Foreign visitors no longer counted as individuals. They ran about in panic-stricken groups like vagrant dogs. Those in uniform looked on indifferently, or gave sharp orders turning strangers back from this road or that, this gate or that. A chauffeur in uniform might turn back his millionaire foreign master. Credit money no longer counted. Banks refused to give out gold, and the shopkeepers and hotel proprietors refused to accept anything but gold. No one knew what might happen, and refused to risk. A man might brandish a letter of credit for ten thousand francs and be refused a glass of wine. A man with a thousand francs in gold was in a better position than a millionaire with only paper. Monte discovered this when he hurried to his own bankers. With half a million dollars and more to his credit at home, he was not allowed a single louis d'or. Somewhat bewildered, he stood on the steps and counted the gold he happened to have in his pockets. It amounted to some fifty dollars. To all intents and purposes, that embraced his entire capital. In the present emergency his stocks and bonds were of no avail whatever to him. He thought of the cables, but gold could not be cabled--only more credit, which in this grim crisis went for nothing. It was as if he had suddenly been forced into bankruptcy. His fortune temporarily had been swept away. If that was true of his own, it must be equally true of Marjory's. She was no wealthier now than the sum total of the gold she happened to have in her possession. The thought came to him at first as a shock. What was she going to do? She was upon the point of leaving, and her plans must have been suddenly checked. She was, in effect, a prisoner here. She was stranded as completely as if she were any penniless young woman. Then some emotion--some feeling indistinctly connected with the grandfather who had crossed the plains in forty-nine--swept over him. It was a primitive exultation. It made him conscious of the muscles in his back and legs. It made him throw back his head and square his shoulders. A moment before, with railroads and steamships at her command, with a hundred men standing ready to do her bidding in response to the magic of her check-book, she had been as much mistress of her little world as any ancient queen. Sweaty men were rushing fruits from the tropics, silks from India, diamonds from Africa, caviar from the north; others were making ready fine quarters in every corner of the globe; others were weaving cloths and making shoes; others were rehearsing plays and music--all for her and others like her, who had only to call upon their banks to pay for all this toil. Instead of one man to supply her needs, she had a thousand, ten thousand. With the machinery of civilization working smoothly, she had only to nod--and sign a check.