It appeared, unless he overestimated his own
means, that Hollingsworth held it at his choice (and he did so
choose) to obtain possession of the very ground on which we had
planted our Community, and which had not yet been made irrevocably
ours, by purchase. It was just the foundation that he desired. Our
beginnings might readily be adapted to his great end. The
arrangements already completed would work quietly into his system.
So plausible looked his theory, and, more than that, so practical,--
such an air of reasonableness had he, by patient thought, thrown
over it,--each segment of it was contrived to dovetail into all the
rest with such a complicated applicability, and so ready was he with
a response for every objection, that, really, so far as logic and
argument went, he had the matter all his own way.
"But," said I, "whence can you, having no means of your own, derive
the enormous capital which is essential to this experiment? State
Street, I imagine, would not draw its purser strings very liberally
in aid of such a speculation."
"I have the funds--as much, at least, as is needed for a
commencement--at command," he answered. "They can be produced within
a month, if necessary."
My thoughts reverted to Zenobia. It could only be her wealth which
Hollingsworth was appropriating so lavishly. And on what conditions
was it to be had? Did she fling it into the scheme with the
uncalculating generosity that characterizes a woman when it is her
impulse to be generous at all? And did she fling herself along with
it? But Hollingsworth did not volunteer an explanation.
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