“Oh, forgive me, old chap!” Millard flushed with honest contrition. “You more than anyone else in the world must feel—but I’m glad to see that you are not taking it too hard.”
Storm shot a quick glance at him. Was there a suggestion of criticism in the other’s tone?
“One cannot always see,” he said stiffly. “Sometimes a thing cuts too deep to show on the surface. But I can’t talk about it even yet, Millard. I can’t find words.”
He couldn’t. One thought alone was racing through his brain. His sixty thousand was safe, after all! It would be given into his hands again, and he would be free! Free from these hypocritical mouthings about a dead past, these constant reminders of the old life!
What a fool he had been to disclaim so emphatically to both Langhorne and Millard the fact that he had been victimized! How they would laugh at him when the truth came out! Well, let them! Unconsciously he squared his shoulders. He would have the last laugh, sixty thousand of them! God, what a reprieve!
The afternoon passed in a glamor of renewed hope and revived plans. No more trifling with investments for him! When once the money was safely in his possession again he would throw up his position without a day’s delay and catch the first steamer that sailed, no matter for what port she cleared. Anywhere! Any war-riddled, God-forsaken corner of the globe would be heaven after this caged existence, surrounded by potential spies—and judges!
He was dimly aware that those with whom he came in contact that afternoon gazed at him curiously, but for once he was heedless of their possible criticism. The exalted mood lasted throughout his solitary dinner, and on returning to his apartments he ignored a painfully spelled message which Homachi had left requesting him to call up ‘Mr. Holworti’ and paced the floor in utter abandonment to the joy which consumed him.
His days of slavery and imprisonment were over! Just at the moment when life had looked blackest to him and all hope was gone, the shackles were struck from him and the way lay open to a new existence. Never again would he decry his luck! His capital, which had shrunk to insignificance before the wild idea of doubling it, now loomed large before him. It meant freedom, life!
He would go to the Far East. Many changes were bound to come there, many opportunities would arise in the general upheaval of worldwide readjustment to the new order of things, and the colorful atmosphere there had always held a fascination for him. Europe would do later, but at first he would lose himself in the glamor of a new world.
He halted, drawn from his reverie by the sound of confused, raucous shouting in the street, and realized vaguely that it had been going on for some time. His apartment was on the ground floor, and he opened a window of the living-room and leaned out. The Drive seemed deserted, but on the block below he descried two retreating figures with flat white bundles beneath their arms.