“No doubt she’s never wanted to be near you herself,” Harlan said. “But I think her feeling isn’t quite so much on the physical plane as that.” “Oh, yes, it was. A man mightn’t understand it, but——” “A man might, though,” he interrupted. “Lena’s always been afraid that you’re just what she’d call the type of big Western woman Dan ought to have married in order to be happy.” “What?” Martha cried, but her colour deepened, and there was agitation in her voice, though she laughed. “Why, what nonsense!” “Is it?” Harlan said, and now agitation became evident in his own voice, though he controlled it manfully. “It’s what I’ve always been afraid of, myself.” “No, no!” she cried, her colour still deepening. “That’s just nonsense!” “Is it?” he repeated grimly. “My grandmother Savage didn’t think so. She cut Dan off with a shilling because she hoped Lena would leave him and give him a chance to marry you—eventually!” “Harlan Oliphant! What on earth are you talking about?” “I think you understand me,” he said. “Grandmother was a shrewd old lady, and as good a judge of character as one often sees; but sometimes she overshot the mark, as most of us do, no doubt, when we think we understand other people so thoroughly that we can manipulate their destinies. She thought a good deal that was true about Lena; but she despised her too much, and made the mistake of thinking her purely mercenary. That’s why I was the residuary legatee, Martha.” “Of all the nonsense!” she protested, and continued to protest. She’d never heard anything so far-fetched in all her life, she declared—people didn’t put such Machiavellian subtleties into their wills; and Harlan was a creative romanticist instead of the critic she’d always believed him to be. But his romancing wasn’t successful; it was too incredible. He listened, skeptically marking the difference between the vehemence of the words she used and the lack of conviction in the voice that uttered them. “Never mind, Martha,” he said at last. “I see you believe it and agree with me.” “I don’t,” she still protested; but her tone was now so feeble that it only proved her determined never to make the open admission of what she denied. “It would be too tragic.” “Why?” “To think of that poor old woman——” “Yes,” he agreed. “I’m afraid it must irritate her now if she knows.” “To think of her——” Martha said. “Poor thing! I mean it would be too tragic to think of her hoping and planning such—such preposterousness!” At this Harlan looked at her so sharply, so gravely, that he seemed to ask much more than appeared upon the surface of his question: “But would it be preposterous? Suppose Lena and Dan should——” “Separate?” she said, as he stopped at the word. “They never will.” “But I asked you, if they should?”