He became the leader of a group of young financiers who acquired and developed with amazing success a chain of impoverished railroads. He played the game, scrupulous to his word, merciless in a fight, generous to a conquered enemy, for the love of the game itself. A big man with a curious atmosphere of amused calm in the midst of the flurry and turmoil he aroused, he enjoyed the turns and twists of fate with the zest of a boy gray-eyed, imperturbable, and magnetic, winning even those who saw in him an ethical and economical danger.
Such was the man who was bending over a great oaken table engrossed in the piecing together of an intricate picture puzzle, as Bojo came through the heavy tapestry portières. Patsie, perched on a corner, was looking on with approving interest at the happy solving of a perplexing group. She sprang down, flung her arms about her father in an impulsive farewell, and came prancing over to Bojo with a laughing warning:
"Whatever you do, never find a piece for him. It makes him madder than a wet hen. He wants to do it all himself. Now I'm running off. Don't worry! Go on, talk your old business."
She went off like the flash of a golden bird while Bojo, slightly intimidated, was wishing she might remain.
"Tom—glad to see you—come in—just a moment—help yourself to a cigar. Confound that piece, I knew it fitted in there!" Drake left the board with a lingering regret, shook hands with a grip that seemed to envelop the young man, and went to the mantel for a match, where a large equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni rose threateningly from the shadows.
"Glad to see you, my boy—my orders are in from the General Manager, and when the General Manager gives orders I know it means hustle!" By this title he designated Doris, whose practical ambitions and perseverance he satirized with an indulgent smile. "Far as I can make out, Doris has determined to make you a millionaire in a couple of years or so, so I suppose the best thing is to sit down and discuss it."
As he stood there gaunt and alert against the bronze background, there was something about him too of the old condottieri, a certain blunt and hardened quality of the grizzled head, as though he too had just hung back a steel helmet and emerged tense and victorious from a bruising scramble.
"Supposing he's figuring out that I'll cost him less than the Duke," thought Tom, conscious of a certain proprietary estimation below all the surface urbanity, and, squaring to the charge, he said: "I'm afraid, sir, you've a pretty poor opinion of me."
"What do you mean?" said Drake, with sudden interest.
"May I talk to you plainly, sir?" said Tom, a little flustered. "I don't know just how I feel about Doris or even just how she feels about me. I certainly have no intention of marrying her until I know what I am worth myself, and I certainly don't intend to come to you, her father, to make money for me."