At
length he arose, not hurriedly, but with a deliberate motion, threw
his arms behind him, and, bending forward, with his eyes cast down,
paced the length of the store two or three times, backward and
forward, slowly.
"Fifty dollars profit in one day," he at length said, half audibly.
"That will do, certainly. I'd be contented with a tenth part of the
sum. He's bound to get rich; that's plain. Fifty dollars in a single
day! Leonard Jasper, you're a shrewd one. I shall have to lay aside
some of my old-fashioned squeamishness, and take a few lessons from so
accomplished a teacher. But, he's a downright cheat!"
Some better thought had swept suddenly, in a gleam of light, across
the young man's mind, showing him the true nature of the principles
from which the merchant acted, and, for the moment, causing his whole
nature to revolt against them. But the light faded slowly; a state of
darkness and confusion followed, and then the old current of thought
moved on as before.
Slowly, and now with an attitude of deeper abstraction, moved the
young man backward and forward the entire length of the room, of which
he was the sole occupant. He _felt_ that he was alone, that no human
eye could note a single movement. Of the all-seeing Eye he thought
not--his spirit's evil counsellors, drawn intimately nigh to him
through inclinations to evil, kept that consciousness from his mind.
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