I saw his evil face light up, and I read his thought: that I was willing to be his tool.
"Is it likely that I should tell you, without security?" he asked, with a twisted kind of smile.
"Why not? Your ideas would be no use to me without your aid; if I played you false, you could always expose me, couldn't you? For, mind you, it will be a dangerous game to play, Zeula is no fool."
"Bah!" he snapped his fingers, "that for Zeula. He must do what we want; he dare not let me expose the game, I have too much power."
"Of course," I said, and wondered what this power could be. "And yet, until I know how to raise the money, I don't see how I can act."
He pondered a moment, and then with an oath, burst out:
"Very well then, I will tell you, but, by God, if you play me false!--but there, you dare not. Now listen. You and I must make enough in ten years to satisfy us, as after that things will be different, for this reason: Bornia."
"What has Bornia to do with it?"
"Everything. I am much in request at the Court." He chuckled. "King George has four daughters, and none of them married yet." He looked at me with a leer.
"Go on," I said, "tell me the plan."