At last we looked up, at the same moment, and our eyes rested on the portrait above us. The cloth had slipped from the canvas, and there was the speaking face, old and saddened—the face without hope, without desire. It seemed the face of despair, chiding us for our thoughts of youth and hope. Mrs. Dround arose from the floor and hung the cloth in its place, touching the portrait softly here and there. Then she stood, resting her hands on the frame, absorbed in thought. A kind of gloom had come over her features.
"This—this scheme you have plotted, is life! It is imagination!" She drew a long breath as though to shake off the lethargy of years. "That art," she pointed to the picture of a pale, ghostly woman's face, hanging near by us on the wall—"that is a mere plaything beside yours."
"I don't know much about art: that is the work of a man's own two hands. But mine is the work of thousands and thousands, hands and brains. And it can be ruined by a trick of fate."
"No, never! You shall have your chance—I promise it—I know! Sit down here and let us go back to the first steps and work it out again carefully."
So there in the fading twilight of the afternoon was formed the American Meat Products Company. Again and again we went over the companies to be included, the sources of credit, the men to interest, the bankers from whom money might be had.
"It is here we must have Mr. Dround's help," I pointed out significantly.
She nodded.
"When this step is taken, I think he ought to go abroad—he needs the rest. He could leave all else to you, I think."
I understood; the corporation once formed, he would drop out.