"If I _did_, I didn't do it," with a little laugh. He throws himself into a chair by her dressing-room fire. After a moment he says:
Helen is brushing her hair at the mirror. She puts down the brush and goes over to him. He pulls her down beside him. For a moment they sit silently, cheek to cheek, looking into the fire together. Finally, Braine says in a low voice:
"I want to talk to you, dear, about--about a business matter." He pauses.
Helen smiles a little mistily. She does not know anything about business matters, but she will like to hear about anything if he tells it. She says:
Braine hesitates a moment, and then says, with a little effort to appear quite natural:
"I don't want to trouble you with details, dear, but I must, a little. I want you to help me in a difficult task--to help _us_, for this means everything to both. You believe in your husband, do you not, Helen?"
"I will not answer that question, Ed. You can answer it yourself." She caresses his head gently, and waits for him to go on.
"Well, I meant the question seriously enough. You know I can do much, but I wonder if you believe me capable of all I can do? You know how the newspapers talk of me as 'the wizard,' because I have achieved very quickly things that most men find it difficult to achieve at all. They believe in me, but they would think me insane if I were to tell them of the plans I am going to tell you of. I wonder if your belief in me is enough firmer than theirs, to let you share my ideas without distrusting my ability to make them facts?"
He receives sufficient answer in a caress which has tears of joy in it. He muses a while, and then takes up his discourse at a different point.
"It _is_ rather a dramatic story, I suppose, as ordinary people look at things. I was rolling barrels on the levee at Thebes not many years ago. I got my fingers in on the _Enterprise_ with my mind set on making myself felt, and I made the _Enterprise_ a power. I was not easily appalled, as I showed when I set out to make the noblest woman in the world my wife, to take, as all my own, the one perfect example of what God meant when he created woman"--Here a long pause occurs in the monologue.
"When Hildreth thought to make me a serviceable tool for him and his millionaire partners to work with, I whipped out the combination in six or eight weeks, and I taught them once for all who was master by virtue of superior intellect, when they and I had occasion to work together in any matter. I was poor and needed wealth for the sake of the opportunity it gives. I set to work to achieve wealth, and in three months my name was good enough to stand alone in any bank from New York to San Francisco. I planned the systematizing of the railroad lines centering at Thebes, and created almost a new West by the operation, enriching a whole people. I decided to be a Senator, with my party in an apparently hopeless minority, and I achieved the result with as much precision as if it had been merely the drawing of a straight line with a ruler. I have not been taking wine, dear, and I am not running over these things to boast of them. I care nothing whatever for what is behind me. I only say all this to show you what I mean when I say that from the earliest time I can remember, I have never in my life made up my mind to accomplish anything, without succeeding in the attempt. I want you to bear that in mind when I tell you that I have made up my mind to be--well, to place you in the highest position possible to any American woman. With your help I can accomplish that, as I have accomplished everything else."