had appeared to do but little in the way of persuasion. His
manners had been brusque, and his words had been few. Yet he
remained the master of the situation. He had gained a victory not
only financial but moral, over men whose experience and knowledge
were far greater than his. He was no City magnate, nor had he
ever received any training in those arts and practices which go
to the making of one. For his earlier life had been spent in a
wilder country where the gambling was for life and not merely for
gold. It was Scarlett Trent who sat there in thoughtful and
absorbed silence. He was leaning a little back in a comfortably
upholstered chair, with his eyes fixed on a certain empty spot
upon the table. The few inches of polished mahogany seemed to him
- empty of all significance in themselves - to be reflecting in
some mysterious manner certain scenes in his life which were now
very rarely brought back to him. The event of to-day he knew to
be the culmination of a success as rapid as it had been surprising.
He was a millionaire. This deal to-day, in which he had held his
own against the shrewdest and most astute men of the great city,
had more than doubled his already large fortune. A few years ago
he had landed in England friendless and unknown, to-day he had
stepped out from even amongst the chosen few and had planted his
feet in the higher lands whither the faces of all men are turned.
With a grim smile upon his lips, he recalled one by one the various
enterprises into which he had entered, the courage with which he
had forced them through, the solid strength with which he had thrust
weaker men to the wall and had risen a little higher towards his
goal upon the wreck of their fortunes. Where other men had failed
he had succeeded. To-day the triumph was his alone. He was a
millionaire - one of the princes of the world!