"I am glad," he answered, "that you are satisfied. You think, perhaps,
from what you have seen since you came here that the power of money has
no limits. I can tell you that it has very fixed and definite limits,
and it was when I realized them that I sent for you. I hope to gain from
you what in all New York I should not know where to buy."

She was careful not to interrupt him, but her eyes were full of mute
questions.

"I mean," he continued, "fidelity, absolute unswerving fidelity. The
four men who have been here to-night call themselves my friends. We are
leagued together in enterprises of immense importance. Yet take them one
by one, and there is not one whom I can trust. I have proved it. I pay
my two secretaries more highly than any other employer in the city. They
do their duty, but I know very well that they only wait for some one
else to outbid me, and they would take themselves and their knowledge of
my affairs to whoever might call them. It has become necessary that
there should be one person in whose charge I can repose the knowledge of
certain things. New York does not hold such a person. That is why I have
sent for you."

He paused so long that she ignored his injunction of silence.

"You know very well, uncle," she said, "that I am not clever, and that
I understand nothing whatever about business, or anything to do with it,
but I can at least promise that I will be faithful. That seems a very
poor reward for all that you have done for me."

"Yes!" he answered, "I believe that you mean that. Now I must tell you