“So I made up my mind that you should be told what a great wrong you are doing Miranda,” he resumed. “For ten years you have spent time and money on this worthless piece of work, pottering and tinkering and pretending that you really hoped to accomplish something in the end.” “But I have accomplished something,” returned the old man gravely. “I am very near to success now and ten years is not long when you remember that I lost all my records and all my models when the house was burned. No, ten years has not been too much to spend.” “It is not time alone that you have spent, but money, spent it like water when it should have been making Miranda comfortable. Have you stopped, ever, to think of how she works and saves and pinches, how she toils in that garden and fattens miserable fowls for the market so that you can go on with this game of yours?” “Miranda chose to have it so,” Mr. Reynolds returned quietly, but the two onlookers could see him wince. “Have you known Miranda longer than any of us and have not yet learned that she would give the breath out of her body to make other people happy? Would she complain or choose otherwise if she thought your desire was set upon this one thing, this machine that you call a life work, but that any one else would call a pleasant fad, a plaything that would never succeed?” “If my recollection is correct,” Mr. Reynolds said, “she used to make some sacrifices for you, when you lived with us, that you might be happy.” His chance shot seemed to strike at some more vivid memory than he knew. The other was silent for a minute, but then burst forth again, more sharply and bitterly than before. “Is that any reason why I should stand by now, and see her robbed and cheated as you are cheating her? You are willing to spend your life following a dream, but you have no right to spend hers. You say that she is willing, but do you really know it? Do you notice how worn and tired and anxious she begins to look?” Elizabeth would have broken in upon him, checking his words with a wild tumult of indignant protest, but David laid a hand upon her arm. This was a matter for their elders alone, his look seemed to say, and must not be interrupted. “Suppose, Donald,” Mr. Reynolds was beginning gently, “suppose this affair were to turn out less of a dream than you think? We have followed dreams before, we and our forbears in this family, and they have led to success and—what appeals to you far more—to fortune. Miranda is, I know, looking worn and troubled; I think it is her home that she is grieving for. It is my belief that in a very little time she may have it back again.”