I shook my head. "I must put it up to within a point or two of par," I
declared. "In my public letter I've been saying it would go above
ninety-five, and I never deceive my public."

He smiled--my notion of honesty always amused him. "As you please," he
said with a shrug. Then I saw a serious look--just a fleeting flash of
warning--behind his smiling mask; and he added carelessly: "Be careful
about your own personal play. I doubt if Textile can be put any higher."

It must have been my mood that prevented those words from making the
impression on me they should have made. Instead of appreciating at once
and at its full value this characteristic and amazingly friendly signal
of caution, I showed how stupidly inattentive I was by saying: "Something
doing? Something new?"

But he had already gone further than his notion of friendship warranted. So
he replied: "Oh, no. Simply that everything's uncertain nowadays."

My mind had been all this time on those Manasquale mining properties. I now
said: "Has Roebuck told you that I had to buy those mines on my own
account?"

"Yes," he said. He hesitated, and again he gave me a look whose meaning
came to me only when it was too late. "I think, Blacklock, you'd better
turn them over to me."

"I can't," I answered. "I gave my word."

"As you please," said he.

Apparently the matter didn't interest him. He began to talk of the
performances of my little two-year-old, Beachcomber; and after twenty
minutes or so, he drifted away. "I envy you your enthusiasm," he said,
pausing in my doorway. "Wherever I am, I wish I were somewhere else.
Whatever I'm doing, I wish I were doing something else. Where do you get
all this joy of the fight? What the devil are you fighting for?"

He didn't wait for a reply.

I thought over my situation steadily for several days. I went down to my
country place. I looked everywhere among all my belongings, searching,
searching, restless, impatient. At last I knew what ailed me--what the lack
was that yawned so gloomily from everything I had once thought beautiful,
had once found sufficient. I was in the midst of the splendid, terraced
pansy beds my gardeners had just set out; I stopped short and slapped my
thigh. "A woman!" I exclaimed. "That's what I need. A woman--the right sort
of woman--a wife!"

IV. A CANDIDATE FOR "RESPECTABILITY"

To handle this new business properly I must put myself in position
to look the whole field over. I must ge