His situation today, he wholly and gladly admitted, had resulted from
the money Fanny brought him. Until his marriage he had been confined to
the Magnolia Iron Works; of which, it was conceivable, he would in time
be manager, maybe, much later, part owner. But, with fresh resources,
he tried fresh fields, investments, purchases, every one of which
prospered. He owned or operated or controlled an extraordinary
diversity of industries--a bottling works for nonalcoholic beverages, a
small structural steel plant, the Eastlake daily paper--a property that
returned forty per cent on his capital--a box works, purchased before
the war, with an output that had leaped, almost over night, from
thousands to millions, a well-known cigarette--

His energies, forever turning from routine paths and stereotyped
preoccupations, took him vividly into countless phases of existence. He
had accumulated nearly a million dollars and Fanny's affairs had
benefited greatly; his administration of her money had been rigid: but
--for whatever it was worth--his wife had, in liberating him from the
company of the super-hot cupolas, made it all possible.

A fist, now, was softly pounding him; and Gregory's voice threatened
tears. "What is it?" Lee Randon asked. "You will have to excuse me, I
was thinking."

The narrative which followed, the confused history of a two and a half
dollar gold-piece finally taken from Gregory by his mother, was broken
into by Helena's irrepressible contempt at his youthfulness.

"He thinks the money is gone," she explained, "because Mother put it in
the bank for him. I told him when he got it there would be a lot more,
but he just wouldn't listen to me. No matter what anybody said it was