"Why not?" he demanded. And added enigmatically, "Smaller men have been."
"I wish you wouldn't joke about Howard," she said.
"How does the idea strike you?" he persisted. "Ambition satisfied —temporarily; Quicksands a mile-stone on a back road; another toy to break; husband a big man in the community, so far as the eye can see; visiting list on Fifth Avenue, and all that sort of thing."
"I once told you you could be brutal," she said.
"You haven't told me what you thought of the idea."
"I wish you'd be sensible once in a while," she exclaimed.
"Howard Spence, President of the Orange Trust Company!" he recited. "I suppose no man is a hero to his wife. Does it sound so incredible?"
It did. But Honora did not say so.
"What have I to do with it?" she asked, in pardonable doubt as to his seriousness.
"Everything," answered Brent. "Women of your type usually have. They make and mar without rhyme or reason—set business by the ears, alter the gold reserve, disturb the balance of trade, and nobody ever suspects it. Old James Wing and I have got a trust company organized, and the building up, and the man Wing wanted for president backed out."