"Yes, I did," she answered calmly. "I said that."
"It was best!" he cried, rising and walking up and down excitedly. "What a mind you have, Jennie—what a woman you are! Where'd I be without you, I wonder now? Why, of course, that was the way! Any man will do anything that you tell him to, especially a young man—of course, of course!"
"Thank you," she commented coldly; "thank you very much."
III
He sought to put a consoling or an explanatory hand on her shoulder, but she shook him off, shivering.
"I don't mean anything," he began confusedly. "Get me straight, now. I only wanted to say that when you work for me in this you are working for your own sake also. It's all up to you, Jennie, right now. If you can't land him, we're gone—it's no use my trying to do anything with him. Do you know, I'm going to send you out after him."
"Send me out?"
"Yes; things have to be done the best way they can be done. That fellow can say one word which'll ruin us in one day's time. He can break the values in International more than we can mend in months. Our men would begin to cover as soon as they caught a hint that anything was really wrong. As for me, I'm spread out for millions in the general market. If they began to hammer me I couldn't come through—I wouldn't last a week. The thing to do is to keep this news safe until I can protect myself—until I can protect us all. Now it's you, Jennie, that's got to do that—it's you! I'm sending you out after him."
"I always thought, Mr. Rawn," said she, "that you played a dangerous game, so long as you simply trusted that he'd do anything you told him."
"Yes, I see it now. But he always was odd—he always held something back. I tell you, he's crazy! Now, he's either just crazy over his fool Socialist ideas, or else he's going to hold out for a squeeze. In the first case you can handle him. In the second, I can.