As he looked around, Armstrong could not repress, did not try to repress, the cold gleam in his eye. For the broken Deming who stood beside him fingering a telegram, he could feel pity; the others deserved no such feeling. They were either spoilers, or complacently inefficient fools, these men. All seven of them had together wrecked the Deming Food Products Company, though their work in this direction had not been by intent, but through folly, selfish calculation, through lack of all vision beyond self-interest. Deming, who had built up the old company, had lost his once strong grip on things, and his vision had overpowered his common sense. Although he could not realize it, he was not without his share of blame for this debacle. And while Armstrong thus looked with unveiled scorn from man to man about the table, Lawrence Macgowan, by himself in one corner of the library, watched only Armstrong. If his gaze held any expression, it was hidden. "Gentlemen," began Deming, with shaking voice, "I have hurriedly called you here to receive bad news. To get this message at such a moment is more than a blow to me; it is a humiliation. Yet I must face it." He paused, his gaze sweeping the circle of faces. In them he read not the slightest hint of fortitude or sympathy; only weakness, fright, panicky comprehension. A single strong, calm pair of eyes might have bucked him up in this moment. He found none, save Armstrong's. "This telegram," he blurted desperately, "is from the Northwestern Millers Corporation. Unless they receive ten thousand dollars to apply on our account before noon to-morrow, their attorneys are instructed to apply for a receiver and--and--" He paused, then went on. "My friends, I need not say that unless we wire this money, the Deming Company is a thing of the past. I ask your help." Deming somehow fumbled himself into a chair, become an old man in ten minutes. About the table reigned silence. Men looked one at another and dared not speak. Ried Williams, with a slight shrug, lighted a cigarette; his sallow features were very cynical. Slosson stared at Deming, at Armstrong, with surly anger in his eyes. One would have said that he hated this man for whom he worked, this man whose daughter he had failed to win, and the other man in shirt-sleeves who had won her. Armstrong read that gaze, and smiled at the fright, the anger, the bitter venom, of it. Never did it enter his head that this Slosson was to be feared, or even remembered. Already his mind was turning upon other matters. "Will nobody--" Deming looked up. The words faltered on his tongue, and died away. One or two of his directors shuffled uneasy feet, cleared their throats. No one replied. Then Armstrong, pushing back his chair, rose to his feet. A flash of vigor shook Deming. The man leaped up, held out his hand in restraint, and found passionate, eager words of protest.