Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/247



HERE to turn? What to do? These were the intensive questions that fastened themselves like torturing banderillas in the young manufacturer's mind as, in a cold rage of resentment, he hurried from the presence of the bankers. One moment he declared there was nothing to apprehend in the proposal of Blodgett, Tompkins, and Haley; that it was salvation for him; that their terms were reasonable; that in one year he could earn profits enough to buy back this stock and make his control secure once more. The next he saw in it nothing but a cunningly conceived scheme to take his factory away from him, and he resolved to resist it to the uttermost.

Into this morbid medley there obtruded the old debate—hadn't he better confide the whole miserable mess to Fay? Well, perhaps he would—tonight, in the quiet tête-à-tête hour before bedtime.

Reaching home, he found his wife where he would have most wished to find her—in the nursery, hovering over Junior with clasped, enraptured hands and fond, fascinated eyes. She was regarding some of his newer infantile