“I should think that would suit you.  Last I knew, you were deep in the Mind Cure.”

“So I was.  That was last week.  Now I’m in the Faith Cure; I’ve found out about both.  The difference is, in the Mind Cure you don’t require any faith; in the Faith Cure you don’t require any mind.  The Faith Cure just suits me.”

“So you put your faith in an American millionaire?”

“Yes, I think I should, until an American millionaire put faith in me.  That might shake me.  It is such a queer world.  No, I’m in doubt.  If you loved an earl he would stay an earl.  If you loved an American millionaire, ten to one he would fail.”

Margaret did not escape the responsibility of her success.  Who does?  My dear Charmian, who wrote the successful novel of last year, do you not already repent your rash act?  If you do not write a better novel this year, will not the public flout you and jeer you for a pretender?  Did the public overpraise you at first?  Its mistaken partiality becomes now your presumption.  Last year the press said you were the rival of Hawthorne.  This year it is, “that Miss Charmian who set herself up as a second Hawthorne.”  When the new house was opened, it might be said that socially Mrs. Henderson had “arrived.”  Had she?  When one enters on the path of worldliness is there any resting-place?  Is not eternal vigilance the price of position?

Henderson was apparently on good terms with the world.  Many envied him, many paid him the sincerest flattery, that of imitation.  He was a king in the street, great enterprises sought his aid, all the charities knocked at his door, his word could organize a syndicate or a trust, his nod could smash a “corner.”  There were fabulous stories about his wealth, about his luck.  This also was Margaret’s world.  Her ambition expanded in it with his.  The things he set his heart on she coveted.  Alas! there is always another round to the ladder.

Seeing the means by which he gained his ends, and the public condonation of them, would not his cynicism harden into utter unbelief in general virtue and goodness?  I don’t know that Henderson changed much, accented as his grasping selfishness was on occasion; prosperity had not impaired that indifferent good-fellowship and toleration which had early gained him popularity.  His presence was nowhere a rebuke to whatever was going on.  He was always accessible, often jocular.  The younger members in the club said Henderson was a devilish good fellow, whatever people said.  The President of the United States used to send for him and consult him, because he wanted no office; he knew men, and it was a relief to talk with a liberal rich man of so much bonhomie who wanted nothing.