Colonel Tom walked out of the room like a conqueror, declining to speak to Sam as he passed, and Sam looked down the table at Webster and made a motion with his head toward the man who had not voted.
Within an hour Sam’s fight was won. Pouncing upon the man representing the stock of the south-side investor, he and Webster did not go out of the room until they had secured absolute control of the Rainey Company and the man who had refused to vote had put twenty-five thousand dollars into his pocket. The two employeé directors Sam marked for slaughter. Then after spending the afternoon and early evening with the representatives of the eastern companies and their attorneys he drove home to Sue.
It was past nine o’clock when his car stopped before the house and, going at once to his room, he found Sue sitting before his fire, her arms thrown above her head and her eyes staring at the burning coals.
As Sam stood in the doorway looking at her a wave of resentment swept over him.
“The old coward,” he thought, “he has brought our fight here to her.”
Hanging up his coat he filled his pipe and drawing up a chair sat beside her. For five minutes Sue sat staring into the fire. When she spoke there was a touch of hardness in her voice.
“When everything is said, Sam, you do owe a lot to father,” she observed, refusing to look at him.
Sam said nothing and she went on.
“Not that I think we made you, father and I. You are not the kind of man that people make or unmake. But, Sam, Sam, think what you are doing. He has always been a fool in your hands. He used to come home here when you were new with the company and talk of what he was doing. He had a whole new set of ideas and phrases; all that about waste and efficiency and orderly working toward a definite end. It did not fool me. I knew the ideas, and even the phrases he used to express them, were not his and I was not long finding out they were yours, that it was simply you expressing yourself through him. He is a big helpless child, Sam, and he is old. He hasn’t much longer to live. Do not be hard, Sam. Be merciful.”
Her voice did not tremble but tears ran down her rigid face and her expressive hands clutched at her dress.