"For your villa and your yacht?"

"No; I'm a magician, dear lady----"

"Yes," she said, almost angrily. "Of course you know it!"

"You mock me! No; I'm going to make everybody rich who will trust
me. I have a secret, and it's worth a mountain of gold. I've put
all I have into it, and will put in everything else I can get for
myself, but it's going to take a great deal more than that. And
everybody who goes into it will come out on Monte Cristo's
island."

"Then I'm sorry papa hasn't anything to put in," she said.

"But he has: his experience in business and his integrity. I want
him to be secretary of my company. Will you help me to get him?"
he laughed.

"Do you want me to?" she asked with a quick, serious glance
straight in his eyes, one which he met admirably.

"I have an extremely definite impression," he said lightly, "that
you can make anybody you know do just what you want him to."

"And I have another that you have still another `extremely
definite impression' that takes rank over that," she said, but not
with his lightness, for her tone was faintly rueful. "It is that
you can make _me_ do just what you want me to."