"Look here, Pat--"
"Stop, father; let me finish."
The old man shrugged his shoulders, and the daughter continued: "It is a habit with people to say, 'If I were in your place I should' do so-and-so. I tell you, had I been in your place when such a suggestion as that one was made I should have struck the man in the face; but you see in me a value which I did not know I possessed. My father, who has been my chum since I was a child, is willing to dispose of his daughter for dollars and cents. And a man whom I have infinitely respected, calmly offers to make the purchase." Patricia clenched her hands and glared stormily at her father. Then, when he made no reply, she turned and walked to the window, staring out of it for a moment, while the old man remained silently in his chair, knowing that it were better for him not to speak, until the first violence of the storm had passed. He knew this daughter of his, or thought he did; but he was presently to discover that he was less wise than he had supposed. After a little, she returned and stood beside him, leaning against the table with her hands behind her, clenching it; but her words came calmly enough, when she spoke.
The old man raised his eyes to hers, as she approached him, and his own widened with amazement when he studied his daughter's face with that quick and penetrating glance which could read so unerringly the operators of Wall street. He could not comprehend precisely what it was that he saw in Patricia's face at this moment--only, he realized it to be the expression of some kind of settled purpose. He had never seen her thus before. Her strangely beautiful eyes had never blazed into his in just this way. He had seen her tempers and had contended against them, more or less, since she was left to his sole care, at her birth; but this attitude assumed now was new to him. Stephen Langdon knew, by his knowledge of himself, that Patricia was like him; but here was something new, strange, almost unreal. He wondered at it, shrank from it, not knowing what it was. 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."