The Barrier Author:Allen French Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III Sets The Ball To Rolling No young man can bear to sit down idly under misfortune; but though the chief results of Mather's work were lost to him,... more » and his great plans—his subway— swept away, and though his defeat rankled, he had not suspected personal feeling in Ellis's action. The promoter had merely stretched out his hand and taken, repudiating the pledges of those who spoke in his name. Therefore, in spite of the little shock which Mather felt when he saw Ellis with Judith, he came forward and greeted politely. It was a chance, of course, to "get back"; it would have been easy to express surprise at the promoter's presence, and to ask how he liked the club now that he really was there. Mather felt the temptation, but there was too much behind his relations with Ellis for the younger man to be rude, and he presently found himself saying: "I don't suppose you play golf, Mr. Ellis?" "No," Ellis answered. This was the first man who had greeted him freely that day, and yet the one who most might feel resentment. While his manner showed that he was about to speak again, Ellis looked the other over with a smile which concealed deliberation. It was not weakness that made Mather mild, in spite of Mrs. Harmon's belief, to which she clung the more because the Judge rejected it. "I knew his father," her husband had told her. "They are bulldogsin that stock." Ellis took much the same view; once, at the beginning of his career, he had encountered Mather's father, and had found him a bulldog indeed. The son seemed the same in so many respects that Ellis wondered if he had thought quite long enough in seizing this morning's opportunity. He knew well that Mather would be stronger when next he entered the arena; besides, the reform politicians, those bees who buzzed continua...« less