Paul shook his head.  “As you say,” he admitted, “I don’t understand these things.  I thought panics were hurricanes that swept fortunes away.”

The elder brother laid an immaculately gloved hand on the coat-sleeve of the younger.

“It’s a thing I wouldn’t confide to any one else, but I trust you even if I don’t give a damn for your judgment.  As you say, hurricanes mean ruin—­for the unprepared, but there are also men to whom hurricanes mean—­salvage.”

For an instant, the hard fire of ruthless conquest burned so fiercely in Hamilton Burton’s eyes that Paul drew back and shuddered, then he heard the quiet voice continuing.  “I am now rated among the first few in the world of American finance.  There are others above me.  I am one of twelve or fifteen.  When this storm has taken its toll and spent its rage—­then I shall be one of one, and above me there will be—­no other man.”

* * * * *

At the same time, though the twenty-four figured dials of Italian clocks recorded a later hour, a young man of more than ordinarily likable appearance sat alone at a terrace table of a Capri inn.  Near by a company of sashed and spangled peasants danced to the accompaniment of guitars and mandolins, but he did not seem to see them and when they presented their tambourines for largesse, he roused himself almost with a start to search his pockets for lire.

Behind him were the colorful and steep vistas that lay along the zig-zag roads where ramshackle victorias clattered at crazy speed.  Below him was the world’s most vivid spread of sun-kissed color; the Bay of Naples curving nobly from his point of view to Ischia’s misty bulwark, in a glistening spread of sapphire.  Standing guard over the picture was the great cone of Vesuvius.  But of these things also the solitary young man seemed oblivious.

Against his wicker-bound carafe of pale Capri wine stood propped an old Paris edition of the New York Herald.  It was folded so that a portrait of a woman could be seen to the best advantage, and to the exclusion of flagstoned courtyards and trellised, overhanging vines; to the exclusion of the bay’s great jewel of beauty, this picture held the eyes of the man who lunched alone.  They were good eyes, of the sort that look life straight in the face, and their pupils were such as impress the beholder with a conviction of fearless integrity.  Now they were preoccupied, and a little annoyed.  Even in the lifelessness of black and white the face he studied was one of remarkable beauty, and it pleased him to imagine the wonderful difference and illumination which color and swift play of expression would bring to its features.

For several reasons, the face was of more than commonplace interest to him.  Years ago he had seen it by a roadside in the White Mountains, and often since he had thought of it until the thought had taken deep root in his mind and become one of the pleasant dreams of his life.  But Fate had further spurred his curiosity by a series of mischances which had prevented his meeting this girl, though often in his travels his arrivals had followed close enough on her departures to permit his hearing talk of her great charm and her many conquests.