Nancy gladly accepted her dismissal. She wanted to think. She wanted to get things into their proper focus. As she closed the door behind her her beautiful eyes had no joy in them. She had realised two things as a result of her interview. The opportunity she had looked forward to had materialised, and she had seized it with both hands. But the goodness of Elas Peterman to herself possessed none of that disinterested kindliness she had hitherto believed. Furthermore, there was dawning upon her that which her mirror should have told her long ago. She was beginning to understand that her work, her capacity, her application, counted far less in the favour of her chief than did those things with which nature had equipped her. She was shocked out of her youthful dream. And it left her so troubled, that, had she not been passing down the carpeted corridor of the Skandinavia offices, she would have burst into a flood of tears.
* * * * *
It was a different Elas Peterman who confronted the squat figure of Nathaniel Hellbeam. The master in the younger man was completely submerged. He possessed all the Teutonic capacity for self-abnegation in the presence of the power it is necessary to woo. There was only one master when the great financier was present. Elas Peterman knew that his part was to listen and obey with just that humility which he would have demanded had the position been reversed.
Another type than Hellbeam's would have despised the attitude. But the financier had no scruple. Nature had denied him qualities for inspiring affectionate regard, or even respect. But she had bestowed on him a lust for power, and a great vanity, and these he satisfied to the uttermost.
The financier drove straight to the object of his visit.
"I come for an important purpose," he said, in his guttural fashion. "There must be a special Board assemble. Skandinavia will buy the mill on Labrador. The Sachigo mill. I come on the night train, which is the worst thing I can think to do, to say this thing. If we do not buy this mill, then—" He broke off with an expressive gesture.
Elas nodded. He was startled, but his powers of dissimulation were profound.
"I understand," he said. "They have been approached?"
Hellbeam stirred his bulk in the chair Nancy had so recently occupied. It was a movement of irritation.
"That is for you. You represent Skandinavia. I—I say this thing. I the money find."