"Yes, but you'll have to pay."
"Have I ever said I wouldn't? Didn't I just get done telling him I'd make him rich the minute he said the word?"
"It doesn't seem to be money he wants. I—don't—believe—that's what the pay would have to be."
"What do you mean? You're getting too deep for me now. I'm only a plain man, my girl!"
She smiled at him, still enigmatic, still cool and calm, still almost insolent, as she often was with him. "He's been talking all sorts of folly about getting things in tune—getting gravitation in tune with labor—all sorts of abstractions. Well, don't you see, if I got in tune with his notions, I might be able to influence him!"
Rawn grew cold and hard. "There's one thing we can't do, Jennie," said he. "We can't side in with any of his socialistic talk. What he wants to do is to give to the people of this country for nothing what this International Power Company is planning to sell them for ever. What we want is monopoly! I've been gambling everything I've got on the certainty of that monopoly. I'm in soak, in hock, up to my eyes on the market, this minute. I'm margined to the full extent of my credit. The biggest men of America are back of me. I'll be rich if this thing goes through—one of the richest men in America. But I'd almost rather lose it all than to see you side in with him, or listen for five minutes to his rotten talk about the 'rights of man.' There are no rights of man except what each man can take for himself! As for him, I'd kill him, or get him killed, if I knew first how he got that current through the receivers. Give me that, and I'll let the rights of man wait a while. I'll show them a thing or two!
"But of course," he added, frowning again in helpless perturbation, "we've got to get him in hand. Grace couldn't do it."
"No; on the contrary. I can—if I pay!"
"Then pay!" he snarled suddenly, his voice harsh, half choking. "What's the price—nothing worth mentioning. But it's got to be paid, no matter what it is. We're caught, and we're squeezed! We've got to pay, no matter what it is, Jennie!"
"Is it no matter to you, Mr. Rawn?"