duties, not
haughty, but calm and absolutely efficient in every way. He was never
weary of consulting with Colfax, whereas Eugene was indifferent, not at
all desirous of running to him with every little proposition, but
preferring to act on his own initiative, and carrying himself constantly
with very much of an air.

In other ways there were other things which were and had been militating
against him. By degrees it had come to be rumored about the office that
Eugene was interested in the Blue Sea or Sea Island Development and
Construction Company, of which there was a good deal of talk about the
city, particularly in financial and social circles. Colfax had heard of
the corporation. He had been interested in the scheme because it
promised so much in the way of luxury. Not much of the panoramic whole
so beautifully depicted in the colored insets of a thirty-two-page
literary prospectus fathered by Eugene was as yet accomplished, but
there was enough to indicate that it was going to be a great thing.
Already somewhat over a mile and a quarter of the great sea walk and
wall were in place. A dining and dancing pavilion had been built, and
one of the smaller hotels--all in accordance with the original
architectural scheme. There were a number of houses--something like
twenty or thirty on plots one hundred and fifty by one hundred and fifty
feet, built in the most ornate fashion on ground which had formerly been
wet marsh grown high with grass. Three or four islands had been filled
in and the club house of a minor yacht club had been constructed, but
still the Sea Island Development Company had a long way to go before
even a third of its total perfection would be in sight.

Eugene did not know the drift of the company's financial affairs, except
in a general way. He had tried to keep out of it so far as public notice
of him was concerned, though he was constantly lunching with Winfield,
Willebrand, and others, and endeavoring to direct as much attention to
the wonders and prospects of the new resort as was possible for him to
do. It was an easy thing for him to say to one person and another whom
he met that Blue Sea was rapidly becoming the most perfect thing in the
way of a summer resort that he had ever seen, and this did good; so did
the comments of all the other people who were interested in it, but it
did not make it anything of a success as yet. As a matter of fact, the
true success of Blue Sea depended on the investm