whom she talked from wandering, delighted him. He said to himself that
here was a girl after his own heart. He had admired her looks at the
outset, but he gazed at her now more critically. He danced every dance
with her, and they sat together at supper, apart from everybody else.
Flossy's resolutions were swept away. That is, she had become in an
instant indifferent to the fact that the New York girl she had yearned
to imitate would not have made herself so conspicuous. Her excuse was
that she could not help herself. It was a case of genuine, violent
attraction, which she made no effort to straggle against.

The attraction was violent on both sides. Gregory Williams was not
seeking to be married. He had been, until within six months, a broker's
clerk, and had become a banker on the strength of ten thousand dollars
bequeathed to him by a grandmother. He and a clerk from another broker's
office, J. Willett VanHorne, had recently formed a partnership as
Williams & VanHorne, Bankers and Dealers in Stocks and Bonds. He was not
seeking to be married, but he intended to be married some day, and it
was no part of his scheme of life to deny himself anything he wished.
Support a wife? Of course he could; and support her in the same
grandiose fashion which he had adopted for himself since he had begun
business on his own account. He had chosen as a philosophy of life the
smart paradox, which he enjoyed uttering, that he spent what he needed
first and supplied the means later; and at the same time he let it be
understood that the system worked wonderfully. He possessed unlimited
confidence in himself, and though he was dimly aware that a very small
turn of the wheel of fortune in the wrong direction would ruin him
financially, he chose to close his eyes to the possibilities of disaster
and to assume a bold and important bearing before the world. He had
implicit faith in his own special line of ability, and he appreciated
the worth of his partner, VanHorne. He had joined forces with VanHorne