“The site is commanding and beautiful.  The finest in S——­, for one who thinks mainly of attracting the attention of others,” said Mr. Wallingford.

“If he builds, we shall see something on a grander scale than anything yet attempted in our neighborhood.  He will overshadow you.”

“The rivalry must be on his side alone,” was Mr. Wallingford’s reply.  “No elegance or imposing grandeur that he may assume, can disturb me in the smallest degree.  I shall only feel pity for the defect of happiness that all his blandishments must hide.”

“A splendid Italian villa is talked of.”

Mr. Wallingford shook his head.

“You doubt all this?” said I.

“Not the man’s ambitious pride; but his ability to do what pride suggests.  He and his compeers are poorer, by a hundred thousand dollars, than they deemed themselves a few short months ago.”

“Have they met with heavy losses?” I asked, not understanding the drift of his remark.

“The estate in trust has been withdrawn.”

“How should that make them poorer?”

“It makes them poorer, in the first place, as to the means for carrying on business.  And it makes them poorer, in the second place, in the loss of an estate, which, I am sorry to believe, Mr. Dewey and a part of his New York associates regarded as virtually their own.

“But the heir was approaching his majority,” said I.

“And growing up a weak, vicious, self-indulgent young man, who, in the hands of a shrewd, unscrupulous villain, might easily be robbed of his fortune.  You may depend upon it, Doctor, that somebody has suffered a terrible disappointment, and one from which he is not likely soon to recover.  No—­no!  We shall see nothing of this princely Italian villa.”

“I cannot believe,” I replied, “that the executors who had the estate in trust were influenced by dishonorable motives.  I know the men too well.”

“Nor do I, Doctor,” he answered, promptly.  “But, as I have before said, they were almost wholly under the influence of Dewey, and I think that he was leading them into mazes from which honorable extrication would have been impossible.”

“Have you given Dewey any notice of removal?” I inquired.

“No—­and shall not, for some time.  I am in no hurry to leave this place, in which the happiest days of my life have passed.  Any seeming eagerness to dispossess him, would only chafe a spirit in which I would not needlessly excite evil passions.  His pride must, I think, lead him at a very early day to remove, and thus make a plain way before me.”

“How long will you wait?” I asked.

“Almost any reasonable time.”

“You and he might not take the same view of what was reasonable,” said I.

“Perhaps not.  But, as I remarked just now, being in no hurry to leave our present home, I shall not disturb him for some months to come.  No change will be made by us earlier than next spring.  And if he wishes to spend the winter in his present abode, he is welcome to remain.”