dollar, sir," the boy answered.

Mr. Duge put his hand into his pocket.

"Here are two dollars," he said. "Go away at once. There is no answer.
There will not be one. You can tell Mr. Hamilton that I said so."

The boy departed. Her uncle looked across at Virginia and smiled.
"That is how we have to buy immunity from small annoyances here," he
said. "All the time it is the same thing--dollars, dollars, dollars!
That messenger boy was clever to get in. When we leave this restaurant,
you will find that there are at least half a dozen people waiting to
speak to me. It will be telephoned to several places in the city that I
am dining here to-night. From where I am sitting, I can see two
reporters standing by the entrance. They are waiting for me."

She looked at him with interested eyes.

"But why?" she asked timidly.

"Oh! it is simply a matter," he said, "of the money-markets. I have been
doing some things during the last few days which people don't quite
understand. They don't know whether to follow me or stand away, and the
Press doesn't know how to explain my actions; so you see I am watched.
You heard what I said," he asked, somewhat abruptly, "about those two
things, obedience and truth?"

"Yes!" she answered.

"They say," he resumed, "that a wise man trusts no one. I, on the other
hand, do not believe this. There are times when one must trust. Your
mother and your father were both as honest as people could be, whatever
their other faults may have been. I like your face. I believe that you,
too, are honest."

"Remember," she said, smiling, "that I have never been tempted."

"There could be no bidders for your faithfulness," he answered, "whom I
could not outbid. I am going to trust you, Virginia. There are sometimes
occasions when I do things, or am concerned in matters, which not even
my secretaries have any idea of. You only, in the future, will know. I
think, dear, that we shall get on very well together. I am not going to
offer you a great deal of money, because you would not know what to do
with it, but so long as you remain with me, and serve me in the way that
I direct, I am going to do what I feel I ought to have done long ago for
your people down at Wellham Springs."

Her face shone, and her beautiful eyes were more brilliant still with
unshed tears.

"Uncle!" she murmured breathlessly.

He nodded.

"That will do," he said. "I only wanted you to understand. For the next
week or two, all th