No one but Gorham himself saw the mist which momentarily rose before his eyes, yet, when it passed, his vision was clearer than it had ever been.  The men sitting around him represented the flower of the business world, each one of whom stood before his fellow-men as a tangible expression of honor and integrity.  Yet not one was able to comprehend Gorham’s viewpoint, not one could be anything but incredulous that he stood sincere in the position he had taken.  This was what hurt him most.  The applause which his associates had awarded him had been as that won by a clever actor rather than, as he had believed, the responsive echo forced from their souls by the battle notes of a new cause.  Their acceptance of his doctrines had been because his arguments had persuaded them of the material side of the enterprise.  The very magnetism which they had felt exercised by him upon themselves they had capitalized as an asset to be assayed when once the ore was stopped.  All the high-sounding claims were turned at this moment into empty platitudes.  All his promises were valueless beyond his personal strength to make them good.  To this extent Allen had been right, but it was not too late to recognize the danger and to meet it.  His associates saw the Robert Gorham they thought they had known for five years sitting in repose before them while this realization of the situation surged through his brain—­they saw the real Robert Gorham when he rose to his feet, and faced them with a force they felt before a word was spoken.

“I could not have believed it possible,” he said, “for a moment such as this ever to arrive.  I have lived in this business Utopia for five years, blind to the fact that those who labored with me failed utterly to comprehend or to appreciate the sincerity of my motives or the integrity of my purpose.  I admit that I question my ability to make clear to you by words what my acts have not conveyed.  During these years, and until to-day, you have accepted my judgment as supreme, and for the first time I realize that this was not because you believed in it, but because you saw in it advantage to yourselves.  The gratification which I have enjoyed from this supposed tribute has vanished, like the empty bubble that it was.  It has been said that the Consolidated Companies was a one-man corporation, which I have denied, believing that my labors were rather those of the pioneer, showing the way to those associated with me who would naturally follow my footsteps.  Again, I was wrong:  this has been a one-man corporation, and it is so to-day.  Not only has the creation of it been mine and mine alone, but also the successful putting into execution of those principles which I alone devised.  The credit for this, which I have until now proudly conceded to you, I assume wholly for myself, and I also give myself the further credit of having, unknown to myself, been the single force which has compelled you to live up to the high standard I established.