"But he did!" he cried impatiently, unwilling to admit the element of chance in the destiny he had hewn for himself. But the thought sobered him. He looked down from the height to which his ambition had flung him. "It’s true. It was either Majendie or me," he said quietly. "Shall I tell you something? That night we were here I knew he was lost—that he would do it. Don’t ask me how I knew!" Then, shaking off the memory as an evil dream, he continued, extending his arm in crude magnetic gestures: "Well, that’s over. I am where I want to be; the rest is easy. In a month—two months—they will see, Forscheim and Haggerty, how the trap they laid for me has sprung against them. Tonight will be worth twenty millions to me." "How do you mean?" she said eagerly, but she did not look at him. Slade, triumphant in his brute power, inspired her with an emotion she did not dare to show him yet. "Forscheim and Haggerty, the United Mining," he said, forgetting his habitual caution in the now present desire to dazzle and overcome this woman who had so resisted him, who had become so suddenly necessary to him, "have laid their trap to get hold of the Osaba territory. They’ve stripped Gilbert and old General Paxton of their holdings, and they were sure they’d strip me. The Osaba gold fields will be one day worth hundreds of millions—another Eldorado. Well, they’ll get a third interest tonight. I’ve got a third, and Striker and Benz. Mexican United, who’ve fought them tooth and nail, have another third. Each now has got to have what I’ve got or get out. I’ve got the control and when I sell—" He ended with a laugh. "I’ve licked Forscheim before but it will be nothing to this. They thought they had me down and they played into my hands!" Suddenly he changed his tone as the memory came to him of Gunther impassively waiting in his anteroom. "Now they’ll see what I can do," he said savagely. "Gunther’s the only real man among them. I must have Gunther. With him I can do what I want—construct, construct!" She rose, stopping him as he most wanted to continue. "You must go now," she said quietly; "I’ve already done what I shouldn’t." He stopped, infuriated at this check to his inclinations, for, beyond his victory over the men he had fought, she still eluded him. "Did you care what happened to me—much?" he asked savagely. "Yes; I was surprised how much I cared," she said slowly, keeping her eyes on his. There are certain strong, direct characters who are most vulnerable in the moment of their greatest exaltation as the generality of men are weakest in their defeats. She saw in his eyes how much she lacked to his complete triumph and suddenly seized the opportunity by the forelock. "Why are you afraid to marry?" she said vigorously. "You are a child; you don’t understand life. You don’t know how to draw from it the incitements it can give you. You wish to be a great figure and you think you can remain an outcast."