And how the world would take this! His imagination saw in the papers of some near day, across the first page in great black head-lines, "Miss Helen Chambers Marries Ex-Convict--Disowned and Disinherited By Her Father--Social World Horrified!" The irony of it! But even in this hour, pained as he was by Helen's judgment, he felt no regret for those deeds for which he had been judged. For thirty years and more he had had one supreme object--to take from life, for himself, all that life could be made to yield. All his faculties were pointed to, attuned to, acquisition. His instinct, his long habit, his mighty will, his opportunity-making mind, his long succession of successes, the irresistible command of his every cell to go on, and on, and on--all these united in a momentum that allowed him neither to recoil from what he had done nor to regard it with regret. He felt pain, yes--but mixed with his pain was no other feeling, no impulse, that would swerve his life even a single degree from its thirty-years' direction. CHAPTER X THE BEGINNING OF LIFE In five minutes the long, heavy express was due to pull out of the station and go lunging westward through the night. Kate's and Rogers's hand luggage was piled in Kate's seat, and across the aisle and a little ahead, in Rogers's seat, were the two travellers, side by side. Facing them sat David and the Mayor, the latter just back from his brief honeymoon, and standing in the aisle was Tom. "Well, got everything you need for the trip?" asked the Mayor, in tones that filled the sleeper. "There's enough in our trunks and in those bags"--Rogers nodded backward towards Kate's seat--"for a trip to the moon. Aldrich tried to buy out New York." "There's nothin' like havin' too much," declared the Mayor. "Oh, say there, captain," he cried to the porter who had just brushed by. "See here." The porter turned back. "Yes suh." There was even more than the usual porterly deference in his manner, as he instantly measured the authority in the Mayor's florid person and took note of the silk hat and the imposing beflowered vest. "Yes suh." "These here two people are friends o' mine. You want to see that they get everything that's comin' to 'em, and a few more besides. Understand?" "Yes suh." The Mayor, with some effort, got into and out of a trouser pocket, and held forth a dollar. "If you ain't bashful, take that. And stick it some place where your willingness'll know you've got it. "There's nobody'll treat you as white as a well-tipped nigger," he remarked as the porter passed on. He leaned forward and laid a hand on Rogers's knee, his smiling face redly brilliant under the Pintsch light. "Just as soon as you get your bellows mended and some meat on your bones, I'm goin' to write you a letter handin' you some straight advice." The edge of his glance slyly took in Kate. "No, I ain't goin' to wait. I'll tell you now and be in the price o' the stamp. Friend--get married!"