"You are quite entitled to your opinion. My friends are anxious to learn if there be any purely philanthropic cause you would prefer to support. The mere interest on your capital, Mr. Oppner, is more than you can ever hope to spend, however lavish your mode of living."
"Thanks," drawled Oppner. "For a brand-new acquaintance you're nice and chatty and confidential. Your friends are such experts at spending their own money that it's not surprisin' they'd like to teach me a thing or two. But during the last forty years I haven't found any cause better worthy of support than my own. Give my love to Mr. Elschild. Good morning!"
He moved off, with the stoical Alden.
"You see," said Séverac Bablon to Zoe, who lingered, "your father is impervious to the demands of Charity!"
"Is that why you did this? Were you anxious to bring out Pa's meanness as a sort of excuse for what you contemplate?"
"Partly, that was my motive. A demand upon an American citizen to found a British air fleet is extravagant—in a sense, absurd. But I was anxious to offer Mr. Oppner one more opportunity of distributing some of the vast sum which he has locked up for his own amusement—financial chess."
"You have placed me in an impossible situation."
"Why? If you consider me to be what I have been accused of being—a thief—an incendiary—an iconoclast—denounce me—to whom you will! At any time I will see you, and any friend you may care to bring, be it Inspector Sheffield of New Scotland Yard, at Laurel Cottage, Dulwich Village. I impose no yoke upon you that you cannot shake off!"
But as Zoe Oppner looked into the great luminous eyes she knew that he had imposed upon her the yoke of a mysterious sovereignty.
From the foyer came a sound, unfamiliar enough in the Astoria—the sound of someone whistling. Even as Zoe started, wondering if she could trust her ears, Séverac Bablon took both her hands, in the impulsive and strangely imperious way she knew.