He felt neither pity nor hatred for Roger Wade as he contemplated the possibility of having to ruin him. Richmond was as impersonal as are all the large forces of destiny, self-appointed or impressed--cholera germs or conquerors, cyclones or captains of industry. When he raised or lowered the price of a stock or of a necessity of life, destroyed an industry or annexed a railway, he looked on it as a destiny-ordained transaction; effects upon the happiness or misery of unknown fellow-beings did not enter his head. The suicides that followed his wrecking and looting of the M. M. & G. made no impression on him. If a man of action paused for such refinements of sensibility as incidental evil effects from his great designs there would be no action. If the Almighty were a sentimentalist how long would chaos be postponed? “The larger good” was Richmond’s motto, and those who attacked his right to set himself up as judge in so high and difficult a matter were silenced by his pointing to his triumphant success in establishing and maintaining himself in destiny’s American board of directors. Beatrice, observing this relentlessness of his in a romantic, impersonal way, and thinking only about his exhibition of power and about the glories of victory, had often admired, had been filled with pride. But now that she had personal illustration of the meaning of that sonorous word, relentless, she was feeling rather differently. And hand in hand with horror of her father there entered her heart a great fear of him. She had fancied herself free! She had gone haughtily away, had stepped proudly about, had admired herself for superior strength and courage. Here she was, back at Red Hill, as much in chains as her mother and her brothers and Rhoda, Countess of Broadstairs. Through and through she was afraid of this man who would stop at nothing--and whom nothing could stop. Bitterly and vividly and in self-scorn she was realizing the truth so compactly presented by Montaigne where he reminds us that the pedestal is not part of the bust. But, although she could not lie to herself about her fear, she resolutely hid it. Her front was calm and undaunted. She accepted her check like her father’s own daughter--with neither whimper nor frown. She was chattering gayly all the way down on the train. She greeted her mother as if she had merely been away for a day’s shopping. She was the life of the dinner table, played bridge afterwards with her old-time skill--and that meant undivided attention upon the game.