He saw visions of a halcyon future.
It is difficult to make perfectly clear what a subtle and significant power this suddenly placed in the hands of Cowperwood.

Consider that he was only twenty-eight--nearing twenty-nine.

Imagine yourself by nature versed in the arts of finance, capable of playing with sums of money in the forms of stocks, certificates, bonds, and cash, as the ordinary man plays with checkers or chess.

Or, better yet, imagine yourself one of those subtle masters of the mysteries of the higher forms of chess--the type of mind so well illustrated by the famous and historic chess-players, who could sit with their backs to a group of rivals playing fourteen men at once, calling out all the moves in turn, remembering all the positions of all the men on all the boards, and winning.

This, of course, would be an overstatement of the subtlety of Cowperwood at this time, and yet it would not be wholly out of bounds.
He knew instinctively what could be done with a given sum of money--how as cash it could be deposited in one place, and yet as credit and the basis of moving checks, used in not one but many other places at the same time.