"No, I don't forget anything. I am peculiarly alive to the fact to which you would have called my attention. We must insure the co-operation of Meriaz."
"There will be no doubt of that. He will obey my instructions."
"Are you sure?"
"Perfectly."
"All right. You write to him at once, telling him where these mines are and all the information which you remember Leith to have given. He can arrange the details of the affair better than I can. If you wish, you might tell him that I have fallen in love with the fellow, and that you are anxious to get him out of the city on that account. Tell him that Winthrop must be summoned at once, that time is valuable, and that he must make the excuse for summoning him there a tremendously strong one, else it will be of no avail. You understand just what I mean now?"
"Yes; and it strikes me as being a good one. It will give us a chance to get abroad, if we see that there is no possibility of weaning her from the attachment."
"Yes, and in the meantime give me an opportunity to look into her finances, and see what is possible to be done. I haven't been down in that God-forsaken country to be plucked of our game by Olney Winthrop, I will tell you. Money doesn't grow on trees, and it rather strikes me that men are getting rather shy of our poker-table. They don't seem half as anxious to lose their precious ducats as they once did."
"Last night at the opera I heard a man in the next box ask Dudley Maltby who you were and his answer was: 'The most inveterate little gambler in New York, and the most unscrupulous.'"
"Dudley Maltby said that?"
"He did."