That was why he would go outside just after midnight to meet the woman. They were almost all there was, he decided. Now, he stared at his angelic wife as she slept, and the perfect little boy she had given him, and wondered briefly if the gods of money and power were all there was. With genuine amazement, he had found himself responding with emotions he had felt would never be his. She heard the rumors of his unsavory activities, the mutterings against the Mephistopheles of Wall Street, and dismissed them as the products of jealous and disappointed competitors. She gave him simple, unconditional love, and joined her fate to his without reserve. Yet, little more than two years ago, this woman had entered his life, a woman who, although intelligent, seemed naively unconcerned with his sinister reputation-a woman genuinely unimpressed by his growing wealth and power. He thought that he perfectly understood the nature of the universe, and was completely free of sentiment and illusions of affection. He had seen numerous times how shallow human relations were when money was involved, what betrayals of the most important trusts were possible. He was a man who believed in money and power, and little else. He shook his head slightly in bemusement. He stood in the doorway, watching the young sleeping woman gently breathe in and out, watching the angelic baby in the cradle by the bed. Closing the door of his study behind him, the tall, dark man quietly entered a room down the hall. Softly, with an economy of movement, he rose from his desk. Suddenly, the clock over his mantelpiece softly chimed, and he carefully placed his pen beside his document as he counted the strokes of the clock.
The room was filled with rich yet subdued decorations and furniture: not the garish clutter that crowded so many upper-class rooms in the mid Nineteenth Century. Wasting time by having to dip his writing implement every few words was not for him. The thin, bearded man dressed in a black frock coat sat at the ornate wood desk, steadily writing instructions with his new-fangled reservoir pen to a congressman whose vote he had purchased. You are forever missed Prologue The Mephistopheles of Wall Street To my parents, Wanda and Jack Martin, the authors of my being. An Alphonso Clay Mystery of the Civil War
0 kommentar(er)
