nelope were engaged to Corey that very minute, he would make her
break with him.

He knew what he should do now, and he was going to do it without loss
of time. He was going on to New York to see those West Virginia
people; they had their principal office there, and he intended to get
at their ideas, and then he intended to make them an offer. He managed
this business better than could possibly have been expected of a man in
his impassioned mood. But when it came really to business, his
practical instincts, alert and wary, came to his aid against the
passions that lay in wait to betray after they ceased to dominate him.
He found the West Virginians full of zeal and hope, but in ten minutes
he knew that they had not yet tested their strength in the money
market, and had not ascertained how much or how little capital they
could command. Lapham himself, if he had had so much, would not have
hesitated to put a million dollars into their business. He saw, as
they did not see, that they had the game in their own hands, and that
if they could raise the money to extend their business, they could ruin
him. It was only a question of time, and he was on the ground first.
He frankly proposed a union of their interests. He admitted that they
had a good thing, and that he should have to fight them hard; but he
meant to fight them to the death unless they could come to some sort of
terms. Now, the question was whether they had better go on and make a
heavy loss for both sides by competition, or whether they had better
form a partnership to run both paints and command the whole market.
Lapham made them three propositions, each of which was fair and open:
to sell out to them altogether; to buy them out altogether; to join
facilities and forces with them, and go on in an invulnerable alliance.
Let them name a figure at which they would buy, a figure at which they
would sell, a figure at which they would combine,--or, in other words,
the amount of capital they needed.

They talked all day, going out to lunch together at the Astor House,
and sitting with their knees against the counter on a row of stools
before it for fifteen minutes of reflection and deglutition, with their
hats on, and then returning to the basement from which they emerged.
The West Virginia company's name was lettered in gilt on the wide low
window, and its paint, in the form of ore, burnt, and mixed, formed a
display on the window shelf Lapham examined it and