"True—it's all true!" she moaned. "Oh—Reese! And I would have stuck to you through everything—"
CHAPTER X
From the moment when Lawrence Macgowan, as secretary of Consolidated Securities, called the annual meeting to order, a sense of impending drama filled the auditorium. The Gayety Theater! What irony in the name! Here was a struggle for more than life and death, a titanic combat between looters and looted.
Every one knew that the issue lay between Armstrong and Macgowan; the batteries of lawyers and advisers and experts and friends were but incidentals of the stage setting. The life of Consolidated was at stake—now this outward and visible symbol of sixteen thousand investors would either be saved to its owners, or would be despoiled and bled white.
From the start, Macgowan let himself go full sweep, in all his real nature. Arbitrary, domineering, a sneering viciousness in eyes and voice, he ruled the meeting with a hand of iron. Save for his own little group, the hundreds of people around were enemies; they hated, feared, distrusted him—and were helpless before him.
Macgowan, knowing that these people had gathered to watch his power stripped away, took savage pleasure in making them feel that power, in making them feel their own impotence before him, in making them realize that he, and he alone, was the master of Consolidated Securities.
And people had gathered to watch. Several hundred were here, the majority from near-by points, others from a distance. These, almost to a man, were behind Armstrong and his committee. Before and during the meeting they were thronging about the hotel rooms, shaking hands, encouraging, pouring their enthusiasm and confidence into the men who were fighting for them.
While that long roll of the thousands of investors was being called they sat silent, tense, listening and checking off proxies. Never was the magnificent audacity of Macgowan more manifest than now, as he sat there snarling at those who had come to pull him from his position of power.
This arrogant, confident manner of Macgowan's was causing Armstrong worry; he sought for the reason perpetually, and found none. Hour after hour went by. The first day dragged out its length, the second followed. Somewhere in the crowd Armstrong caught a glimpse of a sallow, saturnine visage, lost it again instantly; after a time he remembered that darkly vulpine countenance as the face of Ried Williams. Williams! What was the man doing here? No matter.