"Not all," answered Pratt with a meaning glance. "To use more metaphors--I've several cards up my sleeve, Miss Mallathorpe. But you're utterly wrong about the threats. I'll tell you--I don't mind that--how I got the authority you're speaking about. Your mother had promised me that stewardship--for life. I'd have been a good steward. But we recognized that your brother's death had altered things--that you, being, as she said, a self-willed young woman--you see how plain I am--would insist on looking after your own affairs. So she gave me--another post. I'll discharge its duties honestly." "Yes," said Nesta, "but you've already told me that you'd a hold on my mother before any of these recent events happened, and that you possess some document which she was anxious to get into her hands. So it comes to this--you've a double hold on her, according to your story." "Just so," agreed Pratt. "You're right, I have--a double hold." Nesta looked at him silently for a while: Pratt looked at her. "Very well," she said at last. "How much do you want--to be bought out?" Pratt laughed. "I thought that would be the end of it!" he remarked. "Yes--I thought so!" "Name your price!" said Nesta. "Miss Mallathorpe!" answered Pratt, bending forward and speaking with a new earnestness. "Just listen to me. It's no good. I'm not to be bought out. Your mother tried that game with me before. She offered me first five, then ten thousand pounds--cash down--for that document, when she came to see me at my rooms. I dare say she'd have gone to twenty thousand--and found the money there and then. But I said no then--and I say no to you! I'm not to be purchased in that way. I've my own ideas, my own plans, my own ambitions, my own--hopes. It's not any use at all for you to dangle your money before me. But--I'll suggest something else--that you can do." Nesta made no answer. She continued to look steadily at the man who evidently had her mother in his power, and Pratt, who was watching her intently, went on speaking quietly but with some intensity of tone. "You can do this," he said. "To start with--and it'll go a long way--just try and think better of me. I told you, you don't understand me. Try to! I'm not a bad lot. I've great abilities. I'm a hard worker. Eldrick & Pascoe could tell you that I'm scrupulously honest in money matters. You'll see that I'll look after your mother's affairs in a fashion that'll commend itself to any firm of auditors and accountants who may look into my accounts every year. I'm only taking the salary from her that I was to have had for the stewardship. So--why not leave it at that? Let things be! Perhaps--in time you'll come to see that--I'm to be trusted." "How can I trust a man who deliberately tells me that he holds a secret and a document over a woman's head?" demanded Nesta. "You've admitted a previous hold on my mother. You say you're in possession of a secret that would ruin her--quite apart from recent events. Is that honest?"