When they heard the taxicab rumble down the driveway to the street, Hargreave turned to Florence.
"Come along, now, and we'll have the bad taste taken off our tongues. To win out is the true principle of life. It takes off some of the tinsel and glamour, but the end is worth while."
They all trooped up-stairs to Florence's room. So wonderful is the power and attraction of money that they forgot the humiliation of their late enemies.
Hargreave approached the portrait of himself, took it from the wall, pressed a button on the back, which fell outward. Behold! There, in neat packages of a hundred thousand each, lay the mystic million! The spectators were awed into silence for a moment. Perhaps the thought of each was identical--the long struggle, the terrible hazards, the deaths, that had taken place because of this enormous sum of money.
A million, sometimes called cool; why, nobody knows. There it lay, without feeling, without emotion; yellow notes payable to bearer on demand. Presently Florence gasped, Norton sighed, and Hargreave smiled. The face of Jones (or Jedson) alone remained impassive.
[Illustration: AFTER THE STORM, THE SUNSHINE]
A million dollars is a marvelous sight. Very few people have ever seen it, not even millionaires themselves. I dare say you never saw it; and I'm tolerably certain I never have, or will! A million, ready for eager, careless fingers to spend, or thrifty fingers to multiply! What Correggio, what Rubens, what Titian, could stand beside it? None that I wot of.
"Florence, that is all yours, to do with as you please, to spend when and how you will. Share it with your husband-to-be. He is a brave and gallant young man, and is fortunate in finding a young woman equally brave and gallant. For the rest of my days I expect peace. Perhaps sometimes Jones here and I will talk over the strange things that have happened; but we'll do that only when we haven't you young folks to talk to. After your wedding journey you will return here. While I live this shall be your home. I demand that much. Free! No more looking over my shoulder when I walk the streets; no more testing windows and doors. I am myself again. I take up the thread I laid down eighteen years ago. Have no fear. Neither Braine nor Olga will ever return. Russia has a grip of steel."