"I wonder if I might ask you some questions--the intimate kind that people
think but don't say--at least, they don't say them to you."

"It would be a pleasure to me to be put on the witness-stand. I should
probably pick up some interesting side-lights about myself."

"Very well." Her eyes danced with excitement. "You're what they call a
buccaneer of business, aren't you?"

Here were certainly diverting pastimes. "I believe I have been called
that; but, then, I've had the hardest names in the dictionary thrown at me
so often that I can't be sure."

"I suppose you are perfectly unscrupulous in a business way--stop at
nothing to gain your point?"

He took her impudence smilingly.

"'Unscrupulous' isn't the word I use when I explain myself to myself, but
as an unflattered description, such as one my enemies might use to
describe me, I dare say it is fairly accurate."

"I wonder why. Do you dispense with a conscience entirely?"

"Well, you see, Miss Balfour, if I nursed a New England conscience I could
stand up to the attacks of the Consolidated about as long as a dove to a
hawk. I meet fire with fire to avoid being wiped off the map of the mining
world. I play the game. I can't afford to keep a button on my foil when my
opponent doesn't."