struggle, Paul would have fainted, undiscovered, by the wayside, but
with every difficulty made smooth before his feet and every puddle
carpeted by Hamilton's cloth of gold, he found himself the lionized pet
of inner circles and the favorite of the elect.

Of these things Hamilton Burton was thinking as he left his door for the
car that awaited him. From the start he had never deviated from his
well-laid course of determination. Power was his goal and by power he
meant no mean modicum, but limitless strength. He had picked finance as
his field of endeavor because in this day the scepter that sways affairs
must be the scepter of gold. But Hamilton Burton knew that he was only
starting and his plans ran to the future. As he looked ahead he never
forgot that the fighter must be well conditioned. With the discipline of
the boxer in training, he regulated his habits of personal life and held
his splendid nerves steady and above par. No man had ever seen the
dimming cloud of dissipation in his eye nor any gossip-monger whispered
of unwise indulgence. He was spoken of as fastidiously clean of life,
and yet it is doubtful whether any shadow of self-illusion found harbor
in his own mind. In morals as a code inspired of conscience he had no
interest; in rigid self-restraint from all that might impair the highest
efficiency of nerve and brain he was as unyielding as a Trappist. To the
mandate of his single deity, Ambition, he clove with unswerving
sternness. His lavish generosity to his family was a strong and clannish
passion--yet even that was a sort of greater selfishness and all the
world outside he held in ruthless disregard--a realm to conquer. That
one may conquer, many must fall--and to conquer was his one resolve.

Even now, awaited by several men who were not accustomed to cooling
their heels in anterooms, he halted at the curb, when he saw another
automobile draw up and recognized his brother Paul.