An hour later, having yielded not a jot of his position, turning a deaf ear to threats, expostulations and arguments, he rose victorious.
In the anteroom he went up to Gunther, who was still bowed over his solitaire, waiting grimly until his word had been carried out.
"Mr. Gunther," said Slade, stopping at the table, "we have come to an understanding. The gentlemen in the other room were agreeably surprised at my exposition of the affairs of the Associated Trust. They are going to lend me five millions."
"Indeed!" said Gunther in a sort of grunt but with a countenance so impassive that Slade was moved to admiration.
"Gunther," he said, suddenly carried away by a feeling of prophetic elation, "up to now you've known me only as a speculator. Now I'm going to become a conservative force. In a month I'm coming to you with a proposition. You're the only man I would ever trust. Good-night."
His automobile was waiting. He threw himself riotously into it, giving the address of Mrs. Kildair's apartment; and as he felt the pleasant, exhilarating sensation which the speed of his machine conveyed to him, he repeated, feeling suddenly how at last he had emerged from the perils of the first phase which he had once so frankly defined:
"Now, I'll be conservative!"
Unlike Gunther, who had behind him the traditions of generations of authority, Slade had that typical quality so perplexing in the American millionaire of sudden fortune—the childlike eagerness for admiration. When he arrived at Mrs. Kildair's and found that she was still absent, he was consumed with a nervous impatience. He seated himself at the piano, playing over clumsily refrains of the crude ranch songs which came to him as an echo of his earlier struggling days. But these echoes of a past conflict seemed only to whet his impatience. He ended with a crashing discord and rose, lighting another cigar, pacing the broad space of the studio with rapid, restless strides, surprised at the annoyance which her absence brought him.
When Mrs. Kildair entered, let in by Henriette, her maid, Slade flung aside his cigar and strode impatiently forward.
One glance at his triumphant face told her what she wanted to know. She made a quick sign to him with her hand and turned her back, disengaging her opera cloak with exaggerated slowness, drawing a deep breath. Then she sent Henriette upstairs to her room to wait until she called.