created, to
ruin him if possible.

When the National Woolens Company was expanded into the huge
conglomerate it now was--a hundred millions common, a hundred millions
preferred, and twenty millions of bonds--Herron had devised and
directed the intricate and highly perilous course among the rocks of
law and public opinion in many states and in the nation. It was a
splendid exhibition of legal piloting, and he was bitterly dissatisfied
with the modest reward of ten millions of the preferred stock which
Dumont apportioned to him. He felt that that would have been about his
just share in the new concern merely in exchange for his stock in the
old. When he found Dumont obdurate, and grew frank and spoke such
words as "dishonor" and "dishonesty" and got into the first syllable of
"swindling," Dumont cut him off with--

"If you don't like it, get out! I can hire that sort of work for half
what I've paid you. You're swollen with vanity. We ought to have a
young man in your position, anyhow."

Herron might have swallowed the insult to his pride as a lawyer. But
the insult to his pride in his youth! He was fifty-seven and in dress
and in expression was stoutly insisting that he was still a young man
whom hard work had made prematurely gray and somewhat wrinkled.
Dumont's insinuation that he was old and stale set a great fire of hate
blazing; he, of course, told himself and others that his wrath was
stirred solely because his sense of justice had been outraged by the
"swindling."

Fanshaw entered Herron's office wearing the jaunty air of arrogant
prosperity, never so important as when prosperity has fled. But
Herron's shrewd, experienced eyes penetrated the sham. He had intended
to be cold. Scenting a "hard-luck yarn" and a "touch" he lowered his
temperature to the point at which conversation is ice-beset and
confidences are frozen tight.

Fanshaw's nerve deserted him. "Herron," he said, dropping his
prosperous pose, "I want to get a divorce and I want to punish Dumont."

Herron's narrow, cold face lighted up. He knew what everybody in their
set knew of Fanshaw's domestic affairs, but like everybody else he had
pretended not to know. He changed his expression to one of shock and
indignation.

"You astound me!" he exclaimed. "It is incredible!"

"He told me himself not an hour ago," said Fanshaw. "I went to him as
a friend to ask him to help me out of a hole. And--" He rose and
theatrically paced the floor