Part 42 (1/2)

MADELINE: But he didn't do as much as I did.

FEJEVARY: It isn't what he did. It's what he is. We don't want him here.

MADELINE: Well, I guess I'm not for that!

FEJEVARY: May I ask why you have appointed yourself guardian of these strangers?

MADELINE: Perhaps because they are strangers.

FEJEVARY: Well, they're the wrong kind of strangers.

MADELINE: Is it true that the Hindu who was here last year is to be deported? Is America going to turn him over to the government he fought?

FEJEVARY: I have an idea they will all be deported. I'm not so sorry this thing happened. It will get them into the courts-and I don't think they have money to fight.

MADELINE: (giving it clean and straight) Gee, I think that's rotten!

FEJEVARY: Quite likely your inelegance will not affect it one way or the other.

MADELINE: (she has taken her seat again, is thinking it out) I'm twenty-one next Tuesday. Isn't it on my twenty-first birthday I get that money Grandfather Morton left me?

FEJEVARY: What are you driving at?

MADELINE: (simply) They can have my money.

FEJEVARY: Are you crazy? What are these people to you?

MADELINE: They're people from the other side of the world who came here believing in us, drawn from the far side of the world by things we say about ourselves. Well, I'm going to pretend-just for fun-that the things we say about ourselves are true. So if you'll-arrange so I can get it, Uncle Felix, as soon as it's mine.

FEJEVARY: And this is what you say to me at the close of my years of trustees.h.i.+p! If you could know how I've nursed that little legacy along-until now it is-(breaking off in anger) I shall not permit you to destroy yourself!

MADELINE: (quietly) I don't see how you can keep me from 'destroying myself'.

FEJEVARY: (looking at her, seeing that this may be true. In genuine amazement, and hurt) Why-but it's incredible. Have I-has my house-been nothing to you all these years?

MADELINE: I've had my best times at your house. Things wouldn't have been-very gay for me-without you all-though Horace gets my goat!

FEJEVARY: And does your Aunt Isabel-'get your goat'?

MADELINE: I love auntie. (rather resentfully) You know that. What has that got to do with it?

FEJEVARY: So you are going to use Silas Morton's money to knife his college.

MADELINE: Oh, Uncle Felix, that's silly.

FEJEVARY: It's a long way from silly. You know a little about what I'm trying to do-this appropriation that would a.s.sure our future. If Silas Morton's granddaughter casts in her lot with revolutionists, Morton College will get no help from the state. Do you know enough about what you are doing to a.s.sume this responsibility?

MADELINE: I am not casting 'in my lot with revolutionists'. If it's true, as you say, that you have to have money in order to get justice-

FEJEVARY: I didn't say it!