Gunther took the slip which was offered to him, glanced at it and returned it abruptly.
"Not sufficient," he said and took up his pack of cards.
The emissary, crestfallen and desperate, returned to the conference and at the opening of the door the sound of violent discussion momentarily filled the anteroom as a sudden blast of storm.
"I have it," said Slade, who had recognized Delancy Gilbert, of the firm of Gilbert, Drake & Bauerman, brokers and promoters of mining interests in Mexico, whose failure had been circulated from lip to lip in the last forty-eight hours. "I see that game. Gilbert's to be mulcted of his Osaba interests—for whom though? The United Mining, undoubtedly."
Five minutes later the doors of the library opened in turn and a military figure, gray, bent, with tears in his eyes, came slowly out, the type of convenient figureheads which stronger men place in the presidencies of subsidiary corporations. He likewise placed a sheet of paper before the financier, watching him from the corner of his eye, his white finger working nervously in the grizzled mustache.
"We've agreed on this, Mr. Gunther," he said desperately, in a voice shaken by suppressed emotion. "That's as far as we can go—and that means ruin!"
Gunther examined the sheet with slow attention, nodding favorably twice; but at a third column he shook his head and, seizing a pencil, jotted down a figure, carefully drawing a circle around it.
"That's what I must have," he said and returned to his solitaire.
The emissary hesitated, seemed about to argue, and then, with a hopeless heave of his shoulders, retired. Gunther frowned but the frown was called forth by an unfavorable conjunction of the cards. Not once had he seemed to notice the presence of Slade. In the same position the promoter could not have helped stealing a glance to witness the effect. Slade registered the observation, mentally admitting the difference.
"What does he keep me here for?" he thought, but almost immediately answered the question: "Effect on the others, of course. Well, let them pull their own chestnuts out of the fire."