The Winning of Barbara Worth

by Harold Bell Wright

The man on the other side of the counter looked through his grated window at the speaker with unusual interest. And in the teller's voice there was a shade of unusual deference as he replied, "Yes, sir."

"Tell him that Mr. Greenfield is here."

At the magic of that name every man in the bank within sound of the speaker's voice lifted his head and turned toward the face at the window.

"Yes, sir. Come this way, sir."

A door in the partition opened and the visitor was admitted to the sacred precincts behind the gratings, the bars and the plate glass. As he moved down the room past counters and desks, every eye followed him and there was an electrical hush in the atmosphere like the hush that marks the massing of the forces in Nature before a conflict of the elements.

Jefferson Worth looked up as the imposing figure of the great financier appeared on the threshold of his room, and at the name of James Greenfield carefully pushed back the papers he had been considering and rose. The movement, slight as it was, was as though he cleared his decks for action. The clerk, withdrawing, carefully, closed the door.

The two men shook hands with much the air of two wrestlers meeting for a bout. For a moment neither spoke. Each knew that in the silence he was being measured, estimated, searched for his weakness and his strength, and each gave to the other this opportunity as his right. No time was wasted in idle preliminaries. These men knew the value of time. No formal words expressing pleasure at the meeting were spoken. They tacitly accepted the fact that pleasure had not called them together.

James Greenfield was a fair representative of his class. His full, well-colored face with carefully clipped gray mustache, bright blue eyes and gray hair, was the calmly alert, well-controlled, thoughtful face of power: not the face of one who does things, but of one who causes things to be done; not the face of one who is himself powerful, but of one who controls and directs power; such a face as you may see leaning from the cab of a great locomotive that pulls the overland limited, or looking down at you from the bridge of the ocean liner. It was courageous, but with a courage not personal—a courage born rather of an exact knowledge of the strength and duty of every bolt, rivet and lever of the machine under his hand. It was confident, not in its own strength, but in the strength that it ruled and directed.

Jefferson Worth motioned toward a chair at the end of his desk and seated himself. The man from the East found himself forced to make the opening.

"Mr. Worth," he said, "we find it very difficult to understand your attitude toward our company. We do not see why you decline our proposition. Your own report gives every reason in the world why you should accept and you suggest no reason at all for declining. Frankly, it looks strange to us and I have come out to have a little talk with you over the matter and to see if we could not persuade you to reconsider your decision, or at least to learn your reasons for refusing to go in with us. Your report and your answer to our proposition are so conflicting that we feel we have a right to some definite reason for your unexpected decision."