"You can tell me yourself, Mr. Marten," he said quietly. "I'm sorry to thrust myself in on you in this way; but it was necessary, as my business is important and will brook no delay." Marten had risen from a table littered with papers. A cold light gleamed in his eyes; but he had the sense and courage to refrain from creating a scene before the discomfited footman. "You may go," he said to the man, and the door closed. "Now, Mr. Power," he continued, "we are alone, and, whatever your business, I must inform you that your presence here is an unwelcome intrusion." "May I ask why?" "I mean to make that quite clear. In the first place, I have learned, to my astonishment, that you have wormed your way into my daughter's confidence, and thereby brought about the only approach to a quarrel that has marred our relations. Secondly--but the one reason should suffice. I do not desire to have any communication with you or hear anything you have to say, or explain. Is that definite enough?" Power turned suddenly, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket. "How dare you?" Marten almost shouted. "I had to answer, and I chose the most effective method," was the calm reply. "Your long experience of life should have taught you that there are times and seasons when closing the ears is ineffectual. The wise man listens, even to his worst enemy. Then he weighs. Ultimately, he decides. That is what you are going to do now. Won't you be seated? And may I sit down? Promise me we shall not be interrupted till I have finished, and I'll unlock the door." Marten had not spoken to Power, nor, to his knowledge, seen him, for twenty-three years. The young and enthusiastic engineer he had sent to the Sacramento placer mine had developed into a man whose appearance and words would sway any gathering, no matter how eminent or noteworthy its component members. For some reason, utterly hidden from the financier's ken,--for he was not one likely to recognize the magnetic aura which seemed to emanate from Power in his contact with men generally,--he was momentarily cowed. He sank back into the chair he had just quitted, but said, truculently enough: "It would certainly be less melodramatic if my servants could enter the room should I be summoned in haste." Power unlocked the door, and drew up a chair facing his unwilling host. "I am here," he began, "to urge on you the vital necessity of dismissing the Principe del Montecastello from your house, and of permitting the announcement of Nancy's forthcoming marriage with the Honorable Philip Lindsay, son of the Earl of Colonsay----" "I guessed as much," broke in Marten wrathfully. "Colonsay is as poor as a church mouse. It was _your_ money which that young prig paraded before my astonished eyes."