For the new plan had not been successful, after all; it had failed ignominiously at the eleventh hour. A great deal of effort had been expended in the private office of this director and that, and a futile attempt made to bring four or five of them together at the office of the bank itself, that the matter might be clenched and the contract signed. But the directors were elusive, and cost a great deal of time; and when found, evasive, and cost a great deal of patience. But it was the delay that had worked the ruin. It gave opportunity for tangles and hitches, for the reconsideration of points already settled, for the insinuation of doubts as to this, that and the other. Andrew P. Hill developed a sulky dislike for all the laboured superfluities that now encumbered the chaste simplicity of his original conception, and Roscoe Orlando Gibbons began to question (though, to tell the truth, he was just about to bring forward a candidate of his own) whether the artists thus far considered were sufficiently skilled to carry out the work. As a matter of fact, the only striking and convincing demonstration of ability witnessed thus far was that reported by his daughter from the studio of Festus Gowan. No, that overwrought presentation of early local history was not quite what they wanted. The contract remained unsigned, and presently it slid off into the waste-paper basket under Andrew P. Hill's desk. The whole circle boiled at this outrage. Joyce, who was highly articulate and who possessed a tremendous capacity for indignation, would have made himself a mouth-piece to voice the protests of his infuriate friends; but Little O'Grady wrenched the task from him. O'Grady could not contain himself--nor did he try to. "This is business-dealing with business-men, is it?" he cried to Dill. "This is what comes of treating with solid citizens of means and method, is it? Where is my hat? I'll go round to that bank and just tell them what I----" "O'Grady!" protested Dill. "Behave! or you'll have the fat in the fire for good and all." "No, Daff," insisted Little O'Grady. "I got you into this, and now----" "I don't understand it so," said Dill coldly. "Oh yes, I did. And now I'll see you through. Where is my hat?" While Daffingdon was trying to hold O'Grady in check, Virgilia was making moan to her aunt. She sat down on Eudoxia's bed with a desperate flounce. "They don't want it! What, in heaven's name, do they want?" she asked angrily. "I think it is time for you, aunt, to make yourself felt. You are as much interested in the bank as any of them, and as much entitled to speak. Go down there as a stock-holder and find out what they are trying to do." "I will if you wish," said her aunt. "In the meantime, why don't you go round and talk to Mr. Gibbons? He's an agreeable enough man, and the only one of the lot that knows anything about such things. Learn from him, if you can, what the trouble is."