The resolve which had chilled and stiffened him into self-possession that afternoon in the drawingroom, and had even enabled him to speak with cold distinctness to Mrs. Minster and to leave the house of insult and defeat with dignity, had been as formless and unshaped as poor, heart-torn, trembling Lear’s threat to his daughters before Gloster’s gate. Revenge he would have—sweeping, complete, merciless, but by what means he knew not. That would come later.
Two weeks were gone, and the revenge seemed measurably nearer, though still its paths were all unmapped. It was clear enough to the young man’s mind now that Tenney and Wendover were intent on nothing less than plundering the whole Minster estate. Until that fatal afternoon in the drawingroom, he had kept himself surrounded with an elaborate system of self-deception. He had pretended to himself that the designs of these associates of his were merely smart commercial plans, which needed only to be watched with equal smartness. Now the pretence was put aside. He knew the men to be villains, and openly rated them as such in his thoughts.
He had a stem satisfaction in the thought that their schemes were in his hands. He would join them now, frankly and with all his heart, only providing the condition that his share of the proceeds should be safe-guarded. They should have his help to wreck this insolent, purse-proud, newly rich family, to strip them remorselessly of their wealth. His fellow brigands might keep the furnaces, might keep everything in and about this stupid Thessaly. He would take his share in hard coin, and shake the mud and slush of Dearborn County from off his feet. He was only in the prime of his youth. Romance beckoned to him from a hundred centres of summer civilization, where men knew how to live, and girls added culture and dowries to beauty and artistic dress. Oh, yes! he would take his money and go.
The dream of a career in his native village had brought him delight only so long as Kate Minster was its central figure. That vision now seemed so clumsy and foolish that he laughed at it. He realized that he had never liked the people here about him. Even the Minsters had been provincial, only a gilded variation upon the rustic character of the section. Nothing but the over-sanguine folly of youth could ever have prompted him to think that he wanted to be mayor of Thessaly, or that it would be good to link his fortunes with the dull, under-bred place. Oh, no! he would take his money and go.
The two men for whom he had been waiting broke abruptly in upon his revery by entering the room. They came in without even a show of knocking on the door, and Horace frowned a little at their rudeness.
Stout Judge Wendover panted heavily with the exertion of ascending the stairs, and it seemed to have put him out of temper as well as breath. He threw off his overcoat with an impatient jerk, took a chair, and gruffly grunted “How-de-do!” in the direction of his host, without taking the trouble to even nod a salutation. Tenney also seated himself, but he did not remove his overcoat. Even in the coldest seasons he seemed to wear the same light, autumnal clothes, creaseless and gray, and mouselike in effect. The two men looked silently at Horace, and he felt that they disapproved his velveteen coat.
“Well?” he asked, at last, leaning back in his chair and trying to equal them in indifference. “What is new in New York, Judge?”
“Never mind New York! Thessaly is more in our line just now,” said Wendover, sternly.
The young man simulated a slight yawn. “You’re welcome to my share of the town, I’m sure,” he said; “I’m not very enthusiastic about it myself.”
“How much has Reuben Tracy got to work on? How much have you blabbed about our business to him?” asked the New Yorker.