Evelyn’s education was advancing.  For the first time in her life she had something to conceal.  The privilege of this sort of secret is, however, an inheritance of Eve.  The first morning she wore it at breakfast Mrs. Mavick asked her what it was.

“It’s a coin, antique Greek,” Evelyn replied, passing it across the table.

“How pretty it is; it is very pretty.  Ought to have pearls around it.  Seems to be an inscription on it.”

“Yes, it is real old.  McDonald says it is a stater, about the same as a Persian daric-something like the value of a sovereign.”

“Oh, indeed; very interesting.”

To give Evelyn her due, it must be confessed that she blushed at this equivocation about the inscription, and she got quite hot with shame thinking what would become of her if Philip should ever know that she was regarding him as a stater and wearing his name on her breast.

One can fancy what philosophical deductions as to the education of women Celia Howard would have drawn out of this coin incident; one of them doubtless being that a classical education is no protection against love.

But for Philip’s connection with the thriving firm of Hunt, Sharp & Tweedle, it is safe to say that he would have known little of the world of affairs in Wall Street, and might never have gained entrance into that other world, for which Wall Street exists, that society where its wealth and ambitious vulgarity are displayed.  Thomas Mavick was a client of the firm.  At first they had been only associated with his lawyer, and consulted occasionally.  But as time went on Mr. Mavick opened to them his affairs more and more, as he found the advantage of being represented to the public by a firm that combined the highest social and professional standing with all the acumen and adroitness that his complicated affairs required.

It was a time of great financial feverishness and uncertainty, and of opportunity for the most reckless adventurers.  Houses the most solid were shaken and crippled, and those which were much extended in a variety of adventures were put to their wits’ ends to escape shipwreck.  Financial operations are perpetual war.  It is easy to calculate about the regular forces, but the danger is from the unexpected “raids” and the bushwhackers and guerrillas.  And since politics has become inextricably involved in financial speculations (as it has in real war), the excitement and danger of business on a large scale increase.

Philip as a trusted clerk, without being admitted into interior secrets, came to know a good deal about Mavick’s affairs, and to be more than ever impressed with his enormous wealth and the magnitude of his operations.  From time to time he was sent on errands to Mavick’s office, and gradually, as Mavick became accustomed to him as a representative of the firm, they came on a somewhat familiar footing, and talked of other things than business.  And Mavick, who was not