The Titans Read Online Free PDF Page B

for her. Anger, then amusement flickered in her eyes. Through polite but unmistakable rebuffs, Michael had long ago made it clear he didn't want to play her little game. Strangely, with him she persisted. As she did now, moving in his direction again, and contriving to turn so that her breast brushed his arm briefly. She laid a gloved hand on his sleeve: "I'm sure you did your best at the board meeting. I'm sure you were very persuasive." "I was out of my class against that pack of mossbacks." Julia stood on tiptoe to whisper: "You're a bit of a mossback yourself. Some day, dear Michael, I'll break through that shell-was Louis lifted his head. His wife's whisper hadn't been all that soft-perhaps on purpose. He frowned when he saw how close to the Irishman Julia was standing. She 42Prologue ignored the frown and Louis forced his glance back to his sheaf of copy. "Break through?" Michael said to her. "I doubt it." He was smiling. But his words had an edge. Her eyes. opened wide with anger. He stared at her until she looked away, her cheeks scarlet. Julia Sedgwick Kent, twenty-one, was an odd one indeed, Michael thought. In normal social intercourse she only dealt cordially with those whose wealth and influence matched or outstripped the combined wealth and influence she and Louis had achieved by their marriage. Her acknowledged beauty probably made such behavior acceptable. Yet her beauty was the one characteristic about which Julia was astonishingly-even cruelly-democratic. She wanted men to admire her. All men. From the roughest press worker at the paper to the gentlemen of important families. Some men were out of reach. William B. Astor, for instance. Wall Street said his fortune was close to twenty-five million now; the total Kent assets were worth only about half that, placing Louis and Julia several rungs down on the millionaires ladder. And no matter how rich her husband was, Julia would never be socially acceptable to certain of the Whitneys, the Rhinelanders, the Schermerhorns. To those old families, Louis Kent-even Vanderbilt-would always be upstarts. Anyway, Michael doubted Julia would ever let any man except Louis touch her. It was the ability to attract men-the challenge to win a response-that excited her. Any idiot rash enough to make an overture would probably be stunned by Julia's anger-and by a scathing rebuff that he had misjudged her friendliness in a vulgar and wholly unforgivable way. That was only speculation, of course. There'd never been the tiniest scrap of gossip to suggest Julia carried the game to conclusion. But he didn't care to find out The Titansbledc for himself. It was too risky for a number of reasons, including potential damage to his own self-respect, and the continuing necessity of working with Louis, who hewed to the socially acceptable double standard of male society: What's right for me is not right for my spouse. Every few months Louis slept with some young shopgirl who happened to catch his fancy. He didn't attempt to conceal these escapades from Michael. But let any man attempt to seduce Julia and Louis would undoubtedly become the very picture of the outraged, vengeful husband. Michael didn't like to admit he found Julia hellishly good looking, or that he responded unwillingly to the sexual aura surrounding her like the scent of her cologne. Sometimes he wondered if she sensed he was attracted. That might explain why she pursued him with more determination than she did some who signaled that they wanted no part of her flirtations. Right now she was furious with him for his latest rebuff. He could tell by the stiffness of her posture as she walked a few steps up the aisle and pretended to examine a button on her glove while Louis kept reading. Quite apart from Julia's beauty, he supposed she had good reason for her haughty attitude. Her father, in his seventies, was indeed a close friend of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Julia and "Papa" had been among the privileged few who had cruised New