Valentine Corliss gave him sidelong an almost imperceptibly brief glance of sharpest scrutiny—it was like the wink of a camera shutter—but laughed in the same instant. “Which way do you mean that?”
“You have been quick,” returned the visitor, repaying that glance with equal swiftness, “to seize upon the American idiom. I mean: How small a contribution would you be willing to receive toward your support!”
Corliss did not glance again at Ray; instead, he looked interested in the smoke of his cigar. “`Contribution,’” he repeated, with no inflection whatever. “`Toward my support.’”
“I mean, of course, how small an investment in your oil company.”
“Oh, anything, anything,” returned the promoter, with quick amiability. “We need to sell all the stock we can.”
“All the money you can get?”
“Precisely. It’s really a colossal proposition, Mr. Vilas.” Corliss spoke with brisk enthusiasm. “It’s a perfectly certain enormous profit upon everything that goes in. Prince Moliterno cables me later investigations show that the oil-field is more than twice as large as we thought when I left Naples. He’s on the ground now, buying up what he can, secretly.”
“I had an impression from Richard Lindley that the secret had been discovered.”
“Oh, yes; but only by a few, and those are trying to keep it quiet from the others, of course.”
“I see. Does your partner know of your success in raising a large investment?”