"It is." Mr. Shayne perceived that Hugo was angry. "Now, don't get sentimental. Keep your eye on the ball. I—" He did not finish, because Mrs. Shayne came into the room. Hugo stared at him fixedly, his face livid, for several seconds before he was conscious of her. Even then it was only a partial consciousness.
She was stuffed into a tight, bright dress. She was holding out her hand, holding his hand, holding his hand too long. There was mascara around her eyes and they dilated and blinked in a foolish and flirtatious way; her voice was syrup. She was taking a cocktail with the other hand—maybe if he gave her hand a real squeeze, she would let go. A tall, sallow young man had come in behind her; he was Mr. Jerome Leonardo Bateau, a perfect dear. Mrs. Shayne was still holding his hand and murmuring; Mr. Shayne was patting his shoulder; Mr. Bateau was staring with haughty and jealous eyes. Hugo excused himself.
In the hall he asked for Mr. Shayne's secretary. He collected himself in a few frigid sentences. "Please tell Mr. Shayne I am very grateful. I wish to transfer my entire fortune to my parents in Indian Creek, Colorado. The name is Abednego Danner. Make all arrangements."
A faint "But—" followed him futilely through the door. In the space of a block he had cut a pace that set other pedestrians gaping to a fast walk.
XVII
Hugo sat in Madison Square Park giving his attention in a circuit to the Flatiron Building, the clock on the Metropolitan Tower, and the creeping barrage of traffic that sent people scampering, stopped, moved forward again. He had sat on the identical bench at the identical time of day during his obscure undergraduate period. To repeat that contemplative stasis after so much living had intervened ought to have produced an emotion. He had gone to the park with that idea. But the febrile fires of feeling were banked under the weight of many things and he could suffer nothing, enjoy nothing and think but one fragmentary routine.
He had tried much and made no progress. He would be forced presently to depart on a different course from a new threshold. That idea went round and round in his head like a single fly in a big room. It lost poignancy and eventually it lost meaning. Still he sat in feeble sunshine trying to move beyond stagnancy. He remembered the small man with the huge roll of bills who had moved beside him and asked for a cup of coffee. He remembered the woman who had robbed him; silk ankles crossed his line of vision, and a gusty appetite vaporized even as it steamed into the coldness of his indecision.
He was without money now, as he had been then, so long ago. He budged on the bench and challenged himself to think.
What would you do if you were the strongest man in the world, the strongest thing in the world, mightier than the machine? He made himself guess answers for that rhetorical query. "I would—I would have won the war. But I did not. I would run the universe single-handed. Literally single-handed. I would scorn the universe and turn it to my own ends. I would be a criminal. I would rip open banks and gut them. I would kill and destroy. I would be a secret, invisible blight. I would set out to stamp crime off the earth; I would be a super-detective, following and summarily punishing every criminal until no one dared to commit a felony. What would I do? What will I do?"