Here was the palace of the Wymans, upon the laying out of the grounds of which a half million dollars had been spent; the stone wall which surrounded it was famous upon two continents, because it had cost a hundred thousand dollars.  And it was to make steel rails for the Wymans that the slaves of the mills were toiling!

Here was the palace of the Eldridge Devons, with a greenhouse which had cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and which merely supplied the daily needs of its owners.  Here was the famous tulip tree, which had been dug up and brought a distance of fifty miles, at a cost of a thousand dollars.  And Montague had seen in the making the steel for one of the great hotels of the Eldridge Devons!

And here was the Walling establishment, the “three-million-dollar palace on a desert,” as Mrs. Billy Alden had described it.  Montague had read of the famous mantel in its entrance hall, made from Pompeiian marble, and costing seventy-five thousand dollars.  And the Wallings were the railroad kings who transported Mississippi Steel!

And from that his thoughts roamed on to the slaves of other mills, to the men and women and little children shut up to toil in shops and factories and mines for these people who flaunted their luxury about him.  They had come here from every part of the country, with their millions drawn from every kind of labour.  Here was the great white marble palace of the Johnsons—­the ceilings, floors, and walls of its state apartments had all been made in France; its fences and gates, even its locks and hinges, had been made from special designs by famous artists.  The Johnsons were lords of railroads and coal, and ruled the state of West Virginia with a terrible hand.  The courts and the legislature were but branches of old Johnson’s office, and Montague knew of mining villages which were owned outright by the Company, and were like stockaded forts; the wretched toilers could not buy so much as a pint of milk outside of the Company store, and even the country doctor could not enter the gates without a pass.

And beyond that was the home of the Warfields, whose fortune came from great department stores, in which young girls worked for two dollars and a half a week, and eked out their existence by prostitution.  And this was the summer that Warfield’s youngest daughter was launched, and for her debutante dance they built a ballroom which cost thirty thousand dollars—­and was torn down the day afterwards!

And beyond this, upon the cliffs, was the castle of the Mayers, whose fortunes came from coal.—­Montague thought of the young man who had invented the device for the automatic weighing of coal as it was loaded upon steam-ships.  Major Venable had hinted to him that the reason the Coal Trust would not consider it, was because they were selling short weight; and since then he had investigated the story, and learned that this was true, and that it was old Mayer himself who had devised the system.  And here was his palace, and here were his sons and daughters—­among the most haughty and exclusive of Society’s entertainers!