These months seemed to have aged John Rawn, none the less. He grew grimmer and grayer, more taciturn and reserved. At the clubs he was one of the most talked-of men in town, and one who talked least himself. As his hair grew grayer at the temples, his jaw grew harder, at the corner of his chin coming the triangular wrinkles which go with hard-faced middle age. Enigmatic, self-centered, he could not have been called a happy man. He smiled but rarely, joked not at all, engaged in no badinage, told no stories, found no lighter side of life, played no golf, had no vacations. Like some vast engine of tremendous driving power he went on his way, admired in a city and country full of able men, as one competent to hold his own with the best and strongest of them all. And still of all his traits stood out the one of self-confidence. He played a game of enormous and continuous risk--fundamental risk by reason of Halsey, incidental by reason of his widely ballooned market operations; yet his nerve held. Moreover, he was learning the price of success--an absolute devotion to the means of success. When he learned that the child of his daughter was not a son, but a girl, and that it was a hunchback for life, a sad-faced, unsmiling child--he set his jaws for a moment, but said few words of condolence, either to his daughter or her husband. He did not smile for three months after that, and never referred to this subject again, after its first discussion with his wife at Graystone Hall; but it cost him no time and no energy lost from business. It only deepened in his soul his growing hatred for Charley Halsey, the man whom he dared not chide. IV In the headquarter offices a vast, smooth running business machine had now been built up. Rawn was an organizer. The laxness and looseness of the old railway offices in St. Louis, where he had got his business schooling, were missing in the headquarters of International Power. Employees had small time to gossip in business hours. Out of business hours, it is to be confessed, once in a while there was discussion as to the salary of Miss Virginia Delaware, which was reported a wholly instable affair. It was rumored in stenographic circles that she had taken to wearing very stunning evening gowns. Yet not the most captious--though willingness did not lack--could raise voice against her, or couple her name with any other. Rawn and she were never seen together excepting during business hours; he never mentioned her name in any company. Once or twice a laughing voice at the National Union, where rich men met in numbers, tried to create some sort of discussion over Rawn's beautiful private secretary, but it was so suddenly stopped by Rawn himself that it never was resumed.