"That’s only one side of it—speculation," said Gunther warmly; "but even that is impressive. Look beyond those little mobs we saw, get the feeling of the whole country, the vast nation, rising in anger—flinging over hundreds of thousands of holdings—sweeping down the little gamblers with the tremendous waves of its alarm. Beyond that the whole vibrating industry of the nation is here, within a quarter of a mile—the great projects of development, the wars of millions, the future of immense territories to the West and the South. There’s a big side to it—a real side—that gets me. I’ve a mind to walk down now and face the old governor and tell him I’m ready." "Why don’t you?" said Beecher. He himself had felt the restlessness of indecision and enforced idleness. He gave a laugh. "You know, Bruce, I’m beginning to feel the same way. Either I’ve got to get into the current somewhere, or I’m going to pack off for Africa some fine day." "By the way, Tilton’s up at the club. He’s here for a few days, getting ready for a lion hunt or something." "Tilton?" exclaimed Beecher joyfully. "By Jove, I must get hold of him. I’d go in a minute!" He believed what he said. The whirl of emotions into which he had lately been plunged—revealing to him as it had all the mercenary, clutching side of the city—had left him disturbed, rebellious, longing to be away from the mass of men in general, and of women in particular, the brilliant, keen, and calculating women of the city with whom he had been thrown. Impatient and disillusionized, without realizing the true cause, he repeated: "By Jove, I’d go in a minute!" In the afternoon he went to call on Miss Charters. After having declared twenty times that he would not go near her, he suddenly remembered, at the end of a wearied discussion between his conscience and his inclination, that his check for twenty thousand dollars was to be reclaimed and, at once seizing such a satisfactory reason, he abandoned the attitude of embattled dignity which he had logically built up. "That’s true; I must get the check," he said, and he set out. But as he neared his destination and began to rehearse all the grave causes for offense that he held against her, he was surprised at the slender stock of ammunition he held. "Why, it was perfectly natural," he thought, struck by the idea—having considered her reasons for the first time. "If Garraboy called and explained everything to her satisfaction, why shouldn’t she change her mind? Besides, there is nothing against Garraboy—nothing definite. After all, I may have been unjust to him." Very sheepish, he felt his irritation slipping away as he yielded to the eager desire of once more entering her presence. "What the deuce was I so wild about?" he asked himself, amazed, as he entered the elevator. But all at once he remembered that she had allowed him to receive the news at the hands of a person intensely disagreeable to him.