considered hipped on anything. Do I bore you, Miss Knight?"

"No; go on. I'm tremendously interested."

"Well, naturally, Hammon began to consider himself another
Napoleon, and his accomplishments were in a way quite as
wonderful; his strategy was quite as brilliant, and his victories
quite as complete. He even confided to me once that his idol
surpassed him in only one respect--namely, the power to relax--a
pardonable conceit, under the circumstances. Jarvis had never
taken time for relaxation, and he was beginning to wear out; and
so--he deliberately set about learning to play. The Emperor of
France, so history tells us, took his greatest pleasure in the
company of women; therefore Hammon sought women, just as he had
sought and gained financial conquest. He doesn't know the taste of
defeat; so the result was fore-ordained."

"But surely he thought something of his family," protested
Lorelei. "Didn't he consider them?"

"I fancy he wasn't well acquainted with his family. I'm sure he
never enjoyed any home life, as we understand it. He lived with a
rich old woman who bore his name but scarcely knew him; his
daughters were grown women whom he saw on rare occasions and whose
extravagant whims he gratified without question. But there was
little real intimacy, little sympathy. Remember, Jarvis had been a
boy, but he had never been young, and this was his first taste of
youth, But--he was not Napoleon. As you've noticed, he's quite mad
on the Lynn woman. He's no longer himself. He has been drugged by
her charms, and--now he's paying the price. I wanted you to know