"What's that?" the financier softly asked.
"Why you of all men on earth should have put this information in my hands. The honour of the achievement, if good shall come to the country, is really yours, not mine."
"And you can't conceive of my acting for the country's good?"
Bivens's black eyes twinkled.
"Not by the wildest leap of my imagination."
The twinkle broadened into a smile as the lawyer continued:
"Your code is simple, Cal. There's no provision in it for disinterested effort for others. Few financiers of modern times can conceive of a sane man deliberately working for the good of the people as against his own. In your face, there has never been any doubting, any perplexity, since you made your first strike in New York. Behind your black eyes there has always glowed the steady, deadly purpose of the man who knows exactly what he wants and how he is going to get it. This time you've got me up a tree. You have rendered the people a great service. You have placed me under personal obligations. But how you are going to get anything out of it is beyond me."
"Oh, I'll have my reward, my boy," Bivens answered jovially, as his dainty fingers again stroked his beard, pressing his mustache back from the thin lips, "and I assure you it will not be purely spiritual."
The door had scarcely closed on Stuart when Bivens pressed the button which called his confidential secretary.
In a moment the man stood at his elbow with the tense erect bearing of an orderly on the field of battle. The quick nervous touch of the master's hand on that button had told to his sensitive ears the story of a coming life-and-death struggle. His words came with sharp nervous energy: