So far the excitement with which every hour had been instinct for Julian had been the excitement of preparation solely; the ground had been tilled and the seed sown. And what that soil was in which he had sown his seed; what were the characteristics that were to prove so stimulating; it was not in him to consider. He was perfectly well aware of the nature of the transaction in which he was engaged; he had understood at the outset that the “private information received from the Cape” on which the shares were to be bought up was a “put up thing,” as he would have expressed it, between Ramsay and Marston Loring; and the knowledge affected him not at all. That black thread in the warp of his character was running strong and deep now, and to such considerations his sensibilities were absolutely dormant. “Well?” The monosyllable broke from him eager and impetuous, as though it contained the pent-up suspense and excitement of hours. He had come up rapidly to Loring’s side, and the latter, without lifting his eyes, signed to an evening paper which lay on the table as he said briefly: “All right!” Julian’s face turned quite white; he snatched up the paper and turned with breathless eagerness to the column devoted to the money market. “Welcome Diamond Company Shares.” The blue eyes seemed to leap at the line and fasten on it with a hungry avidity pitiful to see, and he stood there gazing at it with glittering, fascinated eyes, with a curious stillness upon him from head to foot, as though all remembrance of his actual surroundings, all thought even of Loring, had faded. Nearly five minutes had passed when Loring laid down his pen and leant back in his chair, turning a little that he might fix his eyes on Julian as he stood rather behind him. “Pretty fair?” he said carelessly. Julian lifted his eyes from the paper and turned his white face to Loring. He nodded as though the feelings of the moment were not to be put into speech, and then the slow, deep colour of excitement began to creep over his features. “Have you seen Ramsay?” he said in a low, quick voice. “Saw him this morning. He told me things were beginning to move. It was that paragraph yesterday that did it!” “And what about keeping it up?” said Julian. “This is the ticklish moment, I take it! What’s the next move?” He had thrown himself into a chair as he spoke; his voice was jerking with eagerness, as though some of his excitement were finding expression. Loring looked at him for an instant before he answered. He was asking himself a question which had formulated itself in his mind more than once in the last month; namely, was it merely the influence of his blood which made young Romayne so keen a speculator; or was there something concealed in the background of his life which made money a desperate necessity with him?