Part 3 (2/2)

”Well, I'll tell you that I won't hear of it! It's got to stop right now. I won't have those papers drawn at all. I won't have it. The whole thing is preposterous, and you seem to be determined to make a fool of yourself. I won't have it!”

”But you must have it,” she said, quietly.

”Must have it? Patricia, there isn't a man in the city of New York who dares to say that to me.”

”Possibly not, sir; but there is a woman in New York who dares to say it to you, and who does say it, here and now. That woman is, unfortunately, your daughter.”

”Patricia! Are you crazy?”

”No; but I am more hurt and angry, more outraged and incensed, than I believed it possible ever to be. I shall insist upon the drawing of those papers, and the fulfillment of the stipulations I have directed.

If you are determined that Mr. Melvin shall not finish what he has begun for me, I shall select another lawyer, and shall have the papers drawn just the same.”

”But, my child, it is all foolishness. The papers are not necessary.

Roderick will supply what cash I need without anything of that sort, and you know it!”

”Am I to understand, sir, that you have lied to me?”

Langdon dropped upon a chair, breathing an oath which his daughter did not hear, and she continued, without awaiting a reply from him:

”You have taught me, since I was a child, that in a business transaction in the Street, where there is no time for the drawing of papers, a man must live up to his word, absolutely. I took you seriously in what occurred at your office this afternoon. I surmised, when we were near the end of our interview,--nay, I a.s.sumed it--that Roderick Duncan was inside the inner office. My surmise proved to be true, and now I have only this to say: We shall carry out the transaction precisely as it was stipulated between us, and according to the papers I have dictated to Mr. Melvin, or I shall go to another lawyer and have those same papers drawn and offered to you and to Mr.

Duncan, for your signatures. He overheard our conversation, and thus became a party to it. I was forced into the situation without my consent, and I shall now insist upon a certain recognition of my rights in the matter. If you choose to deny me those rights, the fact will not deter me from proceeding in my own way--a way which Mr.

Melvin, your attorney, thoroughly understands. I have explained it fully to him.”

The old man leaned back in his chair, glaring at his daughter, and yet in that burning gaze of his there was undoubted admiration. He liked her pluck, and deep down in his heart he gloried in her ability to maintain the position she had a.s.sumed, where she literally held him helpless. For it would never do that she should be permitted to go to another lawyer; such a proceeding would betray to other parties the financial embarra.s.sment into which he had been drawn. The news would get out. There would be a whisper here, a murmur there, and before noon on Monday, all New York would know it. His daughter understood her momentary power over him, and she was determined to make the most of it.

Patricia returned her father's gaze for a moment, then turned negligently away and moved toward the door.

”Wait,” he called to her.

”Well?” She stopped, and half-turned.

”Don't you know, girl, that the whole business was tomfoolery?”

”No; and I would not believe you, or Mr. Duncan--now.”

”Wait just a minute longer, Patricia; let me explain this thing to you, fully. Let me make you understand just how it came about,” her father exclaimed. ”It was all a mistake, you know, and I must confess that the mistake was mostly mine. Of course, Roderick was ready to let me have the twenty millions, or fifty if I had asked for them. There was never any doubt about that, and could have been none. He has the money, and there never has been a time, since he inherited it, when I could not use it as if it were my own. You knew that. I have never hesitated to go to him, either. That is why I went to him to-day.

Before I had an opportunity to explain the purpose of my call, he asked about you, and the question suggested to my mind the idea of utilizing the desperate situation I was in to hasten your marriage to him. You know how I have looked forward to that. I have known, or at least I have supposed I knew, for years, that you thought more of him than of anyone else. You are twenty years old now; it is high time that you were married, and it would break my old heart to see you take up with any of those society-beaux who hover around you at every function where you appear. On the other hand, I shall be very glad when you are Roderick Duncan's wife. He is the son of the best friend I ever had, the only man I ever trusted. And he is every bit as good a man as his father was. He is square and on the level. He has wealth, and he doesn't go b.u.mming around town, giving champagne parties, and monkey dinners. He knows how to be a good fellow without making a fool of himself, and that is more than you can say of most young men who have money to burn. You have grown up together, and why in the world you have kept putting him off is more than I can guess. Besides all that, he is easily worth a hundred millions. But this has nothing to do with the present question. I want you to have him, and I want him to have you; and if he didn't have a dollar in the world, I should feel just the same about it. All that happened to-day was at my instigation; not at his. And now, daughter, you must find it in your heart to forgive him--and me.”

She listened to him to the end, quietly and outwardly unmoved. When he concluded, she replied in the same even tone she had used ever since her father entered the library:

”I don't know, and I don't care to know, any of the particulars regarding how the arrangement came about between you and Mr. Duncan.

What I do know is this: the arrangement was made between you, and was agreed upon between you. I was called in, to be consulted, at your private office, with the third interested party concealed like a spy in an inner room. I agreed to the transaction as I understood it. I will carry it out as I agreed to do, while at your office, and in no other way. If Roderick Duncan wishes to make me his wife, he must do it according to the stipulations I have dictated to Mr. Melvin, this afternoon, or he can never do it at all. That, sir, is all I have to say.”

She turned and went from the room, closing the door behind her as softly as the lawyer had done.

The old man slipped down more deeply into his chair, covered his eyes with one hand, and murmured, audibly:

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