The President | Page 6

to the fireplace, the rest at his heels. Taking up the
poker--a round half-inch rod of wrought iron--he seized it firmly by one
end with his left hand and with the right wound it twice about his left
arm. The black spiral reached from hand to elbow; when he withdrew
his arm the club poker was a Brobdingnagian corkscrew.
The youngsters stared wonder-bitten. Then a mighty chatter of
compliments broke forth, and Storri swelled with the savage glory of
his achievement.

Richard, the somber, who did not like noise, shrugged his shoulders.
Storri, by the fireplace, caught the shrug and found it offensive. He
made towards Richard, and offered the right hand, his white teeth
gleaming in a sinister way through the fastnesses of his beard.
"Will you try grips with me?" cried Storri loudly. "Will you shake
hands Russian fashion?"
"No," retorted Richard, all ice and unconcern. "I will not shake your
hand Russian fashion."
Storri broke into an evil grin that made him look like a black panther.
"Some day you must put your fingers into that trap," said he, opening
and closing his broad hand.
Richard making no return, Storri and the others went back to their
decanters.
Richard might have said, and would have believed, that he did not like
Storri because of a Siberian rudeness and want of breeding. It is to be
thought, however, that his antipathy arose rather from having heard the
day before Storri's name coupled with that of Dorothy Harley. The
Russ was a caller at the Harley house, it seemed, and rumor gave it that
he and Mr. Harley were together in speculations. At that Richard hated
Storri with the dull integrity of a healthy, normal animal, just as he
would have hated any man who raised his eyes to Dorothy Harley; for
you are to know that Richard was in a last analysis even more savage
than was Storri himself, and withal as jealously hot as a coal of fire.
Presently Storri departed, and Richard forgot him in a reverie of smoke.
It stood the quarter of three, and Richard took up his walk to the
Harleys'. It was no mighty journey, being but two blocks.
In the Harley drawing room whom should Richard meet but Storri. The
Russ was on the brink of departure. At that meeting Richard's face
clouded. Dorothy was alone with Storri; her mother had been called
temporarily from the room. At sight of Dorothy's flower-like hand in

Storri's hairy paw, Richard's eyes turned jade.
"Mr. Storms," said Dorothy, as Richard paused in the door, "permit me
to present Count Storri."
"Ah!" whispered Storri, beneath his breath, "see now how my word
comes true!"
With that he put out his hand like a threat.
Storri's exultation fell frost-nipped in greenest bud. It was as though
some implacable destiny had seized his hand. In vain did Storri put
forth his last resource of strength--he who crushed horseshoes and
twisted pokers! Like things of steel Richard's fingers closed grimly and
invincibly upon those of Storri. The Russian strove to recover his hand;
against the awful force that held him his boasted strength was as the
strength of children.
Storri looked into Richard's eyes; they were less ferocious, but
infinitely more relentless than his own. There was that, too, in the
other's look which appalled the Tartar soul of Storri--something in the
drawn brow, the eye like agate, the jaw as iron as the hand! And ever
more and a little more that fearful grip came grinding. The onyx eyes
glared in terror; the tortured forehead, white as paper, became spangled
with drops of sweat.
There arose a smothered feline screech as from a tiger whose back is
broken in a deadfall. Richard gave his wrist the shadow of a twist, and
Storri fell on one knee. Then, as though it were some foul thing,
Richard tossed aside Storri's hand, from the nails of which blood came
oozing in black drops as large as grapes.
"What was it?" gasped Dorothy, who had stood throughout the duel
like one planet-struck; "what was it you did?"
"Storri on his knee?" asked Richard with a kind of vicious sweetness.
There was something arctic, something remorselessly glacial, in the
man. It caught and held Dorothy, entrancing while it froze. "Storri on

his knee?" repeated Richard, looking where his adversary was staining
a handkerchief with Tartar blood. "It was nothing. It is a way in which
Russians honor me--that is, Russians whom I do not like!"
CHAPTER II
HOW A PRESIDENT IS BRED
Mr. Patrick Henry Hanway, a Senator of the United States, had the
countenance of a prelate and the conscience of a buccaneer. His
grandfather--it was at this old gentleman, for lack of information, he
was compelled to stop his ancestral count--was a farmer