In the brittle case of Mr.Bayard the laughing cynic did not laugh alone; that gray eagle of the tape saw much in Mr.Gwynn and his polite adventures to delight him.

He declared the situation to be a most justifiable sarcasm addressed, not against an individual, but an age.
"It was," said Mr.Bayard, "a splendid vengeance upon the snobs.

But that doesn't explain," he continued, "why you were sedulous to hide your millions from others--from Miss Harley, for a sample." Richard braced himself and made a clean breast.

He had been educated by musty professors, visionaries, rusty creatures of theories and alcoves; he had come to be as morbid as the atmosphere he was reared in on that subject of his gold.

It would corrupt whomsoever approached him.