Mary Virginia got back her color and her appetite and forgot to remember that her heart was incurably broken and that she could never love again. She liked to think her painful experience had made her very wise. Then she went abroad, and her cure was complete. The result of it all was that poise and pride which had so greatly delighted the autocratic old kinswoman whose fiat had set the last seal of social success upon her.
When one of life's little jokes flung Hunter into Appleboro and she had to observe him with impartial and less ingenuous eyes, she forgave the simple schoolgirl's natural mistake. He had not changed, and she perceived his effect upon others older and wiser than herself. And her pride chose neither to slight nor to ignore him now, but rather to meet him casually, with indifference, as a stranger in whom she was not at all interested.
Mr. Inglesby she did not take seriously. She did not dream that a possible menace to herself lay in this stout man whom she considered fatuous and absurd, when she thought of him at all. That her mother should be completely taken in by his specious charity and his plausible presentment of himself, did not surprise her. She was inclined to smile scornfully and so dismiss him.
She underestimated Inglesby.
The very fact that there was such an obstacle in the way as a young fellow with whom she fancied herself in love only deepened Inglesby's passion for Mary Virginia. She was in her proper person all that he coveted and groveled to. To possess her in addition to his own wealth—what more could a man ask? Let Eustis become senator, governor, president, anything he chose. But let Inglesby have Mary Virginia by way of fair exchange.
Mr. Inglesby was well aware that Miss Eustis would not for one moment consider him—unless she had to. He proposed to so arrange affairs that she had to. Naturally, he looked to his private secretary to help him bring about this desirable end. And at this opportune moment fate played into his hands in a manner that left Mr. Hunter's assent a matter of course.
Mr. Hunter had very expensive tastes which his salary was not always sufficient to cover. Wherefore, like many another, he speculated. When he was lucky, it was easy money; but it was never enough. Of late he had not been fortunate, and he found himself confronted by the high cost of living as he chose to live. This annoyed him. So when there came his way what appeared to be an absolute certainty of not only recouping all his losses but of making some real money as well, Hunter plunged, with every dollar he could manage to get hold of. But Wall Street is a lane that has many crooked and devious turnings, and Mr. Hunter's investments took a very wrong turn. And this time it was not only all his own money that had been lost. The bottom might have dropped out of things then, except for Inglesby.
When Hunter had to tell him the truth the financier listened with an unmoved face. Then he swung around in his chair, lifted an eyebrow, grunted, and remarked briefly: "Very unsafe thing to do, Hunter. Very." And shoved his personal check across the desk. Nobody knew anything about it, except the head bookkeeper of the bank.
Inglesby had no illusions, however. He understood that to have in his power an immensely clever man who knew as much about his private affairs as Hunter did, was good business, to say the least. He simply invested in Mr. Hunter's brains and personality for his own immediate ends, and he expected his brilliant and expensive secretary to prove the worth of the investment.
Inglesby had not risen to his present heights by beating about the bush in his dealings with others. He had seized Success by the windpipe and throttled it into obedience, and he ruthlessly bent everything and everybody to his own purposes. The task he set before Hunter now was to steer the Inglesby ship through a perilous passage into the matrimonial harbor he had in mind. Let Hunter do that—no matter how—and the pilot's future was assured. Inglesby would be no niggardly rewarder. But let the venture come to shipwreck and Hunter must go down with it. Hunter was not left in any doubt upon that score.