CHAPTER XVI
For hours Philip Rowe lay wakeful in the lumpy bed in the Commercial House, first tossing in a fever of desire, later lying quietly while his mind spun.
Marcia Murray had played her hand well, superbly well for a losing hand. She had made the most of what John Taylor had told her, of what she knew of his father's character, and of how Rowe reacted to the news she let him worm from her.
For years Philip Rowe had bent his sharp wits toward gaining a place between the Taylors, father and son. Like young John he had wanted fortune, but he was not afraid to grub. He had been faithful to Luke, more faithful to himself; he had studied, he had learned, he had watched and waited. On that morning in Detroit when he took notes for the framing of a new will, he believed he had triumphed, but the arrival of the letter from John telling that he had turned his father's shabby trick to profit knocked the foundation from beneath his hopes—for a time. He did not give up, though for another it would have been difficult to keep hope alive before old Luke's delight over the change in his boy.
The new will was not drawn, but Rowe knew that behind Luke's reaction to John's success there was persistent skepticism. With the coming of John's letters, asking for backing in this vaguely defined new scheme, that skepticism challenged paternal favor. Rowe understood, Rowe watched closer than ever. He was sent to
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