Settled purpose was all that he was enabled to recognize. But what sort of settled purpose? What was it that his daughter had decided upon?

He was not long in doubt. Her words were sufficiently direct, if the hidden purpose behind their outward meaning was not.

"Father," she said, with distinct calmness, "I will use a phrase that is familiar to you. It seems to fit the occasion. You may tell Roderick Duncan that you will deliver the goods! Tell him to have the twenty millions ready for you to deposit in your bank at ten o'clock Monday morning, and that you will be ready with the collateral he demands."

"But, Patricia, my daughter, you take an unjust view of—"

"Stop, father! He must be told still more: he must be told that the collateral, having certain rights and values of its own, will insist upon a few stated conditions; and when the bargain is concluded, at ten o'clock Monday morning, Mr. Duncan must first have accepted those conditions."

She walked around to the other side of the table again and faced her father across it; then she added, slowly and coolly:

"There must be a legal form of document drawn, in this transaction, and it must be signed, sealed and delivered exactly as would be done if the collateral offered, and the thing ultimately to be sold in this instance, were the stocks and bonds in which you usually deal. He must agree, in this document, that on the wedding day the woman he buys must receive an additional sum in her own name, of ten million dollars. One as rich as he is known to be will not object to a pittance like that. You can make your own arrangements with him concerning the loan of the twenty millions to you, the interest it draws, and when the sum will be due; but the consideration paid for me, to me, must be absolute, and in cash, before the marriage-ceremony."

She turned quickly and strode to the end of the room. There, she threw open that door which has been described as communicating with the inner sanctum of the banker, and standing at the threshold, she said, in the cold, even tone in which she had pronounced the ultimatum to her father:

"I have surmised that you are in this room, Roderick Duncan. If I am correct, you may come out, now, and conclude the terms of your purchase. Do not speak to me here, and now. It would not be wise to do so. You have heard, doubtless, all that has been said in this room."

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