"
"As bad as that?"
"As bad as that," he answered.
"You can't tell me anything about your scheme yet?"
"Not yet."
"How is it," she asked, "that they have been allowed to operate in wheat
to this enormous extent?"
"Well, for one thing," he told her, "the company has been planned and
worked out with simply diabolical cleverness. They are inside the law all
the time, and they manage to keep there. Their agents are so camouflaged
that you can't tell for whom they are buying. Then they command an
immense capital."
"The others must have found it, then," she observed. "My husband is
almost without means."
"Phipps has supporters," Wingate said thoughtfully. "They'll carry on
this combine until the last moment, until a Government commission, or
something of the sort, looks like intervening. Then they'll probably let
a dozen of their subsidiary companies go smash, and Peter Phipps,
Skinflint Martin and Rees will be multimillionaires. Incidentally, the
whole of their enormous profits will have come from the working classes."
"However visionary it is, I want to know about your scheme," she
persisted.
"I cannot make up my mind to bring you into it," he declared doubtfully.
"It is practically a one-man show, and it is--well, a little primitive."
"Do you think I mind that?" she asked eagerly. "The only point worth
considering is, could I help? You know in your heart that you could not
make me afraid.
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