For with him
achievement could embody only the meaner imitations of the sheer
colossal _coups_ by which the great financiers gutted a nation with
kid-gloved fingers, and changed their gloves after the operation so that
no blood might stick to Peter's pence or smear the corner-stones of
those vast and shadowy institutions upreared in restitution--black
silhouettes against the infernal sunset of lives that end in the shadowy
death of souls.
* * * * *
Even before Neergard's illness Ruthven's domestic and financial affairs
were in a villainous mess. Rid of Neergard, he had meant to deal him a
crashing blow at the breakaway which would settle him for ever and
incidentally bring to a crisis his own status in regard to his wife.
Whether or not his wife was mentally competent he did not know; he did
not know anything about her. But he meant to. Selwyn's threat, still
fairly fresh in his memory, had given him no definite idea of Alixe, her
whereabouts, her future plans, and whether or not her mental condition
was supposed to be permanently impaired or otherwise.
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