Love makes the most careful man reckless. Nothing else can explain Jim Fisk’s decision to introduce Edward Stokes to Josie Mansfield. Ned Stokes is the ne’er-do-well son of a New York family that used to be rich but currently must send its sons to work. Stokes supervises a Brooklyn oil refinery that the family controls and that Fisk, on behalf of the Erie, acquires an interest in. Fisk takes a liking to Stokes, who is seven years younger than Fisk, seventy pounds lighter, and incomparably more handsome, in a darkly dangerous way. Any sensible man in Fisk’s position would keep Stokes as far from Josie as possible. But Fisk arranges a meeting between Stokes and Josie, and he later takes Stokes to Josie’s house to further the acquaintance.

He seems not to notice the spark between the two—a spark that becomes an electrifying surge as soon as Fisk looks away. Stokes has a wife, a child, and a more regular domestic existence than Fisk, but thoughts of home and hearth fly out of his head when he sees Josie. She has stuck with Fisk from considerations of financial security and perhaps a mite of gratitude, but security has brought boredom, and any gratitude she feels toward Fisk melts away when Stokes kisses her hand and gazes deeply into her eyes.

Fisk is busier than usual, these months after the gold panic. The brokers and investors who wanted to lynch him and Gould on the afternoon of what is being called Black Friday are burying the two in lawsuits; Fisk spends half his waking hours with attorneys. Congress wants to know how the gold conspiracy nearly succeeded and who in the Grant administration was involved; Fisk spends the other half of his time testifying before committees in Washington.

He doesn’t realize that Stokes has become a regular visitor to Josie’s house. More fatigued than usual in the evenings, he doesn’t observe that Josie is happier than she has been for some while, but in a distracted, distant way.