"My proud lady, keep your pride a little longer," he said to himself.
And as he bowed to Stephen Archdale with a dignity as great as Stephen's
own, he was thinking: "My morning in that hot office has not been in
vain. I know your weak point now, my lofty fellow, and it is there that
I will undermine you. You detest business, indeed! John Archdale feels
that with his only son in England studying for the ministry he needs a
son-in-law in partnership with him. The thousands which I have been
putting into his business this morning are well spent, they make me
welcome here. Yes, your uncle needs me, Stephen Archdale, for your
clever papa is not always brotherly in his treatment, he has more than
once brought heavy losses upon the younger firm. It's a part of my
pleasure in prospect that now I shall be able to checkmate him in such
schemes, perhaps to bring back a little of the loss upon the shoulders
of his heir. Ah, I am safer from you than you dream." He turned to
Waldo, and as the two men bowed, they looked at one another steadily.
Each was remembering their conversation the night before over some
Bordeaux in Waldo's room, for they were staying at the same inn and
often spent an hour together. They had drunk sparingly, but, just
returned from their sail, each was filled with Katie Archdale's beauty,
and each had spoken out his purpose plainly, Waldo with an assurance
that, if it savored a little of conceit, was full of manliness, the
other with a half-smothered fierceness of passion that argued danger to
every obstacle in its way.

"You've come at the very right moment, Master Harwin," broke in Katie's
unconscious voice, and she smiled graciously, as she had a habit of
doing at everybody; "We were talking about you not two minutes ago."

"Then I am just in time to save my character."