"But, mademoiselle, in an hour you are due for a fitting--your
wedding-gown."

"Don't stop to talk--hurry!"

Her wedding-gown! She wondered if she would ever need it.

As her car neared the business district she could feel in the air such
an electric tensity as one might expect to find at the verge of a
battle-field.

At first it was only a spirit of heightened excitement in the street
crowds; and the way men ran to meet the newsboys half-way. Then it was
humanity jostling about the doors of a bank with the excitement of
swarming bees. Across City Hall park came a glimpse of surging throngs
at the bulletin boards, and the unpleasant chorus of voices as fresh
bulletins went up.

* * * * *

Hamilton Burton had reached his office that morning at eight-thirty and
was ready upon their arrival to confer with those lieutenants whom he
had ordered to be with him at nine. Len Haswell appeared with the
lack-luster seeming of a jaded spirit and though Burton had on past
occasions chosen him as leader of every fierce assault on the floor,
because of his quick brain, his commanding physique and the voice that
could boom out like a heavy gun over the pandemonium of a frenzied
exchange, he now eyed his gigantic broker dubiously. This was no day for
his lieutenants to carry into that Gehenna which he meant to precipitate