She tells me she is good at shorthand, on the machine, or at correspondence, also that she has been a contributor to the magazines.  If this can be arranged, she says she will on her own responsibility select the time and the stock, and hurl the last of the Sands fortune at the market, and, Jim, she is game.  The blow seems to have turned this child into a wonderfully nervy creature, and, old man, I am beginning to have a feeling that perhaps the cards may come so she will win the judge out.  You and I know where less than sixty thousand has been run up to millions more than once, and that, too, without the aid she will have, for I’ll surely do all I can to help her steer this last chance into spongy places.”

Bob in his enthusiasm had completely lost sight of the fact that he was indorsing a project that but a moment previously he had pronounced insane, and with a start I realised what this sudden transformation betokened.  Inevitably, if the project he outlined were carried out, Bob and the beautiful Southern girl would be thrown into close association with each other, and further acquaintance could only deepen the startling influence Beulah Sands had already won over my ordinarily sane and cool-headed comrade.  As I looked at my friend, burning with an ardour as unaccustomed as it was impulsive, I felt a tug at my heartstrings at thought of the sudden cross-roading of his life’s highway.  But I, too, was filled with the glamour of this girl’s wondrous beauty, and her terrible predicament appealed to me almost as strongly as it had to Bob.  So, although I knew it would be fatal to any chance of his weighing the matter by common sense, I burst out: 

“Bob, I don’t blame you for falling in with the girl’s plans.  If I were in your shoes, I should too.”

Tears came to Bob’s eyes as he grabbed my hand and said: 

“Jim, how can I ever repay you for all the good things you have done for me—­how can I!”

It was no time to give way to emotional outbursts, and while Bob was getting his grip on himself, I went on: 

“Come along down to earth now, Bob; let us look at this thing squarely.  You and I, with our position in the market, can do lots of things to help run that sixty thousand to higher figures, but six months is a short time and a million or two a world of money.”

“She knows that,” he said, “and the time is much shorter and the road to go much longer than you figure,” he replied.  “This girl is as high-tensioned as the E string on a Stradivarius, and she declares she will have no charity tips or unusual favours from us or any one else.  But let us not talk about that now or we’ll get discouraged.  Let’s do as she says and trust to God for the outcome.  Are you willing, Jim, to take her into the office as a sort of confidential secretary?  If you will, I’ll take charge of her account, and together we will do all that two men can for her and her father.”

Chapter II.