“’I warned you,” said Arkwright.

Craig wheeled on him.  “You don’t—­can’t—­understand.  You’re like all these people.  Money is your god.  But I don’t want money, I want power—­to make all these snobs with their wealth, these millionaires, these women with fine skins and beautiful bodies, bow down before me—­that’s what I want!”

Arkwright laughed.  “Well, it’s up to you, Joshua.”

Craig tossed his Viking head.  “Yes, it’s up to me, and I’ll get what I want—­the people and I....  Who’s that frightful person?”

Into the room, only a few feet from them, advanced an old woman—­ very old, but straight as a projectile.  She carried her head high, and her masses of gray-white hair, coiled like a crown, gave her the seeming of royalty in full panoply.  There was white lace over her black velvet at the shoulders; her train swept yards behind her.  She was bearing a cane, or rather a staff, of ebony; but it suggested, not decrepitude, but power—­perhaps even a weapon that might be used to enforce authority should occasion demand.  In her face, in her eyes, however, there was that which forbade the supposition of any revolt being never so remotely possible.

As she advanced across the ballroom, dancing ceased before her and around her, and but for the noise of the orchestra there would have been an awed and painful silence.  Mrs. Burke’s haughty daughter-in-law, with an expression of eager desire to conciliate and to please, hastened forward and conducted the old lady to a gilt armchair in the center of the dais, across the end of the ballroom.  It was several minutes before the gayety was resumed, and then it seemed to have lost the abandon which the freely-flowing champagne had put into it.

“Who is that frightful person?” repeated Craig.  He was scowling like a king angered and insulted by the advent of an eclipsing rival.

“Grandma,"’ replied Arkwright, his flippancy carefully keyed low.

“I’ve never seen a more dreadful person!” exclaimed Craig angrily.  “And a woman, too!  She’s the exact reverse of everything a woman should be—­no sweetness, no gentleness.  I can’t believe she ever brought a child into the world.”

“She probably doubts it herself,” said Arkwright.

“Why does everybody cringe before her?”

“That’s what everybody asks.  She hasn’t any huge wealth—­or birth, either, for that matter.  It’s just the custom.  We defer to her here precisely as we wear claw-hammer coats and low-neck dresses.  Nobody thinks of changing the custom.”

Josh’s lip curled.  “Introduce me to her,” he said commandingly.

Arkwright looked amused and alarmed.  “Not tonight.  All in good time.  She’s the grandmother of a young woman I want you to meet.  She’s Madam Bowker, and the girl’s name is Severence.”

“I want to meet that old woman,” persisted Josh.  Never before had he seen a human being who gave him a sense of doubt as to the superiority of his own will.