Beecher belonged, without yet being one of them, to that set who live what in England is called a gentleman’s life—racing, hunting, playing polo, seeking the sensations of big game or big fish, rather courting danger, drinking hard as a matter of pride, on the theory of the survival of the fittest, consuming the night in battles of cunning and physical endurance at the card-table. Beecher had returned to this society partly because most of his friends "belonged," partly because, being an idler himself, he liked their busy days dedicated to sensation, and their curious standards of what was and what was not permitted to be done. He had not as yet plunged into the whirl, being more curiously interested in the various sides of New York life that opened before him. He preserved, in the midst of the nervous American excess of his companion, a certain old-world moderation. He entered their card games in a desultory way for an hour or two at a time, but without that engulfing, brutal passion for mastery which kept Bo Lynch at the card-tables until dawn. When he joined a group at the bar, he drank with them as long as he wished and no longer—a difficult matter where a withdrawal usually was greeted with taunts; but there was about Beecher, young as he was, an atmosphere of authority which came from having proved himself among men the world over. He was rising from the table when the telephone rang, and, mindful of his afternoon engagement with Rita Kildair, he refused an invitation to join a party to the polo match. A call from Bruce Gunther urged him to be one of a gay party of six, bent on a lark for the evening. He enjoyed a furious gallop in the park, dressed, and swung alertly up the Avenue to his club for luncheon. There, all the talk was of the stock market which had gone up several points on the morning’s tradings. Bo Lynch and Eddie Fontaine buttonholed him and besought him to avail himself of the opportunity: it was the chance of a lifetime, the crisis was over, stocks simply had to go up. The friends of Majendie, who was one of the directors of the club, were relieved and jubilant. He had weathered the crisis; there was nothing more to fear. The story which was told from lip to lip as being direct from headquarters was, that at the meeting on the afternoon before, Fontaine had declared, with his fist on the table, that he would never be a party to any movement that would jeopardize the future of his lifelong friend, Bernard Majendie. Some who still clung to the short interest even added, with an air of knowing more than they could tell, that the attack would now be concentrated on the Associated Trust with the intention of making an example of John Slade, a Western intruder who was protected by no ties of association and friendship. Beecher, true to his habits of caution, laughingly refused all offers to double his fortune. Bruce Gunther drew him aside, outlining his program for the evening.