'
'Oh, I don't think the _Argus_ is a bad newspaper. It pays me well.'
'Then it is to the _Argus_ that you belong?'
'Certainly.'
'May I ask, Miss Brewster, if there is anything I have spoken about to
you that you intend to use in your paper?'
Again Miss Brewster laughed.
'I will be perfectly frank with you. I never tell a lie--it doesn't pay.
Yes. The reason I am here is because _you_ are here. I am here to find
out what your report on those mines will be, also what the report of your
friend will be. I have found out.'
'And do you intend to use the information you have thus obtained--if I
may say it--under false pretences?'
'My dear sir, you are forgetting yourself. You must remember that you are
talking to a lady.'
'A lady!' cried Wentworth in his anguish.
'Yes, sir, a lady; and you must be careful how you talk to _this_ lady.
There was no false pretence about it, if you remember. What you told me
was in conversation; I didn't ask you for it. I didn't even make the
first advances towards your acquaintance.'
'But you must admit, Miss Brewster, that it is very unfair to get a man
to engage in what he thinks is a private conversation, and then to
publish what he has said.'
'My dear sir, if that were the case, how would we get anything for
publication that people didn't want to be known? Why, I remember once,
when the Secretary of State----'
'Yes,' interrupted Wentworth wearily; 'Fleming told me that story.
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