"You are far too literal in your interpretation of my remarks," Litchfield protested, with some warmth. "This parallel you have drawn is absurd on the face of it. There has been no legal agreement that we should treat the dear public as if it were in actual partnership with us. You have held out certain inducements which have secured for us the concessions, and we have made good the promise you gave that our success meant advantage to the people. But all this was a means to an end. For five years the public has shared equally with those of us who have put money and brains into the Consolidated Companies. No one suggests that the people should not still continue to receive benefits, but those of us here present are unanimous in our conviction that the time has now come to conduct the Companies upon a strictly business basis. This is not the age for quixotic sentimentality, and the Consolidated Companies not only possesses the right, but the power to maintain its position upon the same basis as other smaller and less powerful organizations. Speaking for myself alone, I am amazed that Robert Gorham, with his exceptional and acknowledged business acumen, should take a position with his Executive Committee which is as disadvantageous to his own interests as it is to the stockholders'." No one but Gorham himself saw the mist which momentarily rose before his eyes, yet, when it passed, his vision was clearer than it had ever been. The men sitting around him represented the flower of the business world, each one of whom stood before his fellow-men as a tangible expression of honor and integrity. Yet not one was able to comprehend Gorham's viewpoint, not one could be anything but incredulous that he stood sincere in the position he had taken. This was what hurt him most. The applause which his associates had awarded him had been as that won by a clever actor rather than, as he had believed, the responsive echo forced from their souls by the battle notes of a new cause. Their acceptance of his doctrines had been because his arguments had persuaded them of the material side of the enterprise. The very magnetism which they had felt exercised by him upon themselves they had capitalized as an asset to be assayed when once the ore was stopped. All the high-sounding claims were turned at this moment into empty platitudes. All his promises were valueless beyond his personal strength to make them good. To this extent Allen had been right, but it was not too late to recognize the danger and to meet it. His associates saw the Robert Gorham they thought they had known for five years sitting in repose before them while this realization of the situation surged through his brain--they saw the real Robert Gorham when he rose to his feet, and faced them with a force they felt before a word was spoken.