"What does that mean?"
"In regard to the marriage on which my brother's heart is so deeply set. You are willing to help it also?"
"How can it concern me? What for instance would happen to me if I were not?" I paused and then added, significantly: "And what also if I were?"
"I think we shall arrive at a satisfactory understanding," he answered, with obvious relief. "Those who help my family—a very powerful and influential one, I may remind you—are sure to secure a great measure of our favour."
"I desire nothing more than that," said I, with the earnestness of truth—although the favour which I needed was not perhaps in his thoughts.
"Madame would of course like to know a good deal about all who co-operate with her," he declared, very smoothly and suggestively.
"What do you wish to know about me; and what do you wish me to do?"
"Americans are very direct," he replied, bowing. "She would leave you to tell us what you please, of course, and afford such means as you think best for her to make inquiries."
"Every one in Jefferson City knew my uncle, John P. Gilmore, knows that he educated me, and that what little money he left came to me. My father was a failure in life, and my mother died when I was a little child. I'm afraid I haven't made much history so far. And that's about all there is to it. What matters to me is not the past but the present and, perhaps, the future."
"You have no friends in Pesth?"