best law firms in Indianapolis before opening an office in
Saint X, the largest town in the congressional district in which his
farm lay.

"But there's no hurry about deciding," said Mills. "Remember we'll
make you rich in a few years."

"My road happens not to lie in that direction," replied Scarborough,
carelessly. "I've no desire to be rich. It's too easy, if one will
consent to give money-making his exclusive attention."

Mills looked amused--had he not known Scarborough's ability, he would
have felt derisive.

"Money's power," said he. "And there are only two ambitions for a
wide-awake man--money and power."

"Money can't buy the kind of power I'd care for," answered Scarborough.
"If I were to seek power, it'd be the power that comes through ability
to persuade."

"Money talks," said Mills, laughing.

"Money bellows," retorted Scarborough, "and bribes and browbeats, bully
and coward that it is. But it never persuades."

"I'll admit it's a coward."

"And I hope I can always frighten enough of it into my service to
satisfy my needs. But I'm not spending my life in its service--no,
thank you!"

XII.

AFTER EIGHT YEARS.

While Scarborough was serving his clerkship at Indianapolis, Dumont was
engaging in ever larger and more daring speculations with New York as
his base. Thus it came about that when Scarborough established himself
at Saint X, Dumont and Pauline were living in New York, in a big house
in East Sixty-first Street.

And Pauline had welcomed the change. In Saint X she was constantly on
guard, always afraid her father and mother would see below that smiling
surface of her domestic life which made them happy. In New York she
was free from the crushing sense of peril and restraint, as their
delusions about her were secure. There, after she and he found their
living basis of "let alone," they got on smoothly, rarely meeting
except in the presence of servants or guests, never inquiring either
into the other's life, carrying on all negotiations about money and
other household matters through their secretaries. He thought her cold
by nature--therefore absolutely to be trusted. And what other man with
the pomp and circumstance of a great and growing fortune to maintain
had so admirable an instrument? "An ideal wife," he often said to
himself. And he was not the man to speculate as to what was going on
in her head. He had no interest in what others thought; how they were
filling th