantime, alternating with his marsh pulp wrangles, he worked like a Trojan at the athletic graces he should have cultivated in his younger days. He rode every morning; he practised every day at tennis and croquet; every evening he bowled; and every time some one sat at the piano and played dance music and the young people fell into impromptu waltzes and two-steps on the porch, he joined them and danced religiously with whomsoever he found to hand; usually Miss Hastings or Miss Westlake.