"You don't seem to understand what I am saying, and all that is happening. First I played Arizona copper until they taught me not to monkey with the band wagon; then I played Cobalt until the same thing took place." He sank impolitely into an easy-chair. "Then I got the chance to come in with the gang--an insulting proposition any way you want to figure--a paltry sum for everything I have and the statement in veiled terms that I need not expect to have that unless I did as they dictate." "Well--sell your business to someone else before this happens!" "I couldn't even if I wished to cheat; it is quite the talk of the town." "Well--manage. Papa will tell you how. Why do you come running to me? Goodness, don't stare like that. It's nothing unusual to manage! I don't know about business--you made a lot of money once and I should think you could do it again." "It doesn't bother me as much as you think," he said, almost breathlessly, eager to know the worst. "It means I am a poor man in your estimation. I can sell out to these people, who have thrown a steel ring round their game, so to speak, and had to do it until your father was out of the running. I can never buck them--I'm not fool enough to be goaded on to try. Your father could not win out the way things are now--but he could have prevented their ever getting the upper hand--because he knows every last turn of the wheel. They could not have fooled him. I didn't know what was coming until it was too late. A get-rich-quick man always pays for his own speed!" "Stevuns, you'll make me so nervous I can't go to-night. It's a lovely party. You stay home and tell papa all about it, but leave me in peace." "Thank you, I will. And is this the sympathy and the understanding you give me when I say we are being ruined?" "Don't keep saying it." She stamped her little foot. "Papa has lots of money in English and Chinese securities and I don't know what-all. Why, that factory of his was the least of his fortune." "That is why your father deliberately lifted three fourths of his money from the business just before he was taken ill. He was not going to risk cutthroats getting together. He overestimated my ability to keep clear of disaster. But after all, I'm not sorry--I don't want anything more than I have earned. For you always pay for it in some way. The world may not know but these snap-judgment profiteers, these get-rich-quick phenomena, always have to pay. But you don't understand," he added, gently, "do you? You must not be blamed for not understanding anything unless it comprises a good time!" "I shall not try," she said, petulantly, "and if you love me you will hurry to change your things and tell papa briefly. To-morrow will be time enough to go into detail and have him start you into something new."