left her eyes, and they now glittered with life and fire. When they
left the tables to stroll by the milk-white terraces of the Casino,
there was a flush in her cheeks and iridescence in her speech very
different from a couple of hours before.

A spirit of caustic, impish brilliance was in her. She turned it upon
the people they had rubbed shoulders with at the tables; upon the people
walking past them on the terraces; even upon her husband:

"Clifford is a 90 per cent. success. There are men who can never achieve
full success in any field whatever. They climb up to 70, 80, 90 per
cent., and then the grade is too steep for them."

"They stick."

"Or run backwards downhill. I'm a passenger in a car of that kind. Near
to the top, but not reaching it. So I get out to walk on myself."

"There are mighty few men who have the 100 per cent. in them."

"Tell me this, Mr Larssen. Did you know you were a 100 per cent. man
when you started your business life, or did you come to realize it
gradually?"

"I knew it from the first," replied the shipowner steadily. "Knew it
when I was a mere kiddy. Set myself apart from the other boys. Told
myself I was to be their master. Made myself master. Fought for it.
Fought every boy who wouldn't acknowledge it.... When I went to sea as
cabin-boy on the "Mary R." of Gloucester, the men on the trawler tried
to "lick me into shape," as they called it. They didn't know what they