“It occurs to me you place my selling-out price at rather low figures,” he said contemptuously.

Farnham straightened up in his chair, instantly realizing he had been guilty of playing the wrong card, and for the moment totally unable to perceive how safely to withdraw it.  Even then he utterly failed to comprehend the deeper meaning in the other’s words.

“I was thinking rather of what it was directly worth to us,” he explained, “and had no conception you would look at it that way.  However, we are perfectly willing to be liberal—­how much do you want?”

For a moment Winston stared straight at him, his lips firmly set, his gray eyes grown hard as steel.  Then he deliberately pushed back his chair, and rose to his feet, one clinched hand resting on the table.

“You may not fully understand my position,” he began quietly, “for in all probability such a conception is utterly beyond you, but I do n’t want a dollar, nor a cent.  Good-night.”

He turned deliberately toward the entrance, but the thoroughly astounded gambler leaped to his feet with one hand extended in sudden protest.  He was angry, yet believed he perceived a great light shining through the darkness.

“Hold on, Winston,” he exclaimed anxiously; “just a moment.  I ’d totally forgotten that you were the son of a millionaire, and therefore possessed no desire for money like the rest of us more ordinary mortals.  Now, let’s be sensible.  By God, you must want something!  What is it?”

“You have received my final answer.  I am not in the market.”

Farnham crushed a bitter oath between his gleaming teeth, and flung his sodden cigar-butt to the floor.

“Do you actually mean you are crazy enough to go with Hicks, after all I ’ve told you?”

“I propose to discover for myself whether his claim is just.  If it is, I ’m with him.”

The gambler caught his breath sharply, for an instant utterly speechless, his face pallid with rage.  Then the fierce, angry words burst forth in unrestrained torrent through the calm of his accustomed self-control.

“Oh, you ’ll play hell, you infernal cur.  Do it, and I ’ll guarantee you ’ll get a bullet in the brain, even if you are old Winston’s son.  We ’ve got a way of taking care of your kind out here when you get too gay.  You ’re with him, are you?  Well, I ’m damned if you ever get any chance even to sit in the game.  We ’ll get you, and get you early, see if we don’t.  There are other things besides money in this world, and you ’ve got your price, just as well as every other man.  Perhaps it’s silk, perhaps it’s calico; but you bet it’s something, for you ’re no angel.  By God, I believe I could name it, even now.”

Winston wheeled, his right hand thrust deeply into his coat pocket, his face sternly set.

“What, for instance?”

“Well,—­just to take a chance,—­Beth Norvell,”