The article possessed a singular fascination for Kenyon. He read and re-read it in a dazed way, as if the statement referred to some other person, and he could not help feeling sorry for that person. He still had the paper in his hand as he walked up the street, and he felt numbed and dazed as if someone had struck him a blow. He was nearly run over in crossing one of the thoroughfares, and heard an outburst of profanity directed at him from a cab-driver and a man on a bus; but he heeded them not, walking through the crowd as if under a spell. He passed the door of his own gorgeous office, and walked some distance up the street before he realized what he had done. Then he turned back again, and, just at the doorstep, paused with a pang at his heart. 'I wonder if Edith Longworth will read that article,' he said to himself. CHAPTER XXIX. When John Kenyon entered his office, he thought the clerk looked at him askance. He imagined that innocent employee had been reading the article in the _Financial Field_; but the truth is, John was hardly in a frame of mind to form a correct opinion on what other people were doing. Everybody he met in the street, it seemed to him, was discussing the article in the _Financial Field_. He asked if anybody had been in that morning, and was told there had been no callers. Then he passed into the directors' room, closed the door behind him, sat down on a chair, and leaned his head on his hands with his elbows on the table. In this position Wentworth found him some time later, and when John looked up his face was haggard and aged. 'Ah, I see you have read it.' 'Yes.' 'Do you think Longworth is at the bottom of that article?' John shook his head. 'Oh no,' he said; 'he had nothing whatever to do with it.' 'How do you know?' Kenyon related exactly what had passed between the oily young man of the _Financial Field_ and himself in that very room. While this recital was going on, Wentworth walked up and down, expressing his opinion now and then, in remarks that were short and pithy, but hardly fit for publication. When the story was told he turned to Kenyon. 'Well,' he said, 'there is nothing for it but to sue the paper for libel.' 'What good will that do?' 'What good will it do? Do you mean to say that you intend to sit here under such an imputation as they have cast upon you, and do nothing? What _good_ will it do? It will do all the good in the world.' 'We cannot form our company and sue the paper at the same time. All our energies will have to be directed towards the matter we have in hand.' 'But, my dear John, don't you see the effect of that article? How can we form our company if such a lie remains unchallenged? Nobody will look at our proposals. Everyone will say, "What have you done about the article that appeared in the _Financial Field_?" If we say we have done nothing, then, of course, the natural inference is that we are a pair of swindlers, and that our scheme is a fraud.'