Craig wheeled on him. "You don't--can't--understand. You're like
all these people. Money is your god. But I don't want money, I
want power--to make all these snobs with their wealth, these
millionaires, these women with fine skins and beautiful bodies,
bow down before me--that's what I want!"

Arkwright laughed. "Well, it's up to you, Joshua."

Craig tossed his Viking head. "Yes, it's up to me, and I'll get
what I want--the people and I.... Who's THAT frightful person?"

Into the room, only a few feet from them, advanced an old woman--
very old, but straight as a projectile. She carried her head high,
and her masses of gray-white hair, coiled like a crown, gave her
the seeming of royalty in full panoply. There was white lace over
her black velvet at the shoulders; her train swept yards behind
her. She was bearing a cane, or rather a staff, of ebony; but it
suggested, not decrepitude, but power--perhaps even a weapon that
might be used to enforce authority should occasion demand. In her
face, in her eyes, however, there was that which forbade the
supposition of any revolt being never so remotely possible.

As she advanced across the ballroom, dancing ceased before her and
around her, and but for the noise of the orchestra there would
have been an awed and painful silence. Mrs. Burke's haughty
daughter-in-law, with an expression of eager desire to conciliate
and to please, hastened forward and conducted the old lady to a
gilt armchair in the center of the dais, across the end of the
ballroom. It was several minutes before the gayety was resumed,