“But you will not have much to do there—only a little consulting once a week or so, and they say that you can talk to them here if you wish.”
“It's too much responsibility,” he answered.
“But it's so respectable,” she urged. “My heart is set on it. They tell me that, next to Mr. Morgan, you would be the greatest power in American finance. We should all be so proud of you.”
“I couldn't wish you to be any more proud of me,” he answered, tenderly.
“But, naturally, we want you to be as great as you can, Whitfield,” she went on. “This would mean so much to me and to Gwendolyn.”
He rose wearily, with a glance into my eyes which I perfectly understood, and went to his wife and kissed her and said:
“My dear, I am sure that Mr. Potter will agree with me.”
“Unreservedly,” was my answer.
I knew then that this ambitious woman was as ignorant as the cattle in their farmyard of the greater honors which he had declined.
She rose and left the room with a look of disappointment. How far the urgency of his wife and other misguided friends may have gone I know not, but I have reason to believe that it put him to his wit's ends.