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."
"Happiness?" He flung the word back at her impatiently, but his
intention of demolishing it was suddenly checked by a flashing
remembrance of Fifi's definition of it. "Will you kindly explain how you
would get happiness from that?"
"Oh--if you don't see, I am afraid I--could never explain--"
"It is a display of just the same sort of unthinking Quixotism which has
led you hitherto to refuse to accept your own money. What you propose is
utterly irrational in every way. Can you deny it? Can you defend your
proposal by any reasonable argument? I cannot imagine how so--so mad an
idea ever came into your mind."
She sat still, her fingers playing with the frayed edges of Mr. Dayne's
blotting-pad, and allowed the silence to enfold them once more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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