the lion class.

Leonora knew that he was small, but she thought all men small--she had
supreme contempt for her own sex; and it seemed to her that men must be
even less worthy of respect since they were under the influence of
women and lavished time and money on them. Thus she was deceived into
cherishing the hope that her husband, small and timid though he was,
would expand into a multi-millionaire and would help her to possess the
splendors she now enjoyed at the expense of her associates whom she
despised. She was always thinking how far more impressive than their
splendor her magnificence would be, if their money were added to her
brains and beauty.

Dumont had helped Fanshaw as much as he could. He immediately detected
the coyote. He knew it was impossible to make a lion or even a wolf
out of one who was both small and crooked. He used him only in minor
matters, chiefly in doing queer, dark things on the market with
National Woolens, things he indirectly ordered done but refused to know
the details of beyond the one important detail--the record of checks
for the profits in his bank account. For such matters Fanshaw did as
well as another. But as Dumont became less of a wolf and more of a
lion, less of a speculator and more of a financier, he had less and
less work of the kind Fanshaw could do.

But Leonora, unaware of her husband's worthlessness and desperate in
her calamities, sneered and jeered and lashed him on--to ruin. The
coyote could put on the airs of a lion so long as the lion was his
friend and protector; when he kept on in kingly ways after the lion had
cast him off, he speedily came to grief.

As he stood looking helplessly up and down Broad Street he was debating
what move to make. There were about even measures of truth and
falsehood in his statement to Dumont--he did need two hundred thousand
dollars; and he must have it before a quarter past two that day or go
into a bankruptcy from which he could not hope to save a shred of
reputation or to secrete more than fifty thousand dollars.

"To the New York Life Building," he finally said to the driver as he
got into his hansom. Then to himself: "I'll have a go at old Herron."

He knew that Dumont and Herron had quarreled, and that Herron had sold
out of the National Woolens Company. But he did not know that Herron
was a man with a fixed idea, hatred of Dumont, and a fixed purpose, to
damage him at every opportunity that offered or could be