“Well, but then,” she said brightly, yet with a little timidity, “you see, there’s Harlan. Harlan could——” She hesitated; and both of them turned, though not confidently, toward their younger son who still continued to sit motionless in his chair, in the bay window, staring at the opposite wall. He seemed unaware that they were looking at him, until his mother addressed him directly. “Harlan, you _would_, wouldn’t you?” He merged from his deep interior of thought like a man blinking in the sun after exploring a cavern. “What?” “I said, wouldn’t you——” “Oh, yes,” he interrupted. “Yes, I heard what you said, though I was thinking of something else. I wonder if either of you understand just what grandma was up to.” “It seems to be plain enough,” his father said. “She’d always been a pretty sharp business woman; she was convinced that your grandfather’s success was mainly due to her advice, and I expect it was, myself—anyhow a good deal of it—so she thought Dan ought to’ve listened to her when she opposed his putting what your grandfather left him and all he could borrow besides into this real-estate venture. I’m afraid she felt rather bitter when he went ahead with it in spite of all she said against it. So it seems pretty clear that she thought if she left him anything substantial it would all be thrown away on a scheme she thinks is bound to fail—she couldn’t imagine the city’s ever growing out that far—and she didn’t want her money wasted. So she left it to you. I don’t see anything particularly enigmatic about it, Harlan.” “No,” Harlan agreed, though his dry smile was evidence that he withheld his true thought on the matter; “I suppose not. At least, there’s nothing enigmatic about it to me.” He was obviously not elated over his good fortune; and his mother saw fit to commend him for this. “I think—I think it’s so sweet of you, dear,” she said timidly;—“I mean especially while Dan was here—your not showing any pleasure in having so much come to you. I think it’s noble, Harlan.” “You do?” he asked, and he laughed briefly without any merriment. “Perhaps I’d better explain what I believe grandma really meant. She never liked me, and she always adored Dan. It’s curious, too, because Dan’s disposition is like grandfather’s, and she certainly never seemed to think much of grandfather! Well, she did hate Dan’s throwing his money away on a wild scheme that can’t possibly do anything in the end but leave him bankrupt; and she certainly understood him—she knew no matter how much he could lay his hands on, he’d pour it all in after the rest—and it’s true she didn’t want her money wasted that way, and knew I wouldn’t let it be wasted at all, if she left it to me; but that wasn’t what she really had in mind. Lord, no!” “Wasn’t it?” his father inquired gravely. “I don’t see anything else.” Harlan laughed again with the same dry brevity. “She always hoped Dan would marry Martha Shelby—and she kept on hoping it, even after he married Lena.”