any
more than I can make you. Your life is in your own hands. What will you
do?"

Stener stood there ridiculously meditating when, as a matter of fact,
his very financial blood was oozing away. Yet he was afraid to act. He
was afraid of Mollenhauer, afraid of Cowperwood, afraid of life and of
himself. The thought of panic, loss, was not so much a definite thing
connected with his own property, his money, as it was with his social
and political standing in the community. Few people have the sense of
financial individuality strongly developed. They do not know what it
means to be a controller of wealth, to have that which releases the
sources of social action--its medium of exchange. They want money, but
not for money's sake. They want it for what it will buy in the way
of simple comforts, whereas the financier wants it for what it will
control--for what it will represent in the way of dignity, force, power.
Cowperwood wanted money in that way; Stener not. That was why he had
been so ready to let Cowperwood act for him; and now, when he should
have seen more clearly than ever the significance of what Cowperwood was
proposing, he was frightened and his reason obscured by such things
as Mollenhauer's probable opposition and rage, Cowperwood's possible
failure, his own inability to face a real crisis. Cowperwood's innate
financial ability did not reassure Stener in this hour. The banker was
too young, too new. Mollenhauer was older, richer. So was Simpson; so
was Butler. These men, with their wealth, represented the big forces,
the big standards in his world. And besides, did not Cowperwood himself
confess that he was in great danger--that he was in a corner. That was
the worst possible confession to make to Stener--although under the
circumstances it was the only one that could be made--for he had no
courage to face danger.

So it was that now, Stener stood by Cowperwood meditating--pale,
flaccid; unable to see the main line of his interests quickly, unable
to follow it definitely, surely, vigorously--while they drove to his
office. Cowperwood entered it with him for the sake of continuing his
plea.

"Well, George," he said earnestly, "I wish you'd tell me. Time's short.
We haven't a moment to lose. Give me the money, won't you, and I'll
get out of this quick. We haven't a moment, I tell you. Don't let those
people frighten you off. They're playing their own little game; you play
yours."

"I can't, Frank," said Stene