This was the flaw in her crown of success. For if ever a woman worshipped brains, measured humanity by the standard of intellect, scorned the ignorant, and shrank from stupidity, that woman was Helen Cadell. It was the one link which bound her to her husband, the knowledge that with all his faults he was a clever man. He had too that driving force behind his shrewd wits which spells nowadays the secret of success. Hard-headed, tireless, smiling at rebuffs, steadily he had accomplished his task; building up a fortune by personal effort, with, under his vulgarity, something rather fine, a belief in his star which amounted to power. Perhaps his first moment of weakness and doubt was the one that witnessed the height of his achievement; when money bred money, regular and sustained, and a new life where leisure lurked opened out to him. For in the long struggle Ebenezer Cadell had hardly given a thought to the end of the fight. He had no time to speculate, no tendency to dream what money should bring him once it was his. And he found, to his surprise, that to be a rich man involved on a larger scale the qualms of the poor; the risk of being cheated out of his wealth; to lose moreover pounds where once he risked pence. Ambition dies harder even than vanity, and ostentation took the place of his thrift. He craved the outward signs of opulence, a house filled with treasures that other men of mark could recognize and covet and openly discuss. But here commercial instinct failed him at the start. No longer could he wholly depend on himself. He lacked the inherited knowledge, the slow experience and the everyday atmosphere of a cultured home. Advisers could be bought, but were they trustworthy? It maddened him, this closed door to a rich man's clue. Suddenly he became sensitive to a sneer. Above all he dreaded the smile of the connoisseur. He realized that a partner was what he required, and for the first time began to think of a wife. Fate threw Helen Greaves at this juncture in his path. He found her in a small hotel upon the East coast with her youngest pupil, whose health required care, and was interested immediately when he heard her discussing the merits of a certain picture with her charge. Their tables, side by side, in the deserted dining room gave him the opportunity he sought. An acquaintance was formed and friendship ripened quickly between the curious, dissimilar pair. Past her first youth, withered, austere, Helen Greaves nevertheless possessed a certain charm: the impress of the class she had lived with and served, that knowledge of the cultured world which Ebenezer lacked. Moreover, for many years, she had taught the daughters of a certain peer; in a well-known house full of art treasures, inherited and added to by the present owner; and with her quick brain and love of the beautiful had become herself no mean connoisseur.