or one of them, who strove to find
relief in his careless reassurance, tried desperately to believe him, to
deceive that intuition which seldom fails her sex.

He, with the print blurred and meaningless before him, sat miserable,
dumb with the sympathy he could not show, hot with the anger he dared
not express. He thought of Dysart as he had revealed himself, now gone
back to town to face that little crop of financial rumours concerning
the Algonquin that persisted so wickedly and would not be quieted. For
the first time in his life, probably, Dysart was compelled to endure the
discomforts of a New York summer--more discomforts this summer than mere
dust and heat and noise. For men who had always been on respectful
financial terms with Dysart and his string of banks and his Algonquin
enterprise were holding aloof from him; men who had figured for years in
the same columns of print where his name was so often seen as director
and trustee and secretary--fellow-members who served for the honour of
serving on boards of all sorts, charity boards, hospital, museum, civic
societies--these men, too, seemed to be politely, pleasantly, even
smilingly edging away from him in some indefinable manner.

Which seemed to force him toward certain comparatively newcomers among
the wealthy financiers of the metropolis--brilliant, masterful, restless
men from the West, whose friendship in the beginning he had sought,
deeming himself farsighted.

Now that his vision had become normally adjusted he cared less for this
intimacy which it was too late to break--at least this was not the time
to break it with money becoming unbelievably scarcer every day and a
great railroad man talking angrily, and another great railroad man
preaching caution at a time when the caution of the man in the Street
might mean something so serious to Dysart that he didn't care to think
about it.

Dysart had gone back to New York in company with several pessimistic
gentlemen--who were very open about backing their fancy; and their fancy
fell on that old, ramshackle jade, Hard Times, by Speculation out of
Folly. According to them there was no hope of her being scratched or
left at the post.

"She'll run like a scared hearse-horse," said young Grandcourt gloomily.
There was reason for his gloom. Unknown to his father he had invested
heavily in Dysart's schemes. It was his father's contempt that he feared
more than ruin.

So Dysart had gone to town, leaving behind