He was struck too with the fact that remarkable changes had taken place in his physical appearance during the past ten years of his reign as a financial potentate. Into his features had grown an undoubted dignity. His mouth had grown harder, colder, and more cruel and more significant of power. His eyes had sunk back deeper into his high forehead and sparkled with fiercer light. He had become more difficult of approach and carried himself with quiet conscious pride. Stuart was scarcely prepared for the hearty, old-fashioned cordial way in which he went about the business for which he had asked him to come. "I'm glad you like it, Jim," he added after a pause. "It's magnificent." "Glad," he repeated, "because you're going to come in here with me." The lawyer lifted his brows and suppressed a smile. "Oh, you needn't smile," Bivens went on good-naturedly. "It's as fixed as fate. You are the only man in New York who can do the work I've laid out and you've got to come. The swine who made up your convention the other day knew what they were about when they turned you down. You were too big a man for the job they gave you." He paused and drew closer. "Now, Jim, this is your day, those fellows out there in the reception hall can wait. You and I must have this thing out--man to man, heart to heart. You can talk plainly and I'll answer squarely." The little man stopped again and looked at the ceiling thoughtfully. "I've got a proposition to make to you, so big you've got to hear it, so big you can't get away from it, because you're not a fool. You are a man of genius. You have eloquence and magnetism, intellect and will. Among all the men I have met in this town I don't know one who is your equal. There is no height to which you can not climb when once your feet are on the ladder. And I'm going to put them there." The assurance in Bivens's voice and the contagious enthusiasm with which he spoke impressed Stuart. Bivens was quick to recognize it and strike at once. "Before I present my plans I want to show you that I can make good my word. I have caused these reporters to be sent here to-day for the purpose of giving the widest publicity to the facts about my fortune. Another run has been planned to-morrow on one of my banks. I have placed my money and securities in the next room so arranged that you can verify my statements, and at the proper moment I shall ask these reporters into the place and let them see with their own eyes. There can be no more rumours in Wall Street about my financial status. Come in here." Bivens led the way into the room beyond, which was the meeting place of the directors of his many corporations.