was evidenced on this
occasion. He did not send to Mr. Bayard, he came. He told him by
shortest possible sentences that his fortune was at his, Mr. Bayard's,
disposal to put him again upon his feet. And Mr. Bayard availed himself
of the aid thus proffered; he regained his feet; he paid off his
bankruptcy of two millions; he repaid Dudley Storms; and then he went
on--and no more slips or treason-founded setbacks--to pile up new
millions for himself.

Following that one visit of succor from Dudley Storms, he and Mr. Bayard
were no oftener in one another's company than before. The former
retreated into his native reticence and the fastnesses of his own
multitudinous affairs, coming no more to Mr. Bayard, who did not require
help. Dudley Storms was a lake of fire in a rim of ice, as somebody
somewhere once said of someone else, and labored under peculiarities of
temperament and trait-contradictions which you may have observed in
Richard. For his side, Mr. Bayard, proudly sensitive, while he never
forgot, never failed to feel in the edge of that saving favor done him
by Dudley Storms the edge of a sword; and this served to hold him aloof
from one who any hour might have had his life and fortune, without a
question, to do with as he would.

Richard had never met Mr. Bayard, nor did he know aught of that
gentleman's long-ago disasters, for they occurred in the year of
Richard's birth. But he had heard his father speak of Mr. Bayard in
terms of glowing praise; wherefore, when it became Richard's turn to
know somewhat the ins and outs of Wall Street, a dark interior
trade-region of which his ignorance for depth was like unto the depth of
the ocean, and as wide, our young gentleman went instantly in search of
him. Had he beheld the softened eye of Mr. Bayard when that war-lord of
the Street first read his card, had he heard his voice as he repeated
the line "son of the late Mr. Dudley Storms," he might have been
encouraged in a notion that he had not rapped at the wrong door. But
Richard, in the anteroom awaiting the return of that person of the
serpent hiss, did not witness these phenomena. When he was shown into
the presence of Mr. Bayard, he saw only one who for dignity and
courteous poise seemed the superior brother of the best-finished
gentleman he had ever met.

"So you are the son of Dudley Storms," said Mr. Bayard, running his eye
over the visitor as though looking for a confirmatory resemblance. Then,
having conclude