e have ever been."

Again I looked from coward to coward of that mob, changed from three
hundred strong to three hundred weak. Then I bowed and withdrew, leaving
them to mutter and disperse. I felt well content with the trend of
events--I who wished to impress the public and the financiers that I had
broken with speculation and speculators, could I have had a better than
this unexpected opportunity sharply to define my new course? And as
Textiles, unsupported, fell toward the close of the day, my content rose
toward my normal high spirits. There was no whisper in the Street that
I was in trouble; on the contrary, the idea was gaining ground that I
had really long ceased to be a stock gambler and deserved a much better
reputation than I had. Reputation is a matter of diplomacy rather than of
desert. In all my career I was never less entitled to a good reputation
than in those June days; yet the disastrous gambling follies, yes, and
worse, I then committed, formed the secure foundation of my reputation
for conservatism and square dealing. From that time dates the decline of
the habit the newspapers had of speaking of me as "Black Matt" or "Matt"
Blacklock. In them, and therefore in the public mind, I began to figure as
"Mr. Blacklock, a recognized authority on finance," and such information as
I gave out ceased to be described as "tips" and was respectfully referred
to as "indications."

No doubt, my marriage had something to do with this. Probably one couldn't
borrow any great amount of money in New York directly and solely on
the strength of a fashionable marriage; but, so all-pervading is the
snobbishness there, one can get, by making a fashionable marriage, any
quantity of that deferential respect from rich people which is, in some
circumstances, easily convertible into cash and credit.

I searched with a good deal of anxiety, as you may imagine, the early
editions of the afternoon papers. The first article my eye chanced upon was
a mere wordy elaboration of the brief and vague announcement Monson had put
in the _Herald_. Later came an interview with old Ellersly.

"Not at all mysterious," he had said to the reporters. "Mr. Blacklock found
he would have to go abroad on business soon--he didn't know just when. On
the spur of the moment they decided to marry." A good enough story, and
I confirmed it when I admitted the reporters. I read their estimates of
my fortune and of Anita's with rather bitter amusement--she who