figure, in him the East struggled with the West. It was necessary for the
latter to triumph. The difficulty lay in the fact that the first was
represented by an actual circumstance while the other was only a dim
apprehension, a weakened allegiance to ties never strong.

He cursed the extraordinary chance that, against every probability, had
brought the chest of opium safely to him here. Its purchase had been the
result of habit evading his will, he had despatched it--in that seesawing
contest--by a precarious route, half hoping that it would be lost or
seized; and, when he had seen the chest carried down Hardy Street to his
door, a species of terror had fastened upon him, a premonition of an evil
spirit flickering above him in a turning of oily smoke. Why hadn't he
pitched the thing into the water at the foot of their yard! There was
time still: he would take the balls of opium and dispose of them
secretly. A sudden energy, a renewed sense of strength, flooded him. This
distaste for Nettie changed into a pity at the ill luck that had followed
her: she didn't deserve it. Generous emotions expanded his heart. He
dreamed of taking hold of his father's small commerce in rum and sugar
with the West Indies and turning it into a concern as rich and powerful
as Ammidon, Ammidon and Saltonstone.

Why not!

They, too, would have a big white house on Washington Square or Chestnut
Street, with servants--Chinese servants--and horses and great ships
sailing in, laden with the East. Why not indeed! He, Edward Dunsack, had
more brains than Jeremy Ammidon, that stiff old man with a face the color
of a damask plum. His niece would go to all the balls at Franklin and
Hamilton Halls, the injustice of her position overcome by an impressively
increasing fortune. Abstractly he patted her shoulder with a hand as long