"What a quaint remark!" said she.

I looked straight at her. "But you shall."

Our eyes met. Her chin came out a little, her eyebrows lifted. Then, in
scorn of herself as well as of me, she locked herself in behind a frozen
haughtiness that ignored me. "Ah, here is the carriage," she said. I
followed her to the curb; she just touched my hand, just nodded her
fascinating little head.

"See you Saturday, old man," called her brother friendlily. My lowering
face had alarmed him.

"That party is off," said I curtly. And I lifted my hat and strode away.

As I had formed the habit of dismissing the disagreeable, I soon put her
out of my mind. But she took with her my joy in the taste of things. I
couldn't get back my former keen satisfaction in all I had done and was
doing. The luxury, the tangible evidences of my achievement, no longer gave
me pleasure; they seemed to add to my irritation.

That's the way it is in life. We load ourselves down with toys like so many
greedy children; then we see another toy and drop everything to be free to
seize it; and if we can not, we're wretched.

I worked myself up, or rather, down, to such a mood that when my office boy
told me Mr. Langdon would like me to come to his office as soon as it was
convenient, I snapped out: "The hell he does! Tell Mr. Langdon I'll be
glad to see him here whenever he calls." That was stupidity, a premature
assertion of my right to be treated as an equal. I had always gone to
Langdon, and to any other of the rulers of finance, whenever I had got a
summons. For, while I was rich and powerful, I held both wealth and power,
in a sense, on sufferance; I knew that, so long as I had no absolute
control of any great department of industry, these rulers could destroy me
should they decide that they needed my holdings or were not satisfied with
my use of my power. There were a good many people who did not realize that
property rights had ceased to exist, that property had become a revocable
grant from the "plutocrats." I was not of those misguided ones who had
failed to discover the new fact concealed in the old form. So I used to go
when I was summoned.

But not that day. However, no sooner was my boy gone than I repented the
imprudence, "But what of it?" said I to myself. "No matter how the thing
turns out, I shall be able to get some advantage." For it was part of my
philosophy that a proper boat with proper sails and a proper steersman can
gain in any wind.