"You are very unjust," she said to him sobbing. "I have never caballed. I have never done anything against you. Of course papa ought to know." "Why ought he to know? Why is your father to have the right of inquiry into all my private affairs?" "Because you want his assistance. It is only natural. You always tell me to get him to assist you. He spoke most kindly, saying that he would like to know how the things are." "Then he won't know. As for wanting his assistance, of course I want the fortune which he ought to give you. He is man of the world enough to know that as I am in business capital must be useful to me. I should have thought that you would understand as much as that yourself." "I do understand it, I suppose." "Then why don't you act as my friend rather than his? Why don't you take my part? It seems to me that you are much more his daughter than my wife." "That is most unfair." "If you had any pluck you would make him understand that for your sake he ought to say what he means to do, so that I might have the advantage of the fortune which I suppose he means to give you some day. If you had the slightest anxiety to help me you could influence him. Instead of that you talk to him about my poverty. I don't want him to think that I am a pauper. That's not the way to get round a man like your father, who is rich himself and who thinks it a disgrace in other men not to be rich too." "I can't tell him in the same breath that you are rich and that you want money." "Money is the means by which men make money. If he was confident of my business he'd shell out his cash quick enough! It is because he has been taught to think that I am in a small way. He'll find his mistake some day." "You won't speak to him then?" "I don't say that at all. If I find that it will answer my own purpose I shall speak to him. But it would be very much easier to me if I could get you to be cordial in helping me."