Part 20 (2/2)
”Do him good--how?”
”He's spoiling for work, that fellow is. Since he's had all that money he's been of no use to himself or to anybody else. He's like good capital tied up in a stocking instead of being profitably invested.”
”And yet we could hardly put ourselves in a humiliating situation just to furnish Mr. Davenant with an incentive for occupation, could we, Cousin Rodney?”
”I dare say not.”
”And he isn't offering us the money merely for the sake of getting rid of it, do you think?”
”Then what _is_ he offering it to you for?”
”That's exactly what I want to know. Haven't you any idea?”
”Haven't you?”
She waited a minute before deciding to speak openly. ”I suppose you never heard that he once asked me to marry him?”
He betrayed his surprise by the way in which he put down the little Chinese figure and wheeled round more directly toward her.
”Who? Peter?”
She nodded.
”What the d.i.c.kens made him do that?”
She opened her eyes innocently. ”I'm sure I can't imagine.”
”It isn't a bit like him. You must have led him on.”
”I didn't,” she declared, indignantly. ”I never took any notice of him at all. Nothing could have astonished me more than his--his presumption.”
”And what did you say to him? Did you box his ears?”
”I was very rude, and that's partly the trouble now. I feel as if he'd been nursing a grudge against me all these years--and was paying it.”
”In that case he's got you on the hip, hasn't he? It's a lovely turning of the tables.”
”You see that, Cousin Rodney, don't you? I _couldn't_ let a man like that get the upper hand of me.”
”Of course you couldn't, dear. I'd sit on him if I were you, and sit on him hard. I'd knock him flat--and let Delia Rodman and Clorinda Clay go to the deuce.”
She looked at him wonderingly. ”Let--who--go to the deuce?”
”I said Delia Rodman and Clorinda Clay. I might have included f.a.n.n.y Burnaby and the Brown girls. I meant them, of course. I suppose you've been doing a lot of worrying on their account.”
”I--I haven't,” she stammered. ”I haven't thought of them at all.”
”Then I wouldn't. They've got no legal claim on you whatever. When they put their money into your father's hands--or when other people put it there for them--they took their chances. Life is full of risks like that. You're not responsible for them, not any more than you are for the fortunes of war. If they've had bad luck, then that's their own lookout.
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