And he found, to his surprise, that to be a rich man involved on a larger scale the qualms of the poor; the risk of being cheated out of his wealth; to lose moreover pounds where once he risked pence.
Ambition dies harder even than vanity, and ostentation took the place of his thrift. He craved the outward signs of opulence, a house filled with treasures that other men of mark could recognize and covet and openly discuss.
But here commercial instinct failed him at the start. No longer could he wholly depend on himself. He lacked the inherited knowledge, the slow experience and the everyday atmosphere of a cultured home.
Advisers could be bought, but were they trustworthy? It maddened him, this closed door to a rich man's clue. Suddenly he became sensitive to a sneer. Above all he dreaded the smile of the connoisseur.
He realized that a partner was what he required, and for the first time began to think of a wife. Fate threw Helen Greaves at this juncture in his path. He found her in a small hôtel upon the East coast with her youngest pupil, whose health required care, and was interested immediately when he heard her discussing the merits of a certain picture with her charge.
Their tables, side by side, in the deserted dining room gave him the opportunity he sought. An acquaintance was formed and friendship ripened quickly between the curious, dissimilar pair.
Past her first youth, withered, austere, Helen Greaves nevertheless possessed a certain charm: the impress of the class she had lived with and served, that knowledge of the cultured world which Ebenezer lacked.
Moreover, for many years, she had taught the daughters of a certain peer; in a well-known house full of art treasures, inherited and added to by the present owner; and with her quick brain and love of the beautiful had become herself no mean connoisseur.
She had travelled largely with her pupils, had learned to criticize and discriminate. Here was a woman after Ebenezer's heart, grounded in that hobby he longed to make his own.
The object of his visit to the little sea-side town had been to attend a neighbouring sale where the death of the owner had thrown on the market a certain much-discussed old master.