"You really want my advice?—my serious advice?"
"What d'you suppose I brought you here for? Sure I do."
"Here it is then: Marry her."
David expected an outburst from the Mayor, but the Mayor's head fell hopelessly forward into his hands and he said not a word. David took advantage of the quiet to speak as eloquently as he could of the advantages of marrying in the Mayor's case. At length the Mayor looked up. Hopelessness was still in his face, but it was the hopelessness of resignation, not the hopelessness of revolt.
"Well, if it had to be one o' them, I'd just as soon it was her," he said, with a deep sigh.
CHAPTER X
A BAD PENNY TURNS UP
David found a keen pleasure in the business on which he was now engaged. For four years he had talked to no one, and for a year he had talked to but four or five. Now he was actively thrown among men of the world—Jordon, the general agent of the New Jersey Home Company, his assistants, and the attorneys of the company. He instinctively measured himself beside them, and he exulted, for though they were the shrewder in business, he felt himself bigger, broader, than they.
The deal progressed hopefully. David discovered the five owners in Rogers's syndicate to be five ordinary men, with no particular business courage and no courage of any other kind, and whose interest in their own welfare was their only interest in life. However, they had confidence in Rogers's success, and stood solidly behind him—which was all that could be desired of them. From his first meeting with Jordon, David, too, was confident of success. Jordon held off, talked about preposterous prices—but David felt surrender beneath the grand air with which the general agent brushed Rogers's proposition aside. The company had to have the land, so it had to meet Rogers's terms. And after each subsequent meeting David felt that much nearer the day of surrender.