Hand, a very heavy, taciturn man, merely looked at him. “I’ll be ready enough to do,” he said, “when I see how and what’s to be done.”
A little later Schryhart, meeting Duane Kingsland, learned the true source of Hand’s feeling against Cowperwood, and was not slow in transferring this titbit to Merrill, Simms, and others. Merrill, who, though Cowperwood had refused to extend his La Salle Street tunnel loop about State Street and his store, had hitherto always liked him after a fashion—remotely admired his courage and daring—was now appropriately shocked.
“Why, Anson,” observed Schryhart, “the man is no good. He has the heart of a hyena and the friendliness of a scorpion. You heard how he treated Hand, didn’t you?”
“No,” replied Merrill, “I didn’t.”
“Well, it’s this way, so I hear.” And Schryhart leaned over and confidentially communicated considerable information into Mr. Merrill’s left ear.
The latter raised his eyebrows. “Indeed!” he said.
“And the way he came to meet her,” added Schryhart, contemptuously, “was this. He went to Hand originally to borrow two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on West Chicago Street Railway. Angry? The word is no name for it.”
“You don’t say so,” commented Merrill, dryly, though privately interested and fascinated, for Mrs. Hand had always seemed very attractive to him. “I don’t wonder.”
He recalled that his own wife had recently insisted on inviting Cowperwood once.
Similarly Hand, meeting Arneel not so long afterward, confided to him that Cowperwood was trying to repudiate a sacred agreement. Arneel was grieved and surprised. It was enough for him to know that Hand had been seriously injured. Between the two of them they now decided to indicate to Addison, as president of the Lake City Bank, that all relations with Cowperwood and the Chicago Trust Company must cease. The result of this was, not long after, that Addison, very suave and gracious, agreed to give Cowperwood due warning that all his loans would have to be taken care of and then resigned—to become, seven months later, president of the Chicago Trust Company. This desertion created a great stir at the time, astonishing the very men who had suspected that it might come to pass. The papers were full of it.