Yet--yet, he was not the type of man who, to her mind should have made three millions at thirty-three.

It did not seem to her that he was really representative of the great fortune-builders--she had her grandfather and others closely in mind.
She had seen many captains of industry and finance in her grandfather's house, men mostly silent, deliberate and taciturn, and showing in their manner and persons the accumulated habits of patience, force, ceaseless aggression and domination.
Was it only luck which had given Rudyard Byng those three millions?
It could not be just that alone.

She remembered her grandfather used to say that luck was a powerful ingredient in the successful career of every man, but that the man was on the spot to take the luck, knew when to take it, and how to use it.

"The lucky man is the man that sits up watching for the windfall while other men are sleeping"-- that was the way he had put it.

So Rudyard Byng, if lucky, had also been of those who had grown haggard with watching, working and waiting; but not a hair of his head had whitened, and if he looked older than he was, still he was young enough to marry the youngest debutante in England and the prettiest and best-born.