orbed the
capital of those concerns."

"But he had three millions."

"Nominally. This palace has actually sunk his income."

"Madness!"

"Wisdom, if you will listen."

"I am all attention."

"The use of money is to create and hold power. Denslow was certain of the
popular and county votes; he needed only the aristocratic support, and the
A---- people would have made him Senator."

"Fool, why was he not satisfied with his money?"

"Do you call the farmer fool, because he is not satisfied with the soil,
but wishes to grow wheat thereon? Money is the soil of power. For much
less than a million one may gratify the senses; great fortunes are not for
sensual luxuries, but for those of the soul. To the facts, then. The
advent of this mysterious duke,--whom I doubt,--hailed by Denslow and
Honoria as a piece of wonderful good-fortune, has already shaken him and
ruined the _prestige_ of his wife. They are mad and blind."

"Tell me, in plain prose, the _how_ and the _why_."

"De Vere, you are dull. There are three hundred people in the rooms of the
Denslow Palace; these people are the 'aristocracy.' They control the
sentiments of the 'better class.' Opinion, like dress, descends from them.
They no longer respect Denslow, and their women have seen the weakness of
Honoria."

"Yes, but Denslow still has 'the people.'"

"That is not enough. I have calculated the chances, and mustered all our
available force. We shall have no support among the 'better class,' since
we are disgraced with the 'millionnaires.'"

At this moment Denslow came in.

"Ah! Dalton,--like you! I have been looking for you to show the pictures.
Devil a thing I know about them. The Duke wondered at your absence."

"Where is Honoria?"

"Ill, ill,--fainted. The house is new; smell of new wood and mortar;
deused disagreeable in Honoria. If it had not been for the Duke, she would
have fallen. That's a monstrous clever fellow, that Rosecouleur. Admires
Honoria vastly. Come,--the pictures."

"Mr. John Vanbrugen Denslow, you are an ass!"

The large, smooth, florid millionnaire, dreaming only of senatorial
honors, the shouts of the multitude, and the adoration of a party press,
cowered like a dog under the lash of the "man of society."

"Rather rough,--ha, De Vere? What have _I_ done? Am I an ass because I
know nothing of pictures? Come, Dalton, you are harsh with your old
friend."

"Denslow, I have told you a thousand times never to concede positio