Contrary to expectation, however, Nordheim did not pursue the path in which he had made so brilliant a _début_; strangely enough, he seemed to lose interest in it, and adopted another, although kindred, career. He undertook the formation and the financial conduct of a large building association, of which in a few years he made an enormous success, meanwhile increasing his own property tenfold.
Other projects were the consequence of this first undertaking, and with the increase of his means the magnitude of his schemes increased, and it became clear that this was the field for the exercise of his talents. He was not a man to ponder and pore for years over technical details,--he needed to plunge into the life of the age, to venture and contrive, making all possible interests subservient to his success, and developing in all directions his great talent for organization.
In his restless activity he never failed to select the right man for the right place; he overcame all obstacles, sought and found sources of help everywhere, and fortune stood his energy in stead. The enterprises of which Nordheim was the head were sure to succeed, and while he himself became a millionaire, his influence in all circles with which he had any connection was incalculable.
The president's wife had died a few years since,--a loss which was not especially felt by him, for his marriage had not been a very happy one. He had married when he was a simple engineer, and his quiet, unpretending wife had not known how to accommodate herself to his growing fortunes and to play the part of _grande dame_ to her husband's satisfaction. Then too the son which she bore him, and whom he had hoped to make the heir of his schemes, died when an infant. Alice was born some years afterwards, a delicate, sickly child, for whose life the greatest anxiety was always felt, and whose phlegmatic temperament was antagonistic to the vivid energy of her father's nature. She was his only daughter, his future heiress, and as such he surrounded her with every luxury that wealth could procure, but she made no part of his life, and he was glad to intrust her education and herself to the Baroness Lasberg.
Nordheim's only sister, who had lived beneath his roof, had bestowed her hand upon the Freiherr von Thurgau, then a captain in the army. Her brother, who had just achieved his first successes, would have preferred another suitor to the last scion of an impoverished noble family, who possessed nothing save his sword and a small estate high up among the mountains, but, since the couple loved each other tenderly and there was no objection to be made to Thurgau personally, the brother's consent was not withheld.