“I’ve known them for a good many years,” John answered, “though I can’t say that I know them well. They’re thoroughly honorable, and they have some ability, too. You’ll find they have a disagreeable habit of backing each other up, though. In that respect, they’re like a well-trained pair of setter dogs. If one points, the other will too, and he’ll stick to it whether he sees anything or not. But I’ve no doubt you’ll be able to get along with them well enough.” With that he shifted the subject abruptly on another tack, and a few minutes later took his leave. He was well satisfied with the afternoon’s work, for he felt confident that the Bagsbury holdings would not be voted at the next stockholders’ meeting. It was a little seed he had sown, but it had fallen into good ground. He went straight home after that and found Dick curled up in the big chair in the library, reading. She glanced up at him, and as he spoke to her there was a vibrant quality in his voice that made her close her book and ask him what had happened. “I’m just going to telephone to Sponley,” he said. “Listen, and you’ll hear part of it. That’ll save telling it twice.” Over the telephone he told Sponley all about the terms of the will, adding that his only chance now lay in getting control of the outside stock. He asked Sponley to come to the house that night after dinner to talk things over. Then he rang off, and sitting down on the desk he told Dick what he had not told Sponley, all about his interview with Moffat. And though Dick nodded her pretty head appreciatively, and seemed thoroughly to grasp the situation, yet when he finished her face still wore a puzzled frown. John was too busy making his plans to think much of it, but he wondered vaguely what she had failed to understand. CHAPTER IV A VICTORY Dick was, indeed, somewhat bewildered and disappointed. Had the events of Christmas Eve and the few following days occurred during the first month of her stay with the Bagsburys, she would have made no attempt to look beneath the surface, but would have packed her trunks and fled out of that grimy atmosphere with the least possible delay; and poor Jack Dorlin would have had to pull up his stakes and follow, who knows whither. But in the six months she had developed an affection for both John and Alice. She could not have told you why. They were totally different from her other friends. But our affections are based on no analysis. We like or love, not at all because we see in this person or that a certain combination of qualities, no more than we like beefsteak because it contains carbon and hydrogen and other uninviting elements in a fixed proportion. Perhaps Dick liked John and Alice because they had become so fond of her, because they gave her their confidences, or because she had brought a sweeter, fresher influence into their lives than either had known before, like a breath of country air in a smoky factory.