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Destiny

Chapter 7 No.7

Word Count: 3710    |    Released on: 30/11/2017

policy had been that the limelight paid, and as he had mounted from moderate success into the millionaire class, and thence into the division rated in a plura

d standing of its possessor. In a city whose public is surfeited with a show of splendor, the man who

wealth through every artery of his life and the lives of his family. Yet, because his taste was discriminating and sound, he was

et, even then, he had overruled them with an autocratic assurance, which knew no doubt. It had not at first been easy for the gentle mother, whose hands were

oney be my master," he had obstinately reiterated. "To me it shall be a slave. Money conquers the man who fears it. It is an insolent, inanimate underling, which, if not treated with contempt, becomes a tyr

and undeniable reality. Then they ceased to fear and trusted implicitly in the star that led him. Gradually they yielded to the blandishments of the new life and drifted pleasantly before the breezes of luxury. The m

d soundly. But here he was a different man, a Samson shorn, and the things which he had first contemptuously waved aside or accepted with a growl in his throat, he now welcomed. The hard brown face was rounded and pink and where there had been rawhide muscles on his torso there was now soft and fatty flesh; for Tom Burton whom men had accounted a giant of immovable resolution back there amon

ad been a sweeter thing. The making of a lady of this remote d

ubmerged sleep of relapse as quickly and keenl

that strayed into dreams and music, found the perfumed atmosphere of a drawing-room very congenial. He breathed the incense of praise from women who were enraptured as his long fingers stole over the piano keys. Had his road to artistic recognition lain along the bro

ver forgot that the fighter must be well conditioned. With the discipline of the boxer in training, he regulated his habits of personal life and held his splendid nerves steady and above par. No man had ever seen the dimming cloud of dissipation in his eye nor any gossip-monger whispered of unwise indulgence. He was spoken of as fastidiously clean of life, and yet it is doubtful whether any shadow of self-illusion found harbor in his own mind. In morals as a code inspired of conscience he

oling their heels in anterooms, he halted at the curb, when he

ive and about his lips played the petulant expression of one who could not cope with the material. His eyes were still pools

he explained as he took his older brot

ward." Ham's suggestions were always couched in mandatory terms, and Paul with a nod gave the necessary instructions to his own drive

an aria began running through my head and I couldn't sleep. I had to get up and work it out on the piano. Listen-it

At least save it for some more suitable time. Can't you fix it to do some of your dreaming while you sleep? It seems to me that for a man w

ntment for brea

e hears your music a realization steals over her that she has a soul; that, listening to

ply. "In point of fact, it

ficer saluted in recognition of the familiar figure, while the financier with a

trouble is that you are stifled with boudoir perfume and suffocated by over-petting. Why d

et on one or two subjects he was gently and immovably stubborn. So

ith the new orga

nger man's quarters a splendid music-room with such an organ as might have graced a cathedral. There the ardent co

anguing them. From the violence of the gestures and the truculence of the voice whose words did not reach him, Hamilton Burton knew that it was an agitator whose burden was the hardness of the times and the inequality of living conditions. His lips shaped themselves for an instant into a smile of satirical amusement

listeners, and upon all the faces he read a sullen discontent. Some of those men, he surmised, ha

tramp-like appearance stepped directly in front of the radiator and at the warning of the horn made no effort to seek safety. He swaggered along with insolent manner at snail'

a golden smile. Pushcarts freighted with potted plants and fruit gave scraps of festal color

idle curiosity. They were seeing a multi-millionaire at close range. But from a few near the center of the throng came jeers and shouts of insult for the man whom they chose to regard as a representative of Capital's tyranny. A black-visaged malcontent of humorless eyes made his way to the margin

ance, and Paul's delicate face blanched a little. Hamilton Burton regarded himself as the br

tly to the chauffeur, "Swing ar

olice officers who had not hitherto been visible. The capitalist saw two struggling offenders being roughly hustled away in the custody of uniformed captors and a

n the tone of solicitude to which Hamilton had grown a

glass-and the less noise made about th

d as if in dignified rebuke for the noisy demonstrations he so often looks down upon, and where the Marqu

silence, and, when he spoke, he put his question in a v

what Charles Fox once had to say on the subject? At least he got the credit for saying it, which c

ing what it all prophesies. We musicians can feel the crescendo coming from the first mounting

urned the base metal of poverty

moderate wager that within the next year or two we shall s

et his features mirror his nervous surprise. If the pri

eashing of forces. Electricity is force, but electricity unharnessed is lightning which devastates. Fire, uncontrolled, ravages, but, held in check, makes power. Every force in a man's nature th

"I don't understand these things. I thought pa

maculately gloved hand on th

I don't give a damn for your judgment. As you say, hurricanes mean ruin-fo

ard the quiet voice continuing. "I am now rated among the first few in the world of American finance. There are others above me. I am one of

at alone at a terrace table of a Capri inn. Near by a company of sashed and spangled peasants danced to the accompaniment of guitars and mandolins, but

e world's most vivid spread of sun-kissed color; the Bay of Naples curving nobly from his point of view to Ischia's misty bulwark, in a glistening s

he exclusion of the bay's great jewel of beauty, this picture held the eyes of the man who lunched alone. They were good eyes, of the sort that look life straight in the face, and their pupils were such as impress the beholder with a conviction of fearless integrity. Now the

the thought had taken deep root in his mind and become one of the pleasant dreams of his life. But Fate had further spurred his curiosity by a series of mischances which had preven

iness which operated from St. Petersburg. Now he was returning to New York to take up lar

his own journey there in the hope of meeting her-and perhaps returnin

was the thinly veiled hint that the Duke de Metuan had

let his dream become too important for abandonment without the test of renewed acquaintanceship. He resented the Duke de Metuan. He was not unfamiliar with Continental affairs and some of the nobleman's financial troubles had sought solution through his banking house. Of course, the Mary Burton of his dreams might have no existence in realit

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