The next thirty days--before the stockholders' meeting--were spent by Rimrock in trying to explain. In spite of her suggestion that he was not good at that art he insisted upon making things worse. What he wanted to say was that the pooling of their stock would be a happy--though accidental--resultant of their marriage; what he actually said was that they ought to get married because then they would stand together against Stoddard. But Mary only listened with a wise, sometimes wistful, smile and assured him he was needlessly alarmed. It was that which drove him on--that wistful, patient smile. Somehow he felt, if he could only say the right words, she would lean right over and kiss him! But those words were never spoken. Rimrock was worried and harassed and his talk became more and more practical. He was quarreling with Jepson, who stood upon his rights; and Stoddard had served notice that he would attend the meeting in person, which meant it had come to a showdown. So the month dragged by until at last they sat together in the mahogany-furnished Directors' room. Rimrock sat at the head of the polished table with Mary Fortune near by, and Stoddard and Buckbee opposite. As the friend of all parties--and the retiring Director--Buckbee had come in the interest of peace; or so he claimed, but how peace would profit him was a question hard to decide. It might seem, in fact, that war would serve better; for brokers are the sharks in the ocean of finance and feed and fatten where the battle is fiercest. Whitney Stoddard sat silent, a tall, nervous man with a face lined deep with care, and as he waited for the conflict he tore off long strips of paper and pinched them carefully into little square bits. Elwood Buckbee smiled genially, but his roving eye rested fitfully on Mary Fortune. He was a dashing young man of the Beau Brummel type and there was an ease and grace in his sinuous movements that must have fluttered many a woman's heart. But now he, too, sat silent and his appraising glances were disguised in a general smile. "Well, let's get down to business," began Rimrock, after the preliminaries. "The first thing is to elect a new Director. Mr. Buckbee here has been retired and I nominate Mary Fortune to fill the vacancy." "Second the motion," rapped out Stoddard and for a moment Rimrock hesitated before he took the fatal plunge. He knew very well that, once elected to the directorship, he could never remove her by himself. Either her stock or Stoddard's would have to go into the balance to undo the vote of that day. "All in favor say 'Ay!'" "Ay!" said Stoddard grimly; and Rimrock paused again. "Ay!" he added and as Mary wrote it down she felt the eyes of both of them upon her. The die had been cast and from that moment on she was the arbiter of all their disputes.