In the course of the evening's play at the tables, Larssen was struck with her increasing animation and gaiety. The heavy, listless look had left her eyes, and they now glittered with life and fire. When they left the tables to stroll by the milk-white terraces of the Casino, there was a flush in her cheeks and iridescence in her speech very different from a couple of hours before.
A spirit of caustic, impish brilliance was in her. She turned it upon the people they had rubbed shoulders with at the tables; upon the people walking past them on the terraces; even upon her husband:
"Clifford is a 90 per cent. success. There are men who can never achieve full success in any field whatever. They climb up to 70, 80, 90 per cent., and then the grade is too steep for them."
"They stick."
"Or run backwards downhill. I'm a passenger in a car of that kind. Near to the top, but not reaching it. So I get out to walk on myself."
"There are mighty few men who have the 100 per cent. in them."
"Tell me this, Mr Larssen. Did you know you were a 100 per cent. man when you started your business life, or did you come to realize it gradually?"
"I knew it from the first," replied the shipowner steadily. "Knew it when I was a mere kiddy. Set myself apart from the other boys. Told myself I was to be their master. Made myself master. Fought for it. Fought every boy who wouldn't acknowledge it.... When I went to sea as cabin-boy on the "Mary R." of Gloucester, the men on the trawler tried to "lick me into shape," as they called it. They didn't know what they were up against. I used those men as whet-stones—used them to kick fear out of myself. You notice that I limp a little? That's a legacy from the days of the 'Mary R.'"
Olive looked at him with open admiration. "That's epic!" she exclaimed. "How far are you going to climb?"
Larssen had never revealed to any man or woman—save only to his wife—the great ultimate purpose of his life. He did not tell it to Olive. She was to be used as a pawn in the great game, just as he was using Sir Francis and the dead Clifford Matheson. It came upon him that she was now a widow. He would fan her open admiration so as to make use of it when she awoke to the fact of her widowhood.