Mostyn started to protest further, but with another laugh the financier was off.
"Ten thousand dollars!" he thought, as he moved on. "He speaks of my business head; what would he think of the investment I have just made? He would call me a weakling. That is what I am. I have always been one. The woman doesn't live who could worry him for a minute. But it is ended now. I have had my lesson, and I sha'n't forget it."
At his desk in his closed office a few minutes later he took a blank check, and, dipping his pen, he carefully filled it in. Mechanically he waved it back and forth in the warm air. Suddenly he started; a sort of shock went through him. How odd that he had not once, in all his excitement, thought of Dolly Drake! Was it possible that his imagination had tricked him into believing that he loved the girl and could make actual sacrifices for her? Why, already she was like a figment in some evanescent dream. What had wrought the change? Was it the sight of Delbridge and his mention of Mostyn's financial prowess? Was it the fellow's confident allusion to Mitchell and his daughter? Had the buzz and hum of business, the fever of conquest, already captured and killed the impulses which in the mountains had seemed so real, so permanent, so redemptive?
"Dolly, dear, beautiful Dolly!" he said, but the whispered words dropped lifeless from his lips. "I have broken promises, but I shall keep those made to you. You are my turning-point. You are to be my wife. I have fancied myself in love often before and been mistaken, but the man does not live who could be untrue to a girl like you. You have made a man of me. I will be true--I will be honest with you. I swear it! I swear it!"