Often it is not the first step that costs, but the waiting for the second. Last night, at a crisis, John Bagsbury had found it easy to make what was really the most important decision of his life. However carefully he had balanced upon the pros and cons of the proposition Sponley had made, when it came to the extreme instant of choice, the question had been referred not to his judgment, but to a sentiment. His words had said themselves. But this morning it was the Banker, a very different person from the picture-seeing John Bagsbury, who sat at his desk trying to think through the situation, and to guess what would happen next. The sentiment which gets a man into a difficulty rarely stays around to help him out of it, and what the Banker saw was enveloped in no luminous atmosphere of optimism. Sponley had not overstated the case last night. In supporting Pickering, John knew that he must encounter determined hostility in his Board of Directors; that if he had not won clear by next January, his chance of reëlection was nothing; and, worst of all, he seemed to have thrown away the possibility of getting absolute control of his property from the trustees. The Banker had to reckon with a formidable antagonist, but he had this advantage,--in his long association with Melville Sponley he had not walked blindly. He knew his man thoroughly. This knowledge had saved him from being deceived by the Bear’s last conciliatory words. Sponley did not make a fool of himself, Sponley did not lose his temper. The man to whom he confessed such things would do well to be very alert. When he had said, “and I swear to God I’ll smash you, too, if you don’t stand from under,” he had meant it. He would do nothing in anger or from spite, nothing that was not directly in line toward his end; but once convinced that it was necessary, not for a breath would he hesitate. John thought long and carefully over the probable nature of Sponley’s next move. The most obvious thing for the Bear to do would be to work among the other directors and endeavor to stir up a storm of such violence that John would be forced either to let go of Pickering or to resign from the presidency. If that were all, if it were to be simply a question of brute strength and patience, there was no doubt in John’s mind as to the outcome. They could not force him bodily out of the bank, at least, not till the fight was over; and he knew they could not frighten him into yielding.