But Joan’s thoughts, unlike Ellery’s, persistently wandered from the problem which she had set herself to solve. She kept thinking of the future—of the thing that was dearest to the heart of the old man lying at death’s door. It was not the money: it was the direction of the great dramatic enterprise which he alone had built up. He had set his heart, she knew, on passing on, not merely his fortune, but the headship of the Brooklyn Corporation to one of his own blood, one who could carry on the work he had set himself to do. Whom would he now put in the place which Prinsep had lately occupied? He might, indeed, die without the strength to make a change; but Joan did not believe that he would. It seemed to her inconceivable that he would leave matters so that the bulk of his fortune, and with it the control of the Brooklyn Corporation, would pass to her stepfather, who had manifestly neither the will nor the special capacity to carry on the work. She was convinced that Sir Vernon would change his will; and she could see but one man whom he was now likely to make heir to his wealth and position. Carter Woodman had the talent and the knowledge to run the Corporation as a business, if not as an artistic success. Would Sir Vernon put Woodman in Prinsep’s place? Joan hated the very idea; for she believed in the Brooklyn Corporation as an artistic venture, and she had always somehow both disliked and distrusted Carter Woodman. She would have found it difficult to give a definite reason for her dislike, and she admitted that she was perhaps unfair; but there it was. She hoped Carter would not get the job, and she was sure that, however successful he might be commercially, his accession to power would put an end to all hope of artistic success. Still, she told herself, it was no business of hers, and she would certainly not try to influence Sir Vernon in any way. She supposed he would make Woodman his heir; for there was no one else. Against her will, the thought of Ellery came into her mind. He would be, would he not?—she seemed to be arguing with a non-existent adversary—just the man to carry on Sir Vernon’s great artistic enterprises. Joan found herself building up quite a romance on the basis of Robert Ellery’s succession to control of the great Brooklyn enterprise. How well he would do it! And then she reminded herself sharply that she had no right to entertain such ideas, and that, in any case, she certainly could not say a word on Bob’s behalf to Sir Vernon. No, Carter Woodman would get the job. Joan sighed as she resigned herself to the inevitable. But despite her good resolutions, she was still thinking what an excellent successor to Sir Vernon Robert Ellery would make, when she was told that he was waiting to see her. She brushed the thought she had been entertaining out of her mind, and, dressing hastily—for she had breakfasted in bed—went down to see him. “Well, my dear, what news?” he asked.