The attraction was violent on both sides. Gregory Williams was not seeking to be married. He had been, until within six months, a broker's clerk, and had become a banker on the strength of ten thousand dollars bequeathed to him by a grandmother. He and a clerk from another broker's office, J. Willett VanHorne, had recently formed a partnership as Williams & VanHorne, Bankers and Dealers in Stocks and Bonds. He was not seeking to be married, but he intended to be married some day, and it was no part of his scheme of life to deny himself anything he wished. Support a wife? Of course he could; and support her in the same grandiose fashion which he had adopted for himself since he had begun business on his own account. He had chosen as a philosophy of life the smart paradox, which he enjoyed uttering, that he spent what he needed first and supplied the means later; and at the same time he let it be understood that the system worked wonderfully. He possessed unlimited confidence in himself, and though he was dimly aware that a very small turn of the wheel of fortune in the wrong direction would ruin him financially, he chose to close his eyes to the possibilities of disaster and to assume a bold and important bearing before the world. He had implicit faith in his own special line of ability, and he appreciated the worth of his partner, VanHorne. He had joined forces with VanHorne because he knew that he was the opposite of himself--that he was a delving, thorough, shrewd, keen office man--and able too. How genuinely able Williams did not yet know. He himself was to be the showy partner, the originator of schemes and procurer of business, the brilliant man before the world. So there was some method in his madness. And with it all went a cheery, incisive, humorous point of view which was congenial and diverting to Flossy. He went away, but he came back once--twice--thrice in quick succession. On business, so he said casually to Mr. and Mrs. Price, but his language to their daughter was a declaration of personal devotion. It remained for her to say whether she would marry him or no. Of one thing she was sure without need of reflection, that she loved him ardently. As a consequence she surrendered at once, though, curiously enough, she was conscious when she permitted him to kiss her with effusion that he was not the sort of man she had intended to marry--that he was not fit in her sense of the word. Yet she was determined to marry him, and from the moment their troth was plighted she found herself his eager and faithful ally, dreaming and scheming on their joint account. She would help him to succeed; they would conquer the world together; she would never doubt his ability to conquer it. And in time--yes, in time they would make even the Morton Prices notice them.