His determination, his sharp readiness, his control of temper under
rebuff and superfluous harshness, his odd, impersonal summing up of men
and things, and good-natured patience with the world in general, were,
she knew, business assets. She was even moved--no less--by the remote
connection of such a life with that of the first Reuben Vanderpoel who
had laid the huge, solid foundations of their modern fortune. The first
Reuben Vanderpoel must have seen and known the faces of men as G.
Selden saw and knew them. Fighting his way step by step, knocking
pertinaciously at every gateway which might give ingress to some passage
leading to even the smallest gain, meeting with rebuff and indifference
only to be overcome by steady and continued assault--if G. Selden was a
nuisance, the first Vanderpoel had without doubt worn that aspect upon
innumerable occasions. No one desires the presence of the man who while
having nothing to give must persist in keeping himself in evidence, even
if by strategy or force. From stories she was familiar with, she had
gathered that the first Reuben Vanderpoel had certainly lacked a certain
youth of soul she felt in this modern struggler for life. He had been
the cleverer man of the two; G.
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