"Ah," interrupted Mrs. Brill exultantly, "then Heaven has heard my curses. May she burn in the lowest Gehenna. May her body become one yellow flame like her dyed hair." "Hush!" said Salvina sternly. "God shall judge the dead." "Oh, of course you always take everybody's part against your mother." And Mrs. Brill burst into tears again and sank into the new easy-chair. "I do think mother's right," said Lazarus sullenly. "Why do you stand in her way?" "I?" Salvina was paralyzed. "Yes, if it wasn't for you--" "Mother, do you hear what Lazarus is saying? That I keep you from father!" "Father! A pretty father to you! He waits till she's dead, and then he wants to creep back to us. But let him lie on her grave. He'll swell to bursting before he crosses my door-step." "There, Lazarus, do you hear?" "Yes, I hear," he said incredulously. "But does she know what father offers her--every comfort, every luxury? He is rich now." "Rich?" said Mrs. Brill. "The old swindler!" "He didn't swindle--he's very sorry for the past now, and awfully kind and generous." Salvina had a flash of insight. "Ho! So this is why--" She checked herself and looked round the handsome room, and the new easy-chair in which her mother sat became suddenly as hateful as the old. "Well, suppose it is?" said Lazarus defiantly. "I don't see why we shouldn't share in his luck." "And where does the luck come from?" Salvina demanded. "What's that to do with us? From the Stock Exchange, I believe." "And where did he get the money to gamble with?" "Oh, they always had money." Salvina's eyes blazed. The nerveless creature of the school became a fury. "And you'd touch that!" "Hang it all, he owes us reparation. You, too, Salvina--he is anxious to do everything for you. He says you must chuck up school--it's simply wearing you away. He says he wants to take you abroad--to Paris." "Oh, and so he thinks he'll get round mother by getting round me, does he? But let him take his furniture away at once, or we'll pitch it into the street. At once, do you hear?" "He won't mind." Lazarus smiled irritatingly. "He wants to put better furniture in, and his real desire is to move to a big house in Highbury New Park. But I persuaded him to put back the old furniture--I thought it would touch you--a token, you know, that he wanted 'auld lang syne.'" "Yes, yes, I understood," said Salvina, and then she thought suddenly of Kitty and a burst of hysteric laughter caught her. "Elopements economically conducted," went through her mind. "By the day or hour!" And she imagined the new phrases Kitty would coin. "The Prodigal Father and the Pantechnicon"--"The old Love and the old Furniture," and the wild laughter rang on, till Lazarus was quite disconcerted. "I don't see where the fun comes in," he said wrathfully. "Father is very sorry, indeed he is. He quite cried to me--on that very chair where mother is sitting. I swear to you he did. And you have the heart to laugh!"