Queed Part 66

"What is the use of talking in this way?" he asked peremptorily. "What is the good of it, I say? The matter is over and done with. Everything is all right--his telling you wipes it all from the slate, just as I said. Don't you see that? Well, can't you dismiss the whole incident from your mind and forget that it ever happened?"

"I will try--if that is what you wish."

She turned away, utterly disappointed and disconcerted by his summary disposal of the burning topic over which she had planned such a long and satisfying discussion. He started to say something, checked himself, and said something entirely different.

"I have received your note," he began directly, "asking me to come in and see you about the matter of difference between the estates. That is why I have called. I trust that this means that you are going to be sensible and take your money."

"In a way--yes. I will tell you--what I have thought."

"Well, sit down to tell me please. You look tired; not well at all. Not in the least. Take this comfortable chair."

Obediently she sat down in Mr. Dayne's high-backed swivel-chair, which, when she leaned back, let her neat-shod little feet swing clear of the floor. The chair was a happy thought; it steadied her; so did his unexampled solicitousness, which showed, she thought, that her emotion had not escaped him.

"I have decided that I would take it," said she, "with a--a--sort of condition."

Sitting in the chair placed for Mr. Dayne's callers, the young man showed instant signs of disapprobation.

"No, no! You are big enough to accept your own without conditions."

"Oh--you won't argue with me about that, will you? Perhaps it is unreasonable, but I could never be satisfied to take it--and spend it for myself. I could never have any pleasure in it--never feel that it was really mine. So," she hurried on, "I thought that it would be nice to take it--and give it away."

"Give it away!" he echoed, astonished and displeased.

"Yes--give it to the State. I thought I should like to give it to--establish a reformatory."

Their eyes met. Upon his candid face she could watch the subtler meanings of her idea slowly sinking into and taking hold of his consciousness.

"No--no!" came from him, explosively. "No! You must not think of such a thing."

"Yes--I have quite made up my mind. When the idea came to me it was like an inspiration. It seemed to me the perfect use to make of this money.

Don't you see?... And--"

"No, I don't see," he said sharply. "Why will you persist in thinking that there is something peculiar and unclean about this money?--some imagined taint upon your t.i.tle to it? Don't you understand that it is yours in precisely the same definite and honest way that the money this office pays you--"

"Oh--surely it is all a question of feeling. And if I feel--"

"It is a question of fact," said Mr. Surface. "Listen to me. Suppose your father had put this money away for you somewhere, so that you knew nothing about it, hidden it, say, in a secret drawer somewhere about your house"--didn't he know exactly the sort of places which fathers used to hide away money?--"and that now, after all these years, you had suddenly found it, together with a note from him saying that it was for you. You follow me perfectly? Well? Would it ever occur to you to give that money to the State--for a _reformatory_?"

"Oh--perhaps not. How can I tell? But that case would--"

"Would be exactly like this one," he finished for her crisply. "The sole difference is that it happens to be my father who hid the money away instead of yours."

There was a silence.

"I am sorry," said she, constrainedly, "that you take this--this view. I had hoped so much that you might agree with me. Nevertheless, I think my mind is quite made up. I--"

"Then why on earth have you gone through the formality of consulting me, only to tell me--"

"Oh--because I thought it would be so nice if you would agree with me!"

"But I do not agree with you," he said, looking at her with frowning steadiness. "I do not. n.o.body on earth would agree with you. Have you talked with your friends about this mad proposal? Have you--"

"None of them but you. I did not care to."

The little speech affected him beyond all expectation; in full flight as he was, it stopped him dead. He lost first the thread of his argument; then his steadiness of eye and manner; and when he spoke, it was to follow up, not his own thought, but her implication, with those evidences of embarra.s.sment which he could never hide.

"So we are friends again," he stated, in rather a strained voice.

"If you are willing--to take me back."

He sat silent, drumming a tattoo on his chair-arm with long, strong fingers; and when he resumed his argument, it was with an entire absence of his usual air of authority.

"On every score, you ought to keep your money--to make yourself comfortable--to stop working--to bring yourself more pleasures, trips, whatever you want--all exactly as your father intended."

"Oh! don't argue with me, please! I asked you not. I must either take it for that or not at all."

"It--it is not my part," he said reluctantly, "to dictate what you shall do with your own. I cannot sympathize in the least with your--your mad proposal. Not in the least. However, I must a.s.sume that you know your own mind. If it is quite made up--"

"Oh, it is! I have thought it all over so carefully--and with so much pleasure."

He rose decisively. "Very well, I will go to my lawyers at once--this morning. They will arrange it as you wish."

"Oh--will you? How can I thank you? And oh," she added hastily, "there was--another point that I--I wished to speak to you about."

He gazed down at her, looking so small and sorrowful-eyed in her great chair, and all at once his knees ran to water, and the terrible fear clutched at him that his manhood would not last him out of the room.

This was the reason, perhaps, that his voice was the little Doctor's at its brusquest as he said:--

"Well? What is it?"

"The question," she said nervously, "of a--a name for this reformatory that I want to found. I have thought a great deal about that. It is a--large part of my idea. And I have decided that my reformatory shall be called--that is, that I should like to call it--the Henry G. Surface Home."

He stared at her through a flash like a man stupefied; and then, wheeling abruptly, walked away from her to the windows which overlooked the park. For some time he stood there, back determinedly toward her, staring with great fixity at nothing. But when he returned to her, she had never seen his face so stern.

"You must be mad to suggest such a thing. Mad! Of course I shall not allow you to do it. I shall not give you the money for any such purpose."

"But if it is mine, as you wrote?" said Sharlee, looking up at him from the back of her big chair.

Her point manifestly was unanswerable. With characteristic swiftness, he abandoned it, and fell back to far stronger ground.

"Yes, the money is yours," he said stormily. "But that is all. My father's name is mine."

That silenced her, for the moment at least, and he swept rapidly on.

"I do not in the least approve of your giving your money to establish a foundation at all. That, however, is a matter with which, unfortunately, I have nothing to do. But with my father's name I have everything to do.

I shall not permit you to--"

"Surely--oh, surely, you will not refuse me so small a thing which would give me so much happiness."