He was struck too with the fact that remarkable changes had taken place in his physical appearance during the past ten years of his reign as a financial potentate. Into his features had grown an undoubted dignity. His mouth had grown harder, colder, and more cruel and more significant of power. His eyes had sunk back deeper into his high forehead and sparkled with fiercer light. He had become more difficult of approach and carried himself with quiet conscious pride.
Stuart was scarcely prepared for the hearty, old-fashioned cordial way in which he went about the business for which he had asked him to come.
"I'm glad you like it, Jim," he added after a pause.
"It's magnificent."
"Glad," he repeated, "because you're going to come in here with me."
The lawyer lifted his brows and suppressed a smile.
"Oh, you needn't smile," Bivens went on good-naturedly. "It's as fixed as fate. You are the only man in New York who can do the work I've laid out and you've got to come. The swine who made up your convention the other day knew what they were about when they turned you down. You were too big a man for the job they gave you."
He paused and drew closer.
"Now, Jim, this is your day, those fellows out there in the reception hall can wait. You and I must have this thing out—man to man, heart to heart. You can talk plainly and I'll answer squarely."
The little man stopped again and looked at the ceiling thoughtfully.