He smiled. "Hardly. I need an agent, and I'll pay a good price to the right person."
"How mysterious!"
"I'll be plain. That affair yonder"—he nodded toward Jarvis Hammon and Lilas Lynn—"strikes you as a—well, as a flirtation of the ordinary sort. In one way it is; in another way it is something very different, for he's in earnest. He thinks he is injuring no one but himself with this business, and he is willing to pay the price; but the fact is he is putting other people in peril—me among the rest. I'm not arguing for his wife nor the two Misses Hammon. I don't go much on the ordinary kinds of morality, and nobody outside of a man's family has the right to question his private life so long as it is private in its consequences. But when his secret conduct affects his business affairs, when it endangers vast interests in which others are concerned, then his associates are entitled to take a hand. Do I make myself clear?"
"Perfectly. But you don't want me; you want a detective."
"My dear child, we have them by the score. We hire them by the year, and they have told us all they can. We need inside information."
The girl's answer was made with her habitual self-possession.
"I've heard about such things. I've heard about men prying into each other's private affairs, pretending to be friends when they were enemies, and using scandal for business ends. Lilas Lynn is my friend—at least in a way—and Mr. Hammon is my host, just as he is yours. Oh, I know; this isn't a conventional party, and I'm not here as a conventional guest—inside the little coin-purse he gave me is a hundred-dollar bill—but, just the same, I don't care to act as your spy."
Merkle's grave attention arrested Lorelei's burst of indignation.
"Will you believe me," he asked, "when I tell you that Jarvis Hammon and Hannibal Wharton are the two best friends I have in the world? There is such a thing as loyalty and friendship even in big business; in fact, high finance is founded on confidence and personal honor. This is more than a business matter, Miss Knight."
"I can hardly believe that."