Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-07-30
ar x1II1(INIA RN IS


ugly tale of squandered millions,
looked at him with resentment
that was ssharpened by his apparent
nonchalance.
For the failure of the concern upon
which a legislature had now turned
the search-light of its inquiry, might
to him have been a thing of trivial
interest. and the present task an al
len one, which he must against his
will go through with. Often his eyes
had wandered to the window
through which came the crisp clip
trip-clop of the cab horses on the
asphalt, the irritant clang of troll
leys and the monstrous panther pnrr
OF motors. Only once had this SEEM
ing indifference been shaken: when
the figures of the salary voted the
Corporations chief officers had been
sardonically cited-when in the tense
quiet a woman had laughed out sud-
denly, a harsh jeering note quickly
repressed. For one swift second then
Valiant's gaze had turned to the
rusty black gown, the flushed face
Of the sleeping child against the
tawdry fall of the Widows veil. Then
the gaze had come back, and he was
once more the distracted spectator,
boredly waiting his release.
Long before the closing session it
had been clear that, as far as indiet-
ments were concerned, the investiga-
tion would be barren of result. OF
individual eriminality, flight and SUI
eide had been confession, but mora
sweeping charges could not be brought
home. The gilded fool had not brought
himself into the embarrassing purA
view of the law. This certainty
however, had served TO goad the pub
lie and sharpen the satire of the
newspaper paragraphist and the ex-
aminer who. incidentally, had a rep
utation of his own to guard, knew
his cue. There were possibilities for
the exercise of his especial gifts in 6.
vice-president of the corporation who
was also Vanity Valiant, the decora-
tive idler of social fopperies and
sumptuous clothes.
Valiant took the chair with a sem
sation almost of relief Since that
day when he had spun downtown in
his motor to that sharp enlighten-
ment. his daily round had gone on
DIS uSudls pul DGu6dlu lDR idDJludl
pose, the worldly mask of his class,
had lain sore sensitiveness that had
cringed painfully at the sneering
word and the envenomed paragraph.
Always his mental eye had seen a
white-faced crowd staring at a mar
BILE building, a coarsely- dressed wom-
an crossing the street with a hand
kerchief pressed to her face.
And mingling with the sick realiza-
ton of his own inadequacy had woven
panging thoughts of his father. The
shattered bits of recollection of him
that he had preserved had formed
mosaic which had pictured the hero
of his boyhood. Yet his fathers
name would now go down, linked not
to success and achievement but to
failure, to chicanery, to the robbing of
the poor. The thought had become
a blind ache that had tortured him.
Beneath the old characteristic veneer
it had been working a strange change.
Something old had been dying, SON.
thing new budding under the careless
exterior of the man who now faced
his examiner in the big arm chair
that May afternoon.
John Valiant's testimony, to those
of his listeners who cherished a sor-
did disbelief in the righteousness of
the man who counts his wealth in
seven figures, seemed a pose of grst-
tuitous insolence. 1t had a clarity
and simplicity that was almost hoi-
rifying. He did not stoop to gloae
his own monumental fippaney. He
had attended only one directors
meeting during that year. Till after
the crash he had known little. had
cared less, about the larger invest
ments of the corporations capital;
he had left all that to others
(TO BE Continued Tomorrow.)