He had not counted for much at first; he had been a mere man of business; and business men had had little place in her dreams of friends in the city.

But watching him now she changed her mind.
Joe Lanier was what is called "a speculative builder." He was an architect, building contractor and real estate gambler, all in one.

He put up apartment buildings "on spec," buildings of the cheaper sort, most of them up in the Bronx, and sold them at a profit--or a loss, as the case might be.

He dealt in the rapidly shifting values of neighbourhoods in the changing town.

"The gamble in it is the fun," he remarked to Ethel one evening.