"Fix what up?"
"Why, this business about collateral, and all that rot, with Patricia. How are we going to square ourselves? That's what I'd like to know! Maybe you can see a way out of it, but I'm darned if I can."
The banker took the cigar from his mouth, flicked the ashes into the cuspidor, removed his leg from the table, and replied calmly, with a half-smile:
"It looks to me as if it were all fixed up, now. Patricia has agreed to marry you all right; she told me in plain English that I could deliver the goods. You heard her, didn't you? As far as I can see, she has only raised the ante just a little—a small matter of ten millions, which you won't mind at all. What's the matter with you, anyhow? You get what you wanted—Patricia's consent to an early marriage." The old man grinned maddeningly at his companion.
"Confound you!" shouted Duncan, starting to his feet, and he smashed one hand down upon the top of the table, in the intensity of the resentment he felt at this remark.
"Do you suppose—damn you!—that I want her like that? Can't you see how the whole thing outraged her? She hates me now, with every fibre of her being. She hates me, and you, too, for this day's work!"
Langdon shrugged his shoulders.
"You want her, don't you?" he asked, placidly, as if he were inquiring about a quotation on 'change.
"Of course, I want her. God only knows how greatly I want her."
"Well, you get her, don't you, by this transaction? She'll keep the terms of the agreement. She's enough like me for that. She said I could deliver the goods. She meant it, too. You get her, don't you?"