“It is hers, to do with as she pleases!” Storm retorted sulkily and then flushed as the school-boyishness of his own attitude was borne in upon his consciousness. “You cannot make big money unless you take a chance. I’ve been unlucky, that’s all. My father made all his in Wall Street, and his father before him——”
“In solid investments, not speculations; and they were on the inside themselves. They had the capital to take a gambler’s chance and the acumen to play the game.” Foulkes rose and laid his hand paternally upon the younger man’s shoulder. “Forgive me, my boy, but you haven’t the temperament, the knowledge of when to stop and the strength to do it. Of course, this money is yours unreservedly; you may have it if you want to risk this last venture, but it will take some time for me to convert the securities into cash. Remember, you have reached the bottom of the basket; I only want you to stop and consider, and not to jeopardize the last few thousand you have in the world.”
Outside in the bright May sunshine once more, Storm shouldered his way through the noon-tide throng on the busy pavement with scant ceremony, his resentment hot against the man he had just left. Confound old Foulkes! Why didn’t he keep his smug counsels for those who came sniveling to him for them? As if he, an official of a huge and noted corporation, were a mere lad once more, to be lectured for over-spending his allowance!
The fact that the position he held with the trust company entailed no financial responsibility and was practically an honorary one, granted him solely because of his father’s former connection with that institution, was a point which did not present itself to his mind. He was occupied in closing his mental eyes to the truth of the lawyer’s arraignment, bolstering his defiance with excuses for the repeated fiascos of his past ventures, and the secret knowledge that Foulkes had read him aright only added fuel to the flames.
Still inwardly seething, he crossed Broadway and plunged into another narrow, crowded cross-street lined by towering office buildings whose walls rose like cliffs on either side. From the tallest of these, an imposing structure of white stone which reared a shaft high above its neighbors, a woman emerged and mingled with the hurrying host before him. She was not a toiler of the financial district; that was evident from the costly simplicity of the smart little toque upon her shining golden hair and the correct lines of her severely tailored costume. She was undeniably pretty with the delicate, tender irregularity of feature which just escapes actual beauty; yet it was not that which caused Norman Storm to halt and drove from him all thought of the late interview.
It was his wife. Leila! What possible errand could have brought her to the city and to this portion of it? Surely an unexpected one, for she had not told him of any such intention; indeed, to his knowledge she had never before invaded the precincts of finance, and he could conceive of no possible reason for her presence there.
As he paused, momentarily petrified with astonishment, a stout little man upon the opposite curb also caught sight of the young woman’s hurrying figure, and he, too, stopped in surprise, a smile lighting his plain, commonplace features. Then, as though drawn by a magnet, his pale, rather faded blue eyes traveled straight to where Norman Storm stood, the surprise deepened, and with a half-audible exclamation he started across the street toward him; but a long double line of drays and motor trucks barred his way.
Meanwhile Leila had vanished utterly in the crowd, and Storm realizing the futility of an attempt to overtake her, dismissed the matter from his thoughts with a shrug. She would tell him of her errand, of course, on his return home; and a conference of importance awaited his immediate presence at the office of the trust company.
The conference developed complications which delayed him until long after the closing hour, forcing him to forego an engagement with Millard for a round of golf at the country club. He likewise missed his accustomed train bearing the club car out to Greenlea and was compelled to herd in with commuters bound for the less exclusive suburban communities on the line.
Storm was not a snob, but the atmosphere of petty clerking and its attendant interests grated upon his tired, highly strung sensibilities; the unsatisfactory interview of the morning with Foulkes returned to exasperate him further and he was in no very genial frame of mind when he alighted at the station.